Laurel Massé

I sing because

...it is in my DNA. Both my parents had fine voices, and though as a teenager I was embarassed in church because they sang so loudly, theirs were the best voices in every choir they were in.

But the singer line runs primarily through my mom. Her father, Leonard Kranendonk, is the man standing on the right in this photo. From him, my mother and my uncle (on the left) inherited their voices; from my mother, my sister and I inherited ours.

Mom was a coloratura soprano of astonishing range. She now sings tenor with her choir. My Uncle Bob, a true musician-singer, has a rich smokey baritone voice, and my sister's is a contralto as sweetly dark as buckwheat honey. But we did not all become professional vocalists; only my grandfather, my uncle, and I followed that path.

My grandad was for many years the lead baritone of Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians, an internationally-renowned glee club that started in the late 1930s. My uncle also sang with them for a time. You may not have heard of them, but there would be no Glee TV show without them (and possibly no Robert Shaw Chorale, since that's where Shaw got his start). Waring had a weekly radio and then television show, and they are considered, I learned last year, to have been the original Show Choir. English was my grandfather's second language (he emigrated from The Netherlands), but his own perfectionism and Waring's Tone Syllables, a diction technique, resulted in what you will hear on this opening track from his only solo album.

Leonard Kranendonk The Lord is My Light

My grandfather and I did not agree on the role of improvisation, but I think he was proud of me, and I feel him with me every time I sing in church. And because he sang sunrise Easter services on a mountaintop, and blessings at the Thanksgiving table, I reckoned I could, too. Singing anytime, anywhere, without accompaniment was normal.

It's autumn in upstate NY. As winds tug at the leaves of gold and flame, the trees simply let go, and drop them (you want lessons in attachment and non-attachment? Look to the deciduous trees). It's getting colder. Both my grandparents lived into the 21st century, and I lost them only 11 years ago, my grandmother Elsie (who sang alto) in October 2011, my grandfather the following spring. I feel them, and feel the pull of the old songs that are my my most valuable inheritance, and the voices that carried them. All these years later, I'm the one singing loudly in church. But really, whom then shall I fear, when I never sing alone?

 

Oh, the places we'll go!

Once I have loaded my steampunk laptop (see previous post) into the gypsy caravan, along with my sister Babette, her dog, my cat, and a teakettle (of course), this is the map we will be consulting:

Map via danmeth.com

We'll be singing all the way.

The cat and the Fiddle and Dance

Hot, sultry breezes ruffling the leaves, neighbors out walking, kids getting ready for the fireworks - it's Independence Day. Mrs. Peel and I have been celebrating our freedoms all day here - freedom to have breakfast, freedom to play with the feather-on-a-string-thing, freedom to take naps. What a country!

I am still savoring the sweetness of Western and Swing Week at  Ashokan Fiddle and Dance Camp, and am a little between worlds, as I always am when I first return home. That this holiday is falling right after camp is a blessing; it gives me one more day before I have to make sentences for humans.

You may remember that I had, at the last minute, lost my cat care person due to a scheduling conflict. I was a little frantic until I thought to ask friends who go to camp every year and live in the area if we could stay at their house. They generously agreed, and so Mrs. Peel had her first long road trip. It's one thing to be in her little crate in the car for as long as it takes me to move it for alternate side parking. She had done well with that. A two and a half hour car ride is another thing entirely, and she made quite a few objections, in the raspy baby voice she usually only uses for yelling about dinner. Imagine Tina Turner complaining in the passenger seat. She was obviously not happy.

When we arrived at the M's house, they were loading their car with camping gear, and getting their dog settled, so there was a fair hullabaloo going on. I took Mrs. Peel up to the guest room and let her out of her crate. She fled under the bed, and stayed there most of the next two days, until she felt safe. Then she started zipping and zooming around the room, exploring at high speed.

I traveled back and forth several times a day, to feed her and play with her, and I slept there at night, and it all worked out. We were both given little revelations. The sunny spot on the floor was a new experience for her, as our city windows don't get any direct light. She liked the warmth, and was entranced by the dust motes that dance in sunbeams. Watching her, I could see for the first time the faint tabby striping in what usually looks like a night-black pelt. There was a dressing table in the room, with three mirrors, each reflecting a cat who looked just like her. How alarming! Much posturing and puffing up and skittering ensued. But when the mirror cats proved incapable of coming up with any new ideas, Mrs. Peel lost interest. She then invented a new game to play: bat the ball hard. She's ready to join a soccer team as goalkeeper. Or, since balancing on a broomstick is as easy as lapping up cream, to be Keeper on a Quidditch team.

She ate well, she behaved beautifully, all this I expected. What I had not entirely anticipated was the effect of being able to bring her, how merry it would make me, even though it prevented me from staying at the camp itself.

On the way home, she voiced her complaints again, all the way to my sister's house, where I stopped in for a glass of cool water and a hug. Babette suggested Mrs. Peel might like Mozart. Once back in the car for the last leg of the trip, I turned on the radio, and found no Mozart, but - to my delight! - a station playing Louis Armstrong records from the 1930s. Perfect music to listen to after such a joyous week, at least for me. At the first sound of that golden horn, she stopped talking. Her ears flicked forward in interest. A minute or so later, she stretched, and yawned, listened a litle longer, and then fell asleep.

I should not have been surprised. Mrs. Peel is one hep kitty. And Pops? Well, he really was the cat's pajamas.

 

 

 

 

To Sir, with love

A rose is a rose, even when it's a McCartney rose. It was many years ago today (or some other day) that not-yet-Sir Paul McCartney pulled a perfect rose from a table centerpiece and tossed it into my hands as I was singing Heart's Desire with my Manhattan Transfer colleagues at the Brit Awards. At least, I think the event was the Brits. I was completely focused on Sir P. I confess that I was singing right to (or perhaps even at) him, and he... well, the story is going into my memoir, which I had hoped to write this morning, but it's too darn hot.

On Sir's birthday, June 18th, I am going to be singing a few of his tunes in Beacon, NY. Not too many, though. I don't want to hurt Johnny Mercer or Willie Nelson's feelings. Cole Porter can be pretty touchy, too. With me will be Tex Arnold on the piano, and because we had such a good time in Washington CT last month, my sister Babette will again be joining me in a few songs, along with guitarist (and nephew) Alex Brown.

The Howland Cultural Center is a very interesting venue. Built in the "Norwegian" style in 1872 as a library, and placed on the National Historic Register one hundred years later, it is now a performance space and art gallery. It's geothermally cooled (which cannot be said of my apartment, alas). I hope to see some of you there. If you are planning on coming, please do make your reservation right away, so as to be sure to have a seat.

By the way, the McCartney Rose, shown above, is a hybrid tea rose, introduced in 1995. It is described as a hardy repeating bloomer (like me and my career!) with a strong and intoxicating fragrance. This pleases me. Though a rose by any other name would smell as sweet in Shakespeare's time, most of the cut roses one can buy these days have no perfume at all. One sniffs a bouquet, and there's nothing.

Heavy the heart that, via the nose, encounters the unscented rose.

Introducing...

 

There is something special about the sibling bond, and when sisters, brothers, or sisters and brothers sing together, you not only sense it, you hear it. I am thinking of the McGarrigles, and the Roches, of the Boswell Sisters, of Ann and Nancy Wilson, of the Taylor clan (James, Livingston, Kate, Alex). And, of course, the Everly Brothers. The blend of their voices comes not only from practice, but from their blood and bones.

My career has included a hefty portion of group singing - in choral groups, The Manhattan Transfer, Moxie, and now JaLaLa, but it is only recently that I have become one-half of an authentic sibling duo. My sister Babette and I started singing together a month or so ago, and we did our first public performance during my concert at St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington, Connecticut this past May 14th.

Ladies and gents: The Massé Sisters, with Tex Arnold at the piano.