Trying to Keep Up the Flow

I've been working on publishing a few words on the Oxford philosopher Gilbert Ryle in conjunction with words and thoughts on Mozart. My forthcoming reflections on Ryle and Mozart are quite personal, more about me than the aforementioned greats. But like so many of our projects, avoiding one thing often leads to another unavoidable thing.
   On the last day on March, 2011, my son treated me to an evening of musical entertainment by the British rock-guitar virtuoso Jeff Beck. This treat was offered in anticipation of our birthdays in April: Cyril's 45th and his old dad's 70th. One of the tunes on offer by Jeff Beck & The Imelda May Band was the "Rock Around The Clock" (Wikipedia has a very interesting piece on "Clock's" compositional and recording genealogies.) Bill Haley & his Comets had the hit recording of "Rock Around The Clock" which was recorded in 1953. However, the popular success of the recording didn't occur until 1955 when the motion picture "Blackboard Jungle" was released - Bill Haley & his Comets' recording was featured in the film. Until last month I had never heard "Rock Around The Clock" performed live. And I had no reason to believe that I ever would hear it thus.
   It is indeed strange how confluences of events in one's life go unnoticed until a singular moment causes one to notice all of the heretofore unnoticed past events. Bill Haley was born in Highland Park, Michigan - I grew up there. One of the myths that I grew up with was that Haley's family owned the Haley Funeral Home on Hamilton Ave. Since Bill Haley left Highland Park at the age of seven in 1932, his connection with said funeral home was probably quite remote.
   Growing up in the 1950s, my personal music connection with some of the tunes that Bill Haley & his Comets had as part of their spectacular success - "Shake, Rattle and Roll" and "Rock Around The Clock" - came to my teenage music sensibility via Joe Turner's recordings which preceded those of Bill Haley and his Comets.
   Among my first recordings that I owned were the Charlie Christian & Benny Goodman recordings and those of Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic (1944) featuring Les Paul, Nat King Cole and Illinois Jacquet - I wore these sides, which I still have, out. In 1954-55, Les Paul and his wife had a five minute syndicated TV show called the Les Paul & Mary Ford Show. The musical numbers featured on that show were standards such as "How High The Moon" and "Vaya Con Dios". The latter was the show's theme song. The legendary guitar-man played guitar and provided the then revolutionary electronic effects - reverb, overdubbing, and more - while Mary Ford did the vocals. Les Paul was for me at the time a jazz man inventor.
   Growing up my favorite TV shows were "The Naked City" and "Peter Gunn" - I thought the music featured in the latter was hip. The theme song for "Peter Gunn" was very popular at the time. And I never expected to hear that theme song performed live.
   Confluence moment, 31 March 2011. At the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor, Michigan my musical 1950s converged upon me. I heard 'Les Paul & Mary Ford' performed with reverb and overdubbing and I heard the themes from "Blackboard Jungle" and "Peter Gunn". There was much else heard that evening in addition to Jeff Beck's superb guitar-playing, but I'm not exactly 'down' with rock-a-billy and such. The sold-out auditorium consisted of an 'older' crowd.
   It was unexpected and memory provoking.