continued…

The evening of the performance arrived and with it a wonderful spectacle. An auditorium packed to the rafters (not an easy task considering this place didn’t even have a balcony) with parents and relatives armed with video cameras. Hundreds of kiddies on the stage yelling, dancing, running around whopping it up and in general having the time of their lives. In the middle of this seething but benevolent chaos, down in front of the stage (where an orchestra pit would be) were two musicians: an elementary school music teacher playing piano and our previously mentioned jazz guitar playing hero. Our hero/good natured guy was dressed as every serious student and player of serious jazz was, is and will ever be: black slacks, black turtleneck sweater, black socks and shoes and dark tweed sports jacket. He had his enormous sunburst hollow bodied Gibson on his lap, a ton of sheet music on his stand and a lifetime of information about amazing, complicated and beautiful music in his brain. That last item is in my book the most crucial, however, as is the case in most gigs that a musician will land completely useless when you are running through a verse and chorus of things like “Let’s Do The Twist”, “Staying Alive”, “Hey Now, You’re An All-Star”, etc. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have anything against bad music. There is quite a bit of bad music that I personally enjoy as light entertainment. All I’m saying is that it is, in fact, bad music.

All throughout the performance these two tried valiantly to keep a difficult balance between proper tempo and wherever the majority of the kiddies happened to be in the song. In general they did a great job. As did the children, even though the vast majority of the music, styles, fashions and culture existed decades before they were born. Children are wonderful mimics and can usually imitate the essential crux of anything relatively simple quite effectively. I only have three complaints to make about the whole affair.

The first is that even though this was a tribute (parody?) of American Pop someone slid “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” in the middle there. Weren’t the Beatles from England? The second is that Van Halen was not represented by one single song. That is just personal bias so we’ll let it go. The third and final complaint is much more serious and brings me to my thesis.

In the middle of the show there was a rendition of the title song from the musical “Hair”. It was the only piece that got more than a verse and chorus or two. In fact it went on for six or seven minutes. Maybe longer. Watching little children with ragged bell bottoms and unkempt wigs writhe and wiggle around imitating late sixties hippies was not enjoyable in the least. “Hair” might not be the worst musical ever produced. Let’s at least say it is the worst well-known musical ever produced. At the end of the piece a man standing next to me in the back standing room only section said to his lady friend, “Wasn’t that cute?” She quickly agreed that it was certainly one of the cutest things she ever saw.