On May 9, Maestra Victoria Gau and her Takoma Ensemble will perform my piece The Fireman’s Carnival. This five-movement suite for strings, harp, and clarinet was inspired by one night in a small town in Pennsylvania. On that night, my four sisters and I were allowed to ride our bicycles to the Riverside Fireman’s Carnival, which had magically appeared the previous day. Where there had been an empty field there was now a Tilt-a Whirl, a tiny Ferris wheel, and a small midway of games. We stayed late into the night and rode home with a full moon shining through the fog. Many years later, I tried to capture this evanescent adventure in music. Though I recorded the piece in 2009, it has never been played live before now. The clarinet soloist will be Ben Redwine, a spectacular player. I can’t wait to hear what he brings to this strange creation.
At that concert, the ensemble will also premiere a three-movement piece called Three Completely Workable Perpetual Motion Devices that I wrote especially for them. This was my attempt to write like Vivaldi and test a string section’s ability to play at terrifically bright tempos. While I am fascinated with fake machines that claim impossible results—like the perpetual motion devices of the 19th century—I hope this piece is a mechanical invention that actually works.
The concert will be held at the Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Silver Spring, Maryland. It is called “Barnett and the Brits” after me and the other two fellows on the program: Henry Purcell and Benjamin Britten.
My main instruments are piano and guitar. Sure, when I was in my twenties, I played enough bluegrass fiddle to get by, but I long ago decided to leave the string instruments to the pros. When I was in the studio on Monday with a string ensemble, recording a film score I’d written, I realized just how much I have come to rely on the subtle expertise that good string players bring to a session. The concertmaster, Teri Lazar, knew exactly what to tell everyone about articulations, bowing, and dynamics, and she said it with such perfect string-player shorthand that I almost forgot to be amazed at how her instructions made the session go perfectly. Tools like Sibelius may make it easy for people like me to put dots on a page and write “Violin I” at the top of it, but string music can’t come alive without the depth of wisdom that resides in the hands, eyes, and hearts of the players. Fiddlers, I love you. And to anyone else who lends their years of practice and expertise to help create and improve on the music in someone else’s head: I love you too.
I was in New Orleans for the past week. According to my friend Bill, if you are nomadic and musical by nature, you might stop traveling when you get there. Music is everywhere. It was outside on the street even when it was uncharacteristically cold (I mean cold…27 degrees cold. It was freezing in every building, because the buildings are built to keep the steamy summer heat out).
I stopped to hear a lone banjo player on Dauphine Street playing for no one, while ice formed at his feet. At the club Bachannal, patrons huddled outside under heat lamps while a Ben-Webster-sounding saxophonist and his band played through a raft of 1930’s swing tunes. I want to know what it is about that city that keeps music flowing as steadily as the Mississippi, even as the Polar Vortex tries to stop it?
Here in the top half of the USA when the temperature drops, we treasure the silence that snow and cold bring. The streets of New Orleans completely resist that notion. Starting yesterday, there were parades to celebrate Mardi Gras, which won’t arrive till February 17. Glitter was everywhere. And the music cut through the cold air like a warm knife through butter. I’m going to try and bring more of this energy to my life and not simply hibernate, waiting for spring. I’m going to get out my tenor banjo and see if I can melt the snow on my porch with it.
I have recorded with many wonderful singers in my life, but maybe none who can inhabit a song the way the actress Gia Mora does. When we set out to make her second album, Gia Mora Sings Charlie Barnett, I gave her total access to my catalog, including my film and stage work as well as pieces I’ve written over the years for my jazz band, Chaise Lounge. It was amazing to see what she picked and why. Her ideas on some of the songs completely transformed them. For instance, on “One Thing I Have Learned About the Weather,” which I wrote for a documentary about a fallen soldier, she suggested that we take a simple 4/4 folk-ish song and twist it into a slow Cajun waltz with some stray bars left in for dramatic effect. The result was startling, even to me. I couldn’t be prouder of this record. We will debuting some of these songs in Los Angeles on November 20 at Vitello’s Jazz and Supper Club. If you’re in the area, I hope you can come by.
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