My Mother's Records

Three

Guess which one is Mum.

This might be my favourite photo of my mother. She looks very "contemporary" although this photo must be from the early 1960s. Of course it was the early 1960s in the far south of New Zealand so we should subtract at least a decade in terms of fashion. Looking at family photos from this period you get the strong feeling that living in Otago in the 1960s was not quite the same as living in America in the 1960s.

Early in my mother's marriage she started going to classes in creative dance held in a room in Otago University in the Physical Education Department. They were taken by someone called Lorna Brown. There were about a dozen people in the class, and they danced to a variety of records including Spanish stuff requiring castanets, shawls and a shuffling mastery of footwork.
When I was a kid one of my toys was a pair of black plastic castanets held together with a piece of red string. Of course I didn't know what they were or how to operate them. They seemed a very cryptic children's toy. Funny how your parents' lives before you were born don't exist when you are a child or a teenager. When you are a teenager you are utterly impervious to the idea that your parents were once young, and felt the things you felt and hated the things you hated.

Then you get older of course. Age does bring perspective. Strangely this reminds me of a piece I read in a book at the beginning of the year. The person writing is a very old Jesuit priest, and he says:

"I am sometimes very conscious that I am following a leader who died when He was less than half as old as I am now. I see and feel things He never saw or felt. I know things He seems never to have known. Evedrybody wants a Christ for himself and those who think like him. Very well, am I at fault for wanting a Christ who will show me how to be an old man? All Christ's teaching is put forward with the dogmatism, the certainty, and the strength of youth: I need something that takes account of the accretion of experience, the sense of paradox and ambiguity that comes with years."

Although my father lived to a reasonable age he died when I was five. It struck me this year that I really knew nothing about him. Am I taller than him? What did his voice sound like? All those photos of my mother and me... he was there, in the room, holding the camera and pushing the button. I really think he must have loved the woman he married. He supported her in the barbarian culture of 1960s Otago to take fashion courses, to do a Masters, to dance.

While my mother was at Lorna Brown's dance classes she worked up an original dance piece set to Mars, Bringer of War from Holst's The Planets. Aside from Mars, Bringer of War and the bit that someone set to Blake and turned into Jerusalem most of this album reminds me of the theme for Star Trek. The last piece even has a female choir. If only von Holst had thought to have someone say "Stardate blah-blah-blah" over the top of it.

It was written in 1914. That means that you have to think about World War One. The liner notes say (about Mars), "It has been called a prophecy of the mechanised warfare that was to come." No. Just because there's a snare drum in there doesn't mean it has anything to do with World War One. I would say most people listening to it now would think of Darth Vader.

Holst composed 200 pieces of music. He's remembered for this. Ravel is remembered for Bolero. Rodrigo for Concierto Andaluz.

My mother bought this after going to see the movie starring Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte. My mother said that seeing this movie in the late 1950s blew her mind. She thought Dandridge was a fantastic Carmen, and the music and dancing were wonderful. On the back of the LP Hammerstein says when he was a kid he went to the opera, liked the music but thought it was silly they were all singing in Italian. Listening to his version I think it's silly they're all singing in English. Frankly the toreador's song is not quite the same when it's about boxing and he says things like "punch him smack on the nose." Nevertheless, my mother passed on the Carmen gene to me. I was brought up on Carlos Sauras' version of Carmen. The Carmen Jones version starred Dandridge and Belafonte but they were both dubbed. So the record has neither of them on it. Dandridge's career didn't pan out very well.

"On the evening of the Pilgramage, the Gypsies gather together in their camp. On the second side of the record you will hear Manitas and his family. His brother plays the guitar with him. His sons, his cousin and his nephew sing, and during this Provencal night they are all present for you, singing, dancing, playing for your pleasure which, today, thanks to this record, is also yours."

This album. This is the jewel in the crown of the collection for me. Manitas' playing is so rough, raw and percussive. Side Two, the live side, is fantastic. Somehow I have never been bothered by not understanding what people are saying when they sing (sorry to the guys who wrote Carmen Jones), it has always been about conveying emotion for me. The wonderful thing about listening to these guys sing is that they are like the brass section in a jazz band, doing their long bluesy runs, and filling in each others gaps, while underneath are the clapping off-beat hands, and pulsing heavy guitar rhthyms. Strong stuff when I was a kid.

About as far away from this as you can get is the "New Flamenco" of Ottmar Liebert. I have two of this man's CDs and have been to one of his concerts. All because my friends knew that I loved flamenco and were being kind. I think enough time has passed for me to say (1) thank you for your generousity, and (2) German flamenco! Oh dear. It sounds like it is being performed by robots. The back of Liebert's CD says (please read it with a fake German accent): "we are dedicated to a process of continuous refinement both artistically and commercially. As in music, so in life." Dreadful. Reminds me of another slogan: "Work Makes One Free." Yeah, right.