Bolling with Words

Jan 12, 2024

I had a very short career as a piano teacher. Back in the late nineties, I taught one little neighborhood kid how to make major and minor chords. Major chords are made on the 1st, 3rd and 5th tone of the scale. I told him that major often feels happy. Lower the 3rd one-half step and you get the minor. SAD. After I showed him this secret of the universe, I suggested a game. He should play a chord and I would start a story, changing it to happy or sad, depending on what he played. He started with C major. C-E-G. I began a happy story about a boy who lived in a very nice house in a (chord change) rather rundown neighborhood where rats ran around even during the day. Garbage was everywhere… (chord change) but who cared! the kid had his favorite bike and he could go wherever he wanted (chord change) except his tires were flat!!…and on and on like that. He was in MUSICAL HEAVEN, I showed him a different chord he could get if he raised the 5th of a 1-3-5 major chord one half step (you still with me?) he’d get something different. I played him the new chord: C-E-G#. He immediately said, it sounds like a question. You betcha! Genius little fella.

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We had a blast for a few months, then he went on to other conquests and I hung up my ruse of being a piano teacher.

Shortly before that, I had another student. I went to her lovely house and we had a fine time. But this is the story of the piece of music that was sitting on her piano. Claude Bolling’s Suite #1 for Flute. I’d heard of that but not much more.

I played the music, bought the CD - a lovely mixture of classical and jazz, listened to composer, Claude Bolling and flautist, Pierre Rampal.

Here, they play La Javanaise:

Now, it so happens, I was also listening to a bit of Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, the virtuoso vocal jazz trio. Incredibly complex lyrics and story lines.

Those two trains collided for me and I thought, I’m going to write lyrics for Claude’s suite!

There are five movements: Baroque and Blue, Sentimentale, Javanaise, Irlandaise, Versatile and Fugace. I wrote lyrics for 4 movements - including french wherever it worked. Fugace flies by a bit too fast for words!

When I finished, I couldn’t think of who to tell…except Claude Bolling. I figured he should record it. A dear friend encouraged me at every step, gave me the courage to press on. I wrote to him to tell him about the project. I forget the details of the trip to Paris, but I do remember taking the train out to Claude’s house, my lyrics tucked under me arm. His wife greeted me at the door and directed me downstairs to Claude in his music studio.

He told me to play it for him. I said Oh I can’t play it, you play. He made apologies, saying he hadn’t played it in a long while, but I’m happy to report, he did just fine. I sang through the whole thing. His first question afterwards was, What’s a bassinette?

He told me he had been planning such a project. He loved what I had done, but in the end, he passed on my version. (He did however, tell me how much he loved Lettres de Paris, along with highest compliment from a french person, that it sounded like the work of a native. Merci, monsieur.

Back home, I thought, well what am I going to do about all this? Another dear friend and generous benefactor stepped in to help. I lined up the august members of The Boston Pops Orchestra to record it with me. Really? The Boston Pops? What was I thinking?? I hardly belonged in such an amazing group of musicians. We recorded in an amazing space - a huge Masonic Hall in Roslindale.

Bob Winter, piano; Fenwick Smith, flute; Fred Buda, drums

Here’s what we came up with.

Baroque and Blue

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