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 by Nicky Schrire
2010
Hello beautiful people from a beautiful country
Paul Sedres, a South African now living in Paris and beloved figure in the SA music industry, sent me an article from the Huffington Post this morning. It was written by an American journalist and chronicles his experience being in SA for the World Cup and how incredible the country is. Needless to say I started blinking back tears ferociously as I waited for my train-and, no, it was not the revolting humidity but overwhelming feelings of patriotism and the ensuing emotions. I’m so glad I’ll get to experience the tail-end of this incredible atmosphere that people in all corners of the world are talking about.
While the FIFA World Cup has been lighting up the South African skies with sparkle and excitement, I have been quietly (or as quietly as is possible in a city like New York) enjoying my school-free summer. I have been interning at a small record label, Anzic Records, and an artist management agency, Orange Grove Artists. The former is co-owned by clarinetist, Anat Cohen, and pianist, Oded Lev-Ari, while the management agency is founded and owned by Oded’s wife, Amy Cervini. Both operations share a one-room office in the East Village, which has become an air-conditioned haven that I’ve adored frequenting three times a week.
It's been such a joy walking into an office where Oded calls me "Nick Nack" while offering me espresso and Lindt chocolate, and Amy shuffles around with their 8 week old baby suspended from her torso in a Baby Bjorn. My tasks have involved shipping off CD orders, filing paperwork, researching radio/press details, and consolidating Amy's contacts (she basically gave me her permission to snoop around her computer and the education has been priceless!). Oh, yes, and babysitting (delightful when the baby is adorable with a capital A and has a penchant for licking my neck).
Last weekend also saw me selling Anat's CDs at her Jazz Standard gig, which was the ultimate gig of the NYC CareFusion Jazz Festival. The Festival lasted the whole of last week and occurred in multiple venues-Herbie Hancock at Carnegie Hall, Gretchen Parlato at Symphony Space (amazing, amazing, amazing gig), a jam session at City Winery, etc. Selling CDs might sound banal, but it was brilliant to meet the staff at the Jazz Standard (owned by restauranteur Danny Meyer, the only venue with really great food AND incredible artists), get to hear Anat (jazz clarinet isn't my first love but she's incredibly brilliant, played with Peter Washington and Lewis Nash, and played almost all blues numbers-so fabulous to hear one good blues after another. My friend and mentor, Andrew Lilley, always said most people don’t have enough blues in their playing and he was right.), and learn more about the business.
The actual job aside, getting to explore the East Village weekly has been blissful. I've grown very fond of the man who sings Beatles tunes in the walkway when I transfer from the “2” train to the cross-town “L”. Angelica Kitchen, a vegan paradise, has been a haven and delicious escape and their miso soup (using sweetened miso in the summer) is the best I've ever tasted, as is their raw tahini sauce. Liquiteria makes a great smoothie-Mudslide is my favourite, comprising blueberries, banana, rice milk, spirulina, and vegan protein. Momofuku Bakery and Milk Bar delights my palate endlessly with soft-serve flavours like Cereal Milk, Zucchini Bread and Honey Dew Melon.
My nights have been spent, of course, hearing jazz. This month has seen me front and center hearing Stacey Kent at Birdland, Jane Monheit at the Blue Note and Austrian singer, Maria Neckam, at Joe’s Pub. I also had my first gig in the city at a venue called Tutuma Social Club on the East Side. It was really brilliant playing with such wonderful musicians (for those of you familiar with “the google”, my quartet was made up of Jesse Lewis on guitar, Desmond White on double bass and Brian Adler on drums), and seeing faces, familiar and foreign, enjoying the music.
Anyway, my return to the Motherland is imminent and I’m looking forward to a couple of months filled with soccer madness, Milo, walks in Kalkbay followed by coffee at Olympia Café, catching up with family and friends, and some exciting gigs. I’ll be playing with old friends and new friends (a pianist from MSM will be visiting me in Cape Town in August and we have some delicious concerts lined up) at the Nassau, Green Dolphin, Rainbow Room and more. If you’re at all interested in one or more of these gigs, you can find details on www.myspace.com/nickyschrire. Till then, I will leave you with some anecdotes from a book I’m currently reading.
I don't manage to read a lot of books. I always defended this by saying that I spend all my time reading music (which, arguably, is also a language of sorts). However, this undesirable trait is balanced by the fact that when I do get round to reading a book, it is, more often than not, worth reading and well reviewed and regarded. At the moment, I am reading a book called "My First New York", which is a compilation of first accounts of this crazy city by artists, architects, athletes, musicians, actors, dancers, and journalists. The idea for the book was born out of a column of the same title in New York Magazine that received such positive responses they invited more stories. The stories are told chronologically from the person's arrival in the city regardless of age. It's been so lovely reading accounts of this city I've come to know and love and hate and love again that talk of places I've visited or have yet to see.
It's made me think of my "first New York" and how different it is from all of these accounts. It makes me appreciate, even more, how fortunate I am, but it also enables me to celebrate how unique my experience is. I don't want to ruin the book for those of you that might read it, but there's no better way for me to pay tribute to this city other than sharing some of my favourite quotes with you. It is also by far the most accurate way for you to gauge some of the thoughts and feelings I've had these past nine months-uncannily documented by people from various walks of life. As much as my NYC experience is specific to me, so many things are shared, whether one likes it or not. It's New York and the way in which she works.
From the preface:
"What you are holding is a collection of fifty-six testaments to a larger revelation, one that arrivals of all stripes and all eras have experienced again and again, regardless of how the city proceeds to treat them. It is something songwriter Rufus Wainwright terms "having cracked he code of living life to the fullest." Becoming a New Yorker is a bit of a victory in itself, and so every story in this book has a happy ending by default. It comes with the territory."
Dan Rather (journalist):
"New York is never a megalopolis of however many millions; it's always just your neighbourhood-the shoe repair guy, the carpenter, the grocer, the post office-like any small town in Texas, really."
(And in the case of my 'hood-the chocolate shop, the scone/tea shop, the French bakery and the Italian cafe)
Liza Minelli (actress/singer, daughter of Judy Garland):
"I loved all that hurrying. I still love it. You always want more, and you want it now-bigger, brighter, better, more friends, more passion, more love, just more! It's how teenagers think. And I still think that way about the city, so I get to be a teenager my whole life."
Nora Ephron (writer/filmmaker):
"I thought [New York] was going to be the most exciting, magical, fraught-with-possibility place that you could ever live in; a place where if you really wanted something, you might be able to get it; a place where I'd be surrounded by people I was dying to be with. And I turned out to be right."
Judy Collins (singer/songwriter):
"Within two months of getting to New York I was in therapy."
(I've lasted 9 months sans therapist or "analyst" as the Americans like to say...but then again, I have a wonderful teacher and ever-present set of parents and siblings...maybe I haven't completely escaped!)
Jann Wenner (magazine editor):
"New York loves ambitious people-eats them up."
Andre Aciman (writer):
"I can sense this is exactly the New York I'd been dreaming of but was afraid to go looking for because I feared it existed only in Leonard Bernstein and in Billy Wilder's films-not the East Side, not the Bronx, not Queens, but a narrow strip whose name, as I would find out soon enough, is the Upper West Side."
Ending in my neighbourhood, I shall leave you with that last quote and the images of idyllic, straight-form-a-movie New York.
Much love and see (some of) you very soon
Nicky xxx
Editor: Nicky will be sending us a monthly LETTER FROM NEW YORK
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