Mark Klempner's Blog - Posts Tagged "coming-of-age"
One Hand, One Heart: Meeting Leonard Bernstein
Yesterday was the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Leonard Bernstein. To celebrate, I posted a piece on facebook about the time I met him when I was a seventeen-year-old street busker in Cambridge. I am now posting it here also.
One Hand, One Heart: Meeting Leonard Bernstein
by Mark Klempner
As the world celebrates Leonard Bernstein’s centennial year, I am reminded of my own encounter with the great composer and conductor. His affirmation of my musical abilities was a vital counterforce to the doubts and insecurities I struggled with as a teenager.
The year was 1973 and I was trying out for the electric guitar part in a Harvard production of West Side Story. Not that I went to Harvard. On the contrary, I was a ragamuffin street singer who busked by day and sang in coffeehouses by night. A few months earlier, I’d abandoned my suburban life in Niskayuna, New York, and run off to Boston to try to be a musician.
In a way, I was fleeing a burning building. My mother was on the verge of a psychotic break, which occurred later that year when I returned home for Thanksgiving. My father, tough Holocaust survivor that he was, became even more closed down as my mother slipped into schizophrenia. Even when things had been less grim, my father's relentless demands that I forget about music and concentrate on getting my grades up in high school made me dig into the opposite position.
The night I told him about my Boston plans, he completely lost it. “You’ll starve on the streets!” he yelled, his face flushed with anger, the arteries in his neck bulging. “And when it happens, don’t come to me for help.”
In response, I dragged my amp and electric guitar down into the clutter of the basement and started playing searing guitar solos at maximum volume. I could barely stand the sound myself, but within seconds I got the reaction I wanted. My father came stomping down the basement stairs and lunged at me, trying to stop the din. I danced out of his grasp, hitting staccato blues notes rapid-fire that came at him like sonic bullets.
He finally yanked the black power cord, and the room became oddly silent except for our labored breathing. He trudged up the stairs without another word, and I, stunned that for the first time we had almost come to blows, quietly determined to leave home as soon as possible.
I chose Boston because it was a place I'd never been, and I heard it had a vibrant music scene. I ruled out New York City because I had many relatives there, mostly Orthodox Jews, whom I might turn to in desperation but who would try to get me to listen to my father. In Boston I had only one sort-of friend: a boy who had graduated from my high school two years earlier, who said I could crash on his couch.
Once in Boston, I noticed an ad in The Globe announcing open orchestra auditions for West Side Story, plus a spot for one electric guitarist. I felt that the part had my name all over it because I’d listened to the soundtrack so many times that I knew I could play it by ear. Never mind that I could barely read music. At the audition I had just enough sight-reading skill to recognize the solo I was asked to perform—after which I played it flawlessly. A couple of weeks later I was notified that I got the gig.
Soon I was sitting in the dark orchestra pit with my Les Paul guitar, Fender amp, and a look of consternation on my face. Surrounded by classical players, I would have felt out of my element anyway, but these were super-achieving Harvard kids who made no effort to disguise their indifference to my presence. But the biggest challenge I faced was simply playing the music in front of me.
The guitar part, in addition to its complex polyrhythms, contained notations written so high up on the staff that they might as well have been a flock of birds flying over it. I tried to figure them out, but when that proved too difficult, I simply started to play what I thought sounded good. I was hoping that the musical director wouldn't bust me, but I never dreamed that Leonard Bernstein, the composer of West Side Story, would begin showing up at rehearsals.
Bernstein was on campus that year to deliver the Norton Lectures, but he also took an interest in the production. To be anywhere near Bernstein was thrilling, but I worried that his legendary ears would surely detect my jerry-rigged approach to his music. Would he call me out—even banish me from the production?
I often saw him talking to the musical director, but several rehearsals had passed and I still had the gig. I wondered if Bernstein was too busy discussing other issues to worry about the guitarist. Or perhaps he just hadn’t gotten around to me yet.
Yet, after two-and-a-half months of rehearsal, I was still there. The musical opened and had a two-week run, playing to full houses and receiving an enthusiastic review in The Globe. Jubilantly, I walked across campus to the cast party following the final performance.
It was a nippy spring night. I reached the hall, its tall, mullioned windows illuminated in the darkness. Scanning the high-ceilinged room, we soon spotted Bernstein, with his silver hair, high cheekbones, and enchanting smile. Despite my lingering anxiety, I could not help but draw closer.
“Marx was right,” Bernstein was saying, his brow furrowed. “Money is the root of all evil!” He then took a vigorous toke from a joint and gazed hard at his interlocutor, a man in a tweed jacket with elbow patches. I was shocked to see Bernstein smoking pot; my image of him from TV’s “Concerts for Young People” instantly evaporated.
“Nonsense,” the tight-lipped man countered. “You of all people must realize that man’s lust and aggression are a product of his own psyche. It’s Freud, not Marx, you should be quoting.”
As the tension between them grew, Bernstein turned and looked at me. To my surprise, he beamed and waved me closer, extending his arm to part the circle of people surrounding him.
“You’re a good guitarist,” he said, offering me a firm handshake.
I felt so relieved that I almost hugged him. Here was the great maestro who had composed the marvelous music I’d loved since early childhood. And he had affirmed my talent, despite my father’s negative messages, despite my difficulties reading music, and despite my scruffy look—jeans and denim jacket—among all the evening gowns and fine suits.
He asked me my name, and wanted to know what I was studying. I told him that I wasn’t in school but had come to Boston to play music. He arched his eyebrow as if wanting to know more, so I told him that besides playing guitar, I also wrote songs.
“What kind of songs?” he asked.
“Impressionistic.”
He cocked his head, intrigued but quizzical.
“What do you mean impressionistic?” His eyes, although bloodshot from the pot and the late hour, were scrutinizing me now with full attention.
I knew that I was using the word in my own particular way and that I might not be using it correctly. I inwardly sighed, regretting that he wasn’t stoned enough to have lost more of his critical faculties.
“Songs that paint pictures of my impressions of life,” I replied in my spaced-out seventeen-year-old way.
He gave a nod, and his eyes flashed. When he put his hand on my shoulder, it felt like a benediction.
I never saw Bernstein again, but every moment of our encounter remains engraved in my mind. I held onto his compliment about my being a good guitarist like a talisman.
Years passed, and in therapy I learned how to tune out my inner critic, born of my father's put-downs and dire predictions. I was also able to shed the dark fearful worldview I'd absorbed from my parents. Eventually I developed compassion for them.
As my life as a musician unfolded, my self-confidence grew with each positive experience I had playing live gigs and studio sessions. Along the way, I realized that my feelings of having been an imposter during those West Side Story days stemmed from a deficiency that didn’t matter outside the classical world. All the producers I worked with were happy to have me infuse my own creativity into the performance. In light of that, Bernstein's compliment seemed all the more precious. He had praised me for the guitar part I'd improvised, not for the part as he’d written it.
When Bernstein passed away in 1990, I was living a busy life as a musician in Los Angeles. My heart gave a tug as I thought of that night we'd met. He had taken the skinny, bedraggled teenager standing in front of him seriously. I felt unmistakably that he was on my side and wanted me to succeed. He was right there with me, and he cared.
© 2018 Mark Klempner.
One Hand, One Heart: Meeting Leonard Bernstein
by Mark Klempner
As the world celebrates Leonard Bernstein’s centennial year, I am reminded of my own encounter with the great composer and conductor. His affirmation of my musical abilities was a vital counterforce to the doubts and insecurities I struggled with as a teenager.
The year was 1973 and I was trying out for the electric guitar part in a Harvard production of West Side Story. Not that I went to Harvard. On the contrary, I was a ragamuffin street singer who busked by day and sang in coffeehouses by night. A few months earlier, I’d abandoned my suburban life in Niskayuna, New York, and run off to Boston to try to be a musician.
In a way, I was fleeing a burning building. My mother was on the verge of a psychotic break, which occurred later that year when I returned home for Thanksgiving. My father, tough Holocaust survivor that he was, became even more closed down as my mother slipped into schizophrenia. Even when things had been less grim, my father's relentless demands that I forget about music and concentrate on getting my grades up in high school made me dig into the opposite position.
The night I told him about my Boston plans, he completely lost it. “You’ll starve on the streets!” he yelled, his face flushed with anger, the arteries in his neck bulging. “And when it happens, don’t come to me for help.”
In response, I dragged my amp and electric guitar down into the clutter of the basement and started playing searing guitar solos at maximum volume. I could barely stand the sound myself, but within seconds I got the reaction I wanted. My father came stomping down the basement stairs and lunged at me, trying to stop the din. I danced out of his grasp, hitting staccato blues notes rapid-fire that came at him like sonic bullets.
He finally yanked the black power cord, and the room became oddly silent except for our labored breathing. He trudged up the stairs without another word, and I, stunned that for the first time we had almost come to blows, quietly determined to leave home as soon as possible.
I chose Boston because it was a place I'd never been, and I heard it had a vibrant music scene. I ruled out New York City because I had many relatives there, mostly Orthodox Jews, whom I might turn to in desperation but who would try to get me to listen to my father. In Boston I had only one sort-of friend: a boy who had graduated from my high school two years earlier, who said I could crash on his couch.
Once in Boston, I noticed an ad in The Globe announcing open orchestra auditions for West Side Story, plus a spot for one electric guitarist. I felt that the part had my name all over it because I’d listened to the soundtrack so many times that I knew I could play it by ear. Never mind that I could barely read music. At the audition I had just enough sight-reading skill to recognize the solo I was asked to perform—after which I played it flawlessly. A couple of weeks later I was notified that I got the gig.
Soon I was sitting in the dark orchestra pit with my Les Paul guitar, Fender amp, and a look of consternation on my face. Surrounded by classical players, I would have felt out of my element anyway, but these were super-achieving Harvard kids who made no effort to disguise their indifference to my presence. But the biggest challenge I faced was simply playing the music in front of me.
The guitar part, in addition to its complex polyrhythms, contained notations written so high up on the staff that they might as well have been a flock of birds flying over it. I tried to figure them out, but when that proved too difficult, I simply started to play what I thought sounded good. I was hoping that the musical director wouldn't bust me, but I never dreamed that Leonard Bernstein, the composer of West Side Story, would begin showing up at rehearsals.
Bernstein was on campus that year to deliver the Norton Lectures, but he also took an interest in the production. To be anywhere near Bernstein was thrilling, but I worried that his legendary ears would surely detect my jerry-rigged approach to his music. Would he call me out—even banish me from the production?
I often saw him talking to the musical director, but several rehearsals had passed and I still had the gig. I wondered if Bernstein was too busy discussing other issues to worry about the guitarist. Or perhaps he just hadn’t gotten around to me yet.
Yet, after two-and-a-half months of rehearsal, I was still there. The musical opened and had a two-week run, playing to full houses and receiving an enthusiastic review in The Globe. Jubilantly, I walked across campus to the cast party following the final performance.
It was a nippy spring night. I reached the hall, its tall, mullioned windows illuminated in the darkness. Scanning the high-ceilinged room, we soon spotted Bernstein, with his silver hair, high cheekbones, and enchanting smile. Despite my lingering anxiety, I could not help but draw closer.
“Marx was right,” Bernstein was saying, his brow furrowed. “Money is the root of all evil!” He then took a vigorous toke from a joint and gazed hard at his interlocutor, a man in a tweed jacket with elbow patches. I was shocked to see Bernstein smoking pot; my image of him from TV’s “Concerts for Young People” instantly evaporated.
“Nonsense,” the tight-lipped man countered. “You of all people must realize that man’s lust and aggression are a product of his own psyche. It’s Freud, not Marx, you should be quoting.”
As the tension between them grew, Bernstein turned and looked at me. To my surprise, he beamed and waved me closer, extending his arm to part the circle of people surrounding him.
“You’re a good guitarist,” he said, offering me a firm handshake.
I felt so relieved that I almost hugged him. Here was the great maestro who had composed the marvelous music I’d loved since early childhood. And he had affirmed my talent, despite my father’s negative messages, despite my difficulties reading music, and despite my scruffy look—jeans and denim jacket—among all the evening gowns and fine suits.
He asked me my name, and wanted to know what I was studying. I told him that I wasn’t in school but had come to Boston to play music. He arched his eyebrow as if wanting to know more, so I told him that besides playing guitar, I also wrote songs.
“What kind of songs?” he asked.
“Impressionistic.”
He cocked his head, intrigued but quizzical.
“What do you mean impressionistic?” His eyes, although bloodshot from the pot and the late hour, were scrutinizing me now with full attention.
I knew that I was using the word in my own particular way and that I might not be using it correctly. I inwardly sighed, regretting that he wasn’t stoned enough to have lost more of his critical faculties.
“Songs that paint pictures of my impressions of life,” I replied in my spaced-out seventeen-year-old way.
He gave a nod, and his eyes flashed. When he put his hand on my shoulder, it felt like a benediction.
I never saw Bernstein again, but every moment of our encounter remains engraved in my mind. I held onto his compliment about my being a good guitarist like a talisman.
Years passed, and in therapy I learned how to tune out my inner critic, born of my father's put-downs and dire predictions. I was also able to shed the dark fearful worldview I'd absorbed from my parents. Eventually I developed compassion for them.
As my life as a musician unfolded, my self-confidence grew with each positive experience I had playing live gigs and studio sessions. Along the way, I realized that my feelings of having been an imposter during those West Side Story days stemmed from a deficiency that didn’t matter outside the classical world. All the producers I worked with were happy to have me infuse my own creativity into the performance. In light of that, Bernstein's compliment seemed all the more precious. He had praised me for the guitar part I'd improvised, not for the part as he’d written it.
When Bernstein passed away in 1990, I was living a busy life as a musician in Los Angeles. My heart gave a tug as I thought of that night we'd met. He had taken the skinny, bedraggled teenager standing in front of him seriously. I felt unmistakably that he was on my side and wanted me to succeed. He was right there with me, and he cared.
© 2018 Mark Klempner.
