and one for David Amram

LAKE GEORGE — Five days after the towers collapsed in lower Manhattan,
David Amram walked into Shepard Park and onto the stage at the Lake
George Jazz Festival. He picked up his conductor’s baton, bowed humbly
to the crowd of 2,000 assembled on the lawn, then turned around to face
the 36-member orchestra of the Glens Falls Symphony.

It was Sept. 16, 2001 and for many of us, it was the first day we had
gathered for a public function since Tuesday’s attacks.

It was Amram’s friend and one-time collaborator Jack Kerouac who first
tagged the musician with the nickname “Sunny Dave.” The moniker suits
the 71-year-old well, now as it did then. Fearlessly cheerful and with a
pleasant demeanor, he conducted the Glens Falls Symphony Orchestra in
Sunday’s classical segment, took a break, then returned for a jazz
performance with the T.S. Monk Sextet. It was some brilliant navigating
between the classical and jazz worlds and a dizzying task for the best
of musicians. It seemed a nearly effortless transition for Amram.

As a composer, conductor and multi-instrumentalist, he has participated
in major music festivals from Cuba to Egypt, Kenya to Brazil. As an
author, Amram has penned a pair of autobiographies that trace a line
through popular 20th century music as well as documenting the legacy of
the Beat Generation. His collaborators have ranged from Leonard
Bernstein to Langston Hughes; Allen Ginsberg to Arthur Miller; jazz
legend Charlie Parker to guitarist Lee Renaldo of Sonic Youth. He has
composed more than 100 works, perhaps most notably scores for the
films “Splendor in the Grass,” and “The Manchurian Candidate.” Still,
nothing could have prepared him for that first appearance post 9-11.

With an uncharacteristically patriotic swing of his baton, he led the
ensemble into “The Star Spangled Banner.” Unrehearsed and unplanned, it
was selected as the opening performance specifically for this date. The
crowd, in a move equally unrehearsed, rose to its feet, in what may have
been, for the first time in five days. Some saluted. Some placed hands on
their hearts. Many cried.

From the sloping hill of the grassy park, you could look beyond the
enclosed bandstand and see what the performing musicians, who were
facing forward, could not. Behind them, a number of small boats passing
by on the lake had slowed to a stop. The music that was
filling the air apparently was also being carried out across the water.
As the song reached its crescendo, many of the hands on deck began
pulling out small American flags. They held them above their heads,
in arms raised high, cotton colors waving in the wind and captured in that
Sunday’s afternoon light. And the band played on and on and on. And the
band played on.

by Thomas Dimopoulos
from Sept. 16, 2001