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August 26, 2009
A Late Summer Cocktail Party for Artie Shaw
by Warren Bobrow
 Photo by Warren Bobrow Alone Together – Artie Shaw
Just the other day I had the yen to listen to some Artie Shaw on his clarinet. Artie Shaw, for those who don’t recognize his name, was one of the most innovative bandleaders during the 1930′s, 40′s and 50′s. He was known professionally as the “grouchy genius.”
For many decades his name was synonymous with avant -garde modern music, jazz, and Big Band. His use of layering and overdubs by using “found” recordings in conjunction with his Big Band sound took place decades before Phil Spector’s invention of “The Wall of Sound.”
One recording in particular was made during WWII with tape recordings layering notable individuals giving their own historic speeches over Artie Shaw’s Big Band music. This technique of layering sounds was perfected years before John Cage played tape loops with his toy piano. Artie saw the world as the bandleader of the U.S. Navy in the Pacific Theatre. He worked himself into a state of near exhaustion playing four acts a day, sometimes under fire in war zones. This honed a trait of perfectionism that would follow him throughout his life. During the 1940′s he earned more than $60,000 per week. This was a tidy sum for any day. One can only imagine the parties he threw.
One of his nicknames “El Diablo” went on to name a rich and spicy lobster dish. As a famous bon vivant, Artie Shaw was a leader in more than just music. He may be the most married bandleader of all time – a total of eight times. His brides included movie stars Lana Turner and Ava Gardner – both tempestuous women. With that many ex-wives collecting vast sums of alimony in most cases, it is not surprising that his most famous theme song was “Nightmare!”
When asked why he married so many times, he would always say that his wives had asked, and he said yes. Tales of gunplay and alcohol- fueled liaisons haunted Artie for years. Artie was a perfectionist both professionally and personally. Unfortunately he was never satisfied by anything in life. He was best known for the company he kept including Louis Armstrong, the Dorsey Brothers and Humphrey Bogart. He was investigated in the 1950′s because of his rumored ties with the Soviet Union.
In 1955, Artie Shaw abruptly quit the music business to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a writer. He was quoted at the time as saying that if he kept playing the clarinet, it “would have killed him.” Artie Shaw’s writing was described in 2005 as a “literary cocktail.” The New Yorker wrote this about him: “His story of the metamorphosis of Little Arthur Arshawsky, the son of poor Jewish immigrants, into Artie Shaw, the mercurial bandleader and idol of American youth, is… fascinating…. His dissection of the world of hot music-of what makes a fine jazz musician and a fine jazz band-is as good as anything in print….”
I imagine he lived pretty well by most standards. I’m not sure about his private life, but from what I’ve read of him he was difficult at best. He treated others including his sons very poorly, but as a musician, he certainly was brilliant.
The menu below reflects the mood and life of Artie Shaw.
Cocktails and conversation at the Pierre Hotel terrace on the 30th floor overlooking Central Park to posthumously celebrate Artie Shaw’s 99th birthday.
Iced Russian Vodka Martinis with Beluga Caviar and Blini-chopped egg, onion, sour cream, toast points.
Oysters on the half shell
Lobster a la El Diablo (recipe below)
English Trifle Dessert
Martinis and Manhattans will be served until dawn rises over Central Park.
Lobster a la Diablo
Ingredients:
• 3 pounds live lobster
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/2 stick French sweet butter
• 20 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 Shallot, diced
• 1 tsp red pepper flakes (much more if desired)
• 2 tsp fresh thyme
• 3/4 cup Italian parsley, chopped
• 3 basil leaves, slivered
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 Tbs fresh oregano
• 28 ounce can organic tomatoes
• 1 cup good red wine+ a glass for the cook
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper, freshly ground
• 1 pound linguine
•
Preparation
• Split the lobster’s length wise down the middle. Clean well.
• In a large sauté pan heat the butter in olive oil over medium heat.
• Sauté the onion until golden.
• Add the lobster, meat side down and sauté for 5 minutes
• Turn the lobsters, add the parsley and garlic, and stir well. Cook for another 5 minutes.
• Remove the lobster and set aside a cool place.
• Over the saucepan, crush the tomatoes with your hands (essential) and add to the saucepan. Add the juice from the can and mix well.
• Add remaining ingredients except seafood, and mix well. Simmer 30 minutes.
• Add the lobster back to the saucepan and simmer for 10 minutes.
• Turn off heat and let sit covered for 15 minutes.
• Cook linguine to al dente, just done.
• Toss the pasta with part of the sauce.
• Top with remaining sauce and lobster.
• Serve immediately with freshly grated cheese on the side.
Music Recommendations:
All music available in the public domain at www.archive.org listed under “78′s and wax cylinders.”
Volume: More than the maximum allowed.
• Nightmare “Artie Shaw”
• A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody “Artie Shaw”
• Confessin’ “Django Reinhardt”
• Just a Gigilo “Django Reinhardt”
• A Good Man is Hard To Find “Bix Beiderbeck”
• J’ai Deux Amors “Josephine Baker”
• La Vie en Rose “Josephine Baker”
• Why a Good Man is Hard to Find “Lil Armstrong”
Wild River Review contributing editor, Warren Bobrow grew up on a farm in Morristown New Jersey. He graduated from Emerson College with a degree in Film, concentrating in Visual Thinking. He worked for many years in the corporate world. His column, Wild Snack, appears every Wednesday on WRR@Large.
August 25, 2009
The Story of Anshu – Delhi, India
by Joy E. Stocke and Merrie Allison
(Editor’s Note: Merrie Allison is a fashion designer for the Free People division of Urban Outfitters. She is currently based in Gurgaon, a suburb of Delhi. For twenty years, she has been traveling to India, working with small collectives and factories to make one-of-a kind clothing. She has seen firsthand the tremendous growth of the Indian economy and also the tremendous poverty of much of its population. Many children in the lower classes do not attend school. Instead, they begin working as soon as they can speak full sentences. One of them is Anshu.)
Here is what Merrie writes;
Do you remember the mali (gardener) at K’s old office? The mali has two sons, one of whom is named Anshu. K loves him because he is so smart…he hangs around the office and salutes k every morning like the guard does.
Anshu would never have a chance in life, (uneducated parents lead to even worse-off kids) but K found an English-speaking school and now Anshu is enrolled. He comes to the office after class and I quizz him on his ABCs and color names.
We don’t know if he will stick with it over the years, but we’re trying.
 Anshu Joy E. Stocke is Editor in Chief of Wild River Review. Merrie Allison works for Free People.
August 19, 2009
Wild Cocktails – The Heirloom Tomato Bloody Mary
by Warren Bobrow
The essence of the late Summer farm comes in a compact little package. The heirloom tomato is sometimes ugly to look at but delicious to eat. They may be speckled like a chicken egg, or even the color of the deepest purple eggplant. Sometimes they are covered in bumps and creases. When crushed and strained through a fine cheesecloth, these flavors combine to become the new taste of the late Summer.
Greetings to the heirloom tomato: White Bloody Mary.
In a non-reactive stainless-steel bowl, cut several varieties of heirloom tomatoes in half, then remove the seeds. Roughly chop and then mix the pulp together with a dash of sea salt and freshly cracked pepper, then add a good scraping of fresh horseradish. If you enjoy hot and spicy drinks, combine the ingredients of your choice at this time. Add a bit of both pureed cucumber and if desired, some celery. This mixture will resemble a crude Gazpacho soup.
Add the juice of 4 limes. Mix well to combine and let the mixture sit in a cool place for about 30 minutes or if desired, overnight to meld the flavors.
Strain the tomato mixture through a cheesecloth into a glass container. Most of the color from the heirloom tomatoes will have stuck to the cheesecloth. Add a several shots of vodka to a tall glass filled with hand cracked ice. Top off with some of the strained liquids from the heirloom tomatoes to taste. If desired, add a tablespoon of the remaining tomato pulp for a bit of color and mystery.
Finish the cocktail by adding several different thin slices of heirloom tomatoes for garnish.
Prepare to meet the new classic “end of the summer cocktail.”
Warren Bobrow graduated from Emerson College with a degree in Film, concentrating in Visual Thinking. He worked for many years in the corporate world.
Warren grew up on a farm in Morristown, NJ. His column, Wild Snack, appears every Wednesday on WRR@Large.
A wine expert, he can be found at Coolvines in Westfield, New Jersey.
 Photo: Warren Bobrow
It was turning out to be quite an event to find the best strawberries – Wegmans, Shop-Rite, Whole Foods, King’s-who would have the plumpest, the most beautiful, and most importantly, the best tasting? They had to be sweet, yet tartly acidic, unblemished, organic strawberries. Evidently, not an easy thing to find. Finally, after turning down tray after tray of sub-par strawberries-they were found. They were to be the centerpiece of a beautiful creation. This was the secret life of a cheesecake. A cheesecake that held a secret?
Not just any cheesecake, mind you. But a creation by Julie bakes made from lovingly assembled ingredients. These cheesecakes weigh about 5 pounds, they are that dense. Julie’s cheesecake is made of Madagascar vanilla, cream cheese-only Philadelphia Cream Cheese will do - full fat sour cream, and a Nilla Wafer crust with melted sweet butter and freshly grated cinnamon. To top it all off, a sweetened sour cream topping. Julie says the Oreo cheesecake with its chocolate wafer crust and red cherry topping is her favorite, but the cheesecake topped with caramel and toasted pecans is a close second.
Julie had an order yesterday for espresso cheesecakes for Rallo’s Ristorante in Deal, NJ. This mocha flavored confection would be the perfect compliment for a short shot of the best espresso.
What is the secret?
No extra sugar needed.
Wine and Digestives pairings:
Classic Cheesecake-Mathilde Orange XO Cognac in a fine crystal brandy snifter
Cherry Cheesecake-Tuthilltown Rye Whiskey: straight up in an unwashed glass
Espresso Cheesecake- Icewine of Pinot Noir from Austria in the “correct” glass for ice-wine from Riedel
Oreo Cheesecake- Pedro Ximenez Sherry, served slightly chilled in a short “grapefruit juice” glass
Many of these above-mentioned liquors available, internationally, nationally and locally in New Jersey.
Julie bakes can be reached at: 908.489.0779 for the classics and special orders, and at jools6454@aol.com.
Warren Bobrow graduated from Emerson College with a degree in Film, concentrating in Visual Thinking. He worked for many years in the corporate world.
Warren grew up on a working farm in Morristown, NJ. His column, Wild Snack, appears every Wednesday on WRR@Large.
A wine expert, he can be found at Coolvines in Westfield, New Jersey.
 Photo: Warren Bobrow
August 17, 2009
The Tape Recorder
by Scott Smallwood
I often credit my father for initiating the love I have for sound, and for my orientation towards recording sound in particular. When I was about 10 years old, my father gave me one of the best gifts I have ever received: a portable cassette recorder. I can still remember the intense excitement during the days leading up to receiving it, as I was told in advance that I would be getting it for my birthday. I can remember smells, what the temperature was like, and specific details about the trail I took through the woods during my walk home that day in Leadville, Colorado. So much of that day is emblazoned in my memory.
But this was not actually my first sound recorder. In fact, I had been given a tape recorder much earlier, sometime during my second or third grade year. It’s hazy, but I recall getting a small, compact reel to reel tape recorder, and being completely fascinated by it. I remember trying so hard to do something interesting with it, and ultimately getting frustrated by it, and eventually abandoning it to a shelf where it eventually became a product in a yard sale, most likely.
Recently, my father again presented me with a gift: a small, compact reel to reel tape recorder. And although it is certainly possible that I am making this up in my mind, I am relatively certain that it is the same model of tape recorder I played with all of those years ago, before I began the serious work of making collage tapes, mix tapes, and puppet show soundtracks with my trusty cassette recorder.
The recorder is a Mayfair 1602, produced in the 1960s. It’s a compact machine that contains 3″ plastic reels for 1/4″ tape. It came in its original box, with two eroding size C batteries still sitting upright in their foam cutouts. The reel of tape threaded onto the machine is most likely the original tape that came with the machine when it was purchased, as it doesn’t appear to gotten much use. It was perhaps received enthusiastically and then promptly placed on a shelf after the initial novelty wore off, just like I did with mine when I was 7 or 8.
The reason: these early consumer machines were cheap, and indeed were mostly passed off as novelty items. John C. Pelham has a nice collection of small recorders from this era, and on his site, he points out that most of the machines in his collection seem to have been used once and then forgotten about. He states:
These old tape recorders almost always come with a reel of tape. This reel is usually the one that came with the recorder when it was new and it has usually been recorded only once. The recordings are often of children, parents, or grandparents [...] Generally unsuitable for recording music, they were used once and then put away and forgotten, only to be found decades later by family members or antique dealers preparing for estate sales. I find the recordings left on the tapes to be both entertaining and poignant.
I love the idea of these recorders being mini unintended time-capsules of sorts, reflecting a moment of excitement and bewilderment at the prospect of recording sound, like the ohs and ahs I remember experiencing when I turned on my first computer.
And so, the question is, what’s on the reel of tape? My father and I listened to it together and both had to laugh out loud. The recording is a segment of a radio broadcast from long ago. The announcer can clearly be heard identifying the station as WBRR in Leadville, Colorado, the town were I grew up, and where I learned to love my own tape recorder back in the 1970s. What a fun coincidence!
Here’s what the recording sounds like, tape recorder mechanical whir and all.
Scott Smallwood is a sound artist and composer whose music draws inspiration from the soundscape around him. His work is founded on a practice of listening, field recording, and improvisation. He currently teaches music composition, computer music, and improvisation at the University of Alberta.
August 14, 2009
Lost and Found in the Garden
Woodstock 1969
Sha Na Na, Jimi Hendrix, and Me
 Bruno Clarke, Fifth from Right, Head Tilted Sha Na Na Performs at Woodstock
by Bruno Clarke
Nineteen in the summer after my freshman year at Columbia, and I had stumbled into becoming the bass player for the newly-hatched musical act Sha-Na-Na (named after the chorus of the Silhouettes’ hit Get a Job).
Artie Kornfeld and Michael Lang saw us play at Steve Paul’s Scene in New York City that June, extended us a late invitation to their upstate festival on Yasgur’s Farm, and placed us on the schedule for Sunday midnight as a brief chaser before Hendrix closed the show.
The three-month-old Sha did not yet have proper roadies, so my bud, Jocko, the drummer, and I, Bruno, the bass player, were delegated to drive the rental van with our minimal amps, Fender Rhodes keyboard, guitars, and drumkit, up to the gig.
We left Manhattan late that Friday morning for a motel somewhere in Bethel, from which the bona fide roadies for the big weekend bands would move their stuff into the site. Still miles away from that rendezvous point we began to see the temporarily abandoned cars of the festival-goers along the side of the highway.
The following morning our rental van joined a long roadie caravan of U-Haul and Ryder trucks bearing gear to Woodstock. Police cars with flashing lights led our way and followed behind. We drove interminable miles left and right, up and down country roads, maneuvering a way into the site that wasn’t already blocked by traffic jams and human throngs.
Somewhat less than a mile from the stage our dirt farm road was still free of stalled cars but overrun on all sides with happy hippies pressing forward to Yasgur’s farm. The roadie caravan kept inching forward while bodies leaped onto the hoods and hung off the sides and rears of the trucks. After maybe twenty or thirty minutes of merger with this slow crawl of humanity, around 11:00 a.m. we came over the rim of a hill and the whole stupendous massive scene opened up.
Directly downhill was the huge stage; leading off to the left, elevated over a chain-link fence, was a footbridge running between stage right and the backstage performers’ tent; and off to the right and around to the horizon was the great hill with its human tsunami fully assembled and rumbling with the energy coming out of it and off the stage with its humongous speaker towers thrust out like boxers’ upraised fists into the sea of people.
All this preliminary practical activity of mine remains fairly distinct in memory. Recollections of my life for the next two days now become a bit, shall we say, purple hazy, as I merged into my surroundings.
For me the fabulous thing was that, by some odd miracle, I had a performer’s pass. I could hang out under the backstage tent, where food and drink were laid out at all hours and I could get out of the rain as necessary. But mainly I haunted the side of the stage for hours digging the spectacle and the acts. And then, I could pass into the multitude and explore the grounds, walk up to the hilltop installations, past the Hog Farm busses, over to the skinny-dipping ponds, and back down and through the backstage gate.
Saturday night Jocko and I and a hippie we’d met with a generous stash tripped up through the crowd. High on the hilltop we grooved through that all-night scene, all the way to Jefferson Airplane’s 8:00 a.m. set of “morning maniac music.”
By Sunday night Sha-Na-Na was assembled backstage waiting to do our half-hour set. But things were running late, and sometime after midnight, the Butterfield Blues Band showed up. They were not on the bill, but hey, it’s groovy, you guys go right ahead in front of these Columbia University geeks and play for four hours, not a problem.
When the sun went down the hill was half a million strong, when the sun came up on Monday morning it was half empty: the indefatigable Butterfield Blues Band had driven them away, was what I figured.
Suddenly someone was shaking my shoulder where I had crawled off and fallen asleep leant against some amp with my legs crossed. “Hey, get up, we’re going on.”
An adrenalin surge pushed me upright and then I collapsed back to the stage floor–my legs were still asleep. I made it through our 8:00 a.m. set half-dead and fighting to maintain balance. But our luck held: the cameras were still rolling, and a year later the Woodstock movie placed us right in the middle of the action, without cutaway shots, as if we had actually rocked the crowd at its height. In fact, we played to the same melancholy bedraggled sodden hillside you see in the movie. When our first set was done, Jimi was waiting in the office we used for a dressing room, and flashed us his beautiful smile. He shook hands all around and, shaking mine, uttered the personal compliment I’ve tried to live by ever since: “You got soul, man.”
A half hour later Hendrix closed the show.
Jimi Hendrix Performs at Woodstock
Dr. Bruce “Bruno” Clarke has worked for two decades in the critical field of literature and science. He specializes in literature and science from the 19th century to the present, with special interests in systems theory and narrative theory. His book, Posthuman Metamorphosis: Narrative and Systems was published in 2008 by Fordham University Press. With co-editor, Manuela Rossini, he is preparing the Routledge Companion to Literature and Science for a June 2010 release.
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