Trumpet - Photograph Alex Waterhouse-Hayward

Not too long ago I was listening to  Brahms bagatelle No. 25 in A Minor WoO 59, "Für Elise"
on CBC Radio in my car that was so beautiful (I had never heard it before) that I stopped my car and called VSO pianist Linda Lee Thomas. Her husband John Washburn answered so I told him about the wonders of the bagatelle. His comment was, “Oh, to listen to something for the first time!”

I remember the first time I heard Desafinado in 1962 Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd’s Jazz Samba.

Of songs like the Police’s Message in a Bottle and Nick Lowe’s Cruel to Be Kind there seems to be a label for them, pop songs or pop hits which to me deprecates their true worth.

These days I listen to almost no music at home. Most of my music is readily available in my head’s memory. If I am to listen to music at home from my fine stereo (JBL Studio Monitors) I want to do that with a friend and even better with new friends.

There was one song that was in my head today. It is the American group Beirut’s Santa Fe. There are many lovely versions but I like the earlier ones that feature that instrument that I dislike (!) the accordion.

Another song running wild in my head is John Cale’s Dead or Alive from his 1981 Honi Soit album (which I have).

There is a common thread that binds Beirut’s and John Cale’s songs and that is that both feature trumpets. There are two in Santa Fe and one in Dead or Alive.

When Dead or Alive came out my writer friend Les Wiseman wrote for Vancouver Magazine a little essay (to which I contributed photographs and something I wrote) called Good Things in Bad Times. There was a recession in Canada and in Vancouver at the time. The essay included stuff that was not expensive (or free) that was good for lifting one’s spirits.

My contribution (besides taking pictures of a man smoking a lovely Cuban Montecristo Claro ($15 at the time) was describing the pleasure of driving my yellow Fiat X-19 mid-engine sports car on the windy narrow road between the end of the West Van Marine drive shopping area to Horseshoe Bay. I counted all the curves and played in my cassette player John Cale’s Dead or Alive.

Of Beirut I remember that sometime in 2011 I took Rosemary to the UBC School of Dentistry for a consultation. It was a hot summer day at noon. I stayed in the car and turned on the radio. It was Stephen Quinn’s show. He played Santa Fe (I had never heard it before). I especially loved that accordion and two trumpets. Later on I found out that lead singer/songwriter Zach Condon (has an unusually lovely voice) was influenced by many travels abroad and particularly listening to mariachi (and their trumpets) in Mexico.