china forbes and phil baker and thomas lauderdale and portuguese

Thomas' Lauderdale's flying hands were only one part of his appeal. His ramrod posture, regular keeping of time with his left foot, and good-natured explanations of their work showed us a performer whose heart was as open to the audience as it was capitvated by the music he loves. In a word, he gives the band verve, a special spark and sprightliness, as well as an energetic and unique way of looking at the world. For example, he selected an advertisement about tomatoes from Life Magazine in 1964--tomatoes which would one day "meet" their hamburger, as a stimulus for the "hopeful" tune "Hang on Little Tomato." In an interview widely published, Thomas has described the band as being "musical archaeologists, bringing melodies and rhythms from different parts of the world together to dcreate something which is modern." Even from the tomatoes in discarded Life magazines.

China Forbes

If Thomas brings the spark and verve to the band, China gives it its lilt. The OED defines "lilt" as "the rhythmical cadence or 'swing' of a tune or of verse.' And there was swing and rhythmical cadence galore in last evening's performance. What struck me was the appreciation the crowd had for the multilingual precision and range of China Forbes. And this very multilinguality of China says something very important about the band and her. Not only are their tunes in French, Italian, Portuguese, Greek ("Never on Sunday"), Serbo-Croatian (one tune), Japanese, a smattering of Russian and Spanish, in addition to English, but they speak a universal language of longing, discovery, searching and finding, of love hoped for and found, of angels whose wings have been clipped only to soar again when they meet the beloved. China was able to sing love in many languages, and the tone, if not the words, was crystal clear.

But this multilinguality not only can soften the image of the ugly American to overseas audiences, but it begins to make us see China almost as a sort of mythic figure herself. As Thomas is playing with the "dolphins" of his fingers, she is becoming the universal person, a person whose longing and language touches the hearts of the world's people. Her names (China and Forbes) represent traditions of the West and the East, and her interest in and soulful rendition of languages gradually pulls her into the orbit of people all over the world. China seems to know instinctively what many people never discover, and that is that you only need to have very little knowledge that is very precise in order to make people think you know much more than you do and thus accord you a degree of honor that far exceeds what you actually deserve. On many occasions, I have been honored because I happened to have a good recall for a few crucial facts at the right time, or I knew a precise turn of phrase in another language that made my auditor think I knew much more than I actually did, and I was accorded an honored position as a result. China will be able to win her way increasingly into the hearts of the world's people by singing love in their own language. Indeed, wasn't the miracle of the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2) when people heard the mighty deeds of God proclaimed in their own language? China, then, can be a modern reverser of the myth of Babel by learning to sing well in an ever-growing list of languages.

Concluding with a Personal Story

What gave me the broadest smiles of the evening, however, was something that no one else would "catch." The band played a tune composed by bass player Phil Baker which was set to Portuguese lyrics--on dancing and singing. While China was singing the tune my mind wandered to Phil and his mother, my Italian teacher. I thought of stories Phil's mother told me in Italian, to improve my Italian "ear." One of them was how she loved feeding the squirrels. In Italian a squirrel is a 'scoiattolo.' One one occasion, Mrs. Baker waxed eloquently about her squirrels, which climbed up ('arrampicano') her door, ran across her lawn with the peanuts ('arachide') affixed in their mouths, begged for more, climbed the trees and even seemed to fly from one tree to another after they ate her peanuts. Thus, as I was listening to the Portuguese tune, I was really thinking about squirrels, for some reason. I saw them beg and scurry off with peanuts. I saw them climb the tree. I saw them, as it were, "fly" from one branch to the next. Then, after that song was completed, Thomas announced the next tune: an instrumental piece called "Flying Squirrels." I chuckled to myself. As the outstanding percussionists played, I imagined Mrs. Baker in my mind's eye, feeding the squirrels, and then saw these furry little creatures rising up with the Baker peanuts in their mouths and simply flying from tree to tree. Pink Martini might have felt that they were arranging the order of the concert pieces, but I think something else was at work here.

As if to confirm that some other power was at work last night, I recall my Italian lesson on Tuesday, just two days before the concert. Mrs. Baker and I were speaking about her artistic works, prominently displayed throughout her home. The one we spoke of on Tuesday was of a tomato. Why had she painted a tomato? Well, as she explained, she sliced one in half on one occasion and was so entranced by the interesting pattern of colors and lines in the inside of the tomato that she just had to paint it. And, so, above her living room table, is a painting of a half tomato, 'un pomodoro tagliato' (a sliced tomato), looking down at us. And, what is the name of the recently-released Pink Martini album? Of course, "Hang On Little Tomato." Did the band know of Mrs. Baker's tomato painting when they named the album? Of course not, for Thomas explained the title was inspired by a 1964 Life advertisement. But some coincidences are just too wonderful to ignore.

Conclusion

American educators are currently wringing their hands regarding lack of student interest in studying foreign cultures and languages. Languages only seem to be studied by specialists, from the Defense Languages Institute in CA to the Mormon language school for their missionaries in UT to the outstanding programs at Harvard and Michigan. But I think that America's monolingual dependence can best be "cured" not by any exhortation from religious, defense or educational leaders, but from an evening listening to Pink Martini. That, indeed, will inspire all the world to learn each other's speech and sing each other's songs.

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