Ramblin' with Roger

MOVIE REVIEW: Whiplash

Whiplash is a movie less about jazz than the application of perfection that the instructor was apparently seeking.

Sometimes, what movie The Wife and I end up seeing depends on circumstances. The weekend before Christmas, I’m looking at the movies playing at The Spectrum Theatre in Albany that was departing on Christmas Eve, and the one that got the most critical buzz was Whiplash. Specifically, J.K. Simmons, who I know from the Tobey Maguire movie version of Spider-Man, as Assistant Chief Pope from the TV show The Closer, and, oddly, from a series of commercials for Farmers Insurance. He’s already won the Best Supporting Actor nod from the New York Film Critics Circle and Los Angeles Film Critics Association and is nominated for a Golden Globe, as is the movie itself.

Whiplash stars Miles Teller, who I remember favorably from The Spectacular Now in 2013. Here he plays Andrew Neiman, a 19-year-old jazz drummer, who wants to next Buddy Rich. He is accepted into the legendary New York City music school, the Shaffer Conservatory. Andrew successfully auditions to become the new drum alternate for notorious Shaffer conductor Terence Fletcher (Simmons).

Then the “fun” begins. While practicing the Hank Levy song “Whiplash”, Fletcher makes Andrew’s life difficult, not that he has singled him out. And that’s all I’ll say about that.

The movie costars Melissa Benoist (Marley from the TV show Glee) as Andrew’s neglected girlfriend and Paul Reiser (TV’s Mad About You) as his supportive dad. The film was written and directed by Damien Chazelle, who I had never heard of.

We watched a pair of intense performances. At the point about 2/3s of the way through, the movie seemed to let up a bit, but the drama returns and runs to the end. This is a movie less about jazz than the application of perfection that Fletcher was apparently seeking; I’ve seen it, and you have too in other endeavors. In fact, the Wife and I found several examples of, “Boy, do I know THAT feeling.” The music is quite good, but it is secondary to the narrative.

When I was in high school, we had some music competitions. Someone said that drum solos are boring unless they’re not. Whiplash is an inspired drum solo.

Christmas favorites

Time to start ANSWERING those Ask Roger Anything questions. And you may STILL pose your queries.

Tom the Mayor asked:

What is your Favorite Christmas Song, not devotional, but popular, e.g., “White Christmas”?

This is similar to that asked by noted author Jaquandor:

I imagine by the time you answer these it’ll be after Christmas…

Well, in the Christian calendar, we’re in Christmastide until Epiphany, which is Three Kings Day on January 6, so we’re still good.

…but what’s your favorite Christmas song?

Besides the aforementioned Stevie Wonder and Julie Andrews songs:

Since Tom mentioned White Christmas, I should note Mele Kalikimaka -Bing Crosby with the Andrews Sisters
White Christmas -The Drifters
Christmas All Over Again – Tom Petty
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) – Darlene Love
Christmas Wrapping – The Waitresses
Coventry Carol – Alison Moyet
Christmastime is Here – Vince Guaraldi
The Mistletoe and Me – Isaac Hayes
This Christmas – Donny Hathaway
Winter Snow – Booker T & the MGs (starts at 2:30)
Happy Xmas (War Is Over) – John Lennon and Yoko Ono
Jingle Bells – The Fab 4, which is NOT the Beatles
Santa Claus is Coming to Town – the Jackson 5. But not so much the version by the moving snowman The Daughter brought down from the attic last week.

I’m a sucker for pretty much any version of Little Drummer Boy, mostly because I used to sing it in church as a child. So it’s OK by Harry Simeone Chorale (the single I grew up with), or Bing & Bowie (I watched that program when it first broadcast, just after Crosby died) or a number of others.

BTW, Jaquandor makes a good case for Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, but NOT by a certain crooner. Which reminded me, somehow, of the saddest Christmas song, “I’ll Be Home For Christmas.” I heard Kim and Reggie Harris sing it several years ago; damn thing made me cry.

Jaquandor also asked a few other questions:

Least favorite [Christmas song]?

It tends to be more VERSIONS of songs. Run, Rudolph, Run by Chuck Berry is OK, but the version by Bryan Adams irritates me. I have some compilation albums, and on virtually every country album, when someone sings O Little Town…, they pronounce it Beth-LEE- Hem, instead of Beth-LEH-Hem; astonishingly grating.

That said, Dominick the Christmas Donkey by Lou Monte is probably my least favorite song. While others get tiresome from repeated listening, this one I hated from the outset.

Favorite [Christmas] movie?

Tough one. Just haven’t seen a lot of them; never saw Elf or Christmas Vacation, e.g. Just saw Miracle on 34th Street last year for the first time, and it had its charms. I guess I’ll pick It’s A Wonderful Life, maybe because I misjudged it as pablum, sight unseen, maybe because it was deemed as possible Commie propaganda.

But I always love A Christmas Carol. The George C. Scott version is my favorite, though I’m quite fond of versions with Alistair Sim, and with Mr. Magoo.

Is Trading Places a Christmas movie? Is Home Alone? I might add them to my list.

Least favorite [Christmas movie]?

There was a terrible one on the Disney Channel recently, but it wasn’t even worth noting the title.

Do you have a favorite hymn?

Oh, that’s impossible! One thing for sure, though: it probably won’t be a unison piece. I like four-part music with my hymns.

So I pulled out my recently replaced Presbyterian hymnal, and picked a few. These are in book order:

Angels We Have Heard On High
Break Forth, O Beauteous Heavenly Light (I mean it’s JS Bach harmonization!)
Lo, How A Rose E’er Blooming
Ah, Holy Jesus
O Sacred Head, Now Wounded (more Bach)
Christ the Lord Is Risen Today!
Thine is the Glory (Handel)
Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty (this was on page 1 of the Methodist hymnal I grew up with)
Come, Thou Almighty King (also reminds me of my growing up)
All Hail The Power of Jesus’ Name! (the Coronation version, rather than Diadem)
My Shepherd Will Supply My Needs
Our God, Our Help in Ages Past
A Mighty Fortress Is Our God
God of the Ages, Whose Almighty Hand (always associated with Thanksgiving, and more specifically, with the songbook in my elementary school)
Amazing Grace
Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah (LOVE the bass line)
Fairest Lord Jesus (a childhood favorite)
O Master, Let Me Walk with Thee
Just As I Am (definitely a childhood favorite, probably from watching those Billy Graham programs)
The Church’s One Foundation
Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee (Beethoven!)
Here I Am, Lord (the only one on the list with a unison verse)
Lord, Dismiss Us with Thy Blessing
Lift Every Voice and Sing (a whole ‘nother context)

Not a lot of spirituals here. Now the choirs I’ve been in have done arrangements of hymns I enjoy (Every Time I Feel The Spirit probably most often), but for congregation and choir singing, not so much.

The Lydster, Part 129: I Don’t Like Reggae

It went to #1 in the UK, but only to #44 in the US in 1978.

This will surely shock some of you, but one day, I was singing a tune while sitting at the computer that just popped into my head. I couldn’t even really remember it, except for a chorus: “I don’t like reggae (oh, no), I love it (ooo yeah.)” Don’t own the recording, couldn’t even remember who performed it, and I may have misremembered the lyrics.

As it turns out, the song was called Dreadlock Holiday by a UK group called 10cc, which, in an earlier incarnation was the king of bubblegum music. The song has an interesting back story. It went to #1 in the UK, but only to #44 in the US in 1978. LISTEN HERE.

Though she has, to this day, heard no iteration of the song, save for mine, the Daughter started using it, plugging in all sorts of people and creatures:
“I don’t like Papa (oh, no), I love him (ooo yeah.)”
“I don’t like Mama (oh, no), I love her (ooo yeah.)”
She puts in the cats’ names, or her friends’, or even sports, like soccer, appropriate, since the original song mentions cricket.

The Wife suggests that the Daughter is becoming more and more like her (The Daughter’s) father. I could deny it, but it would be pointless.

Merry Christmas 2014

Joy to your world, for whatever reason.

I think it was George Harrison, on one of those Beatles Christmas records, who quoted, or at least paraphrased, Eva Heller in Beim nächsten Mann wird alles anderswro: “We wish you everything you wish yourself.”

If you celebrate the birth of a baby born on the wrong side of the tracks, as I do, that’s great. (Yes, I know Jesus was almost certainly NOT born around this time; don’t get all Scroogey on me.)

But it’s a nice holiday, one that even atheists can appreciate. Or, perhaps, families divided by politics. And it can be true whether or not you’re with family.

Check out the guide the HRC has published, Coming Home to Faith, to Spirit, to Self, which offers ideas to LGBT people “for establishing and owning a faith identity, sharing your gifts, taking stock of your faith community, encouraging inclusion, and coming home or finding a new one.”

Hey, why WERE so many beloved Christmas songs written by Jewish musicians?

So joy to your world, for whatever reason, or for noel reason at all. Even, or maybe I should say especially, in Sierra Leone.

Jingle all the way into space!
***
R.O. Blechman CBS Christmas Message (1966)

Christmas eve 2014

We are all illumined by candlelight in a period of silence.

Someone I knew on Facebook before I met her in person tagged me, and a couple of other people, with this photo, which came from who knows where. (I was going to say “Allah knows where,” but deferred.)

One of the things about the Christmas Eve service, pretty much in both my current church and the previous one, is that they are about the same, every year.

There’s music, interspersed with readings. The readings, particularly, the later ones, are pretty much as they were last year and the year before that.

(I occasionally wonder if people who only attend church on Christmas and Easter think that the church has a really limited repertoire.)

We light the candles during the singing of Silent Night as the room lights are dimmed. We are all illuminated by candlelight in a period of silence.

One could see this as boring, and predictable, yet I choose not to do so. It’s Christmas Eve again, and we wait in anticipation of what is going to happen.
***
O Holy Night, with Trombone Shorty.

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