When all else failed, my father and I had baseball. It was something we could always talk about and share. 

Pitching was something that he and I had in common with his brother John of Coos Bay. 

All three of us were left-handers. John apparently had major talent, but was sidelined with an early onset of diabetes at the age of 19, at a time when treatment was simplistic. My dad played semiprofessional ball in Idaho. I peaked at the age of 12.

My sons sport was soccer, which I never played as a kid. I become interested in soccer, or football as it is known worldwide, at the time of the World Cup. But if youve not played a game you lack the intuitive sense of what its all about.

Fortunately, my son and I have jazz. Harrison took an elective course in jazz history at Humboldt State University. For Christmas, my son gave me a long-playing record, the Charles Mingus album, Mingus Ah Um. This recording is part of the phonograph record revival, which audio purists are savoring. My new record is on whats called old vinyl. Its a heavy black saucer, and it is a legendary Charles Mingus recording.

Its true what they say. Listening to a phonograph record offers a fuller, richer sound than that of a compact disk.

 

When my wife and I married 31 years ago on New Years Day 1980,  we merged our collections of LPs. Now that Ive got a Mingus vintage LP, I have been foraging through our trove of records. It is a delight to come across the Beatles White Album or their Second Album. Or to find the Rolling Stones Black and Blue and Sticky Fingers. But especially also to find Miles Davis legendary Kind of Blue and Duke Ellingtons Ellington Uptown. We also have curiosities such as Anna and Kate McGarrigles first LP. And we have a gospel record that was cut by a woman with whom my wife sang duets in her Independence, Mo., church. There is also Laura Nyro, Melissa Manchester, as well as Earth Wind & Fire.

Riffling through this shelf of LPs is like walking through a scrapbook of your life. We remember the moment when we heard Bob Dylan for the first time. Or James Brown sing Please, please. Or Stevie Wonder do Fingertips.

 

Like so many aspects of technology, my wife and I have made the leap to having an iPod, but I cant say its changed my life. I watch my children downloading songs, and I recognize how it expands the range of what one may hear. And downloading certainly makes it easy to find obscure works. But its not like my memory of finding a new album in a record store. On my way home from Willamette Weeks offices in the mid-1970s, there was a small record store on Southwest Park Avenue. It was a guaranteed mood lifter to pick up a new record for $10.

My other source of recorded music in those days was the vast trove of the Multnomah County Librarys Central Branch. The music room and its lending library gave one the opportunity to discover Mozarts sonatas and Chopins etudes for free.

 

If you followed music in the 1960s and onward, you knew about Glenn Gould, the offbeat Canadian pianist who prompted a global rediscovery of J.S. Bachs piano works. 

A thoroughgoing eccentric, Gould was most often seen wearing an overcoat, a cap and gloves to shield his gifted hands. The essence of his place in classical music was summed up by the conductor George Szell who said: That nut is a genius.

Thanks to Sam Johnson of the Columbia River Maritime Museum, I learned of the PBS American Masters program about Gould. Ive been watching it online from the PBS website. This special contains a wealth of film of Gould, recollections and assessments by other musicians. We even learn how the wife of composer Lukas Foss left Foss for a life with Gould and subsequently returned to Foss.

Every musical form has its cult figures. Patsy Cline, Elvis, Bill Monroe from country-western, rockabilly and bluegrass. Maria Callas from opera. Gould is one of those cult artists, about whom the faithful will always crave more information.

S.A.F.