Stayin Alive

If you have never heard of Jonathan and Darlene Edwards before then you are in for a treat.  American singer Jo Stafford and her husband, pianist and bandleader Paul Weston decided to create a comedy album back in the fifties and sixties.  They were actually accomplished musicians who feigned being bad.  Weston would play an out of tune piano while Stafford would accompany him by singing in an off-key and high pitched voice.  In 1961 they won a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album.

Please take the time go get to know the real Jo Stafford.  Here is a link to one of her hits:

You Belong To Me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=berL-80EPmg

Three Organists, Six Hands

Another video of three organ guys with six hands and six feet playing "By The Light of the Silvery Moon" in a cramped space.  Why do churches always cram consoles either against walls or in a bird's nest?  Malcolm Kogut, Dr. Bob Hallenbeck, Ed Goodemote.

Three Organists, Six Feet

There isn't enough room on this bench for one organist let alone three at the same time.  Three organists, six feet, six hands: The Blue Danube.

The Smell of Death

When I was about eight years old, my parents turned our 19 room house into a private rest home for elderly women.  My mother named the home after herself: The Fran Kogut Rest Home.  The private rest home business in those days was competitive and insidious.  A lot of people who opened private homes were not always the nicest people and did it for reasons of greed.

My mother grew up taking care of people and in the running of her home, would not turn anyone away regardless of what they could aford to pay.  There were many times the Department of Social Services would call her and beg her to take someone whom they couldn't place anywhere else and my mother would always say yes.  Because of my mother's amenability to help out and not turn anyone away, the DSS was constantly assisting her with additional beds, food, clothing, money, coverage, ambulatory items, expediting paperwork, inspections and being at her beck and call.  I remember once that they asked her to take an additional two ladies but my mom didn't have the beds (and was over her legal limit on how many people she could take) and the next thing we knew, two new hospital beds were delivered.

My Mother wanted her rest home to have a family atmosphere.  The living room and dinning rooms were large and we all shared the same space.  Despite having their own TV's, most of the ladies converged wherever everyone else was.  We had two large outdoor decks and a very pleasant sun room.  The ladies were welcome to help cook and clean and they were free to leave the building provided they were ambulatory and let us know where they were going. 

Mary, for instance, loved taking the dog for a walk or going up into the 200 acre fields behind the house to pick flowers.  Most of the ladies were content remaining in the house and just socializing with one another.  Stacia didn't know where she was and was constantly wanting to go home.  My mother would put her in the car, drive her around the lake, pull into the driveway and tell her that she was home.  Stacia would thank her, go inside and proceed straight to her room. 

Both my sisters subsequently opened their own homes to elderly people.  One sister eventually started a visiting nurse business and had up to 19 employees.  The other sister purchased three houses next to one another and converted those into assisted living space.  Caring for others has always been in my family's DNA.

Growing up with dozens upon dozens of elderly women was like having 15 grandmothers at one time.  Consequently I saw a lot of death.  Working in the church, I saw a lot of death too and had at least one funeral each week.  I also witnessed a lot of these elderly women yearn and pray for sweet, sweet death.  They were in pain, tired or alone.  I sat by the side with many of them as the moment occurred and it was always a beautiful event.  Equally beautiful was telling the family (if they cared) that I was there and it was peaceful.  It was always a comfort to them knowing that their loved one did not die alone.  All this death has taught me not to take anything, any time or anyone for granted.

My mother had a unique gift; she could smell death.  She told me that when a person was dying and their body was shutting down, the  body would give off a distinct odor.  She would often invite me to go into the bedroom of one of our residents and say goodbye or sit with them because she was going to either die that morning, in a few days or within a few hours.  My mother was never wrong and was very accurate. 

Since I've been around death so much, I don't fear it.  That is why I would not hesitate to bungee jump, para-glide or jump out of an airplane.  What's the worse that could happen, I die?  That's inevitable.  I may as well enjoy every ray of sunshine, every drop of rain, every pull and challenge of gravity and, love and serve every leper in my path until that day (but, don't bungee jump with lepers).

We humans don't require much to survive or to be happy. We crave stuff, money, more stuff, Facebook, other peoples' stuff  and a false sense of freedom.  None of that is important.  I challenge everyone to take a sabbatical and live in an ashram for six months and not only discover what you don't need to be happy, but when you leave, to then occupy that new found stillness with things and people who are truly  important.

One of my mother's favorite songs was "Others," as sung by Tennessee Ernie Ford. While ushering her into new life, I softly sang it to her, as she did to me many times while growing up. 

–Malcolm Kogut (and buy a junk car so if you get a scratch on it, you won't care).

How Dry I Am

When I was a kid, I was charged with the task of going door to door to sell trinkets for an upcoming high school band tour.  I stumbled upon an outwardly appearing run-down darkly house which sat back in the shade of the woods.  The garage was on street level and to get to the house you had to ascend a few dozen well healed moss carpeted concrete steps which had re-settled from the countless heave-ho of winter frosts past.  I was hesitant to knock because the people inside would be either very poor or witches looking to eat small children.  I knocked anyway.  A portly and agreeable old woman answered the door.  She was wearing an apron and had a frenzied whorled dust cloud of flour chasing after her.   She looked at me with suspicion as I rattled off my memorized spiel about the salt and pepper shakers I was pawning. 

"Salt and pepper shakers?"  Her face lit up with glee.  At that I was invited in where she ushered me into the deceptively warm and brightly lit living room which I entered with alacrity at the prospect of a sale.  There, proudly displayed in a  huge china cabinet where hundreds of shakers which she had purchased from around the world.   She and her husband used to be circus musicians and at each city they performed, she would buy a set of local shakers.  The shakers ranged in size, shape, material and utility, many signed by the artisans who crafted them.  She commented how there were many more stored in boxes somewhere and she had also given several starter collections to her grandchildren with the hope to inspire one of them to discover the joy of collecting and maybe even instill in one of them the curiosity and hunger for world travel. 

The husband then emerged from a nap and sauntered into the living room to see what the ruckus was about.  He was tall, rail-thin and lithe bodied for his age.   I told them how my grandmother was a cook and nurse for a circus and how my mother traveled with them until she was about the age of ten.  She was raised by a community like none other.  Not because they were clowns, acrobats or animal trainers, but this Hodge-podge of diverse people who were running after or from something were instant family who cared for and watched out one another.  My mother helped with the cooking and medical care and was also used as a plant in the audience by some of the acrobats and clowns.  I was an instant hit with this old couple since we had so much in common.

I feel so bad right now that I can't remember their names.  My grandmother once told me that people suffer two deaths; The first when your physical body dies, and the second when the last person who knew you ceases to utter your name.  I hope there are  great grandchildren somewhere with a treasured collection of salt and pepper shakers who remember and can call this long gone couple by name.

The old man told me he was a piano player, violinist and conductor with the circus and at that, sat down at the piano and with his long lanky fingers ripping off a wonderful treatment of "Alexander's Ragtime Band."  He then invited me to play and I remember hashing out a song from the sixties called "You Send Me."  He immediately retrieved his violin and joined in.  After we finished as if on cue, his wife emerged with cookies and lemonade.  The old man asked me the name of the song we just played and I was amazed that he could just pick it up like that without knowing it.  He explained to me the magic of the I vi ii V7 progression.  I was floored.  None of  my classical teachers ever taught me this seemingly mystical knowledge of musical annealment. 

He then pulled out some old sheet music bearing his name.  He was also a composer, too!  He showed me both the finish product  and the original handwritten copy for one piece.  He told me that whenever he composed something, he would send it to this guy in NYC who would then analyze the work for mistakes and would offer harmonic and melodic suggestions.  He would also highlight every phrase and parse out the melody, scribbling in the white spaces and margins the names of other songs which used the same melodic structure, intervals or rhythm.  The old man opined that there are no new melodies or chord progressions anymore, just different ways to play or mix and match them. 

I never went back to visit this couple.  At the age of fifteen or so, I didn't realize the treasure they really were or the vault of knowledge and experience they possessed which was free for the taking.  What an invaluable resource they could have been for stories, music theory, history, travel, inspiration and above all:  sharing the wonderful gift of life and friendship.  That one day experience taught me things which for a long time, I was unable to share with teachers or peers.  Their lack of this knowledge was okay, I guess.  One does not need to know how an internal combustion engine works in order to drive a car.  Some people are content resigning themselves to ignorance however, today's computers would never have been invented had someone first not wondered about lightning or a light bulb, a wire, a toaster, ones and zeros, or a memory chip.

So, keeping in mind the concept that there are no new melodies anymore, I present you with my rendition of "How Dry I Am."   Listen for the same four notes - which can be found in thousands of songs. 

By the way, out of politeness, the old woman purchased a set of my relatively pedestrian shakers.  With a mild bit of shoving and maneuvering, she proudly ensconced them to the limited real estate of her already crammed shelves.  My contribution to the glorious mélange was no match for the works of colorful art, exquisite material and the other hand crafted denizens of the china cabinet.  She made a naive young boy feel very proud.  Yet another gift that day, for the taking.
m. kogut

Slides On Colden Mountain

The Adirondack Park is a venue of arresting beauty.  With a surfeit of lakes, ponds, streams and  waterfalls, to cliffs, peaks, ledges and boulders, the park's labyrinthine network of trails offer every hiker a wide range of difficulty, challenge and visions of beauty.  In the esoteric parlance of the down hill skier, the hiker can draw a parallel and compare them as green circles, blue squares and black diamonds.  There is another trail, not man-made, which could be delineated as the rare yellow diamond trail:  The slide. 

Slides not only offer a visual scar on a mountain which can make it easily recognizable from a distance, but they also offer an alternative ascent up a mountain for those brave enough to tackle one and determined enough to bushwhack their way to the tumbled resting place of a slide.  Almost cliff-like, many of these trails can be so steep that from a standing position you can reach out in front of you and touch the ground.  Slides offer that rare posture in the repertoire of hiking positions between climbing and scrambling on all fours.  Quite often you can experience a double fall line where gravity is pulling you in two directions at once.

The Trap Dike on Mount Colden is one of my favorite trails to hike.  Colden, a middling peak between Marcy and Algonquin is also host to several beautiful-awful landslides.  The newest occurred last year during Hurricane Irene right down my beloved Trap Dike Trail.  Included here on this page are a before and after picture. 

I wrote the following poem back in the nineties when my hiking pal Nancy and I would drive up to the Adirondacks each week to explore the many nooks and crannies of the park.  This poem is about the slide on the Marcy side of Colden ("Tahawus" is the Native American name of the mountain which WE renamed "Marcy" shortly after we took it from them.  The Native American name means "Cloud-Splitter."  More on the Cloud Splitter and the Tear-In-The-Cloud in another post).

Colden Slide

On descent from Tahawus mountain,
peers a streak of quiet healing
pallid cut from rocky fountain
hurling tree and boulder reeling

Seized with visions to inquire
this track of slide, so quick to tear
fears unfettered I now inspired
to know what had existed there

Through twining woods and logs enmeshed
I made my way to see reposed
the granite muscles and mountainous flesh
that Colden’s torrents of stone exposed

The path advanced close to the scar
plunged manifold headlong to base
trees crushed under enormous rocks
the primal forest’s coat defaced

This irresistible and awful force
broke through the woods with foaming path
dashed wildly down a rocky course
its very flesh with pealing wrath

A pebble mashed declivity
with massive logs peeled by decay
thickly scattered skeletons
of gray dead trees from slide affray

Piling at its base a mass
of debris from its crowning seat
filled the eye with awful chaos
rocks from lap now at its feet

This slide, a path that wanted walking
lures on up the failing trail
where once in time, its woodland stalking
left its warning, below, impaled

How humble on this force immortal
lurking in the earth beneath
that eased itself of shrub and soil
and showed to all its iron teeth

This median mount of fallen masses
bends its vassal-knee to none
the only witness to its ravage
were frowning Tahawus and the sun.

Fearful at the time of launching
terrific slides that gash and rush
Still, Colden Mountain on its haunches
waiting, lurking, to ambush

-Malcolm Kogut.

Cocktail Piano

Here are a series of old recordings I found from the mid eighties when I played seven nights a week at the Gideon Putnam Hotel in Saratoga, NY (Maybe 1984).  During the horse racing season the place would be packed with race enthusiasts and visitors to the Saratoga Performing Arts Center.

These recordings were most likely made in the winter months because during the summer I was usually accompanied by a violin player named Gene Usher.  Also, the piano was positioned with my back to a window where there was a heat register beneath me.  There was a constant flow of both hot and cold air and it was impossible to maintain tuning on this studio upright piano which I beleive was a Steinway. 

These recordings were of my standard cocktail-background music-hint of jazz style.  I would sit and play a medley of five or six songs pausing only for requests or to acknowledge polite applause.  Since SPAC was in the back yard of the hotel, I would see many famous people filter in for a drink or dinner.  I once walked out for a break when the two bearded guys from ZZ Top walked in.  They split and I walked right in-between them. 

My most memorable night was when members of the NYC Ballet came in so I played lite works from Schumann, Schubert, Chopin and Beethoven.  A few of the dancers did barre at the bar.

Waltz in F, Who Can I Turn To
http://youtu.be/MiNimBwJ-e4

Always, It May Be
http://youtu.be/bGLk1EUZCr4

My Favorite Things
http://youtu.be/nXvsYsztxpQ

September Song, I'm In the Mood For Love, Stella By Starlight
http://youtu.be/Nazy_PGjOFA