What have we come to expect from Van Dyke Parks? Lyrically complex and often witty compositions, orchestrated in a way that seems to reflect the times in which they were written. Attention is turned to the experience of being American, whatever that means. Perhaps we hear tropical influences entering into union with themes of Yankee trading. There is an appreciation of being from the South, with suitable themes to highlight the unique flavor of that section of our country. Newer work offers progressive leaning political statements taking aim at influences in the American Life that are unethical, oligarchical, and unfair. Throughout his long career, Van Dyke Parks has made his music speak for influences that he feels are truly American.
In Super Chief, Van Dyke chronicles the experience of heading westward on that most American of experiences, riding the Santa Fe Railroad to Los Angeles. The wonder of riding the Super Chief was an experience that those of us who are Boomers may have had. I certainly did. Our family would board the Super Chief in Lamy, New Mexico (no....it didn't actually go through Santa Fe) and ride the rails Eastbound to my grandparent's home in rural Illinois. We would drink in the Midwestern experience...simple foods, ample portions, beef any way you want it, and grain elevators every 10 miles. But what of the ride? For me as a child, it was a wonder. There were unfamiliar people, places, and experiences. No tamales, chile verde, or tortillas could be had or found. We didn't hear conversations in Spanish or other Southwestern Indigenous languages. Most of all, there were no mountains! Over and over, the crow flies.......
What truly made the Super Chief experience great was the change in people and topography one encountered on his way East or West. One could go to the Dome Vista Car and see for miles and miles. One indication we were getting closer to Illinois was the crossing of the Mississippi River Rail Bridge. We didn't have rivers like that Out West. The Rio Grande would be a creek in Illinois. I remember the first time we crossed the Mississippi, it seemed to go on forever. We'd be met at the rail station by our grandparents, and be doted on for days. There were free comic books, sodas, and more food than any kid could take in.
For a Southerner like Van Dyke Parks, the experience of going Out West was probably a revelation. Van Dyke speaks through his music, and this album is full of Wonder. The vignettes he has recorded here are his soundtrack to the voyage Out West. On the album liner, Van Dyke shares some impressions of his trip. His experience was not unlike mine, albeit, mine was the opposite direction. Like Van Dyke, I was fearless in my approaches to strangers, and asked them whatever came in my head. The only thing that saved me was that I was 4. The 10 years that separated me from Van Dyke were an eternity.
The album opens with a composition that can only be described as a theme from a 1940's motion picture, probably a romance. The Super Chief theme plays as the imaginary credits flow past. There is a repeat of the main theme just before the credits fade to screenplay....one hears the train clacking Westward over the rails. The next theme introduces Our Hero, in a sound vignette entitled Go West Young Man. There is somewhat of a Thirties feel similar to Gershwin's Concerto In F, which leads to an introduction of a theme that is warmly romantic. I imagine the young man peering out the window, wondering what going West would bring him. Toward the Dining Car is a theme of exploration, whimsical in its use of accordian, with almost a Parisian feel. Bar Talk offers a feeling of evening relaxation, with cigarettes burning and people chatting over a Manhattan, reviewing the affairs of the day.
Once again the train sounds return, segueing into a piece called Joan Crawford. There is a bending banjo and a harmonica, recalling perhaps a dance in a Western Barn or Tavern. Last Call follows, a chance for couples to retire to their compartments and let the train rock them. As the train streaks Westward, it allows a little extra time to enjoy twilight before night arrives. All retire to their compartments, and for the young man, the anticipation of the trip fades into sleep. The Crack of Dawn musically describes upon awakening, that the train is well into Northern Kansas, and early light brings the wonder of the Plains, which seem to go on forever. Trees are non-existent, and corn is everywhere. Flat As the Platte is a musical expression of the wonder of unending vistas and a sky with seemingly no end. One recalls Laura Ingalls Wilder....living on the Plains, with her morning companions, the meadowlarks and the crows. Perhaps each family member plays an instrument while two family members dance in the barn with neighbors watching.
Our Hero is asked for his ticket by the Conductor, a jovial African American who knows every inch of the trip West. The splendor of the Plains reveals itself, as the train speeds by the little Kansas towns. The young man continues to daydream and imagine what life Out West will be like. As the train streaks across Western Kansas into Southeastern Colorado, the land begins to enter the High Plains. The train rolls by rivers a "mile wide and an inch deep." The Water Is Wide is quoted, and Aaron Copeland writing of the West is recalled. The country appears almost empty. There are herds of antelope grazing on prairie grasses as the train goes by. The Dust Bowl is apparent in the train's windows. This is the land of the Kiowa and the Comanche, whose theme is echoed in Iron Horse. Ghosts of peoples eradicated by an overzealous expansion westward are recalled, and the Latin themes in the background recall the Conquistadors who searched for Quivira, the storied City of Gold.
The train begins to enter a country that is oddly familiar, and place names begin to reflect the American Southwest. Towns like La Junta, Raton, Las Vegas, Glorieta, and next to the mountains, Santa Fe, are passed by the train. The train stops in Albuquerque, with the old Alvarado Hotel, a Fred Harvey Way Station, siting nearby. Harvey Girls offer pie and coffee. Native Americans sell turquoise and silver jewelry and black on black pottery for a price seemingly inexpensive for the amount of time they put into making such gorgeous pieces. Leaving Albuquerque, the ageless Pueblos with their Spanish Colonial Missions can be viewed, and the terrain changes to red rocked wonders, worn down by eons of infrequent rain. The sacred instrument of the Native Americans of the Southwest, the wooden flute, can be heard, along with themes that sound almost ghostly in their recalling of cliff dwellings long abandoned. Dry arroyos are crossed, and there is no water to be found. The epic times of cowboys and Indians are recalled in Gone But Not Forgotten. The train crosses the Great Divide, and enters the land of petrified forests, The Dineh and their marvelous hogans, and, a short train ride away, The Grand Canyon and its South Rim, again with a marvelous Fred Harvey Hotel, this time called the El Tovar. To the North, the wild, untamed country of the Canyonlands, Glen Canyon, Zion, and the Rio Virgin.
Marimbas announce a stop in Flagstaff. It offers the chance to partake in Southwestern cuisine. The flavors of the Southwest jump out in the adobe homes, the pinon covered woodlands, and the Native Americans herding sheep and weaving as the train rolls on. The country is again dry, unforgiving. The heat is visible outside the train as it travels on. As the sun sets, the imagination is stirred, and thoughts of how one would survive in such an inhospitable place emerge. Once again night falls, and the train crosses into California without passengers even realizing it. The Mojave Desert is Our Hero's companion in these early morning hours. Dreams of what working on a film might entail begin to be entertained by this Westward traveler, and he and his companions discuss some of the Hollywood stars of the Forties, and what they are really like.
Themes of romance enter the music again in A Date With Valentino, and continue through A Short Chat With Miss Crawford. The Parisian feeling returns, as the train rolls through the Western Mojave. The train and its young traveler appear to be reinvigorated as the journey to Los Angeles becomes a matter of a few hours more. That symbol of the High Mojave Desert appears, The Joshua Tree. Romantic thoughts of adventure accompany the young traveler into the Los Angeles Basin. Hollywood is the next stop, and the train's final leg of the journey is met with visions of romance, intrigue, and frantic telegrams awaiting a response. Anticipation of arrival is interspersed with dreams of meeting new people who will be the contacts for making life comfortable. Excitement grows while thinking about staying in a room the studio has payed for during the time the movie will be filmed. Themes of the LA of Nathaniel West begin to appear in the music, and one expects Peter Lorre and Humphrey Bogart to be driving by, looking for The Maltese Falcon. Palm Trees are an exotic reminder that the young traveler is not in Kansas anymore. The train pulls into the station, and a ride to Hollywood and the Hotel await. The Hotel is a respite for the journey's end, and our young traveler has now crossed the continent.
The music in Super Chief is marvelously evocative of the country the train passed through from Chicago to LA. In an era of nostalgia, this is the real deal. For those of us who made that journey on he Super Chief, it brings back memories of a more innocent time in our youth, when as Van Dyke Parks once wrote "Movies Was Magic." This is the soundtrack of the journey West, the ticket to a land of the next horizon. In the time that has elapsed since that journey, Indians have become Indigenous peoples, cowboys are no longer lionized on television or on the silver screen, and the land has become less innocent, more jaded. But for some of us, there was that time....that time we went Out West on the Super Chief.
Copyright 2013 by Peter Reum - All Rights reserved
No comments:
Post a Comment