Christmas began life-long passion for trains

Sunday evening I wrapped up 23 days playing piano in the pit combo for the Yellowpoint Christmas Spectacular. This was my fourth season with the production directed and produced by Katy Bowen-Roberts. The gig is a joy to play and since moving to Nanaimo the show has become my launching pad to the Christmas Season. Driving home from the closing show and with the car radio blasting forth perceivable carol fare, my mind repeatedly wandered to memories of Christmas’s past.

The season’s sentimentality invariably reminds me of a very special gift received in my youth - my first electric train. Tooling around the malls these days all I observe are tons of toys molded from colorful plastics. None bear any resemblance to those marvelous miniatures that depicted the heavy railroad equipment of the pre 1950's era. To find such works of toy art today one must search out the hallowed hobby specialist shop. Here you’ll find mainly people like myself (children seem to be scarce in such establishments) jawing the jargon of railroading to a storeowner who savors and caresses the products he sells like fine pieces of jewelry.

Many holiday seasons have passed since my first electric train magically appeared under the Christmas tree. The layout, set up by my father late on Christmas Eve, consisted of a 4X8 sheet of plywood painted green with an oval of “027" gauge railroad track tacked firmly to its surface. My father being a Medical Doctor had even constructed a miniature pedestrian overpass out of wooden tongue depressors. I still have the locomotive and most of the track from that first model train set. That simple layout expanded over the years into a major model railway operation only to be torn down when my parents moved to a smaller home after I graduated from high school.

Getting married in the 60's didn’t suppress the boy within as I undertook the construction of a model railway layout in the spare bedroom of our first apartment. Whenever we had visitors stay overnight, they got the master bedroom and my wife Pat and I slept on a foamy beneath the sheets of plywood supporting the railroad. Pat mentioned to me in later years just what she was thinking as she lay there looking up at the various trestles criss-crossing above her - “this must be true love because not many wives would put up with this.”

Today my train collection has been boxed away. However, at this time of year I’ll invariably get a box or two out of storage, have a quick look at a few pieces and reflect how that single gift on a December 25^th morning in the early 1940’s 

sparked in me a life-long love of trains. 

Photo: My brother Terry (on the left) and I sit admiring the train layout that appeared one Christmas morning in the early 1940’s. I appear to be four or five years old.

Photo: At Christmas time I’ll invariably dig out from storage a few pieces of my train collection.

Thursday evening Pat and I hydroplaned our way over the hump through a torrential rainstorm to perform with Timbre! at the Harbour Quay Farmer’s Market. Not exactly a concert hall setting as you can see by the photos. My only concern was the power cords laying amongst the puddles leading to my electric piano and amplifier. I didn’t exactly want to light up like a Christmas Tree. However, the new roofing at the Quay managed to keep most of the rain off the performers.

It’s Christmas Eve day morning as I write this blog and I’m about to venture forth to the supermarket crush to purchase our Christmas turkey for our annual Boxing Day family dinner. Tomorrow morning after opening presents Pat and I will light our Christmas candle. When we presented our last Candlelight Concert 12 years ago some of our choir parents melted down all the candle stubs that had been saved and left over from rehearsal use. The melt was molded into a handsome candle which we light each Christmas Day. The candle is so large it reminds me of the visionary image of the Wyoming mountain known as Devil’s Tower that Richard Dreyfuss created in his livingroom in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. When we light our own mountain of wax it tends to burn somewhat like a volcanic display, heating up the whole living room in the process but most importantly enveloping us with brilliant memories of our years with the Teen Choir.    

Pat and I wish you all the very best this holiday season. Merry Christmas!

Photo: Timbre! singing Christmas Carols in a rain storm at Harbour Quay in Port Alberni

Photo: Cutting the fingers from a pair of wool gloves, I managed to keep my finger muscles flexible.

Good Grief!- only 8 sleeps till Christmas

Driving home last weekend after playing piano at the Yellowpoint Christmas Spectacular I had the car radio tuned to the CBC. Broadcasting was a program called Inside the Music hosted by Patti Schmidt. Featured was a documentary entitled Good Grief It’s Serendipity, Vince Guaraldi.

Although it would be hard to fathom, there is the possibility that a reader or two of this blog may have never heard of, or viewed a 45-year old TV show called A Charlie Brown Christmas. The show, which airs annually at this time of year, is one of those traditional mileposts that confirms that Christmas has arrived. However, for me it’s not the animated cartoon itself that represents the film’s focal point but the TV show’s jazz based soundtrack.

Fifty years ago an unknown San Francisco pianist named Vince Guaraldi was struggling to make it in the jazz world. Performing around the Bay Area with a trio, Guaraldi (who always described himself as "a reformed boogie-woogie piano player") continually dreamed of writing tunes that would have lasting value as defined in the music business as becoming “a standard.” After two years on the road with the Woody Herman Band in the early 1960’s, Guaraldi finally scored a huge hit on the pop charts with a tune called Cast Your Fate to the Wind. He had included the tune on an album made with his trio, based on the award winning film Black Orpheus.  Winning a Grammy for the tune led to Guaraldi being asked to write the music for a TV pilot based on the comic strip Peanuts.

However, with an irony that seems appropriate for a show about Charlie Brown, the producers were never able to sell the pilot show to a TV network and to this day the original production has never aired. Fortunately for the producers, some underground showbiz hype surrounding the venture led to the Coca-Cola company becoming intrigued with the notion of a Peanuts Christmas TV special.  The rest as they say is history. When A Charlie Brown Christmas debuted in December 1965, Guaraldi joined a rarified guild of jazz musicians - those enjoying a steady paycheck with royalties to boot. Time magazine also did an article about the show, giving jazz and Guaradi’s trio some important exposure against the Tsunami of Rock & Roll.

The CBC’s Inside the Music show last Sunday had as a guest the Halifax-based musician Jerry Granelli who was the drummer on A Charlie Brown Christmas TV special back in 1965. His insights into the making of the special and stories about the jazz musicians involved were so entertaining I re-listened to the show by Podcast the following day and downloaded the original Vince Guaraldi recording of the soundtrack to my computer. I could have dug through dozens of cardboard boxes containing my vast vinyl record collection for the original 12-inch LP. However, by the time I found it I reasoned Christmas would have been long over.

Last Saturday at 6am I drove to Port Alberni to help our son Cory set up the stage microphone stands and cables for a 10am Timbre! dress rehearsal at ADSS. The rehearsal was my only chance to hear the choir sing through this year’s offering of Christmas music as their concert on Sunday conflicted with my two-week gig with the Yellowpoint Christmas Spectacular. I thought the selected material stunning and the choir in top form. The accompanying pianist, UBC Piano Department Head Dr. Terrence Dawson, did a supurb job, having learned the entire program in one week when the original contracted pianist unexpectedly had to cancel. Giving the music director (my wife Pat) a quick kiss at 12:30 pm, I scurried back over “the hump” to play a matinee performance of the Yellowpoint show. I have no doubt that those blog readers attending Timbre!’s Sunday performance enjoyed the Christmas program as much as I enjoyed the dress rehearsal. If you did, send me an email.

Monday was a day off from the Yellowpoint show. As it happened the Toronto Chamber Jazz Septet was playing the Port Theatre in Nanaimo with an evening concert entitled a Jazzy Nutcracker. Six of Canada’s finest jazz musicians are members of the seasonally assembled touring ensemble – reedmen PJ Perry (flute/soprano sax), Campbell Ryga  (sax/alto flute), Phil Dwyer (tenor sax/clarinet), Perry White (baritone sax/bass clarinet) with a stellar rhythm consisting of Terry Clarke (drums) and Neil Swainson (bass). American pianist Bill Mays who assembles similar groups in the States leads the septet and also writes the arrangements.

Photo: American pianist Bill Mays leads the Toronto Chamber Jazz Septet.

From Louis Armstrong to Count Basie, from Oscar Peterson to Bill Evans, just about any jazzman of any consequence has produced an album of Christmas music at some point in their career. Many interpretations I adore, some I abhor. The Toronto group’s Christmas offering Monday night fell into positive territory. The concert was a tasteful blend of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Nutcracker Suite), Claude Debussy (Clair De Lune), Richard Rodgers (My Favorite Things), Mel Torme (what else! - The Christmas Song) and perhaps a bit of a stretch, a selection by the eccentric pianist Thelonious Monk called Stuffy Turkey. The evening was definitely one would categorize as light jazz. However, the brilliant improvised soloing by these gifted players never let the program sink into the morass marketed to the masses these days as “smooth jazz”. There was something for the jazz aficionado and the uninitiated jazz listener alike.

Tuesday and Wednesday were road days for the Yellowpoint Christmas Spectacular with performances at the Old Church Theatre in Courtenay. Tuesday afternoon was spent re-blocking the show for a narrower stage. Last week an E5 key broke on my digital piano and I’ve had to play all the shows to date on a music store loaner. Qualicum-based musical instrument repairman extraordinaire Claudio Fantinato immediately ordered a new key for me. Unfortunately the shipping department at Yamaha Canada in Toronto failed to send the part by overnight courier as requested. The piano key finally showed up on Wednesday. Claudio had the key installed just in time for me to switch pianos for the 7:00 pm performance in Courtenay. What a relief getting back to my own keyboard and not having to readjust my arm weight and touch on almost every chord. Tonight felt like I was driving a Ferrari rather than a Tata Nano.

Thursday evening the Yellowpoint show was back at the Cedar venue to begin its final run of seven shows. Sorry folks – if you snooze you lose. All seven shows are completely sold out.

Need a musical instrument repaired? Check out Claudio Fantinato’s website at www.highnotemusicalservices.com

Past postings of my blog can be accessed on the internet at http://barrysblog7.blogspot.com

Apple - One More Bite

The first computer my wife Pat and I ever purchased was an Apple 11e. Back then, buying a computer wasn’t easy as it entailed traveling to the mainland and visiting a store specializing in the product. In this day of $400 lap tops it’s hard to believe that we paid over $3500 for a little green-eyed screen encased in an apricot-coloured plastic shell which could only process three or four type written pages at a time. However, like a growing number of parents at the time, I blindly believed the prevailing hype that owning a computer guaranteed a child’s educational success. 

It wasn’t long before school districts, backed by a truckload of targeted funding from the Ministry of Education began moving “big time” into the world of computers. Any teacher who could figure out a way to integrate a unit into their classroom was automatically earmarked the recipient of the cascading cash.  

As a high school band director, each year I submitted a budget for musical instruments. Some years I’d receive funding for a needed instrument while other years, fair being fair, money would go to another department. Computers however changed the budgetary landscape. 

Suddenly there was a new kid on the block, a capital item that ate up a budget like there was no tomorrow.

Having had my request for the purchase of an oboe and a bassoon turned down one year, I decided I needed to figure out a way to tap into the school district’s technology account which was being force-fed annually by the department of education. I joined the herd after the “new money” and placed myself firmly aboard the computer bandwagon. 

So into the new world of the microchip I plunged, programming an entire Broadway score into an Atari computer to use alongside conventional instruments, as supplementary accompaniment for the school’s fall musical. I hadn’t received the funds for my wished for oboe and bassoon but did have a machine that could produce the sounds of those instruments, albeit rather thinly. However the exercise did keep funding flowing and teaching colleagues acknowledged I was on the “cutting edge” of the technological tidal wave. Happily in the end common sense prevailed and budgetary balance did return, enabling the purchase of needed acoustical musical instruments for my program.  

However, computers did make a huge impact in the music program and continue to do so in my personal musical life. I no longer lay pen or pencil to paper to write a music score, using instead software called Sibelius that instantly plays back my arrangements with sampled sounds that rival real acoustic instruments and neatly prints out the sheet music band members need to play from. I pack my own digital piano and synthesizer to gigs, never having to rely on a house piano that hasn’t been tuned for eons. 

Recently after decades using PC’s built by the likes of Samsung, eMachine, Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba, I’ve returned to my roots, an Apple computer. Both our sons Cory and Brock have Macs as does my brother Terry. They were constantly praising the merits of the new Apple products so I decided recently to purchase a MacBook Pro Laptop. To say I’m hooked would be an understatement.  I absolutely love it. Hours of jazz recordings are stored aboard plus movies and entire TV series. It also inspired me to get into writing a blog.

It’s been a bit of a learning curve to absorb the new platform. Last week’s blog is a case in point. As part of the blog I had included a dozen photos taken at rehearsals leading up to the opening night of the Yellowpoint Christmas Spectacular. Unfortunately I failed to do something I’d automatically done when working on my PC – reduce the resolution size of the photos. The result was some readers experienced excessive download time. I apologize to them for not getting into the photo section of my 4-inch thick Apple laptop manual in advance of clicking the send button. However, I’ve now mastered the process with a little help from one of my blog readers in the Canary Islands, and I’m confident future mailings won’t plug up anyone’s mailbox. 

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Timbre! in Port Alberni - A Valley Christmas (L to R Michelle Weckesser, Wendy Nixon-Stothert, Dale Graham and Jennifer Forsland). The vocal quartet Swing Set from Courtenay will be special guests at the Timbre! choir's Christmas concert on Sunday at 2:30 pm in the ADSS Auditorium. Tickets available at regular outlets in the Alberni Valley and at the door.

Nanaimo Concert Band

Blog reader François Bouchard emailed to ask if I’d mention a concert taking place this weekend with the Nanaimo Concert Band. François is one of the band’s two musical directors. The Hub City ensemble is recognized as the oldest continuous community band in Canada having been established in 1872. An interesting fact - the band has played every Remembrance Day Ceremony since World War One, without fail. The concert takes place on Dec. 12 at 2:30 in the Beban Park Auditorium. Admission is by Non-perishable Food Donation to the Salvation Army.

Yellowpoint Christmas Spectacular Opens

After an intensive 10-day rehearsal period, the Yellowpoint Christmas Spectacular opened last night to a full house and was an instant hit. This is my 4th season playing piano in the orchestra and although I don’t get to see the show visually out front, I can tell you the extravaganza of music and dance will kick your Christmas season into high gear. 

With a professional cast of 14, the show takes place in the Cedar Community Hall south of Nanaimo which has been transformed into a Christmas wonderland with thousands of lights and decorations. This year the big production numbers include a scene from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera and a tribute to Motown. Even Frank Sinatra makes an appearance. I could be prejudiced but I sensed a crowd favorite last night was an orchestra number called Csardas which featured our musical director James Mark on violin and Susan Bullock on clarinet. Wow is it fast.  It goes without saying, the show is loaded with Christmas favorites. 

With 16 more performances still to go (including two nights in Courtenay), I encourage you to drive to Cedar and take in one of the afternoon or evening performances. Tickets can be reserved by phoning the Port Theatre Ticket Centre in Nanaimo at 250.754.8550. Tickets can also be ordered on the internet at www.porttheatre.com 

PAT IN PORT

I’M IN CEDAR

This month my wife Pat and I perform on both sides of “the hump.” Pat is into her final rehearsals with Port Alberni’s Timbre! choir who will present A Valley Christmas - Festive Music of the Season on Sunday December 12 at 2:30 pm in the ADSS Auditorium. Meanwhile I’m in Cedar south of Nanaimo rehearsing for the Yellowpoint Christmas Spectacular which opens on December 8th running through to December 19.

Accompanying Timbre! will be Vancouver pianist Terence Dawson. A versatile artist, Dr. Dawson leads an active career as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral pianist and teacher. He has collaborated with numerous artists and ensembles including concerto performances with the Vancouver Symphony and National Arts Centre Orchestras and the CBC Curio Ensemble.  He has concertized across Canada, the United States, England and Asia, recorded for CBC Radio, and on disc for EMI Virgin Classics, Bravura, and Skylark labels. Terence is a dedicated teacher with invitations from coast to coast to conduct master classes. He has also served as a competition jury member for the Canadian Music Competition, the Canadian Federation of Music Teacher’s National Convention, and has adjudicated numerous music festivals.

In the summer months, he teaches and performs at Strings and Keys in Alberta – a program for young musicians – and for the Vancouver International Song Institute. Dr. Dawson is on faculty at The University of British Columbia School of Music, where he is the school’s Keyboard Division Coordinator and teaches piano and chamber music.

Special guests will be the vocal quartet Swing Set from Courtenay with Michelle Weckesser, Nixon Stofhert, Dale Graham and Jennifer Forsland.

The concert will include traditional selections from Handel’s Messiah as well as seasonal favorites like White Christmas and the music of English composer John Rutter. The popular Timbre! soloist  Elizabeth Grenon will be featured in two selections.

Timbre!’s annual Christmas concert is one of the choir’s most popular so if you don’t have a season ticket already, single tickets can be purchased at Rollin Art Centre, Echo Centre, Somass Drugs and Salmonberry’s. Tickets will also be sold at the door one hour before show time. Timbre! is sponsored by the Port Alberni Orchestra and Chorus Society.

PHOTO: Vancouver pianist Dr. Terence Dawson will accompany Timbre!’s A Valley Christmas on December 12, 2:30 at ADSS.