One of the benefits to being near this cultural hub was that my early exposure to jazz included some transformational experiences that have had an impact on my entire musical career. Sometime between attending the two concerts that I wrote about in my Summer in Central Park Brings Memories of Great Music blog post, a friend of mine introduced me to the music of the Dave Brubeck Quartet.

In addition to sharing some of his Brubeck LPs with me, he and his father invited me to attend one of the Quartet’s concerts held at Lincoln Center during the ensemble’s Take Five heyday period. Needless to say, as an impressionable young pianist, I was blown away by the performance.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that Brubeck (often with long-time partner saxophonist Paul Desmond) had an extensive discography that featured interpretations of the standards of the American Popular Songbook. Even though two of my three Brubeck records fit into this category, it was only much later that I realized how important this contribution was.

Sometimes my students can get frustrated because they have some trouble understanding an important musical concept. The more they learn, the more they realize how much more there is to learn. I always encourage them to persevere. Experience has taught me that the longer you stay on the path to musical growth, the more things begin to make sense.

And so here I sit writing this article to conclude my Beguine blog post series with the Rodgers and Hart classic This Can’t Be Love as the featured selection. It’s been more than four decades since I first heard the song on the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s Bossa Nova USA recording. If you’re curious, the track is available on Amazon.com.

The impact of this early inspiration remains imprinted in my musical memory. To transform the Brubeck Bossa nova arrangement into a beguine bass accompaniment for my recording for today’s post only took a minor adjustment. So my advice to all of you piano students is to “take heart, eventually the pieces of your musical puzzle will create a colorful picture!”

One of my long-time adult students once told me that his motivation for taking piano lessons year after year has been his enjoyment of the process of musical growth. He finds that it also fuels his energy for his extensive explorations with creative photography.

Composer Richard Rodgers spent the first half of his career in partnership with lyricist Lorenz Hart on thirty musicals from 1919 until 1943. Nineteen years after their Broadway beginning, This Can’t Be Love was composed in 1938 for the show The Boys from Syracuse. It ranks as one of the team’s most popular songs. Like Cole Porter, the composer was far from being an overnight success. Then, rather than give up or simply live on his reputation after Hart died in 1943, Rodgers continued to evolve and grow.

His work changed and developed in his 17 year collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein II. Although his track record of popular success was less distinguished after Hammerstein’s death in 1960, Richard Rodgers remained dedicated to his own process of musical growth until his illness and subsequent death in 1977.

As we prepare for the holiday season and bid goodbye to the beguine blog series, I hope that those of you who play the piano will be encouraged to continue to grow and develop your musical skills and knowledge. If you are taking lessons, please be assured that all of us who are professional pianists have faced the same challenges that you face. There is a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment that comes as you pursue your piano playing proficiency.

That being said, you don’t have to try to make the journey on your own. Taking piano lessons can make your learning process simpler, shorter and certainly more successful. Our Instructors at the Ed Mascari Piano Studio are dedicated to guiding you along the way to better piano playing sooner than you think. Contact us today to find out how you can get started with your piano lessons.

Whether you come for your lessons to our convenient Natick studio location or to our centrally situated Hudson Studio in the historic Oddfellows Hall, you can be assured that our piano instructors will be delighted and dedicated to helping you Learn to Play the Music You Love!

After bringing the CDs with me each week to return to him, I finally gave up and left them home.  I never saw him again because apparently he was assigned to another property by the company. Several months later he stopped in at the hotel for a social visit, and he told me to keep the CDs. I was certainly glad about this, because one of them turned out to be a fantastic gift!

Simply called 25, this recording features several solo piano / vocal tracks which showcase the talents of this wonderful musician. Today, more than twenty years later, one of my favorite tracks on the CD is Tangerine. For some reason, the tune never caught my attention during my initial period of introduction to the standards. Yet, ever since hearing Harry’s version, it’s been one of my favorites.

As with so many of the other great pieces from the American Popular Songbook, Tangerine can be played in a variety of ways while still retaining its identity. As the sixth selection in my beguine blog post series, I’ve recorded the tune with a beguine bass that works perfectly!

Rhapsody Music service offers a percentage of tracks that feature Latin rhythm renditions of Tangerine. One of the artists who excel in this area is jazz pianist/vocalist Eliane Elias. A native of Brazil who had studied with composer Antonio Carlos Jobim, Ms Elias combines her unique blend of American jazz with her Bossa nova background to present two different inspirational interpretations of Tangerine.

Another more subtle and somewhat more sensitive spin on Tangerine maintains the Latin rhythm as well. This North Star Jazz Ensemble track features the talents of drummer Paul Mason. Mr. Mason, who directs this Rhode Island based group, was a personal friend and musical colleague during our years as undergraduate students at Holy Cross College.

In addition to the swing versions of Tangerine that are included on the track list, there was a unique and catchy performance by one of Harry Connick, Jr.’s fellow New Orleans musicians. Pianist Dr. John takes Tangerine through a series of foot-tapping piano improvisations above his funky rhythm section.

I suppose it’s particularly apropos that Tangerine was introduced to the American public in the 1942 film, The Fleet’s In. My oldest grandson, Jay, was born during the time that I received the Harry Connick, Jr. 25 CD. Jay is currently serving in the United States Navy, and we expect his fleet to be in soon since he is planning to be home during the Christmas holidays.

The song’s composer Victor Schertzinger (1888 – 1941) was a songwriter as well as a film director, film producer and screen writer. The Fleet’s In was not only his final film, but it also featured his two best known songs, I Remember You and Tangerine. Perhaps, at least in part, the success of these two songs had to do with the fact that the lyrics were provided by Johnny Mercer (1909 – 1976). In fact, the words to I Remember You were (according to Mercer) a specific expression of his feelings for 19 year-old Judy Garland with whom he had just had an affair.

All in all, I would have to say that playing Tangerine with the beguine bass is a lot of fun. As you probably know by now, I truly enjoy taking advantage of the II -V- I chord progressions that are woven into the fabric of so many great standards. Tangerine is no exception. This song not only makes continual use of the II -V- I chord progressions from its tonic key of F Major
(Gm7-C7-F Major 7^th), it also includes several other II -V chord progressions.

As I showed in the musical examples that are part of my How I Began My Beguine blog post, the beguine bass works beautifully with II -V and II -V- I chord progressions. As a result, Tangerine serves as a terrific vehicle for my solo piano stylings.

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Have I sparked your interest?
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When I was 39, I returned to school to work on my Master of Music degree at New England Conservatory. An important part of my graduate work for the two Masters degrees (Jazz Studies and Classical Composition) that I subsequently received from NEC was the four year period that I studied privately with William Thomas McKinley. It was as a result of these lessons that I began to discover the connection between the standards from the American Popular Songbook and the concert music (classical music) that I came to know and love.

Although most 20^th century composers focused on writing either concert music or popular songs, there were a few who achieved notoriety in both genres. George Gershwin‘s concert music compositions, e.g. Preludes and Rhapsody in Blue, came after the writing of his sensational songs. On the flip side of this, there were three European composers who later became famous in the USA by making the transition from writing classical music to composing American popular songs.

I’ve written about each of them in my previous blog posts: Josef Myrow Autumn Nocturne, Vernon Duke Autumn in New York and Kurt Weill September Song. Five years after composing September Song, Weill wrote this week’s song Speak Low as part of the musical score he composed for the Broadway show, One Touch of Venus.

As I mentioned in last week’s blog post that featured Cole Porter’s What Is This Thing Called Love?, the composer was far from being an overnight success. The same can be said of Kurt Weill. In 1935, after more than a decade of being a successful composer of concert music in Germany, Weill immigrated to the United States, married actress/vocalist Lotte Lenya, took up residence in New York City and began to study the compositional components of American popular song and stage music.

Piano students take heed…..

Once again, we have an example of a knowledgeable, experienced and successful professional musician who continued his musical growth by studying and learning. Weill wanted to be authentic. He wanted to write his music with integrity. In fact, Weill insisted on writing all of the music for the scores of his musicals. Not only was this commitment unique among his contemporaries, it’s still unusual today.

It may surprise you to know that even John Williams does not orchestrate all of his wonderful film music. In Hollywood, professional orchestrators are hired to create the full score that the orchestra actually plays for a movie by expanding the composer’s condensed score to include parts for all the instruments..

Three years after making the major life and career change, September Song debuted as part of Knickerbocker Holiday.  But it was another five years before Kurt Weill composed Speak Low. The concept of overnight success could not have possibly crossed the composer’s mind!

Speak Low is often performed as a swing tune, occasionally as a ballad as well as a piece in Latin rhythm (although the bridge sometimes switches to swing rhythm). As I mentioned in last week’s blog, I wanted to continue my beguine blog series by following the four songs by Cole Porter with standards by other composers. In keeping with this focus, I used the beguine bass throughout my performance of Speak Low.

As I prepared for writing this post, I listened to a variety if interpretations of Speak Low on Rhapsody Music. I found it gratifying to hear how many performers opted for the Latin rhythmic flavor for their renditions of this great standard. This made for inspiration of the first order, because even within the Latin genre, there were a variety of tempos being explored. Since each speed suggests stylistic shifts, Speak Low provided plenty of room for the artistic voices to speak.

In fact, that is precisely what we at the Ed Mascari Piano Studio believe. We encourage and teach all of our students to develop their piano playing skills and musical knowledge in such a way that they can play the songs they like in the way that that like to play them.

As with Kurt Weill, there’s always something to learn. Perhaps you love piano music and have always wanted to play, but didn’t know how to get started. Contact us today and we’ll show you how.

Whether you live near our Natick or our Hudson Piano Studio location, we at the Ed Mascari Piano Studio are dedicated to giving you the tools, techniques and even some tricks to help you Learn to Play the Music You Love!

In his book, Now Discover Your Strengths, author Marcus Buckingham cites Cole Porter as one of his excellent examples. He uses the composer to illustrate how a well-known person took advantage of his strengths rather than focused on his weaknesses. He stated that Cole Porter focused on composing great songs. Because these were so strong, the composer was able to compensate for his somewhat weak characters and plots that made up his Broadway shows.

As I’ve mentioned many times, I learn a great deal from my students. Knowing that one of my Hudson adult students is a director, actress, teacher and vocalist, I asked her if Marcus Buckingham’s assessment of Cole Porter’s song writing strength verses his show writing weakness had any validity to it. After thinking about it for a moment, she confirmed the author’s assessment.

Knowing this about Cole Porter’s songs, we can see how What Is This Thing Called Love? played a big part in the composer’s success. He returned from Paris and reintroduced his music to Broadway in 1928. Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall in Love), You Do Something To Me, What Is This Thing Called Love? and Love For Sale are the four songs that preceded popularity of the composer’s 1932 signature song, Night and Day.  ”Not too shabby”, as they say. All five of these songs are still played, recorded and enjoyed today.

In the process of teaching my students how to play songs from the American Popular Songbook, I have often shared a particular observation with them. Most of these standards share several similarities: they are 32 measures long, they use only a few specific structures and they employ the wonderfully rich ii-V-I chord progressions for their harmonic language. There is one more factor which unifies this material. The composers worked with a variety of lyricists throughout their careers.

Like Irving Berlin before him, Cole Porter wrote both the music and lyrics for his songs. I make it a point of identifying this fact to a student as he begins to work on one of this composer’s pieces. The reason for this is that the length, structures and even some of the chord progressions often differ to some degree from those of his contemporaries. For example, Beguine the Beguine has 108 measures and I’ve Got You Under My Skin has 56 measures.

Although What Is This Thing Called Love? is 32 measures long and follows the customary A-A-B-A (verse-verse-bridge-verse) form, the composer challenges the piano student to accept the fact that this song is in the key of C Major (no sharps and no flats). Beginning with the first note of the song, the melody surprises you with a B flat, soon followed by an A flat and later by an E flat. Even though all three verses resolve to the tonic (home) key of C Major, Cole Porter’s mastery was already manifesting itself less than two years after his return to Broadway.

As I’ve mentioned many times, I listen to many versions of the featured song as part of my preparation for each blog post. Despite the fact I enjoyed the many jazz versions of What Is This Thing Called Love? I was surprised by the fact that only a couple of the performances took advantage of this standard’s possibilities when played with a Latin rhythm.

I hope you will enjoy my beguine rhythm recording of What Is This Thing Called Love? I’ll return to the music of Cole Porter after the holidays. So if you have any particular favorites by this wonderful composer, please leave the song titles in the comment box below this post. In the meantime, I’ll finish out the month of November with three more beguine blog posts. But this time, the selections will come from the works of Kurt Weill, Johnny Mercer and Rodgers & Hart.

As you probably know by now, whether I am writing a blog post, recording a standard or creating a music theory lesson for my website Music Theory pages, I want to help you understand how music works so you can enjoy it even more.

There’s always something to learn. Perhaps you love piano music and have always wanted to play, but didn’t know how to get started. Contact us today and we’ll show you how.

Whether you live near our Natick or our Hudson Piano Studio location, we at the Ed Mascari Piano Studio are dedicated to giving you the tools, techniques and even some tricks to help you Learn to Play the Music You Love!

Nothing could be further from the truth. Cole Porter had returned from Paris to re-introduce his music to New York audiences four years earlier, but it took the composer even more time to build up to this success.

Sometimes my students will ask me how long it will take for them to feel totally confident with their piano playing. Of course, the answer to that question can vary widely with each individual. Nevertheless, it’s difficult for aspiring piano students at any age to grasp the concept of the time required to develop musical maturity.

Believe me, I was no different. When I made the mid-career shift from ensemble keyboardist and jazz organist to solo pianist, I naively thought that making the change was simply a matter of switching performance vehicles. Boy was I wrong! In fact as I recall, it took the first five years of my 14 year solo piano gig at the Radisson Milford Hotel before I achieved the level of confidence that I had been working toward with the solo piano genre. Make no mistake though; I still had plenty to learn then. Today, I understand and appreciate the fact that musical growth is a life-long learning experience.

Returning to Night and Day, think about the fact that Cole Porter’s most popular standard premiered 17 years after his Broadway failure and emigration to Paris. It was after many hours of practice, experience, ups and downs that Night and Day became a hit for the composer. So I hope you realize that even though Night and Day has a legacy of nearly 80 years, the composer was anything but an overnight success. The fact is, that it takes a considerable length of time for even the most talented and famous musicians to achieve greatness.

After Fred Astaire‘s premiere recording of Night and Day in 1932, a great variety of performing artists from Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald to Ringo Starr and Rod Stuart have continued to contribute their own interpretations to our extensive listening library. Although most jazz musicians tend to play Night and Day as a swing tune, there was one notable exception that particularly inspired me.

As I have mentioned in my Bossa Nova blog post series as well as in my recent Beguine blog articles, the way jazz musicians in the 1960s began to incorporate Latin rhythms and songs into their repertoires had a tremendous impact on my own piano playing.

Although I have performed Night and Day over the years as a swing tune, when I decided to record it for this Beguine blog post series, I immediately recalled the rendition recorded by Sergio Mendes and Brazil ’66 nearly 30 years ago. With the Latin rhythms in my inner musical ear and the review of the track on Rhapsody Music (which I listened to several times), I was ready to record my solo piano version to go with this post.

The first beguine bass pattern that I presented in How I Began My Beguine works beautifully for Night and Day. The reason for this is that almost every one of the song’s 32 measures has only one chord. By simply following the pattern Root – 5^th- 5^th- 5^th (an octave below), the Latin rhythm accompaniment falls right into place.

As I often tell my students, the best way to make your piano playing work effectively, is to keep your left hand accompaniment solid and steady. Once this foundation is established, you can play the melody with the right hand with the freedom to embellish, vary and personalize your version of the song. This principle turns the average person’s logic upside down. But all you have to do is think about how Sinatra could swing when he sang the standards on his recordings with the Count Basie Band.

Whether you want to learn how to play one of your favorite songs with the beguine bass, get your children started with piano lessons while they’re still young or achieve your life-long dream of learning to play the piano, the piano teachers at the Ed Mascari Piano Studio can provide you with patient and encouraging instruction.

Whether you take lessons at our convenient Natick Studio location or at our Hudson Piano Studio centrally located on the Hudson Rotary, you can be confident that we are always delighted to help you Learn to Play the Music You Love!

As I discovered long ago with my own musical development, becoming comfortable with a new accompaniment style is not always easy to learn. Perhaps this is why I teach the way I do. It’s also why I am so passionate about guiding the Ed Mascari Piano Studio faculty members in the use of my teaching method. By finding ways to simplify the skill of playing songs on the piano, we focus on helping each student learn how to make use of a particular accompaniment style.

Enter the first of our two featured selections, I Love Paris…..

As soon as I introduce a student to the elements of the beguine bass, I then show him how to play Cole Porter’s I Love Paris with the beguine bass accompaniment. Because the melody of this standard is short and rhythmically simple, it provides an excellent contrast for the syncopated rhythm of the accompaniment.

My students get an additional benefit from beginning their beguine with I Love Paris. There is thematic unity between the two sections of this piece. This makes it easier to learn. However, there is something else which provides the song’s colorful contrast. Cole Porter takes advantage of the differences between the key of C minor and its parallel major, C Major.

Not only does the listener get to hear the melody played in the happy sounding key of C major, she also can hear its character change when the melody and associated chords come from the parallel somber sounding key of c minor.  Basically, using of this idea of alternating between the minor and major keys, the pianist can take advantage of the fact that the letter names (and thus the hand position) are the same for both the minor key and its parallel major. Notice that it’s only the change in accidentals (flats) that is needed to create this contrast between the first half and second half of I Love Paris.

You can see this contrast in Example No. 1 in C minor, (Listen)

and then in Example No. 2 in C major… (Listen)

The Summer Knows is another great song that makes excellent use of the minor key and its parallel major key. You can hear my recording of this piece as well as read what I said about this concept in my Summer Knows blog post.

When I found out that Cole Porter composed I Love Paris in 1953, it really caught me by surprise since it had been a quarter of a century since the composer had decided to return to Broadway where his music finally met with success in America. He had immigrated to Paris after the failure of his first Broadway production in 1916. In addition to earning a living as a successful song writer, Porter’s years in Paris also included his marriage to Linda Lee Thomas, his European travels as well as a great deal of socializing. Among the highlights was the opportunity to show Richard Rodgers several of his songs.

Perhaps it was for the same reasons that Cole Porter’s music made an impression on Richard Rodgers, that I became drawn to many of his songs. I can’t even begin to remember when I started playing I Love Paris in a medley with I’ve Got You Under My Skin. But once I began my beguine, I ended up putting many of Cole Porter’s songs together in medleys.

A word about the term medley…

Something that I had to learn when I first started playing G.B. gigs was how to link songs together. Often when I suggest to a student that she put two songs together by having one segue immediately into the other song, she seems bewildered.

I guess that since being able to play songs in medleys is a job requirement for the professional pianist, I’m always looking for opportunities to link songs together. However, I need to constantly remind myself that finding the common ground between two or more songs and playing them in a medley is a new idea for many piano students.

Ironically, when I automatically followed I Love Paris with I’ve Got You Under My Skin, the Cole Porter song segue evolved naturally because I was using the beguine rhythm that I began after hearing Jimmy Lyon play Begin the Beguine.

When you listen to my recording of the I Love Paris / I’ve Got You Under My Skin medley, think about other possible songs that you could put together in medleys.

You may need some help in this area. Perhaps you would like to organize the music from your favorite Broadway show into a medley. As an alternative, you may want to create a set of songs by a single composer. Whatever help you need with your piano playing, remember….

The Ed  Mascari Piano Studio instructors will be delighted to help you Learn to Play the Music You Love!

After being captivated by the rhythmic accompaniments I heard, I found a way to imitate these types of Latin bass lines that worked for my solo piano playing. My approach to playing these bass parts with my left hand also worked very well on the Hammond B-3 organ which I played in various jazz and commercial groups.

Although I continued to use these rhythmically flavored bass parts for several years, something happened during the mid-1980s that totally changed my approach to playing left hand Latin bass.

Here’s what happened…..

I had a six month solo piano engagement at the Sheraton Boston Hotel. Since the gig ended at 11:00 PM, I was able to walk over to the Copley Plaza Hotel a couple of nights per week after I finished work. The featured performer during that era was solo pianist Dave McKenna, and I was often able to catch his last two sets.

There were many things that I learned from watching and listening to Dave play. I’ve shared these with my students over the years and will tell you all about them on another occasion.

Ironically, despite the fact that my frequent exposure to Dave McKenna’s solo piano work had a tremendous impact on my own playing as well as teaching, my “aha” moment came while he was out on tour.

When Mr. McKenna was away, the Copley Plaza’s grand piano was played by a variety of wonderful well-known pianists. And it was during one of these weeks, that I encountered the pianist who was to transform my left hand Latin bass rhythmic accompaniments forever.

Pianist James Frederick “Jimmy” Lyon (1921-1984) was known for his work as Mabel Mercer‘s accompanist to the wider public. However, for those in the “Big Apple”, Jimmy Lyon was the pianist in Peacock Alley at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. According a 1981 article written by journalist Lillian Ross in the New Yorker magazine, Mr. Lyon had a huge repertoire of songs which he could recall and instantly arrange at a moment’s notice.

Jimmy Lyon also had another distinction. He owned and performed on Cole Porter’s Steinway grand piano. The composer had lived at the Waldorf for the last 25 years of his life. Needless to say Jimmy Lyon became recognized not only through this association but also as a unique interpreter of Cole Porter’s songs.

And so on that fateful night yours truly entered the Copley Plaza bar and heard Jimmy Lyon playing Cole Porter’s Begin the Beguine.

That’s How I Began My Beguine…..

Something simply hit me about the way Jimmy Lyon was playing the left hand bass. I have no recollection of how and when I actually figured out how to use what I had heard. However, I eventually settled on what have since called the beguine bass. You can see the rhythms and chord tones that I use in the musical examples included in today’s post.

Example No. 1 shows the approach for songs that have ii – V progressions spread out into two measures. The pattern for each chord is always Root – 5^th – 5^th – 5^th one octave lower. Listen

Example No. 2 illustrates how the ii – V progressions work when each chord is two beats:
Root of the ii chord - Root of the V chord – Root of the V chord – Root of the V chord one octave lower. Listen

Finding ways to help my piano students keep rhythmic accompaniments going in the left hand part while playing the melody of a song with the right hand is often a challenge. The beguine bass continues to be one of the most reliable and consistent tools that I use to help my students keep their piano playing flowing, rhythmic and upbeat.

Not only have my piano students successfully used the beguine bass with Bossa novas, they have also used it for their arrangements of songs such as Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Can You Feel the Love Tonight?, Besame Mucho, When You Wish Upon a Star, A Day in the Life of a Fool, as well as a number of songs by Cole Porter.

In honor of pianist Jimmy Lyon, today’s audio track is Begin the Beguine. You’ll hear how I used the beguine bass in my playing of this great Cole Porter standard. In the coming weeks, my blog series will continue to focus on the music of Cole Porter. You’ll hear the beguine bass used in a variety of songs by one of the quintessential composers of the American Popular Songbook.

If you would like to learn how to play Begin the Beguine or any other Cole Porter song, or simply want to use the beguine bass to accompany another of your favorite songs, contact us today to find out all about piano lessons. The instructors at the Ed Mascari Piano Studio are always delighted to help you Learn to Play the Music You Love.