Music and mood

I was talking to a friend of my younger son's on the train a day or so ago. He's studying percussion at the VCA (Victorian College of the Arts) and he was saying how he'd come to understand and therefore like some very intricate drum solos which previously he'd not cared for. He said the same thing had happened with classical music. As a boy he'd disliked it, found it boring. Now he loves it.

But how do you explain my passion for jazz, swing and blues from the 20s, 30s and 40s? I grew up in a house where classical music was virtually the only music around, except for my mother singing popular songs as she wandered round the house. She had a lovely voice and was an excellent piano player and introduced me to South Pacific as well as Chopin, the one from her songs the other from her playing. No jazz at all. Then, one day in a tiny record shop in Cape Town I listened to Paul Whiteman and immediately fell in love. It's the joy of the music that gets me. They needed it -- the great depression, war clouds and then actual war, unemployment, poverty and misery. The music made up for it.

Listen to this one, made just before the great crash, and this during the war, not long before Benny Goodman was shot down over Europe. (Man, I wish I could play the clarinet like he could)

I'm needing this stuff right now. The wake is tonight. It's going to be hard.