Born on Labor Day, 2004, Evening Melancholy has managed to hang on for five years, despite the fact that competition and fluctuating tastes have slightly diminished listenership.

I started the Evening Melancholy radio station back in ‘04 basically for two reasons. I had just seen Zach Braff’s movie Garden State, and for some inexplicable reason, it had a profound effect on me at that time. I kept thinking to myself, this guy is younger than me and yet, he created something that he can be proud of, something that had such a positive effect on so many people. I want to do that. At least, I want to try to accomplish that, and if I fail, at least I know I gave it my best effort.

During the time of Evening Melancholy’s creation, I was also involved in a relationship with someone who suffered from depression. In my mind, I thought I had an idea of what depression was and the effect it can have on a person and the people who love that person. I really had no idea. Depression is a debilitating disease that can’t simply be cured by sunshine and rainbows and good intentions. It can have a crippling effect on the sufferer and if you are in love with those who suffer from it, it can cripple you as well.

So, my initial intention with the station was (as the mission once stated) to provide empathy through music as well as provide links to various sites that spoke to and provided guidance for depression. Eventually, though, I just focused on the music because I realized that the disease was so much bigger than me and a few arbitrary links to websites just didn’t cut it. The links are gone, but the empathy is still there.

Many have written me over the past five years and said that while the music itself was melancholy, the feelings the music evoked were often buoyant and rejuvenating. I find it interesting that the majority of EM’s listeners are from outside the United States. It’s a great feeling, connecting with someone halfway across the world through music. It’s a great feeling to receive an email from someone who said they turned on the station and found the music so enticing, they stopped what they were doing, grabbed their wife’s hand and began dancing around their kitchen. Positive effect achieved.

So, thanks to all the listeners out there who have stuck around. Thanks for all the emails and well wishes. Yes, some have drifted away and the small group of us who adore these jazz/vocal ballad evergreens has grown even smaller, but…as long as there is someone out there to listen, Evening Melancholy will soldier on.

Love you guys!

Two tunes have been rattling around in my head over the last week or so and I can’t seem to jar them free. The tunes are “Joe Cool” and “Little Birdie”, two songs sung by Vince Guaraldi for those wonderful Charlie Brown animated shows from the 60’s. When I was a kid, I always thought that the songs were being sung by some older, gray-haired black man with a wise gaze and a perpetual grin. I had no idea it was in fact Guaraldi who was singing the tunes.

How awesome was that guy? Guaraldi is one of the main reasons why I love jazz so much. As a kid, I devoured the books of Charles Schultz and the escapades of the Peanuts gang. And I never missed a Charlie Brown special or the perennial broadcasts of the Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas shows. Whether I was consciously aware of it or not, it was Guaraldi’s music that kept me coming back for more. I remember two songs that completely knocked me out as a five or six year old and had me glued to the television each time they played. One was the song “Angela” by Bob James, better known as the theme from the television show Taxi. The other was Guaraldi’s version of “O Tannenbaum”. Pure bliss every time I heard it.

I didn’t watch the Charlie Brown shows simply for the characters or the animation. What really sold me was the music. What a perfect pairing - Schultz’s wonderful ideas and Guaraldi’s timeless tunes. Over forty years later and we’re still drawn towards those early specials, even though more shows premiered after Guaraldi’s untimely death in 1976. In my opinion, the shows were never as good in the later years as they were when Guaraldi provided the musical backdrop.

I guess worse things could be rattling around my head right now.

Joe Cool

Little Birdie

O Tannenbaum

During my freshman year in college, my girlfriend at the time gave me a three disc box set called Giants in Jazz. I remember the day she gave it to me. I remember it for many reasons. It was at that moment that I knew she really loved me. People gave me jazz related stuff all the time, but it wasn’t specific to me, you know? It was just jazz. The gift was appreciated but I could always tell that they saw familiar names on the back of the cd and decided to purchase it based on what they thought I may like. But Amy, my girlfriend, she listened to me. She knew I loved Charlie Parker. She knew I loved Dinah Washington and Dave Brubeck and John Coltrane. She knew this and went out and purchased with her hard-earned, part-time-job-while-in-college money this cd set complete with all of my beloved musicians. It meant so much to me at the time, and still does.

Another reason why I remember that day is because when I played the cd, it was the first time I ever heard Louis Armstrong’s version of Stardust. Now, just so you understand, Stardust is my absolute favorite when it comes to standards. Hoagy Carmichael was an f’ing genius musically. Think about it — Georgia on My Mind, Lazy River, The Nearness of You, Skylark….where would jazz be, where would MUSIC be without Hoagy Carmichael. Truly, he was a heavyweight. And Stardust, oh what a heavenly tune. And for such music to be paired with the absolutely most endearing and beautiful lyrics written by Mitchell Parish — Parish’s lyrics paired with Carmichael’s music is like a rainy Sunday afternoon with nowhere to go and the love of your life by your side. Perfect.

Now, you throw Louis Armstrong into the mix with his own, purely individualistic contribution, and you find yourself blithely waltzing through a musical utopia. Hearing that song at the ripe age of eighteen was one of the most enlightening moments of my life and not only caused me to lust for more of Louis Armstrong’s music, but it made me respect Mr. Armstrong as a trumpet/cornet player. Until then, all I really knew was What a Wonderful World and Hello Dolly. I knew Louis the showman. After hearing Stardust, I was instantly confronted with Louis the father. I realized that the singer, as great as he was, was only half of what made the man a legend. That golden sound that came forth from his horn knocked me on my ass completely, and to this day, I haven’t been able to stand back up again.

A few years after hearing Armstrong’s version of Stardust, I became a Woody Allen fiend. I saw “Annie Hall” when I was about 19 or 20 and discovered a soul mate of sorts. He was a man who wrote the way I wished I could write and said what I wished I had the moxie and intelligence to say. I gobbled up every movie he had made at the time. One of those films was Stardust Memories, one of my favorites. There’s a scene in that movie that Allen frames with Armstrong’s version of Stardust. I love that scene. If you’ve ever had a perfect moment, and especially a perfect moment with someone you love, you would dig this scene. When everything comes together and you are able to cement the memory of the beauty of it all with a great tune, well, there is no room for improvement. And years later, whenever you hear that song again, you will be instantly transported back to that moment. Because of that song, you are able to embrace that memory forever.

Now, whenever I hear Louis sing that song or see that scene from Woody, I feel an instant surge of gratitude. I feel thankful for that memory of my girlfriend handing me the discs that would change my life more profoundly than the two of us would ever know. I feel thankful for geniuses like Hoagy Carmichael, Mitchell Parish, Louis Armstrong and Woody Allen. And I am thankful for the fact that this stardust memory will, til the end of my days, haunt my reverie.

To be collapsed by a song - ain’t it grand?

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the past. I don’t know why, but my mind has been recalling things that have happened or that I have seen. So I decided to add a category called Reminiscing to my blog just to log some of my recollections. That way, if they fall away from my memory bank, they will not disappear completely.

Around 1995, my two best friends Jimi and Jonathon and I decided to get dressed up for Halloween and attend a costume contest at a restaurant/night club called Mere Bulles. Mere Bulles used to reside on 2nd Avenue here in Nashville but has since moved to a more “upscale” location you could say. That night we all donned afros and other 70’s style accoutrement and headed down to the club. We dubbed ourselves the Jackson 3. Jimi’s dad has his own band and he happened to be the entertainment for the evening, so we were prepared to have one hell of a night.

All of the people who were participating in the contest were packed into a back room and one at a time we were called out to be viewed and judged by the crowd. I remember Jimi and I leaning against the wall in the back room waiting our turn when a short, chubby man dressed as an alien approached us. His makeup job was horrible. Through his splotchy green makeup we could see the patches of white, and on his head were two sad antennae made out of aluminum foil. I can’t remember the rest of him. I just remember his face and the fact that he was drunk off his ass. There were other black people in the room but he approached us. Must have been the afros. Always a dead give away. Just ask Angela Davis or Don Cornelius.

The little green man approached Jimi and I and started talking, real friendly-like. Again, I can’t remember everything he said, but I do remember him saying, “I ain’t never had a problem with niggers. Some people, they don’t like ‘em. But not me. That ain’t how I am. Niggers ain’t never bothered me.” He said nigger so much I was beginning to think I was at a Richard Pryor concert — or in a Scorcese film.

Behind the man was his wife. I can’t remember her costume. I only remember the look of fear and humiliation on her face. I guess she thought that at any moment Jimi and I were going to turn her husband into a fine green paste. But we didn’t. As the man slurred out his words, both racist and amiable, Jimi and I just stared at him. We looked at him, then looked at each other, then looked at his poor, trembling wife. There was no hatred or anger in our eyes that night. Only pity. Had the man been sober and all white, the story may have had a different ending. I don’t know. I am not a violent person by nature and neither is Jimi. But anger has a funny way of creeping up on people. For some reason, however, my ire could not be aroused by a short, drunken alien. If we ever went to war with aliens like Will Smith in “Independence Day”, I would have to toss my draft card and move to Canada. Like Ali with the Vietnamese, I have nothing against aliens because no alien has ever called me nigger. In fact, I’m pretty sure an alien wouldn’t know what a nigger was. Plus, you have to consider what a surreal experience that was. This wasn’t George Wallace or Bull Connor saying these words. It was freakin’ Gazoo from the Flintstones.

Eventually, the man’s wife was able to pull her husband away and mutter to Jimi and I a few words of apology. But we only shrugged and shook our heads. Minutes later, all three of us were called onto stage and received a loud round of applause. Ultimately, we were voted the winners, although, I don’t remember us winning anything. Soon after, Jimi’s dad and his band came out and we danced the night away.

I’ve had my run-ins with racists before but never with a man shabbily painted green with tinfoil clumsily looming above his head. Maybe it was the fact that his words were spoken matter-of-factly and not with malice or vitriol. Or maybe it was the fact that I felt so sorry for his wife. Not only did she have to endure the embarrassment of being with such a buffoon, but I’m pretty certain his flabby green stomach was writhing atop her later that evening, completed, of course, by the heady mix of alcohol and stale vomit on his breath. What we had to endure for a few minutes, she was stuck with for the rest of her life. If she had to do it all over again, I’m pretty sure she would have married Shrek instead.