piano

Milk or meat? For modern cattle ranchers, the answer may be both

Texas is moving quickly toward primary day – but where are the debates? Why there’s been a decline in an election institution.

What the families of Uvalde victims are expecting as a grand jury examines law enforcement’s response to the Robb Elementary shooting.

Why Collin County seems to be playing an outsized role in Texas politics right now.

On Texas ranches, you’ve got dairy cows and bovine raised for beef. But the distinctions may be blurring. We’ll hear about a different sort of “cattle crossing.”

And concerns about the bestselling video game “Palworld,” which looks like “Pokémon” but plays like something much more grim.

What Texans think lawmakers should prioritize this legislative session

Texans say the border should be the top priority for the state Legislature this session, according to a new poll. We’ll dig into the results.

Questions about how the Center for Law and Human Behavior at the University of Texas at El Paso selected two Border Patrol agents for fellowships.

Taco expert Mando Rayo talks about his favorite traditional mom-and-pop eateries across the Lone Star State.

Piano music fills the air as El Paso hosts the Borderland Chopin festival spotlighting the beloved composer.

Texas Standard: June 13, 2022

Less than democrats hoped for but more than they expected, that’s how a new bipartisan gun safety deal, led in part by Texas Senator John Cornyn, is being characterized by some. We’ll hear what’s in it and what isn’t. Also, the tight market for homes in Austin and elsewhere in Texas; would-be homebuyers might be surprised what they’re up against. Those stories and more today on the Texas Standard:

Texas Standard: March 11, 2022

Governor Abbot’s orders to investigate parents proving gender affirming care for transgender kids. We’ll have more on the legal fight. Plus the fight to win popular support: a University of Texas propaganda researcher war being fought over Ukraine, and how to tell fact from fiction. Also, how the conflict is putting pressure on a prestigious Texas based music competition. And Texas is a leader in renewable energy. The problem? How to store it. San Antonio buys in to a novel solution that borrows from lessons learned in fracking. And the passing of Willie Nelson’s longest running music partner, his sister Bobbie. Those stories and much more today on the Texas Standard:

Rich Harney

How does the sudden loss of a central figure change the local music community? How does the community deal with that loss?

In this installment of Liner Notes with Rabbi and jazz historian Neil Blumofe, we learn about the life and career of Austin jazz pianist Rich Harney who passed away on Jan. 5, 2020.

 

 

Mal Waldron

Arranger, composer and pianist Malcolm “Mal” Waldron played in a number of big bands and fronted his own before a drug overdose left him unable to play or remember music. As he regained his technique through listening to his own records, Waldron began a second leg of his career with a decidedly different sound than the first. In this edition of Liner Notes, jazz historian and Rabbi Neil Blumofe recalls Mal Waldron, his struggle with addiction, and how he interpolated his former style.

Higher Ed: Navigating a Math-y Career Pivot

A listener wrote in to “Higher Ed” about his decision to pursue a Ph.D. in pure mathematics after studying classical piano performance and working as a pianist. In this episode of KUT’s podcast Higher Ed, KUT’s Jennifer Stayton and Southwestern University President Dr. Ed Burger discuss becoming a mathematician later in life and the joys and challenges of making a career shift. Focus, passion and commitment. Those are some of the qualities Ed says are necessary to successfully pull off a career pivot to mathematician – or to pursuing any new field. As a matter of fact, Ed says “talent is secondary to commitment” when making this kind of change. Preparing for a job interview for a new job? This week’s puzzler could help. It’s a “classic” that actually gets asked in some job interviews.

This episode was recorded Aug. 10, 2017.

The One Musician To Get A Ticker Tape Parade Was A Texan

New York City has held over 200 ticker-tape parades since the first one in 1886, which honored the Statue of Liberty. Lindbergh got a ticker-tape parade for his solo transatlantic flight. Jesse Owens was celebrated for his 4 gold medals with a parade in 1936. Churchill had a blizzard of ticker tape float down on him in 1946. The Apollo 11 moon landing team received a hero’s welcome in ticker-tape in 1969. Of all the people and professions honored in this way over 130 years, only one has been a musician.

You might be thinking: Elvis Presley – “Suspicious Minds” but no, Elvis never got a parade. Or maybe you are thinking Michael Jackson – “Billie Jean”, but no, Michael Jackson never received that honor either. You need to think in a more classical way.

The only musician ever to return to America as a kind of conquering hero was Harvey Lavan “Van” Cliburn, Jr., a tall, lanky Texan from Kilgore. In 1958, he managed to pull back the iron curtain and thaw the cold war for a few magical weeks. And he didn’t do with a Springfield Rifle or a Sherman tank: he did with a Steinway.

Nigel Cliff, Van Cliburn’s biographer, says that his genius revealed itself early. His mom, Rildia Bee, quite an accomplished pianist herself, taught piano at home. She had just finished with her last pupil of the day and left young Van sitting with him while he practiced his Chopin before going home. She went to fix supper. After fifteen minutes she heard the young student still playing and went back to hurry him home. She was surprised to find 3-year-old Van there playing Chopin by ear. So his mom immediately made him one of her students.

At ten, Van told his mom and dad that his dream was to become a classical pianist. His father said, “Well if you are going to be a pianist, you’re going to be the best.” He built a music room onto their ranch-style home’s garage and furnished it with a Steinway. There, Van Cliburn practiced three to four hours a day and by the time he was 16, he had amassed the ten thousand hours they say is required to turn aptitude into artistry.

Van did have distractions along the way. As he grew well over six feet before high school, the basketball coach came to recruit him. His mom told the coach that Van’s hands were insured for a million dollars. No way he was going to risk them playing basketball.

Van Cliburn was accepted to Juilliard when he was 17. Would have loved to have seen him arrive there and lean his lanky Texas frame against his professor’s door and say, “Howdy, I’m here to study music with y’all.”

He excelled there, too, and was accepted a few years later to compete at the Moscow International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition. This event was Russia’s way of showing the world that they not only led technologically, having put Sputnik, mankind’s first satellite, in space six months before, but that they were also culturally superior to the decadent West.

Here is where the Texan entered. He strolled confidently across the stage and shocked the Russians with his mastery of Tchaikovsky. Olga Kern, one of the finest Russian classical pianists alive today, said, “Van Cliburn won because he played in a grand way. Soaring. It was beautiful; the piano was singing. It sounded so new and fresh. It was incredible.” And when she visited his boyhood home in Kilgore years later, she said that she understood where he got that style because East Texas had enormous trees, vast fields, and a natural sublimity that perhaps shaped him.

Van Cliburn had a reception in Moscow that would have been the envy of any rock star. Women swooned. They cried over his powerful and fresh interpretation of Tchaikovsky. They brought flowers to the stage and laid them before the piano. And when the judges believed he had won, they were afraid to award him the victory. So they went to Khrushchev himself and asked if they could declare Van Cliburn the winner. Khrushchev asked, “Did he win? Well, give it to him.”

And so Van Cliburn returned to New York a victorious cultural warrior. He was given a ticker-tape parade like none other – the only one, ever, for a musician. He made the cover of Time Magazine. The headline read: “The Texan Who Conquered Russia.”

Sun Ra (5.22.16)

In this edition of Liner Notes, Rabbi and jazz historian Neil Blumofe talks about the life and legacy of Sun Ra.

Andrew Hill (6.28.15)

Andrew Hill was an American jazz pianist and performer, who’s innovative approach to composition, was not only shared on his records and in the clubs, but also in the classroom. In this edition of Liner Notes, Rabbi and jazz historian Neil Blumofe, talks about what the life, legacy and perspective of Andrew Hill can teach us about how we, not only approach music, but life also.

Joe Sample (2.7.15)

Joe Sample was an American composer, pianist and keyboard player, and one of the founding members of The Jazz Crusaders. A native Texan, Sample who began his career in the style of Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers, and went on to collaborate with, not only Miles Davis, but also Steely Dan, and Eric Clapton.

In this edition of Liner Notes, Rabbi  and jazz historian Neil Blumofe, talks about what it means to find truth in spirit and soul rather than in genre, and how Sample’s legacy can teach us to allow for unfamiliar narratives to inform our sense of  exploration within tradition.

Archie Shepp (5.18.14)

Archie Shepp is a  jazz saxophonist whose compositions and rhythms added a political and powerful voice to conversations about race, inequality, power and justice in America, especially in the 1970s. In this edition of Liner Notes Rabbi and jazz historian Neil Blumofe talks about the what it means to be a unique voice in a dialogue of timelessness–rooted in tradition and continuing to unfold.