I wasn't sure I could satisfy this woman.

[Lionel Mandrake]

This is a true story.

I was with a tour group in a hotel in Paris. I was playing some blues on the piano.

In walks this gorgeous young woman. I have never seen her before. She sits down and puts an arm around me. She holds me tight with one hand and starts caressing me with the other. Her face comes close to mine. I can feel her hot breath.

I know people can be turned on by music, but this was ridiculous. Since when does a beautiful young woman hit on an ugly old man? And how was I supposed to satisfy her if push came to shove? A further complicating factor was that my wife was sitting a few feet away and taking it all in. You can imagine my mixed feelings.

What happened next was surreal. She whispers in my ear: "Francais ou anglais?" (She's asking whether I speak French or English.) I tell her English. She tells me she's a professional singer and would like me to accompany her.

Now I know I'm really in trouble. I am only a amateur pianist. I am sure my accompaniment won't be good enough, but how can I refuse? We talk about songs, and we settle on "Summertime". I play an intro, and she comes in with this incredible voice. She is one of the best singers I have ever heard. I manage not to mess up too badly, and my blues riffs don't seem to get in her way.

It was like magic. The audience ate it up. Afterwards, her smile said it all.

[Lucinda]

1. It's magic when it all clicks into place.

♥

[Lionel Mandrake]

3. Yes, it is.

I gather you've been there.

[Lucinda]

5. Yes. I am happy to say that I have.

I've done time as a muse for a musician or two, and I have spent most of my life involved in the theatre, so I have been around a lot of really talented people throughout my life. And in all that time, every now and again, the right people will have gathered at the right moment, and as cliched as it sounds, something truly transcendent happens. There is nothing like it. :)

[Lionel Mandrake]

6. That is something to live for.

I'm glad you have experienced this magic. :)

And I would encourage everyone to attend live performances, not just watch movies & TV, and not just listen to recorded music. Being part of a live audience, you too may experience this magic.

[pacalo]

2. That was a compliment to last a lifetime. She sounds very charming, though a bit assertive

from the norm, which makes it even more special.

[Lionel Mandrake]

4. Yes indeed.

Memories like that motivate me to practice the piano once in a while (but not often enough).

[alphafemale]

7. That's a song that can take the air out of the room if it's done right.

Takes a brave or deluded singer to even attempt it really.

[Lionel Mandrake]

8. What's the right way to sing that song, or any song?

A poem of Rudyard Kipling provides a clue:

In the Neolithic Age savage warfare did I wage
For food and fame and woolly horses' pelt;
I was singer to my clan in that dim, red Dawn of Man,
And I sang of all we fought and feared and felt.

Yea, I sang as now I sing, when the Prehistoric spring
Made the piled Biscayan ice-pack split and shove;
And the troll and gnome and dwerg, and the Gods of Cliff and Berg
Were about me and beneath me and above.

But a rival, of Solutre, told the tribe my style was ~outre~ --
'Neath a tomahawk of diorite he fell.
And I left my views on Art, barbed and tanged, below the heart
Of a mammothistic etcher at Grenelle.

Then I stripped them, scalp from skull, and my hunting dogs fed full,
And their teeth I threaded neatly on a thong;
And I wiped my mouth and said, "It is well that they are dead,
For I know my work is right and theirs was wrong."

But my Totem saw the shame; from his ridgepole shrine he came,
And he told me in a vision of the night: --
"There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,
And every single one of them is right!"

. . . . .

Then the silence closed upon me till They put new clothing on me
Of whiter, weaker flesh and bone more frail;
And I stepped beneath Time's finger, once again a tribal singer
.

Still they skirmish to and fro, men my messmates on the snow,
When we headed off the aurochs turn for turn;
When the rich Allobrogenses never kept amanuenses,
And our only plots were piled in lakes at Berne.

Still a cultured Christian age sees us scuffle, squeak, and rage,
Still we pinch and slap and jabber, scratch and dirk;
Still we let our business slide -- as we dropped the half-dressed hide --
To show a fellow-savage how to work.

Still the world is wondrous large, -- seven seas from marge to marge, --
And it holds a vast of various kinds of man;
And the wildest dreams of Kew are the facts of Khatmandhu,
And the crimes of Clapham chaste in Martaban.

Here's my wisdom for your use, as I learned it when the moose
And the reindeer roared where Paris roars to-night: --
There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,
And -- every -- single -- one -- of -- them -- is -- right!

A gifted singer will find the interpretation that is right for her at a particular time.

[alphafemale]

11. It can be sung OK a thousand times. You may have the priviledge of hearing IT Once in your life

Every so often you also see a star be born in that exact same moment,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WWtGpEqpV4

[Lionel Mandrake]

14. She's fantastic, isn't she?

Just like her name.

She added quite a few notes to what Gershwin wrote, giving the whole song a bluesy feel.

Great interpretation of a great song!

[alphafemale]

15. I've watched American I Dull maybe 7 times in my life.

I happened to be watching that night. And I'm ever so glad I was.

[Odin2005]

9. Awesome, what a story!

:wow:

[Lionel Mandrake]

12. Aw shucks,

'twern't nothin'. ;-)

But I'm glad you liked it.

Please feel free to make comments like that anytime. :9

[WinkyDink]

10. Loved the story; loved your style in telling it. :-)

[Lionel Mandrake]

13. Thank you.

I had fun accompanying a wonderful singer, and I had fun writing a story about it.
It makes me happy to know that you enjoyed my story. :loveya: