Dancing about Architecture

This caused riots in Paris? In Paris?? I guess times have changed. This almost sounds like it could be from a Disney movie. It would fit right in with parts of The Lion King. My little nieces would love dancing along to this piece. Seriously, I do know that this was featured in Fantasia. I can’t listen to it without picturing dinosaurs lifting up their heads and looking around. Anyway, I guess this is what Christopher Small meant when he wrote in his book Music, Society, Education about “this ability of our society to absorb into itself and neutralize revolt that has characterized the history of music […] in our century”.

Rick Danko was the coolest guy who ever lived. I just rewatched The Last Waltz this weekend for at least the 6th time. I saw it in the movie theater in high school when it came out. My sister, my best friend, and I drove down to the nearest “big city” (Des Moines, Iowa), a 2 1/2 hour-drive, so that we could see it and sat through 2 showings in a row. I bought it on VHS and watched it then. I bought it on DVD and finally got around to watching it last week. At first, I thought that would be a bit of a chore: there are 2 commentary tracks, and, of course, the movie without commentary. But, it wasn’t a chore at all—each viewing was interesting.

There is one scene where Rick Danko is showing Martin Scorsese around Shangra-La studios. They eventually go back to the master control-room. Scorsese asks Rick what he’s been up to. Rick is a person who doesn’t talk too much. He says he’s been “keeping busy” and “making music” and something else that I couldn’t make out. Then Rick says something you can’t hear to the engineer, but it’s almost as if the engineer has read his mind, because he’s already cued up “Sip the Wine”. It almost seems as if it might have been scripted, but it doesn’t look like it was. Rick pushes his hat down on his head and his face is in shadows as the beautiful melody plays. If I could write one melody that nice, I’d die happy. I hit the ‘scan back’ on my DVD remote control and watched that scene a half-dozen times.



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