Whistle While You Work This Labor Day, let’s celebrate by trying to make our work, whatever you do, more pleasurable and fun! Enjoy, Dr. Weiss Dedicated to Wendy L. and Bill B. “The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.” James Taylor
Welcome to my music blog -
The Soundtrack of My Life!
Many of you have asked me “What’s with all the music, Dr. Weiss?” Well, as I’ve told some of you:
I personally call every surgery patient on the evening of surgery just to make sure they are doing well and have no questions that need answering. Occasionally, I would be at the piano and play a song that we had listened to that day. I gradually realized that I wanted to go through all the music that I had played during my life and at least start making a list of the songs that I had recently played.
Well, there are now about 600 songs on the list and I realized that it in a way it represented the ‘soundtrack of my life’! And that’s how I got the idea to record these songs and share them with my patients, friends and family. After I record them they will reside here, for easy access.
Music is truth. It’s honest. It’s really the first social media, where in a way, people could share their souls directly. And isn’t that what the purpose of social media is and why it’s so popular - trying to share who you really are, as completely and directly as possible?
Finally, it has been (and will continue to be) a genuine pleasure sharing these different songs with you and I really appreciate all of your positive feedback!!
Donna Lee - Indiana
August 29, 2022
Charlie Parker – Father of Bebop Donna Lee – Back Home Again in Indiana Well, this is an interesting story (to me, anyway!) It started back in Boston – no, actually, it started back in Hartford, Connecticut during my medical internship when my new housemate ended up being a jazz disc jockey drummer who first turned me on to Charlie Parker, the highly influential jazz saxophonist father of bebop (along with Dizzy Gillespie) – no, maybe it really started in first grade when the gifted kids in playing the bells were called down to the music teacher’s office (who was also the gym teacher, something I had a hard time comprehending) to offer them opportunities to learn different instruments to play in the school band and when he asked me what I wanted to play I somehow simulated a jazz bebop sax lead (something that I must have heard in my parents LP collection), and then he started asking me about my mouth and tongue (questions which I have since learned have to do with embouchure, what you do with the front part of your mouth lips and teeth in order to play the saxophone) and being the smart aleck […]
This Old Heart of Mine
August 14, 2022
My (mini) Tribute to Lamont Dozier ‘Broken Hearted’ by Dall-E with Rick Weiss prompt: anguished handsome black man showing this old heart of mine been broke a thousand times cartoon like van gogh pastel no text at all in image This Old Heart of Mine (click to watch) Lamont Dozier passed away earlier this week. He sure made a lot of people happy as a member of Holland-Dozier-Holland, the songwriting and production team responsible for much of the Motown sound including songs like “Sugar Pie Honey Bunch”, “Stop in the Name of Love”, “Heat Wave”, “You Keep Me Hangin On” and “How Sweet It Is to be Loved by You” [Interesting fact: “How Sweet It Is” was inspired by one of the actor and comedian Jackie Gleason’s signature phrases, “How Sweet It Is!”] “This Old Heart of Mine” is one of my favorites. I mean, how can’t you like a love song with lyrics like “you got me never knowin’ if I’m comin’ or goin” and “but if you leave me a hundred times, a hundred times I’ll take you back.” Thanks, Lamont. Enjoy, Dr. Weiss Watch the Video!
The Night They Invented Champagne
August 6, 2022
Click on the mice to watch! This is a feel-good song from the award-winning 1958 American musical Gigi; the music was composed by Frederick Loewe and the lyrics were written by Alan Jay Lerner. The prompts for the AI illustrations mentioned inebriated festive french mice, and if you listen closely for the second verse I’ve tried to play a little wobbly! So although there may be continued uncertainty about our Covid future, tonight, by focusing on a bit of positive news, Let’s Celebrate! Enjoy, Dr. Weiss PS Yes, Jackie, Tamara and I are finally back in the office seeing happy patients and doing eyelid surgery. Don’t worry – we’re all wearing N95 masks! PSS Here are some of the ‘runners-up’ original Dall-E artificial intelligence illustrations. Which one do you like the best?
Russians (2022)
June 1, 2022
Russian Children (they look like our children, don’t they?) ‘I Hope the Russians Love Their Children Too’ On this day (June 1) 42 years ago, Sting released this song on his first solo album. Sting wrote the lyrics to this 1985 song but borrowed the central theme from the second movement (‘Romance’) of Serge Prokofiev’s “Lieutenant Kijé Suite,” which begins at the 4:20 mark of this orchestral recording. Sting reharmonized Prokofiev’s theme by adding a short but profoundly unique bass line (in addition to creating a powerful original but thematically similar melody.) Prokofiev himself is said to have taken the theme from an old Russian folk song called “The Little Grey Dove is Cooing.” [In playing this song, I’ve further discovered another possible source. Try singing the Christmas carol ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’ (originating in the 1650s) over Sting’s lyrics.] With the current invasion of Ukraine, Prokofiev’s song is especially remarkable. In one of life’s extraordinary coincidences, Prokofiev was born in Sontsivka in 1891, in the Donetsk Oblast (region or state) of Ukraine – the very center of the area in eastern Ukraine that Putin is claiming to protect and liberate in 2022! It’s just 50 miles north of Mariupol, where the greatest […]
Mountain Greenery
March 22, 2022
Mountain Greenery For all you show-tune lovers, here’s a toe-tapping, finger-snapping song from 1926 – smack in the middle of the Roaring Twenties – a perfect to celebrate the plunging Covid-19 metrics and a return to some kind of normal. “Mountain Greenery” is a popular song composed by Richard Rodgers (The Sound of Music, Carousel, South Pacific), with lyrics by Lorenz Hart (Blue Moon, The Lady is a Tramp, My Funny Valentine). In addition to the clever rhyming (I’ve reddened the rhymes in the lyrics below), there is a repeating rhythm of each verse that is recognizable even without the music. Fun fact: It was first performed on the Broadway stage by none other than the late, great Sterling Holloway, who voiced Winnie the Pooh (and also Kaa the snake in Jungle Book, among many others.) He appeared in over 100 films and 40 television shows! Also, it was Holloway who first gave voice to the classic Rodgers & Hart tune “Manhattan” (We’ll take Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island, too.) I never realized that he was so suave and debonair when he was younger! Notable versions were recorded by Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, The Supremes, Tony Bennett, Mel Tormé. Two great performances: Perry Como (you gotta see this!) and Dick […]
Cow Cow Boogie
March 16, 2022
On This Day (March 16) in 1909, Don Raye was born, who wrote the music for ”Cow Cow Boogie (Cuma-Ti-Yi-Yi-Ay)”, a "country-boogie"-style blues song utilizing the folklore of the singing cowboy in the American West. In the lyrics, the cowboy is from the city and tells his "dogies" (motherless calves) to "get hip." The lyrics were written by Benny Carter and Gene De Paul. The song was written for the 1942 Abbott & Costello film Ride 'Em Cowboy, which included Ella Fitzgerald in her first film role (a minor one). The first recording was by Freddie Slack & his Orchestra, featuring vocalist Ella Mae Morse in 1942. The record was just the second release by Capitol Records and their first million-seller/ number one on the charts record. Morse learned the song from hearing Ella on a soundtrack she had acquired, even though the song had been cut from the movie! Benny Carter, a pioneer on the alto saxophone, was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, trumpeter, composer, arranger, and bandleader. Carter had an unusually long career. He was perhaps the only musician to have recorded in eight different decades. This one’s dedicated to my friend and patient Barbara J. See Ella [...]
You Go To My Head
February 24, 2022
You Go to my Head Billie Holiday On This Day (February 24) in 1938, Larry Clinton first recorded this song with his orchestra, followed by subsequent versions later the same year by Duke Ellington, Teddy Wilson, and my favorite version by Billie Holiday. This is one of the songs that are so good, everyone wants to sing it or play it, with notable recordings by Louis Armstrong, Oscar Peterson, and of course, Frank Sinatra. You Go to My Head was written by J. Fred Coots (with lyrics by Haven Gillespie.) What makes this song so special that is has been described by one music critic as “a minor masterpiece”? The harmonic composition is surprisingly sophisticated for a “pop” song. And those harmonies are showcased by a melody with an unusual number of repeated notes. It wanders from major to minor chords and ends with a unique coda. I’ve added a final ‘major minor’ chord at the very end of my version to evoke the film noir ambiance. Interesting fact: Coots and Gillespie also wrote ‘Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town,” but the two never seemed to have any other memorable successes (I guess I would settle for just writing these two gems!) Film Noir I recently described my encounter with […]
Sitting in Limbo
February 22, 2022
Sitting in Limbo by Jimmy Cliff I’ve always liked this song by Jimmy Cliff, which first came out when I was a sophomore in college, prime listening time. The soundtrack album from the film (‘The Harder They Come’) played a major part in popularizing reggae in the United States and the world beyond, the film itself precluding reggae from remaining an isolated phenomenon in Jamaica. Enormously successful in Jamaica, the film also reached the international market and has been described as “possibly the most influential of Jamaican films and one of the most important films from the Caribbean”. It was one of the cool midnight-showing films that were then becoming popular. Interesting fact: Jimmy Cliff sang two other songs from the album (‘Many Rivers to Cross’ and ‘The Harder They Come’) on the first season of SNL in 1976 with Dick Cavett as host. ‘Sitting in Limbo’ was not the most popular song on the soundtrack, but its lyrics are a perfect fit for the Covid times in which we now find ourselves. With the Covid metrics currently ebbing, the lyrics ‘waiting for the tide to flow’, ‘waiting for the dice to roll’ and ‘got some time to search my […]
On the Good Ship Lollipop
December 7, 2021
On The Good Ship Lollipop Tribute to Shirley Temple What can I say about Shirley Temple (who passed away today – December 7 – at age 85)? I will miss her but never forget her spirit. Thanks for all your smiles! We should all slow down and watch a Shirley Temple movie soon! In the meantime… Enjoy, Dr. Weiss Dedicated to Josh and Lana
