Chapter Twelve
I had always been fearless about raising my hand to answer a teacher’s question. Sometimes I gave a wrong answer, but my confidence in that sphere remained unshaken. But as a fifteen-year-old high school junior among seventeen-year-olds, when it came to winning the respect of my contemporaries my daily mantra went from “I just want everyone to be happy” to “What’s wrong with me?”
Accepting a suggestion from my mother, I volunteered to contribute musically to the annual James Madison High School Sing. I found tremendous satisfaction in writing and arranging songs for the Sing, and I even performed some of the songs myself. But I really enjoyed teaching other students to sing what I had written. After the show, the applause lifted me to the point where I began to wonder what I could do next. Encouraged by teachers and classmates, I decided to start a singing group.
The Alan Freed shows had made me aware of the burgeoning number of street-corner groups, so called because they sometimes sang on street corners, subways, buses, or, depending on the size of the singers, anywhere they liked. They sang a cappella usually in four-part harmony. Similar groups were forming in high schools all over Brooklyn. One such group was the Tokens from Madison’s rival Lincoln High School. After I heard Neil Sedaka and the Tokens perform “While I Dream” and “I Love My Baby,” cowritten by Neil and Howard Greenfield, I began to compose in earnest. Most of my songs had decent melodies, but my lyrics weren’t very good. It didn’t matter. The street-corner benchmark left plenty of room for mediocre lyrics.
Arranging classical pieces at Performing Arts had given me enough confidence to arrange some pieces for Mr. Jacobs’s chorus class. My arrangements were so well received that I decided to arrange some of my pop compositions for street-corner harmonies. Though the genres were considerably different, four-part harmony was four-part harmony. All I needed were a soprano, tenor, and bass. I would be the alto.
I recruited Iris Lipnick, Lenny Pullman, and Joel Zwick from Mr. Jacobs’s class. Lipnick, Pullman, Zwick, and Klein didn’t have quite the ring we were looking for, so we pulled a word from our trigonometry books and became the Cosines. It was a dreadful name, but it was ours. We worked on vocal arrangements, choreographed steps at my house after school, and then performed for free at dances and other school events. For some reason I’ve blocked out all memory of the names, melodies, and lyrics of most of our repertoire except one: “Leave, Schkeeve.” My God! Of all the songs we sang, I can’t believe that’s the one I remember. We wrote that song as a group. I had no idea what a schkeeve was, but it rhymed with “leave,” and that was all that mattered. Only a teenager with no social life would have put so much effort into arranging a song whose main lyric was “Leave, schkeeve / Bum doo-bee doo-wop.”
In those days I wrote exclusively on piano. I was really excited about writing that arrangement. I’ve always loved wrapping layers around a melody. When arranging for voices with a band, usually I begin with a foundation consisting of melody, lyrics, and the chords and rhythm coming from my piano. Then I bring in the rhythm section: a drumbeat on a kit with three drums, several cymbals, and a pair of sticks, mallets, or brushes; a bass line that’s pretty close to what my left hand plays on the piano; a rhythm guitar that complements my piano; and sometimes a lead guitar to add accents and fills to the mix of piano, rhythm guitar, bass, and drums. Then I add vocal harmonies. And if I’m lucky enough to have the use of an orchestra, I add a final layer of orchestral instruments.
At best, the aggregate is an aural design that adds to the emotion of a song. But there’s a fine line: vocal and instrumental flourishes can make an arrangement more interesting, but they can also detract from the mood. As ambiance is to a room, mood is to a song. If you add too many lights and a pinball machine, the mood is lost. When my instinct is working well, it notifies me when I’m adding too many elements. When it’s working really well, I feel as if the arrangement is writing itself through me. Though on occasion I’ve overarranged, in general my guiding principle is “less is more.”
In the case of the Cosines, less didn’t need to be more because we didn’t have a lot of elements to begin with. Though most of my arrangements for the group were in the “doo-wop” style of the era, I arranged pop standards such as “Once in a While” and “Young and Foolish.” I was an artist in sound as I filled my sonic canvas with the colors and textures of vocal harmonies, which is why I preferred writing and arranging over performing. When I did perform, my preference was still to have someone else up there with me to attract some of the attention. As with Loretta Stone, this was the case with the other three Cosines, whose dance steps and humorous antics in the foreground would keep the audience’s eyes on them while I sang and played piano in the background. That seemed to work for our audiences, whose laughter, dancing, and applause made us feel terrific. As Madison’s own singing group, we were a worthy rival for the Tokens and groups from other high schools.
I still wasn’t being asked out on dates, but I was no longer lonely. I had finally found my niche in the social structure. With music as a path to peer recognition, I had become cool. But as rewarding as it was to perform with the Cosines, I wanted to hear my songs on the radio. In between homework, school activities, and household chores, I wrote prolifically and wondered if there was any way I could meet Alan Freed.