Posted: November 8th, 2011 | Author: Ginger Mayerson | Filed under: Dr. Hackenbush Gains Perspective, Serialization | No Comments »
“Mabel, there’s still only four beats in that bar,” he said over the metronome.
“I know, Shorty, I know,” she rasped at him. “How about a break? I can’t feel my feet anymore.”
He agreed and she promptly stepped outside for a cigarette. “You might last longer, dear, if you didn’t smoke,” he observed.
“I’d kill people if I didn’t smoke,” she observed back at him.
Since there was no comeback to this, Shorty left her to smoke in peace. He went back inside to look at the exhibit of photos of some landscape he didn’t recognize. Art was the last thing he thought about at the Photography Center; Hackenbush was the first. They’d met there, two years ago: Shorty was dancing two solos in a little revue set to Cole Porter songs and Hackenbush and her baritone ukulele were the majority of the music. The show was produced, directed and choreographed by Gregg Schroedingmeier, now long-gone from the LA dance scene, whose main complaint was that Hackenbush’s voice got more attention than his dancing, his lighting, and everything he could take credit for. Shorty was surprised the egomaniac didn’t take credit for the voice God gave the woman, but Hackenbush’s voice was a thing unto itself. Soft, but powerful in its softness and vulnerable in its strength. Shorty eventually figured out the ukulele, which she could play credibly, was more prop than instrument, even if it went perfectly with her smoky, sultry voice.
After the performance, he’d tracked her down and asked her to dance with him. At first she said no, she didn’t dance, don’t ask her. But he kept asking and eventually, when a paying gig came along, she agreed, and found that not only could she dance, she loved it.
Serialization:
Part 1 of 6
Posted: November 1st, 2011 | Author: Ginger Mayerson | Filed under: Dr. Hackenbush Gains Perspective, Serialization | No Comments »
1984
It wasn’t obvious at first, but Mabel Hackenbush, better known as Dr. Hackenbush, was a well trained and serious musician. She looked younger than her twenty-eight years, and a big pair of black horn-rim glasses took the edge off her steely gaze. Singing with Dr. Hackenbush and her Orchestra, she appeared to be just another chick singer, albeit one with a better than average voice and phrasing. However, there was more to her than that; not only could she read music, including symphony and opera scores, she could sight-sing, arrange for anything up to a big band, conduct, and even orchestrate. She was one of the finest products of the Grove School of Music, which in its bare-bones, stripped-down, no-frills way produced some of the best composers and arrangers in the industry. She’d done well at Grove in spite of the three strikes against her: she was a vocalist, she didn’t play the piano very well, and she was female. There were no women getting screen credits in film composing in 1984, and only a few in arranging (which was a dying art—Quincy Jones and the marvelous arrangements on the “Thriller” album notwithstanding). There were few female conductors, so Hackenbush was a woman in what was still essentially a man’s world. And she couldn’t have cared less; her goal had been to get the best musical education she could afford as quickly as possible and the mind-numbingly, life-crushing Composition and Arranging Program at Grove only took a year to complete. Thank God for that; after a year of poverty, sleep deprivation and driving to the valley almost every day, she was ready for a new life. After Grove, she managed the music industry by ignoring it. She and her baritone ukulele made themselves welcome in every jazz standards-loving club and lounge in the city. When she hooked up with the dancer Shorty Smith, they became the must-have act at every chic venue and upscale party in the county. Sidemen came and went, but the core act was Dr. Hackenbush and Smith.
Or had been. About a year ago, Eddy Lee, guitar player and frontman of the Eddy Lee Trio asked them to join him, Cody Cole on bass and a cat named Ross on drums, and make it a quartet or quintet, depending on one’s point of view. They’d met one night when Hackenbush was singing serious jazz (she could do that, too) and Eddy was sitting in. It was as close to love at first sight as Hackenbush ever got. Eddy was in love, too; when she joined the band, he changed the name to Dr. Hackenbush and her Orchestra. Hackenbush figured if that wasn’t love, she didn’t know what was. The drummer and bass player eventually accepted her and Shorty, mainly because Hackenbush and Shorty got them a lot more gigs than they’d been getting as a pure jazz trio. Yeah, the Hackenbush and Shorty shtick was a little goofy, but man, could she sing and, man, could they dance.
Which is what they were doing that very Sunday afternoon at the Los Angeles Photography Center. Shorty was in the money enough to afford ten bucks an hour for three hours on a good floor and plenty of room to trip the light fantastic in. A meticulous choreographer, he didn’t let Mabel get away with being lazy in rehearsals. She was a hesitant dancer until she learned her steps and then she was fine; prone to improvise, but Shorty almost had her out of that bad habit.
Posted: October 24th, 2011 | Author: Ginger Mayerson | Filed under: Dr. Hackenbush Gains Perspective | No Comments »
It’s 1984 and Hackenbush’s broken heart is on the mend as she assists the very roguish, but devastatingly charming theater director, Monte Vista, in his last and greatest production. Mabel Hackenbush, better known as the singer, dancer, ukulele player extraordinaire, and front woman for Dr. Hackenbush and her Orchestra, has taken a chance on love and lost. After an epic binge, she can’t sing, won’t dance, and can only get through the day by focusing on her temp secretary job. Add in all this, the band has a big show coming up that Hackenbush might not be able to do in her current state of mind. Could this be the end of Dr. Hackenbush and her Orchestra? Into this dire situation saunters Monte Vista, theater maven supreme, who says he wants Hackenbush to help him write his memoirs. But for what he really wants… well, Hackenbush will have to call in reinforcements for that. And even then the outcome isn’t a sure thing.
Continue Reading
Posted: October 19th, 2011 | Author: Ginger Mayerson | Filed under: Various | No Comments »
And the Appalachian Prison Book Project has lost it’s funding.
However, if you’d like to be part of “CONNECTING LITERACY, PRISON REFORM, AND VIOLENCE PREVENTION EFFORTS,” a trifeca if ever there was one, there’s two ways to do that:
Send them some books:
Appalachian Prison Book Project
PO BOX 601
MORGANTOWN WV 26507-0601
and/or
Send them some money.
It’s just that easy. Please pass this along to interested parties. Thanks.
(via GalleyCat)
Posted: October 14th, 2011 | Author: Ginger Mayerson | Filed under: Various | No Comments »
click on the image for more fabulous details
Not Hackenbush but still fun.
