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Ted Libbey

Interview by Michael Alec Rose

With the new century, classical music is igniting more and more curiosity and wonderstruck devotion on the part of an ever-growing number of listeners. The statement sounds like magical thinking, but it’s borne out by facts and figures: rising classical CD and iTunes sales, the construction of new concert halls across the country, the level of renewed interest in music by living composers, and in timely response to all these events the appearance of Ted Libbey’s exceptionally well-crafted NPR Listener’s Encyclopedia of Classical Music (also available in hardcover), the long-gestated, vastly ambitious companion to his popular NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection.

In an interview with BookPage, Libbey characterized the burgeoning audience for his new, thousand-page guide: As the title suggests, this book belongs to listeners people who want to learn more about the music they like and be led toward new discoveries. As former music critic for the New York Times and longtime presenter on NPR’s Performance Today, Libbey understands the needs of this readership better than anyone else in the business.

Libbey’s decisions on what to include in the Encyclopedia and what to leave out took considerable soul-searching and countless winnowings. In the end, his selections reflect a solid practicality: I used the repertory of concert programs and available recordings as my guide, explains the author. There needs to be a way for the reader to follow up, a chance that the music might be heard. The generosity of subjects composers, individual pieces, genres, performers, definitions of musical terminology extends to the marvelously subjective language of individual entries. The author’s personal judgments on composers and their masterworks make for the liveliest kind of reading. I wanted to provide an assessment, not just a recitation of facts, he says. Still, there are very few Ôknocks’ in the book. Indeed, Libbey’s prose achieves its most vivid lyricism, as well as its definitive authority, in praise of certain composers. Of Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7, he writes, The mystical tranquility and paroxysmal ecstasy he expressed in the slow movement . . . remain unique in the symphonic canon, as does the desolate, mysterious beauty of the Ninth. Libbey smiles when this passage comes up in our conversation. My father who played an important role in inspiring my interest in music when I was a teenager is now reading the book from cover to cover. He’s made it to the end of the B’s and Bruckner stands out for him as someone who must be investigated. Clearly, for Libbey, introducing Bruckner to this particular, very careful reader signifies a special fulfillment of the book’s purpose a reimbursement in the same coin for all the music his father gave to him when he was a boy.

The NPR Listener’s Encyclopedia of Classical Music brings together two further glories, neither one of which is currently available in any other publication. First is the beguiling and immensely instructive set of images that accompany the text, chosen by Libbey himself. As much as anything in his writing, the presence of so many delightful and historic photographs demonstrates Libbey’s enormous range of knowledge.

Second, and most thrilling of all, is the creation of a website developed jointly by Workman Publishing and Naxos Records featuring 525 recorded examples of musical works and terms discussed in the book. Peppered on almost every page of the Encyclopedia are the little disc symbols referring the reader to these audio links. As Libbey gleefully observes, It’s like giving the reader a 50-CD library to take home when they buy the book. Why such a groundswell in the classical music market in recent years? Could it be that the beauty and spiritual complexity of this repertory feed a hunger newly felt in the 21st century? It is certainly the case that the things we come to love best are often the things we can never fully understand. Ted Libbey is the best possible facilitator toward the impossible understanding of great music, all the more trustworthy because of his loving regard for what he had to exclude from this book. New discoveries of little-known masterpieces that’s the next book, promises Libbey. As our listening becomes curiouser and curiouser (thanks to him), we shall hold him to that promise. Michael Alec Rose is a composer who teaches at Vanderbilt’s Blair School of Music.

With the new century, classical music is igniting more and more curiosity and wonderstruck devotion on the part of an ever-growing number of listeners. The statement sounds like magical thinking, but it’s borne out by facts and figures: rising classical CD and iTunes sales, the construction of new concert halls across the country, the level […]
NonfictionTravelMusic

Michael Murphy

Interview by Lynn Green

Just in time for Jazz Fest 2016, which opens today, New Orleans transplant, publishing veteran, music lover and bon vivant Michael Murphy has compiled a lively new guide to the city's vibrant music scene. Hear Dat New Orleans is the latest in a trio of guides from Murphy and Countryman Press, following the entertaining and informative Eat Dat New Orleans, which chronicles the restaurants and food culture, and Fear Dat New Orleans, which captures the spookiest parts of the crescent city.

Perfect for first-time visitors who want to hear authentic jazz, blues, R&B, Cajun or Zydeco music, Hear Dat New Orleans offers an overview of each genre—the history, the iconic performers, the musical genius behind it all—and pointers on the best venues for live performances. Murphy's trademark wit is in evidence thoughout, with entries that are hilarious as well as practical. ("The performers are drastically better than the current Bourbon Street cover bands that butcher ’70s hits by Journey and Foreigner, and there are no 18-year-old boys threatening to throw up on you," he writes of the scene on Frenchmen Street.)

A former vice president of sales for Random House and publisher of William Morrow, Murphy moved to New Orleans for good in 2009 after decades of enjoying the city's unique culture. Though he makes no claim to being a music authority (“My last gig was searching for the notes of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ on a plastic flutophone in the third grade”) he knows what he likes and relishes the chance to help newcomers find the best New Orleans has to offer. 

We asked Murphy for some personal music recommendations and reflections on NOLA's music scene.

You grew up in the Midwest. When were you first introduced to New Orleans music and how did you become so well-versed in the subject?
I came to New Orleans the very first time in May 1983. I worked for Random House and came down from New York to work with author Anne Rice. I had never been to New Orleans before and bought into the lie that the city was all girls-gone-wild and frat-boy debauchery. I didn’t want to come. By day two, I had been completely seduced like so many before me and knew I was home. You aren’t so much “introduced” to New Orleans music as overwhelmed by it—as Ellis Marsalis notes, it practically bubbles up from the street. New Orleans jazz, blues, brass band and bounce music define the city every bit as much as Cajun and Creole cuisine. 

What surprised you the most in your research for Hear Dat?
Rather than surprise, I would characterize writing Hear Dat as more driven by fear and intimidation. My first two books better fit my irreverent (some might say “snotty”) sensibility. It’s OK to make fun of restaurants in Eat Dat and you’re supposed to make fun of ghost stories in Fear Dat. But, getting too puckish with musicians can seem personal and cruel. The text was much harder for me to write and, in reading the finished book, I noted that I apologized three or four times for musicians left out. After delivering the manuscript to my publisher, the next day I ran across Davis Rogan in the Quarter. My reaction was a big OMG. Davis is a huge personality, highly opinionated and not afraid to express those opinions. I envisioned mean tweets from Davis Rogan, one-star Amazon reviews, and possibly in-person confrontations. I was able to get him in the final book. 

What accounts for New Orleans’ very special place in the history of American music?
I can no better answer the question than form an opinion as to why Russia has the best ballet dancers or why Mexico produces so many great boxers. It just kind of is. New Orleans musical icon and wild man, Ernie K-Doe, says, “I’m not sure, but I’m almost positive all music came from New Orleans.” And as Lenny Kravitz says, “New Orleans is the heart, soul and music of America.” I have little to add or amplify.

What are three musical experiences that no first-time visitor to New Orleans should miss?
• Preservation Hall, with shows overnight at 8:00, 9:00 and 10:00 p.m., seems fairly must-do. 
• Meschiya Lake has a string of Best Female Performer awards from 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015.
• Wandering Frenchmen Street, letting your ear be your guide as you stroll past 12 music clubs in two and a half blocks rounds out the three musical experiences.

Of course, I could scrap all three and toss tens of other three-experience combinations to make up additional must-do lists.

Jazz, blues and R&B dominate the New Orleans music scene, but there are other entirely original (or “discordant”) sounds to be heard. Do you have a favorite performer or group that falls outside the established styles?
As I write in Hear Dat, there’s a restaurant in New Orleans called Dis & Dem. On their menu is “The Only Omelette” and listed right below is “The Only Other Omelette.”
I have several #1 favorite outsider musicians. I love Helen Gillet, who plays the cello in ways you’ve never heard nor imagine it played. I love the Bingo Show, which I describe as a New Orleans hard-edged, slightly deviant version of Cirque du Soleil. I love DeBauche who describe themselves as a Russian Mafia Band. There are many discordant, outside the mainstream musicians who move me greatly. 

There’s some fascinating material in the book’s appendices, including lists of Top 20 venues, Top 20 historic musicians and 50 essential songs. All were compiled with input from “expert” judges. We’re going to put you on the spot: If you had to pick just one, what song would be at the top of your personal New Orleans song list?
I’ll cry foul! One song seems impossible and, even if I chose one, I’d change my mind as soon as I sent my response. High on my list would be some songs that didn’t make the Top 50 list in the appendix. I adore Black Minute Waltz by James Booker. He takes the classical Chopin song and makes it quintessentially New Orleans. I’m equally a sucker for Do It Again by Galactic with Cheeky Blakk, which is an amazingly great song built around two-word lyrics (two words which BookPage would never print).

Allen Toussaint, who contributed the “Overture” to Hear Dat, died just a few weeks after the book was completed. How would you characterize Toussaint’s place in the pantheon of New Orleans musical greats?
New Orleans has many great musicians, but a handful of icons. Louis Armstrong, Professor Longhair, Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Domino. Allen Toussaint not only belongs on this short list, but he belongs at the top of the pantheon. Mr. Toussaint was an exceptionally talented and generous person. New Orleans lost something essential last Fall with his passing, but I feel confident his music will live forever.

Is New Orleans resting on its musical laurels? Or continuing to break new ground?
When visitors come to New Orleans, they expect and we need to deliver traditional jazz. But, to be the musical hub, New Orleans needs to experiment and grow. With the immense variety of Lil Wayne, Big Freedia, Tank and the Banga’s, Quintron, Galactic, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Cole Williams, I think we’ve got new ground covered.

You write that no other city (including Nashville!) is as passionate about its music as New Orleans. Describe your personal, perfect night of soaking up the sounds of New Orleans. Who/what/where?
A perfect night is about discovering something new, particularly with a visitor new to the city. I love New Orleans and want others to love it as well. I had such a perfect night about a year ago when a dear friend and her husband were visiting New Orleans from Washington, D.C. I took them to Tipitina’s to hear Helen Gillet. The warm-up band, Sweet Crude, blew all three of us away. Then I watched as their jaws dropped, listening to Helen Gillet. And finally, we were all transported by The Wild Magnolias. It was a night where I got to watch two people, new to New Orleans, totally fall in love with my city and a night my love was taken to a deeper level.

Just in time for Jazz Fest 2016, which opens today, New Orleans transplant, publishing veteran, music lover and bon vivant Michael Murphy has written Hear Dat New Orleans, a lively new guide to the city's vibrant music scene.

NonfictionMusic

Andrew Blauner

Interview by Lynn Green

Interest in the Beatles has never really waned, but the 50th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (released on June 1, 1967) has prompted a new wave of remembrances, celebrations and tributes to the Fab Four. An expanded reissue of Sgt. Pepper’s goes on sale later this week, Sirius XM satellite radio has launched a 24/7 Beatles channel, and the BBC plans a round of special radio and TV programming to reconsider the groundbreaking album.

On the literary front, several new books on the band and its music are being published to coincide with the anniversary, including a nostalgic and entertaining essay collection, In Their Lives: Great Writers on Great Beatles Songs. Edited by literary agent Andrew Blauner, the collection includes pieces by 29 notable authors and musicians who were asked to name their favorite Beatles song and explain what the song means to them. Writers from Jane Smiley to Adam Gopnik accepted the challenge, delivering thoughtful and often deeply personal reflections on how the Beatles rocked their world.

“When I think about ‘She Loves You,’ and how much I loved that song, how new it sounded, and how happy it made me feel to hear it, I think about how much it represented the mirage of a possible future, one that was more joyful and more interesting than my lonely and borderline-grim childhood,” writes New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast in the book's opening essay.

We asked Blauner to tell us more about how the collection was assembled and what he—a lifelong Beatles fan—learned from reading the 29 essays.

This collection has an extremely impressive roster of contributors. How did you go about finding writers and musicians who have a particular fondness for the Beatles?
Thank you. It was a combination of going to people whose work I admire, writers whom I knew liked the Beatles, or who were at least interested in and/or knowledgeable about music, while others were shots in the dark—writers who have great voices, styles, insights, whether the subject matter was going to trigger them or not.

It’s axiomatic that some of the best writing about sports is done by people who are not sportswriters per se. Maybe something akin to that could be said about music writing. And I thought it was telling and auspicious that even some of the people whom I asked, but who could not contribute for one reason or another, still engaged with the idea and mentioned what their song would have been. I met Natalie Merchant, invited her and she broke into “Fixing a Hole.” Jonathan Lethem said that he’d have done “And Your Bird Can Sing,” which, interestingly, is what my brother, Peter, writes about in the book. I think the only person who did not respond was President Obama, though I reckon I already knew what his choice would be (read: “Michelle”).

What matchup of song and author surprised you the most?
Hmm, maybe Rosanne Cash and “No Reply.” Or David Duchovny and “Dear Prudence.” David is a longtime family friend, going back to childhood. He’s also, now, a prized client, and he wrote the intro to one of my other collections, Coach. I knew what kind of writer and thinker he was, and I knew that he knew music, and, coincidentally, he just hosted the Kennedy Center tribute to John Lennon. But I had no idea what kind of piece he would write in this context. And I was very happily surprised by what he wrote about “Dear Prudence.” At the Kennedy Center tribute, he said, “ ‘Dear Prudence’ wasn’t a happy song. It was complicated. But it revealed character; told a story. It was jarring in a profound way, and since then I’ve demanded more from my art and entertainment.”

This book not only has personal reminiscences about the music, but also some very interesting Beatles trivia and history. What new things did you learn about the Beatles from these essays? 
A lot, actually, including the fact that only two covers of Beatles songs have ever reached number one (you can find out which songs in Thomas Beller’s piece). Virtually all of Chuck Klosterman’s piece about “Helter Skelter” is a revelation. And thanks to Elissa Schappell, I now have an entirely new appreciation for, and understanding of, “Octopus’s Garden.” And while I’ve listened to so many of the other featured songs thousands of times before, some I will never hear quite the same way again, because of what the contributors wrote—Rosanne Cash on “No Reply”; Nicky Dawidoff on “A Day in the Life”; Mona Simpson on “She’s Leaving Home”; Gerald Early on “I’m a Loser”; and many more.

Why did you decide to arrange the book chronologically, by the date of each song’s release?
To tell a story. Of a kind. In a way. To show a progression, a trajectory—the evolution, revolution, devolution. . . . From the youthful innocence, exuberance, simplicity and lightness of the early songs, through the more experimental, meditative, mature, spiritual, dark sides, and ultimately, out the other side. Maybe, too, in the way that Sgt. Pepper is considered a “concept album” (the first of its kind, some will say), so, too, is this a “concept book.”

Why do you think The Beatles have had such a huge impact on writers? 
At least part of the answer to that question is that it’s a syllogism. Which is to say, the Beatles have had a huge impact on a great many different populations of people. And that includes writers. Is it disproportionately more so with writers? The way that, say, writers still tend to have AOL addresses a lot more than other people? I wish I knew. But I don’t. 

Did you find that younger writers, those who hadn’t been born when the Beatles became popular, had different reactions to the music than those who were around from the very beginning? 
It’s paradoxical. To some extent, yes; and in other ways, no. It’s crystallized, I think, in a piece that Francine Prose wrote with her 8-year-old granddaughter, Emilia, which addresses how the music speaks to members of different generations. ["Emilia's Beatlemania is, I think, purer than mine, less affected by history and time, more reflective of a child's love than a teenager's," Prose writes.]
Alan Light puts his finger on the fact that so many of us feel as if we’re not quite old enough to remember, that we just missed out on being there to experience the Beatles first-hand. Not to mention that, in “I Saw Her Standing There,” Paul sings, “She was just 17, you know what I mean.” We did not know.

Do you remember how you felt the first time you listened to Sgt. Pepper’s? How have your feelings about the album changed over the years?
I do not remember the first time. I turned three exactly one week after the album was released. And I imagine that, thanks to my oldest brother, Steven, if not my parents, too, that I started hearing it almost immediately. My girlfriend and I have a toddler at home, he’s two-and-a-half, and he’s already learning—and asking for—some of the songs. Anyway, over time, I remember how connected I’d start to get to some of the songs on that album, and being a bit torn between wanting to jump around, skip the needle on the vinyl, that is, to get to my favorites, vs. honoring the concept that it was meant to be listened to, in its entirety, sequentially.

To the second part of your question, well, again, it’s paradoxical, since in some ways things seem exactly the same, while in other ways I have a very different and, I hope, deeper understanding now. “A Day in the Life” is maybe the best example of that, and the famed last note, and the buildup [and down] to it. I think of it a lot, symbolically, metaphorically. Oh, and there’s also the fact that “When I’m 64,” has taken on all new meanings of its own.

Who was your favorite Beatle?
I have long liked the idea that the whole was greater than the sum of the parts when it came to the Beatles, just as it did when I played team sports. Otherwise, my favorite changed over time. It was Paul at the outset, then John, then George. Then George Martin (the 5th, or is he the 6th erstwhile Beatle?). I used to try to mimic a lot of the songs, and I could come close to getting some of them, but others, no matter what I did, how hard I tried, and without knowing who was singing lead vocals on certain tracks, I couldn’t get it. And it turns out that on those songs, it was John and Paul harmonizing so perfectly, so seamlessly, that it sounded like one voice.

What’s the one Beatles song you’ll never tire of listening to?
There isn’t just one, really. And I’m wondering if there are any, in fact, that I have ever tired of. I don’t think there are. But OK, you asked me to choose one, and so I’ll give you “In My Life,” from which the title of the book comes. 

What is it about the Beatles that makes their music worth preserving and passing down through generations?
The beautiful universals, perhaps? Transcendent, resonant, passed down (and up), and across. “Come Together.” “All You Need Is Love.” “Let It Be.” “I Am the Walrus.” It’s also the great equalizer, democratizer, common ground, in an increasingly divided country and world. Beatles music never goes out of fashion. It unifies people, families. It’s a constant companion, a friend with whom to celebrate and commiserate and meditate, covering so many moods and modalities and modes. The Beatles comfort and console us, help to connect us, make us feel understanding and amplify our moments of joy.

Author photo © Maud Bryt

Several new books on the Beatles and their music are being published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper’s including a nostalgic and entertaining essay collection, In Their Lives: Great Writers on Great Beatles Songs.

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