The Thing about Music....!

 

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:         The Thing about Music....!

Those Marvelous Turks make the Most Wonderful Music.. Oh and that's a Picture of Ataturk in the Background! Thank you...
(Can you Spot the Baglama?.... Or is that an Oud?)

That's Him...  That's
Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk!

    Reflection:   Is it a highly prevalent sort of contemplation, or         maybe meditation? A  practice among those who have entered     into the realm of, how shall I put this... GeezerHood, maybe?...  the     Age of "Greater Wisdom" or Elderlyness, perhaps, Historicalness     (could be?)...! Take Music, for example...

    I readily confess that my knowledge of and taste in music is         anything but exemplary, eclectic, or broad based, or extensive.  (Hope I'm not being repetitive or redundant or monotonous or     constant...   You may weigh in with your own observations about my     redundancy, if you wish!)  

   Where was I?!  Oh yes, the realm of music.  As a youngster, or an                   adolescent, I was eager to escape my home life, and thus I resolved to dash away, straw suitcase pre-packed, near at hand, or to seek and find a more propitious means of finding my way in life.

In the end, having come to my senses and having heeded advice from those brighter and perhaps more insightful than my, then, young self, I chose to enlist in the U.S. Armed Services.  You know...  ready availability of shelter, food, clothing, etc.    

Fresh out of secondary school, I reported to the local military recruitment center, swore

the appropriate oath, and before I could ask myself, "What the hell are you doing, you ridiculous bubblehead?..." I was on a Braniff flight, bound for a basic training center in Texas.  The weather was hot in June!  We did a lot of sweating.

Eventually, if we were well behaved (or our training leaders, perhaps, were sick of the sight of us!), we were offered what our lead Training Sergeant termed, "a Patio Break."  The music on its ancient jukebox was exclusively Country, not a standard nor an aria nor an R&R tune within ear shot.  I began to taste straw and alfalfa; I imagined tucking my thumbs into bib overalls, drawling and dribbling "Dixie Speak" and lots of Y'all's, Yonders, Reckons and fixins!

After suffering through the ear-piecing bellowing of training sergeants, calisthenics far too aplenty, "Attentions," "Forward or Backward Marches," and more insults than even my own dear father heaped upon me, I was dispatched to a training school in another

Texas location.  (Thought I'd never get out of Texas...), not to mention never hear another but a country ballad by George Jones, Buck Owens, Patsy Cline, Merle Haggard, Bob Wills, Texas "Fats" Pimpslee...   Hell, even a quite young Willie Nelson?

Then, before I could ask my pal, Rex Winkle, who originated from an obscure village in Southern Utah, "Hey, y'all goin don to the boozy waterin' hole made just for enlisted trash...?" I was sent to a strange foreign land...  TURKEY!  That extraordinary land southeast of

Bulgaria, south of the Black Sea, southwest of Georgia and Armenia, west of Hellas (or Greece, to lots of Americanos!)...  where I listened to lots of Turkish music...

Dede Efendi, Serdar Yilmaz, Baha Yetkin...  and the beautiful tunes of the famous, Zeki Muran (two dots above the "u), including "Let's Tweest Agin Lak We deed Last Sooomer"!  Zeki was the Turkish answer to...  I don't know...  maybe Elvis, maybe Bill Haley...  

We listened to that and other of Zeki's fabled melodies whilst speeding along dark, narrow, gravely roads at night courtesy of our favorite taxi driver, Hikmet, his ancient cab fitted with a 45 RPM record player buried somewhere in the dash board!  He spent more time looking at us in the back seat recommending others of Zeki's modern tunes!  "Face forward, look at the road!!..." someone hollered, brow dripping with sweat!

I mean, the point of all of this is this:   I missed my teenage music years!  Had no idea who were the Beatles, Everly Brothers, Byrds, Doors, Stones, Who, Floyd Pink, Beach Guys...   Truth is, I am very fond of all sorts of music -- Rock, Blues, Standards, Opera,

Who the hell are these oddly
appareled guys again??

Classical stuff, Country too...   It's just that I missed the 60s!  (I was keeping the world safe for democracy after all!!...  something like that!!)

When at last I matriculated, that is, entered University Life, having been honorably dismissed from military service, I had no idea what the hell my classmates or contemporaries were talking about!   "Who the devil are the Shondells, the Rhondells, Pips, people Grateful to be Dead??!!"  I was lost, out of it, ridiculed, but I could sing "Merhaba," "Nasilsinez," "Bishey Deyil," "Teshaker Ederim," and of course "Let's Tweest Again......."   

I should of course mention that one of my military compatriots in Turkey (there were four of us to a barracks room!) had a boat load of 33-1/3 RPM recordings of Warbling Persons...   E.g.  Julie London, Frankie Sinatra, Dean-o, Sammy Davis Junior Junior, Perry C., Billie, Nat, Ray, Mario, Ella, Bing, Pat, Dinah, Judy, Tony, Louie, Eartha, Dorseys, Mills Bros., Woody, Sarah, Fats, Vaughn, Mel Torme (I just remembered his surname!)

In the 70s and 80s I caught up with Willie, Waylon and the boys, having been indoctrinated by them on the aforementioned "Patio's"...  State Fairs, Summerfests, other concert venues!  I'm still a bit dense about popular music.  I constantly ask SweetHeart, Tad, and others, "Who's that?"....  Who sang, "Norwegian Wood Floors...  Do I like that one, SweetHeart"...? 

And thus, to end this foolish reminiscence, I apologize to music purists, to those with encyclopedic knowledge of modern tunes and their composers and singers of songs!  I apologize to Bob, John, George, Ringo, Paul, Norman, Tad and SweetHeart...  (Was there a Norman?)...

(Special Note of Dedication:  For SweetHeart, Tad, Alie, Bethie...  and for those four "insect guys," Zeki (who's probably dead), that saloon owner in Okauchee, and all others dedicated and devoted to all manner of music and to keeping memories alive and tunes warbled when lyrics and melodies or wandering notes wafting on the winds of time enter their thoughts!)

Humbly Submitted 07-16-2025 -- Joel K.

 

   

From Russia with Music!

Memoirs of a Geezer!

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth 

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:      From Russia with Music! 

(Introductory Note:    In the mist of Geezerhood, an ancestral reflection, with just a touch of conjecture...  chronicling an extraordinary life and legend!)

The year was, perhaps, 1880 or 1881. A young boy sang as he labored in the fields, toil demanded, of necessity, by his father, an impoverished and struggling farmer. The boy sang and hummed the few tunes he knew, given the brevity of his time on the earth, perhaps 10, at most 11 years of age.  He sang almost without pause, a kind of mantra, a meditation, his manner of coping with the rigors of an endless agrarian routine. Russian-Jewish folk songs, or hymns learned in the synagogue, songs inspired by the Torah, its various passages and teachings.  

Painting depicts Russian-Jewish
peasants...  A scene alive with activity
including a rabbi's passionate
exhortation.  Could that be young
 Samuel running to join his family!?

Each harvest day on the small, barely arable farm, the boy carried a sack into which he gathered the wheat his father scythed, or potatoes, onions and other root vegetables wrenched from a stubborn, reluctant soil.  Always the boy sang or hummed the songs in his limited repertoire.  One day, by pure chance, the shtetl's rabbi was passing and heard the boy singing. Stopping along his journey, the rabbi was transfixed, captivated, as if stumbling upon a rare coin or a gemstone, barely able to believe his senses.  

"Reb Gimpel," said Rabbi Nachum, calling to him, addressing the boy's father, "your child, he sings with such a remarkable voice.  I am most favorably impressed.  The boy has a true gift." Gimpel Rochov merely grunted in reply, apparently heedless of the rabbi's astonished words. "Your boy," the rabbi continued, "he could be a somebody in this world.  He could sing for a famous synagogue of which I know, near Kiev. Such a thing could bring money to your family."  

At this Gimpel Rochov stopped his labors, and stood facing the rabbi. "Money, you say, Honored Rabbi Nachum!"  The elder Rochov had eight children, four of each, sons and daughters. Too many gaping mouths demanding bread and vegetables, meat when it was available, a rare occurrence. "This money you speak of, how is it to be obtained?"

"I don't mean to be indelicate, Reb Gimpel, but you might wish to consider my taking the boy to Synagogue 'Rosha Choral Bolshaya.' There I could, in theory, meet with Rebbe Yakov Moishtovich, the chief and much revered rabbi leader of that fabled place! It is famous throughout Russia for its music, its singing. If things work out, The boy could then be...  well, how shall I put this...  fostered by the synagogue, in exchange for...  how shall I put this most delicately...  consideration! I believe the boy's talent could be nurtured. He might even be taught to play musical instruments. You are not a rich man, Reb Gimpel. I know you love your family, but one less mouth...  You understand? You and your wife could visit the boy on occasion, see how he's getting along."

Probably not the right synagogue...
but, who knows, it could be!...

"Kiev's a long way off, Rabbi," the elder Rochov said. "I shall discuss this with my wife, my Sofia. I mean... Asking a mother to give up a child. It's a big thing!"

"You'll make the right decision, of that I'm certain, Reb Gimpel. Explain to your dear Sofia the need... the boy's possible future, your own...  Meantime, I will have a discussion with Rebbe Yakov. As it happens, I am on my way even now to visit that sacred place. I'll tell him about your boy, the miracle of his gift. I can take the boy myself to the synagogue...  an interview, so to speak, a kind of audition...  I'm back in about a week. I'll come to see you then."

Another day passed. The boy, young Samuel Rochov, was given the news of his possible future. Gimpel and Sofia talked, argued. As head of the family, the father's decision prevailed. "What will become of our beloved child?" Sofia asked, her voice filled with worry and sadness.

"It's not forever, Sofia.  He'll come home for visits.  We can maybe journey to that place and see the boy. He'll make us proud. He'll be a somebody in this world! We'll be known as the parents of a famous cantor, perhaps. And, my dear wife, a bit of money will help a great deal. We have so little. Besides, the boy is slight, like a small twig, not a great deal of labor issues from the child..."

Moscow and Kiev are not that far
from one another.  Look!  A map!

"I don't like this," said Sofia. "I don't want my precious son taken from us. But, as you are the proclaimed 'tsar' of our household, your decision must prevail, and so I must bow to your wishes. I hope you know what you're asking of me, of our child. I worry we'll never see our sweet Samuel again! He doesn't want to leave us. He begs me not to send him away."  

In a short passage of time, Rabbi Nachum took Samuel to Synagogue Rosha Choral Bolshaya, and there the child remained for a decade or so. The boy was treated as chattel, an instrument into which music was fed then extracted, his extraordinary voice trained and cultivated. He was taught to play music as well. He learned flute and violin, having a natural gift for anything in the realm of music and song. There was no mother figure, only the stern Ryfka, who taught Samuel his lessons, and the rebbe, rabbinical students and the teachers of music. Days consisted of lessons, his training, meals, sleep, work and little else. Samuel never again saw his mother and father, his sisters and brothers. He never again returned to the shtetl and the home of his birth and childhood.

The synagogue and its musical traditions were famous throughout European Jewry. When he was 19 years old, then a highly trained musical prodigy, emerging as an established and important component of Rosha Bolshaya's choral ensemble and choir, Samuel accompanied the group on a lengthy tour of major European capitals. Eventually they arrived in Rome, having previously performed in Moscow, Prague, Warsaw, Budapest, Vienna and other great urban synagogues and concert centers.

Samuel had made a decision, one that became a bold plan. He was poised to break free from Rosha Choral Bolshaya and the harsh and impersonal treatment his difficult and tedious life had become as "property" of an endlessly demanding synagogue. While it's true Samuel's gift of music was greatly enhanced in that crucible, its spiritual leaders and teachers had also burned anger and resentment into his young mind, like adding tongue scorching, bitter spice to a boiling stew. He rose from his bed in a Roman hostel in the middle of a moonless night, crept from the room and escaped into an enormous, complex and completely unfamiliar urban landscape.

Finding with time and effort the Jewish quarter in the vast city, he presented himself as a homeless youth, seeking and then finding menial jobs in shops and markets. His fertile mind a hungry vessel of knowledge, Samuel quickly acquired the Italian language as he wandered throughout Rome when opportunities allowed. His dark, curly hair and swarthy complexion allowed him to assimilate.  As he worked in the shops and market stalls, he spoke with native Romans, learned, asked questions of patrons and people in the streets, his ear constantly tuned to accent, inflection, words and idiom. The people for whom he worked provided rude shelter, a place to sleep and bathe, food from their shops, farm carts and markets. He continued to grow and thrive.

A year passed quickly and Samuel's age increased to 20 years. Two remarkable events would change his life and propel him into a future of which he could never have dreamed or thought possible, both unexpected and quite by chance and good fortune. On a rare day in which he was free of shop or market duties and on his own, he walked the streets of Rome, exploring the city's rich history, attractions and landmarks. On this particular day, one that was bathed in warmth and sunshine, he emerged from a park to cross a busy street alive with pedestrian and carriage traffic.  As he dodged and wove his way through the chaos and tangle of people, horses, wheeled carts and buggies, he happened upon a jewelry store that bore the proprietor's name, Harry Raccoli.

Samuel regarded the sighting as a kind of kismet. He decided to adopt the name as his own, perceiving it as a natural "Italianization" of Rochov, and a perfectly effective and useful change of identity. Samuel formally and legally became Harry Raccoli in 1909 in a federal courtroom in Baltimore, Maryland, where both he and his future father-in-law would also become naturalized American citizens.  

The second remarkable event...  While walking the streets of Rome -- not merely a favorite diversion but having become routine as his familiarity with the city increased -- Samuel happened upon a musical competition. He joined the queue to wait his turn, planning to sing an Italian operatic aria he had learned during his sojourn in the country's capital city. The queue was serpentine, and long! And so too was the waiting time. As people do in such circumstances, he struck up a conversation with a woman and her son, the pair waiting just in front of Samuel.

"You are a singer?" the woman asked, as they chatted somewhat aimlessly, his extraordinary speaking voice a clue to his "instrument" of choice.  
"Yes," said Samuel. "I was classically trained," he embellished, having no desire to divulge his full story, his "escape" narrative.  
"Your accent is unusual," the woman noted. "What is your name, please."
He paused before answering, "I am called Harry Raccoli. My family lived in Russia for a long period of time," Samuel responded. "I'm afraid my accent betrays my Russian, how shall I say, my sojourn in the Russian metropole, at times, the countryside as well." The woman made no further inquiry into his history and background.
"Would you, perhaps, sing something for us, that is, for my son and me?"
"You mean," Samuel replied, somewhat taken aback, "right here, right now, standing here in this endless queue?" She nodded. He sang an aria from Donizetti's L'Elisir d'amore in his rich tenor (that in time would deepen to baritone) -- quite possibly Una furtiva lagrima!.  

It may have been one of many he had already learned through, or perhaps the only piece that made its way into his musical mind and memory at the time. The woman and her son were astonished, mesmerized, as were many in that queue within earshot!

Able after a long moment to gather her thoughts and words, the woman said,"You are quite magnificent." Many others in the queue were equally affected by Samuel's voice, his talent, and quite stunned over this completely unexpected explosion of operatic singing. 

"I shall make you a bargain," the woman told Samuel, still wide-eyed with excitement and amazement. "I am a woman of some means.  If you should chance to win this competition, should we ever actually arrive at the head of this intolerable queue, I will, if you wish, become your patroness! If my son should win -- although I must confess," she added as a kind of aside, out of her son's hearing, "that your skill seems to eclipse anything, any voice I've ever heard. But if my son should win, I would still take you into my patronage and ask that you tutor my son in voice and music...  I trust you also play certain musical instruments?..." 

Samuel won the competition! The woman kept her bargain. The newly "self-named" Harry Raccoli remained in Rome for a few more years, studying, teaching, learning, with the patronage and unwavering encouragement of Sigorna Marchesi. And her son benefitted as well, in time earning a minor role with an Italian opera company.

Harry Raccoli, formerly Samuel
Rochov, circled.  He taught voice
at a Chicago conservatory of music
at one point in his career!

Ambition and a yearning for financial success eventually led Samuel to leave Rome and Signora Marchesi. She and her son had also provided useful tutoring for young Samuel. Among other skills, he learned to speak English, enabling him to correspond with certain American opera companies. The selfless signora made no objection, no insistence that Samuel remain with her in Rome. He was invited to the United States, to Maryland and the Baltimore Opera Company to audition. Samuel arrived at Ellis Island in the late 1890s, a letter from the opera company facilitating his admission into the United States. His talent won him a place with the company, and an introduction to Slava (Viachislav) Tucker, a Russian emigre, a patron of the opera and the father of Rebecca who would become Samuel's wife.   

Having then permanently adopted the name Harry Raccoli, he traveled to Germany (circa 1903) to study at the Royal Academy of Music in Berlin, returning to Baltimore with a newly acquired catalog of operatic knowledge and arias with which he entertained audiences for many years to follow. He and Rebecca moved to Chicago and then to Milwaukee, Wisconsin where Harry Raccoli and his family lived for most of the balance of his life.   He ultimately fathered four children, Arthur, Theodore, Genevieve (Helen) and Elizabeth. Harry won fame and widespread recognition as a singer and performer of opera, and later as a teacher of voice, violin and piano. Sadly, his career was cut short, his fortunes greatly diminished by the onset of Parkinson's Disease that claimed his life at age 73 following a long and debilitating illness. 

There's no clear evidence as to when, but Harry abandoned any practice of Judaism, probably when he was still quite young and as a by-product of his early life experiences. (Interestingly, his wife, my grandmother, Rebecca, also eventually left the practice of Jewish religious service. She flirted with various spiritual traditions, including Christian Science!) Harry Raccoli's legacy endures, and includes the many students he taught and mentored -- including one of his own sons -- most of whom made performing and teaching music their lifelong careers, sharing their knowledge and talents with successive generations. 

It is, I think, unfortunate that so many, perhaps most of us, learn little or nothing of our ancestors, our family heritage, and sometimes only when advanced age and wonder compel us to explore the lives and times of our antecedents. And then it's often too late to mine the resources of older, surviving relatives who may have little or no recollections, who may be victims of dementia or Alzheimer's, or are among the "dear departed." The dead among our ancestors can tell us little, unless they left accounts of their lives, careers and adventures via writing, journals, annotated photographs... Sadly, such records are rare in most families!

My own mother made 8mm movies of her world travels, thereby documenting at least that portion of her rich life. I believe my sister transferred those films onto DVDs, the existence or whereabouts of which are a mystery. Both women are no longer with us.  

There's little doubt my maternal grandfather's life became the stuff of an "oral tradition" or family history, his legend passed along through the generations, likely because his was such a remarkably colorful and interesting life, a kind of storybook journey from peasantry and poverty in Russia to great success and fame through his gift of music. Given the time in which he lived and worked, unfortunately there are no recordings of his singing or his instrumental performances, at least of which his surviving progeny are aware!

Next time, I'll return to less serious subject matter. But just so this episode is not entirely devoid of amusement and silliness, I've added a photo of myself as "makeshift bench," and Granddaughter, Phia, enabling her to climb a tree! (Half of Grandson, Seany, is at right!...  He's actually an entire person; the photographer was apparently engaged in a form of semi-artistic expression!)  Thank you!

Humbly Submitted, 05-19-17 -- Joel K.