Inspiration

I am in the process of writing a paper on Jewish contributions to American popular music - the final paper for my second to last grad school class (hooray!) - and in my research I came across these great pictures of two of my favorite musicians.

Dave Brubeck - amazing jazz composer and performer. He is in his late 80s now and is still performing occasionally. I love this picture - look how the piano keyboard is reflected in his glasses. Brubeck was in the army in WWII and led an integrated band, the first example of black and white musicians playing together in a group in the military. I saw him in a video (Ken Burns' "Jazz" - amazing, I highly recommend it) and he talks about how difficult it was to come back to the States after the war and still face racial discrimination after all they had fought for in the war and all the time his band had spent touring together as a group in Europe.

How great is this picture? That is Leonard Bernstein conducting, my superhero! I love the little girl standing there, listening in wonder. I think I would have been the same way if I had had a chance to hear Bernstein conducting live. :)