Happy Friday, everybody. It’s time for another edition of Homegrown Radio, & I have to say you folks are in for a treat today & every Friday this month, because our February Homegrown Radio artist is none other than my dear spouse, Eberle Umbach!
If you follow Robert Frost’s Banjo at all, you’re familiar with Eberle’s writing as well as with her skills at musical composition. Eberle is a true multi-instrumentalist: she’s a proficient pianist, harpsichordist, marimba player, drummer, flautist, melodica player, bass player (both electric & upright), Appalachian dulcimer player, & has turned her hand (invariably with good results) to everything from banjo ukulele to cello. She has a love for quirky instruments as well, & plays a mean kazoo & slide whistle!
But Eberle has often said that she is much more happy as a composer than as a performer, & her compositional skills are formidable. She wrote much of the material in the Alice in Wonder Band’s repertoire, wrote the score for a dramatic production of Antigone, wrote much of the scores for two silent movies she & I composed & performed as the Bijou Orchestrette (the films were both by Nell Shipman: Back to God’s Country & The Grub Stake), & has written all or part of the scores for a number of dramatic productions, from Under Milkwood to The Second Shepherd’s Play. These days her musical skills are much caught up with her newfound Catholic faith, & she has written a number of works in this direction.
Today’s composition, which I adore, is from a soundtrack to a dramatic adaptation of Carl Sandburg’s Rootabaga Stories. Let’s see what Eberle has to say about her piece, “Rootabaga Hoedown”:
I enjoy inventing ancient music. When John and I were writing and recording music for a production of Carl Sandburg’s Rootabaga Stories, I wrote some ancient Americana – a hoedown for psaltery and bouzouki. John gave me the beautiful psaltery and I’d been wanting to write a song for this exotic creature for some time (John or the psaltery…? you decide!) The bouzouki came from a chapter of my own ancient history – when I was 14 my family came home with this instrument from a trip to Greece, and I hadn’t thought about it for decades until my mother gave it to me not long before the Rootabaga project. I don’t think it’s an instrument of great value, but it sounded very cool – John had been playing it and I loved the sound. At that time, we only had a Sony MiniDisc (no multi-tracking) but I had a very particular idea for the sound of the hoedown and I wanted to play both parts. So I recorded the bouzouki part and John put it on a CD – then I played the psaltery along with it and recorded the whole thing in John’s cave-like sitting room, a perfect ancient setting!
Happy 2011 everyone. Today’s post is here, bringing the conclusion to our yearlong series of Alice in Wonder Band songs.
“A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” is a fitting way to close the series, as I think it sums up what the band meant to a lot of its members. Our singer, Deadre Chase, suggested the song, & Eberle came up with the arrangement. This particular recording was made at a 2003 performance at the Alpine Playhouse in McCall, Idaho.
To refresh your memory—or for those who haven’t been following the whole series—the Alice in Wonder Band was formed in 2001, with its original members being Art Troutner, Barb Dixon, Eberle Umbach, Kati Sheldon, Lois Fry & yours truly, John Hayes. The band was formed originally to provide background music for a high school drama troupe’s production of “Antigone”(!), which was performed in December 01. A sort of proto-Alice in Wonder Band consisted of Eberle, Lois & myself, when we provided background music for the same drama troupe’s productions of “Alice in Wonderland” in 98 (hence the band name) & “Under Milkwood” in 99. The band began performing on its own in 2002, with our first show being at the Roseberry Folk Festival in July of that year. By this point, Deadre Chase had joined the band as a second vocalist, & when Kati Sheldon left the band in the fall of 02 in order to focus on school, Deadre became the main singer. Deb Cahill & Bob George joined the band in 03. The band’s final show was December 17th 2004 (not the 18th, as I said in an earlier post).
The line-up for any given show varied from four to eight, not counting assorted dancers, performers & guest stars. Here are the members of the band & the instruments they played:
Deb Cahill: Doumbek, Djembe, Conga, Percussion, Kazoo, Boomwhackers
The band laid down tracks for a studio album in June 2004. The album was called Elephant Cloudland. While the final mixing was never completed on the tracks, they are available for free as a download from BandCamp here.
Hope you enjoy the song, & best wishes for 2011.
Photos used in the video are by: Earl Brockman, Tim Hohs, Michael Richardson, Dani Leone, Chris Leone, Wayne Brandon
Happy Christmas Eve to those celebrating the holiday, & a happy Friday to all. It’s time for our Alice in Wonder Band song of the month; I probably should point out that this is the penultimate song in the series, which will wrap up in January.
The last Alice in Wonder Band show ever was a Christmas show at the Alpine Playhouse in McCall in December 2004. At this point, the band had five members: Art Troutner, who played oboe & mandolin; Bob George, who played clarinet, mandolin & guitar; Deadre Chase, the singer; Eberle Umbach, who at this point was playing flute, melodica, glockenspiel, & occasionally throwing in something wild like the lap steel; & yours truly, playing guitar, baritone uke & plectrum banjo.
I’m happy to say we went out on a high note: the show was one of our best, & I think a lot of this was thanks to some inspired arranging by Eberle; & among all her good arrangements for the show, none surpassed her distillation of Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Reed-Flutes” from The Nutcracker into a piece for a quintet. In case you’re curious, the original score calls for an orchestra with 18 distinct instruments, as follows:
Flutes (4)
Oboes (2)
English Horn
Clarinets (2)
Bass Clarinet
Bassoons (2)
French Horns (4)
Trumpet
Tenor Trombone
Bass Trombone
Tuba
Timpani
Cymbals
Violins (two sections of course, which could be up to 32 players)
Violas (as many as 12)
Cellos (as many as 10)
Double Bass (as many as 8)
She managed to pare this down to the following:
1 flute
1 oboe
1 clarinet
1 voice
1 electric guitar
I don’t recall now exactly how the parts were absorbed—I do know that my guitar part drew heavily from the cello music.
I hope you enjoy the music—it was a lot of fun to play!—& that you have a joyous holiday season. Oh, by the way: Robert Frost’s Banjo will be on the air tomorrow with the final installment of the Old-Time Holiday Train series!
Note: All images in the video are in the public domain except the intial photo of the Nutcracker. This photo, entitled "Nußknacker aus Seiffen," is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported by Bernd Reuschenberg The photo at the top of the post is from the original production of The Nutcracker. Imperial Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg, 1892.
A happy Monday to you! It’s time for this month’s Alice in Wonder Band selection, & I must say this pick was easy—it’s one of Eberle’s songs titled “Novembr’ish.”
In November of 2002, Eberle & I were considering what new material we might have for the Alice in Wonder Band in 2003. Eberle had the idea of writing show pieces for our two main soloists, Lois Fry on violin & Art Troutner on oboe.
The piece Eberle wrote for Lois has already been featured; it’s called “The Wind in the Willows,” & it was the Alice in Wonder Band song of the month here on Robert Frost’s Banjo in April—those who are curious can check it out here.
But Art’s song was written first, in the month of November—a transitional time in Indian Valley, Idaho—one that can sparkle with a glorious & crisp Indian Summer, or can drag on thru wet & gray drear or can even see an early cold snap & snow. My memory tells me that November 02 was of the somber variety, & perhaps that’s reflected in the thoughtful & contemplative music.
Like “The Wind in the Willows,” “Novemb’rish” is a trio, with Art on oboe & Eberle & I in supporting roles on the piano & electric bass respectively. This recording was made in June 2004—& remember, this recording, along with the rest of the Alice in Wonder Band’s Elephant Cloudland cd is available as a free download on Bandcamp right here!
Musical Monday is upon us once again, & this time around we have our Alice in Wonder Band song of the month.
When the Alice in Wonder Band started out, most of our repertoire was written by Eberle—actually, as I believe I’ve written in previous posts, our decision to move more toward covering old standards & away from original material was probably a mistake: Eberle is an excellent composer, & she had a knack of writing material that would bring out band members’ strengths & steer clear of their weaknesses.
Another feature of the early Alice in Wonder Band songs was that several involved Eberle composing musical settings for poems by women poets. She wrote music for poems by H.D., Elizabeth Bishop, Emily Dickinson & Joanne Kyger. In fact, her setting for “Lethe” actually was part of the music she wrote for a high school production of Antigone that was staged in December 2001; that production led directly to the formation of the Alice in Wonder Band, since the original five instrumentalists in the Wonder Band were also the Antigone “orchestra,” & Kati Sheldon, the band’s original vocalist, was a featured member of the cast. Kati is singing the song in this recording, which was made at the Alpine Playhouse in September 2002.
The line-up in addition to Kati was: Lois Fry, violin; Art Troutner, oboe; Eberle Umbach, marimba; Barb Dixon, drum & percussion; & yours truly on electric guitar. I have no idea why the electric guitar sounds so strange in this recording! There actually weren’t any odd settings on the amp—it was played “clean.” But the recording was done on a minidisk thru a small condenser mic, & the quality is not all it might be.
The images accompanying the music in the slideshow are all some form of waterway in the area of southwestern Idaho & southeastern Oregon. Obviously, “Lethe” refers to the river in the Classical Greek underworld whose waters erase the memory of the shades.
I’ve included the poem for your added enjoyment. Hope you like the music!
Lethe
Nor skin nor hide nor fleece Shall cover you, Nor curtain of crimson nor fine Shelter of cedar-wood be over you, Nor the fir-tree Nor the pine.
Nor sight of whin nor gorse Nor river-yew, Nor fragrance of flowering bush, Nor wailing of reed-bird to waken you, Nor of linnet, Nor of thrush.
Nor word nor touch nor sight Of lover, you Shall long through the night but for this: The roll of the full tide to cover you Without question, Without kiss.
H.D.
Pic is of the poet H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), taken c. 1921
Happy Musical Monday, friends! I’m here with our monthly Alice in Wonder Band song, & this one’s very good—to my mind, it may be Eberle’s best composition, at least in terms of vocal songs.
The Alice in Wonder Band started as a vehicle for Eberle’s considerable compositional talents, & her original songs were always our best material. She was able to compose songs that underlined the strengths of each band member, & the tunes themselves were always fun to play.
The song “Plum Alley” comes from a stretch of road near us that’s lined with wild plums. In fact, plums thrive in our part of Idaho—many of the plum photos in the slide show accompanying the tune were taken in our own backyard! The song is seasonal, too, because the plums are just now coming ripe.
“Plum Alley” had an interesting origin. Clarinetist Bob George joined the Alice in Wonder Band in 2003, & Eberle decided we should have an improvisational warm-up in Bb, the clarinet’s base key. The first section of the song was the “basic” melody for this warm-up. Not long afterward, the words came to Eberle along with a second section, & the warm-up became a song.
The recording comes from a 2003 performance at the Alpine Playhouse. We did record this song during our one “studio” session, but the mix was all wrong. Unfortunately, I don’t have the master tracks from that session, & so I can’t do anything to fix it. Tho the live recording isn’t perfect, it does give a fair representation of the song as we played it, & it's superior to the studio version in the latter's current form.
Speaking of recordings, if you’d like a digital alum of Alice in Wonder Band music (including this track) for free, just follow this link to Bandcamp & download our one & only album, Elephant Cloudland. If you prefer, songs may be downloaded individually.
It’s a musical Monday, & time for another selection in our Alice in wonder Band series. This one’s actually mostly a re-post—the song & the remarks after this initial paragraph were first posted in January 2009—but no retrospective of the Alice in Wonder Band would be complete without “The Once in a Blue Moon Waltz.” Remember: you can download Elephant Cloudland, the Alice in Wonder Band’s one & only album free on BandCamp, right here—& you'll get this recording of “The Once in a Blue Moon Waltz! If there’s one song I’ll always think of first when I think of the Alice in Wonder Band, it’s probably a tune Eberle wrote called “The Once in a Blue Moon Waltz.” One fine spring morning in 2002 Eberle woke up remembering the melody she'd heard in her sleep—I’ve had the experience of hearing melodies in my sleep, but I’ve never been able to recall one after I awoke. It was a haunting melody with an intriguing harmonic structure—not a lot of chords, but very pungent ones, you might say. It seemed like you were in some old world café as you listened to it or as you played it.
At the time, Eberle was very interested in setting poems by women poets to music: she’d already composed settings for three poems by H.D., & it was around this time that she composed her setting for Dickinson’s “There’s a Certain Slant of Light” & Elizabeth Bishop’s “Insomnia”—sadly, we don’t have a good recording of the latter. I’d found the following poem by Joanne Kyger, which we both found intriguing:
Not Yet
Not Tomorrow Night but the night after tomorrow Not tomorrow but the night after tomorrow Then the moon will be full Then the moon will be full
It’s been a long time.
We did alter the last line to “It’s been such a long time,” not because it’s better poetry, but because it fit the melody more naturally.
Around this time, Lois Fry introduced us to singer Deadre Chase. The Alice in Wonder Band already had a very talented singer, Kati Sheldon, but she was the young person in the midst of us old coots & her time with the band was going to be limited by college. When we heard Deadre sing, we knew she’s be fantastic with the Alice in Wonder Band, & she was a good sport to hang out in the background for a few months while Kati was the front person. But to make a long story longer, we wanted her to have a few showcase pieces at a show we had planned for the Alpine Playhouse in McCall, & “The Once in a Blue Moon Waltz” was one of those. I have to say that her performance of the song that night was perhaps the most electric happenings in the band’s 4-year run; it was the last song of the first set, & I played the baritone uke behind Deadre with goosebumps the whole way thru. It was always an Alice in Wonder Band standby after that.
Hope you enjoy this recording of “The Once in a Blue Moon Waltz.” It was made in the living room of our old house on the same day we recorded a number of tracks at the Marymount Hermitage chapel.
Top pic (by Tim Hohs) shows the Alice in Wonder Band onstage during the ovation following the 02 Alpine Show mentioned above.
The slide show includes images from Wiki Media & also photos by some of the following photographers: Earl Brockmann (Mr Brockman’s photos are those with a white border), Tim Hohs, & Sister Mary Beverly.
Happy Monday afternoon everybody. Musical Monday continues, as I’m here with an announcement that’s exciting to both Eberle & me, & I hope will be exciting to some of you, too. Back in June 2004, our group The Alice in Wonder Band recorded 9 tracks that we intended for use as an album to sell at gigs. We were generously allowed to use the chapel at Marymount Hermitage—a room with amazing acoustics—& we brought our friend Joshua Housh up from the Bay Area to do the sound. Dani Leone, whom readers know as L.E. Leone & Sister Exister, accompanied Mr Housh & did a lot of everything to help out. The Alice in Wonder Band members who participated in the recording were, in addition to Eberle & myself: Deadre Chase, our vocalist; Lois Fry on violin & viola; Art Troutner on oboe, tenor recoder & mandolin; & Bob George on clarinet.
For a variety of reasons, we never did get the tracks mixed in a final way, tho we were happy with the results overall. Then the band broke up at the end of the year, & while we gave away a handful of copies to family & friends, the project lay dormant.
I’m happy to say that, six years after the fact, the album is finally available! It’s a free digital download on BandCamp, & you can download either the entire album or individual tracks right here.
There are only 8 tracks on the album as it now exists (tho over 40 minutes of music). We recorded Billy Taylor’s “Cool & Caressing” that day, but we don’t have rights to this, so I can’t include it. I also chose to use a live recording of Eberle’s beautiful song “Plum Alley,” since the mixing on the studio recording is in need of serious help & I don’t have the master tracks to work with.
Hope you enjoy it! & stay tuned, because next Monday I’ll be posting the Alice in Wonder Band song for August, complete with slideshow (of course!)
Happy Monday, everyone! I’m running a bit behind my time, but we had a show yesterday & things generally have seemed a bit discombobulated of late.
Today’s Musical Monday post is this month’s Alice in Wonder Band featured song, “The Jazz Me Blues.” The recording was made at a show at the Alpine Playhouse in McCall, Idaho on September 28, 2002—not the ill-fated version of the same song I wrote about in a previous post! This particular Alpine Playhouse show was a real joy—we had a lot of energy, & so did the audience, which had packed the house that evening. The line-up for “The Jazz Me Blues” was as follows:
Lois Fry: violin Art Troutner: oboe Eberle Umbach: marimba Barb Dixon: drum Kati Sheldon: wood block John Hayes: plectrum banjo
I should note that Kati was one of the band’s two vocalists at that point; Deadre Chase was the other.
“The Jazz Me Blues” was a big hit for the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, a combo that—depending on whom you believe—probably issued the first “jazz” recordings in the late ‘teens. Of course, this was a time of strict segregation in music, as well as in most aspects of life in the United States, & it can be assumed that the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (originally “Jass Band”) enjoyed the opportunities afforded to a white combo. The band was billed as “the Creators of Jazz,” which, despite the group’s talents, is an absurd claim, given the fact that African-Americans such as Jelly Rolly Morton, Buddy Bolden & many others had been playing in this style for close to two decades when the Original Dixieland Jazz Band made its first recordings. Still, they are an important group in jazz history, & many of their tunes are as catchy as this one.
It’s another musical Monday, & time for our Alice in Wonder Band song of the month. This time around it’s a song called “Lullaby,” & it has an interesting back story.
Our good friend & sometime collaborator JudyAnderson gave Eberle a wonderful Christmas gift in 2002—a book called The Flower Festival, which is an English translation of a 1914 book by Swedish author & illustrator Elsa Beskow (the original is called Blomsterfesten).
It was Christmas evening, & we were both propped up in bed in the old (& cold!) farmhouse where we lived at the time. Eberle was looking thru the book, & I was playing the ukulele. Yes, that’s right—I used to play ukulele in bed quite often; it’s pretty much the ideal instrument for this, not only due to its size, but also its mellow “vibe.” In any case, Eberle read me the poem that concludes the book, & one or both of us decided it would make a good song. So I started to plunk & strum away, & came up with a chord progression. Meanwhile, Eberle got another uke & started to compose a melody to go with said chords—even now, when I don'tplay the uke much, I still say you can't have too many ukes! This actually wasn’t the first song we wrote in bed using two ukes—that was “The Owl & The Pussycat Samba,” which interested parties can hear in an earlier Robert Frost’s Banjo post here.
The song worked out nicelyfor the band, I think. I stated on uke (a concert-size Fluke I believe), while Eberle moved to marimba. Our oboist Art Troutner moved to tenor recorder, & our violinist Lois Fry switched to viola; singer Deadre Chase did a wonderful job with a lovely but difficult melody.
The song was recorded at the Alpine Playhouse in McCall, Idaho, I think during a show in February of 2003. Hope you enjoy it!
Happy Monday! Our musical Monday takes us back to September 2003 & an Alice in Wonder Band show at the Alpine Playhouse in McCall, Idaho. The song—our Alice in Wonder Band song of the month—is “One Potato Shuffle,” a tune Eberle came up with that’s very loosely based on the old song “Shortnin’ Bread.” We thought “Shortnin’ Bread” would be a great song to jam to, but both Eberle & I found the lyrics too insensitive, especially after hearing Charles Mingus do a riff on the song in the documentary Charles Mingus: Triumph of the Underdog. The gist of Mingus’ piece was that “Mammy’s little babies” actually wanted a whole lot of things, but that “shortnin’ bread” isn’t one of them; as Mingus declares: “Mama’s little babies don’t like no shortnin’ bread—that’s some lie an American white man said.” You can hear a section of this here on YouTube (f-bomb warning.)
Hailing as we do from the state of Idaho—“famous potatoes,” as the license plate proclaims—Eberle decided we’d do a song about that noble tuber. By the way, I should point out that commercial potato production is centered in the southeastern part of the state—on the western side around where we live, the soil is much too heavy & filled with clay for large-scale potato growing (tho onions flourish). Eberle then composed the basic melody & the initial set of lyrics, & let the band have at it. In the process of this, our singer Deadre Chase added another verse to the song, & everyone loved that.
It’s a shame we never got a better recording of “One Potato Shuffle.” This is the best one we have, & there are problems. I did the initial fade-in in a moderatly successful attempt to muffle an audience member’s coughing fit. Also, our recording set-up was pretty primitive in those days—we used a Sony mini-disk, which in this case was duct taped to one of the theater seats. At a certain point you can hear an audience member rustling thru a program or other papers. Also, Art Troutner’s nice mandolin work is completely lost in the mix. At least we get to hear his great slide whistle at the bginning of the song! Finally, there’s something that sounds almost like a skip on an lp about 50 seconds in—that’s an error in the actual recording (complicated electronic explanation that would no doubt bore 99% of folks!)
A local access TV outfit from Boise actually taped this song at one of our rehearsals for TVTV (Treasure Valley TV), & I know it was aired at one point—possibly more—but neither Eberle nor I never saw it. Perhaps I should find out if the videotape is still available.
Hope you enjoy the song!
All potato images in the film are public domain except the image of omlette & potatoes (third from the end), which was taken by Wiki Commons user J Lian; the photo is published under a Creative Commons 2.0 attribution license. Band photos were taken by Earl Brockman (band photos 1-3, 5-7, 10-12, 15), Tim Hohs (band photos 4, 13), Michael Richardson (band photo 8, cropped from a larger image), LE Leone (band photo 9) & Wayne Brandon (band photo 14).
It’s another Musical Monday here at Robert Frost’s Banjo, & today we’re showcasing our Alice in Wonder Band song of the month.
What better song title for an April song than “The Wind in the Willows”? April is a blustery month in many places as the old winter season is scattered on the winds & the trees & flowers start putting forth their foliage & blossoms. Because there’s a high water table on our land (which is a mixed blessing), willows thrive around us. There’s the willow outside my office window that crops up in my poems, & there are the willow trees we see out our kitchen window (the dishwashing window) where birds congregate in the feeders. Along the ridgeline at the northwestern side of our property, there’s a profusion of willow shrubs—willow weed as Eberle calls them. They’re useful trees—she has used them, for instance, to make pea trellises & a fence, & they also can be woven into baskets.
As I recall, Eberle’s song “The Wind in the Willows” dates from the Alice in Wonder Band’s second year, 2003. At that point we had three talented melody instrumentalists: Art Troutner on oboe, Bob George on clarinet & Lois Fry on violin. Eberle decided we should have showcase pieces for all three of these folks—Art’s will come up later this year, & Bob’s already has appeared on Robert Frost’s Banjo—it was Eberle’s arrangment of Satie’s Three Gymnopédies, which you can listen to at your leisure here, here & here.
Lois’s piece was “The Wind in the Willows”—it’s actually been posted before, in the "teaser" post for Lois’ Musical Questions interview (only long-time readers will recall that series). You can read Lois’ interview here. But in the meantime, please listen to Lois’ beautiful violin work! She is backed by Eberle on piano & yours truly on electric bass (all the showcase pieces were trios). The recording dates from June 2004.
Pic at the top of the post shows Lois with violin at a show at Bistro 45; Deadre Chase, our singer is behind her, & drummers Deb Cahill (R) & Barb Dixon (L) are in the background. The photo was taken by our late friend, the very talented photographer Earl Brockman.
Happy Monday, folks! Yours truly is still moving pretty slow here following the big road trip—but I was able to put together this month’s selection in the Alice in Wonder Band Songs series. Appropriately enough for March, the song is “The Go Lamb Rag,” written by Eberle & recorded at the Alpine Playhouse in September 2002; the line-up for the song was: Eberle Umbach: piano; Lois Fry: violin; Art Troutner: oboe; Barb Dixon: drums; & yours truly: ukulele. The crowd got into this one, & hope you will too!
By the way, in case you don’t know: the final image in the slideshow is of Sarah Josepha Hale, who wrote “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”
In other news: Audrey has a new post up on Ms. Blog; check it out here!
Finally: please consider checking out my Apollinaire translation blog Alcools—there’s a translation (by yours truly) from Apollinaire’s 1913 book, Alcools each Monday!
Hey folks, here’s yet another new feature on Robert Frost’s Banjo—well, sorta new & sorta old, actually. I’ve decided to feature one song per month from the recorded output of our old & beloved Alice in Wonder Band, which Eberle & I were involved with from its inception in 2001 until its demise in 2004. I’ve written quite a bit about the Alice in Wonder Band here on the Banjo—if you’re interested in learning more, you can either search “Alice in Wonder Band” on the blog, or check out the label “our music” (the latter will bring up some posts that aren’t about the Wonder band, however).
Eberle wrote the music & most of the words for “Elephant Cloudland” in 2003—I added a few words here & there where she was stuck, but most of the lyrics are hers. We began performing the song later that year, & it was always a favorite. Slow & dreamy was probably what the Alice in Wonder Band did best, so this was one of our better numbers.
In 2004, we recorded nine songs—eight in the chapel at Marymount Hermitage, thanks to the generosity of the Sisters, & one back at home. Joshua Housh & Dani Leone drove up from the Bay Area to work as producer/sound guy & assistant to same respectively. The personnel on this song is: Deadre Chase, vocal; Lois Fry: violin; Art Troutner: oboe; Eberle Umabch: piano; & yours truly on the old 5-string electric bass guitar.
By the way, the illustration at the top of this post was done by our good friend Margot Kimball (who folks can read a lot more about on Eberle’s Platypuss-in-Boots blog). The image also appears roughly at the midpoint of the video. This would have been the cover art for the cd, but for various reasons, the project got shelved without the mixing being completed, & then the band broke up—oh well, whatcha gonna do?
All the images used in the slideshow are in the public domain except for the twelfth image (the black & white photo of elephants parading), which is from Deutsche Fotothek & licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license.
Two weeks ago the Wayback Machine took us to 2001 when Eberle & I collaborated with Judy Anderson & musicians Art Troutner, Barb Dixon & Lois Fry on the McCall-Donnelly drama troupe’s production of Antigone. The play was a success—in some ways, against all odds, because in retrospect I see that we were asking a huge amount of the students to carry this off. But they rose to the occasion: a big credit to them & to Judy. I’d like to think that the music inspired them some, too. In spite of or because of this success, I had a reaction I’ve often experienced at the end of a big project—a big let down. However, I managed to come up with a solution for this bout of the blues—don’t recall the details, but after some discussion with Eberle, we decided it would be fun to re-form the “Antigone” band as an ongoing group, with the addition of one of the students from the Antigone production, Kati Sheldon, as the singer.
In fact, everyone agreed to this arrangement, & the Alice in Wonder Band was born. Actually, tho, the band didn’t have a name for quite some time—we just couldn’t get consensus on one. There were several proposals, including:
The Wampus Cats The Pixilations The Wrong Trousers The Penny Ante 6 The Madrigal Scientists The Charlotte Corday Jazz Band [this was one of Eberle’s contributions!] It actually wasn’t until the band’s first gig in July '02that the band had a name. The person designing the poster for the McCall Folk Festival called to ask what name to put on the poster. Eberle & I made an executive decision & said we were the Alice in Wonder Band, a name Eberle had used when she & Lois & I played music for the McCall-Donnelly production of Alice in Wonderland in ’98. Fortunately, the rest of the band liked it.
You may have noticed that one of the band names (The Penny Ante 6) mentions a sextet, but if your math skills are up to snuff you’ll recall there were only five musicians to begin with. But as it turns out, Lois introduced us to her friend, singer Deadre Chase, a few months down the line, & from that point on we had the very happy dilemma of counting two extremely good singers as band members. Deadre’s role was smaller the first year, but she later became the real front woman for the band. Also, her rendition of Eberle’s composition “The Once in a Blue Moon Waltz” at the Alpine Playhouse show in September was one of the show’s real highlights.
Knowing what I know now, I’d have done a lot of things differently, but we didn’t know any better at the time. By the time of the Alpine show, we had a good repertoire of over 20 songs—mostly originals by Eberle, but a few diverse cover tunes: the hot jazz number “The Jazz Me Blues”; an Mbuti song called “Lukembe”; & Tom Waits’ “The Last Rose of Summer.” But the time we put into rehearsal (weekly, at McCall’s Idaho Academy of Music—and the rehearsals often were marathons) really should have been balanced with more performances (Lois: if you read this—you were right on that score!) That first year we played at the Folk Festival & the Alpine Playhouse, & that was it. The McCall Folk Festival (held in Roseberry, a restored “ghost town” south of Donnelly) was a bit nerve-wracking—our first show, & we played during a windstorm so fierce that it blew over my electric guitar on its stand three times & sent music stands flying (one note: these days I don’t play with music & I REALLY don’t miss music stands). The Alpine Playhouse performance on the other hand was really a rousing success. The crowd was pretty much unbelievable, right from the get-go & continued to be in a kind of electrifyingly supportive mood right thru two sets of music.
I’ve included a slideshow with more images from that first Alpine show; all of the pix in the slideshow were taken by Tim Hohs except for the first photo, which was taken by Michael Richardson. The song is our version of “The Owl & the Pussycat”; Eberle set Edward Lear’s words to a mellow Brazilian background, & she & I played “dueling ukes” center stage next to our singer Kati Sheldon. Eberle wrote the melody specifically to show off Kati’s spectacular vocal range—& remember, folks, she was singing unamplified at this show! There’s a very slight recording error at around 4:15 of the clip—this error is in the original Sony minidiskrecording—sounds like a small skip on an lp. But that aside, hope you enjoy it.
& stay tuned: we’ll be back later this month with more musical history!
Pix from Top The McCall Folk Festival 02 The Alice in Wonder Band: from left: Kati Sheldon, Deadre Chase, yours truly, Eberle, Lois Fry, Barb Dixon & Art Troutner Another shot from the Folk Festival - Deadre & Kati duet on Eberle's song Crocuses Deadre during her Once in a Blue Moon Waltz performance at the Alpine Lois, Eberle & I at the Alpine We had a blast & the crowd did too! (first three pix by Michael Richardson, last three by Tim Hohs)
When we last travelled in the Wayback Machine to look at Eberle & my musical history together, we travelled to ’99. On this, our next excursion, we’re skipping 2000 altogether—that simply wasn’t much of a “musical” year for us. Eberle performed, on harpsichord I believe, with the McCall Chamber Orchestra that summer, but the only pictures of the concert aren’t much to look at—the photographer (yours truly) was way too far from the stage. We also didn’t take part in any of the plays at McCall-Donnelly high school in ’00; we were both very much into the "ranchette/going up to the country" thing at this time, & while we no doubt played a bit of music together, it wasn’t a focus in our lives that year. So we move ahead to the summer of 2001. I don’t recall specifically when we first got this idea, but Eberle & Judy Anderson (the drama teacher at McCall-Donnelly) & I had come up with the idea that we should stage Antigone, & that furthermore, we should stage it with music & dancing, in a nod to its true Grecian origins. We’d provide the music; Judy is excellent at working with her students on movement; & as fortune had it, the group that was involved in drama at that time included a number of gifted singers & dancers.
Eberle realized that to get the sound she wanted, we’d need more musicians. We enlisted Lois Fry again, the violinist who’d worked with us on Alice in Wonderland & Under Milkwood, as well as oboist Art Troutner & drummer/percussionist/flutist Barb Dixon. Eberle would play marimba & drums & percussion, & she & I would trade-off electric bass duties. When not playing the electric bass, I’d play electric guitar. Eberle’s compositions also made use of the fine singers from the troupe, especially Kati Sheldon, who later joined Eberle, Lois, Art, Barb & I as the original Alice in Wonder Band (singer Deadre Chase joined soon thereafter).
Here are some musical pix from 2001, followed by a slideshow of the “Ode of Entrance” from Antigone, recorded live by Audrey Bilger who, like the true friend she is, made the trek from sunny SoCal to bleak wintery Idaho to support our efforts: not just to see the play, but also to record it. Audrey’s tape of the December 8, 2001 performance was transferred to digital by Audrey & her spouse Cheryl Pawelski. Thanks for preserving the play, Audrey & Cheryl!
& thanks also to Rebecca Stone who took the great photos of the play that I used in the slideshow.
Top Pic: Our friend J.D. & I with guitars, & Eberle with accordion: Thanksgiving 2001 in Oregon’s Blue Mountains.
Eberle, Barb Dixon (foreground with large Djembe) & I (behind Eberle) marching in McCall’s Winter Carnival Parade—it was so cold that day!
The Antigone dress rehearsal: Molly Shaver (l), one of the Choral leads, & Sarah Mello (r), as Antigone, with Eberle’s marimba & djembe in the foreground
The chorus (fronted by music stands), also from the dress rehearsal
2001 was the first year we actually had a dedicated “music room” (tho for awhile it was also the computer room). This room was also designated as “the arctic room” (& yikes, it had been our bedroom for awhile. Here we see: electric guitar, electric bass, lap steel guitar & keyboard
More of the music room: the Ibanez electric guitar I used in Antigone & also in the Alice in Wonder Band—& oddly & unexpectedly in our Moominpappa at Sea soundtrack. It’s a good guitar, but may be designated for sale once I get up enough gumption to sell some instruments. The marimba (with bongos, doumbek & zither & assorted cases). I’m sorry I can’t recall the name of the fellow who made this instrument—it was modestly priced as such things go, has a good sound & is relatively portable. I do recall that the maker lives in Northern California.
The Wayback Machine will be back in September with our 2002 Musical History—the beginning of the Alice in Wonder Band!
For Thursday: some more glimpses of our musical history—in this case, shots from 1999. This was an interesting musical year looked at retrospectively. Eberle & I again joined forces with our good friend violinist Lois Fry & our good friend Judy Anderson, drama teacher at McCall-Donnelly High School, for more theatrical background music, this time for the spring production of Under Milkwood. The play actually stirred a bit of controversy at the school, because some parents found the play too sensual, at which point Judy marched into the principal’s office & pointed out—among other things—the fact that Oklahoma, one of the most commonly staged musicals in high school theater, includes the song “I Cain’t Say No” sung by the character Ado Annie:
I'm just a girl who cain't say no, I'm in a terrible fix I always say "come on, let's go!" Jist when I orta say nix.
There was also some discussion of specific speeches in The Taming of the Shrew & Hamlet, & with some editing, Under Milkwood was staged as planned. Our musical mix was a bit more diverse than for Alice in Wonderland, & in this case we provided a soundtrack that was continuous rather than a number of set pieces, as we did for Alice in Wonderland. My memory tells me the music was quite good; I do wish we had a recording, but so it goes. Eberle & I switched off on keyboard—we even played one duet—& she also played electric bass. I remember playing the Orff marimba quite a bit, as well as a little bit of uke & 5-string banjo. Lois played violin. There also was a fair amount of percussion & sound effects—we used a kitchen canister for a tin drum in one scene, for instance, & I believe there was slide whistle also.
Hope you enjoy the pix!
Top Pic: Eberle’s upright bass, which we bought in the winter of 99 at Telford’s in Boise, a very good shop for instruments of the violin family. I recall laying down in the back of our Subaru Legacy wasgon to make sure the bass would fit—I figured if I’d fit, the bass would. & did. Yours truly at the McCall Winter Carnival parade. Eberle & I used to march with the Citizens for Valley County group, & our bunch always had a grand time, generally playing the “Mickey Mouse Theme.” We had horns & drums & banners—a real marching band. The cymbals of course were great fun, but I must say that marching at zero degrees F in a Bugs Bunny mask is challenging!
Eberle with bass drum at the Winter Carnival—she was in 7th heaven!
Eberle playing the upright bass in the front room of our old house
A scene from the dress rehearsal for Under Milkwood
Guy with guitar on the porch of our old house some time in the spring of 99. I played that Takamine guitar exclusively back then—funny, because as I’m thinking recently of culling the instrument herd, the Takamine is high on the list of candidates to be sold.
& yours truly with tenor recorder, playing some little ditty for the guinea hens. I really like the sound of the tenor recorder—deeper, of course, & more “breathy” than your garden variety soprano recorder. Those plastic Yamahas are really quite good instruments. I later gave this tenor recorder to Alice in Wonder Band mate Art Troutner, & he used it on our recording of “She Sells Seashells” (which Eberle & I co-wrote).
Eberle as part of the Goldie Band at the 1999 McCall Folk Festival. That was a fun band, with a repertoire ranging from “Chicken Soup & Rice” to “A Day in the Life of a Fool.” The band was formed solely for this Folk Festival performance, however, so it was a one-shot deal. For locals: this was back when the Folk Festival was held in Ponderosa Park, before it moved out to Roseberry.
One thing that has always bound Eberle & me together is a shared love of music. It’s true that how that love manifests itself is a bit different for each of us: Eberle is much more of a composer, despite her proficiency on any number of instruments, & I’m more of a performer. Eberle tends to be happiest with music in the midst of a modal improvisation with intricate rhythms & a melody line riding atop an unusual harmonic structure; I tend to be happiest playing traditional music. Still, tho I’ve had the chance to play with some fine musicians, there’s no one I’d rather play music with than her. Yesterday we had a lot of fun playing various modal improvisations with our friends Sister Mary Ellen & Sister Rebecca Mary—an enjoyable morning of switching instruments & experimenting & listening—the key to improvising in a group. This, along with the enthusiastic response y’all have given to posts containing our music, put me in mind that folks might like to take some trips on the Wayback Machine to see a bit of Eberle & my musical journey together. Here are some pix from our first couple of years together:
Top Pic: I believe the first two instruments Eberle & I played together were the lap steel guitar & the electric bass (we also played guitar/flute & guitar/dulcimer early on). Fact is, I really had no idea how to play the lap steel, but I bumbled along & Eberle was very patient. The lap steel we had at that time was an old Regal; a pretty nice instrument, but it kept developing electronic problems. We’ve since replaced it with a Gretsch, which is a nice instrument. Eberle’s bass is an Ibanez 5-string. Check out that great old Bassman tube amp!& the amazing (for lack of a better word) fake wood panelling.
Eberle with the 5-string bass in what was a sort of office in our old house. The room later became our bedroom—reasonably cozy except when the full moon would come streaming in the large south facing windows. The lap steel & bass pic also was taken in that room.
Yours truly in the Idanha Hotel in Boise (fall 1997)—a wonderful old establishment, since turned into condos (no comment). I’d just bought this Takamine guitar at Old Boise Guitar Shop & couldn’t wait to play it. Our friend Joshua Housh has said this is a sort of archetypal “guy with guitar” pic.
Eberle on our old front porch with our beloved Windsor 5-string banjo, sometime in the early spring of 98. I was living in Indian Valley by then, & the banjo is the first instrument we bought together—sight-unseen from a shop in Salt Lake City. We were lucky! It’s a wonderful instrument. The tiger cat off to the left is one of my many favorite cats, Romeo by name, since sadly gone where the good cats go. He was a big & rather fierce tomcat, but liked humans a lot. Romeo used to visit me quite frequently in my dreams after his disappearance.
Yours truly with same banjo in our old living room.
The original Alice in Wonder Band—Lois Fry, violin; Eberle, bass; me, keyboard(!?!) We did the background music for the McCall-Donnelly Drama Troupe’s Spring 98 production of Alice in Wonderland. Although I’m very far from being the piano player Eberle is, I can fake it ok, & playing with musicians like Lois & Eberle makes things pretty easy on a guy. We can see, tho, in this pic which musicians are relaxed & which one isn't so much so.
For fun: a pic from the dress rehearsal for that production of Alice in Wonderland.
On the porch of a cabin at Burgdorf Hot Springs, where Eberle & I spent my 42nd birthday in September 98; my present? An Epiphone soprano uke, which I’m modeling here (looks like an F chord). Tho I’m not uking much these days, & when I do I prefer the concert & tenor sizes (they’re bigger), I still am very fond of this uke, which has a sweet sound.
If you like this, check back for more pix in chronological order in future Wayback Machine posts.
