Thread: Harpo Marx plays Wreckmaninoff

I just couldn't resist this - was in the mood for a bit of fun today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoTyDD0C93U

I'm so glad I ran across this thread today. I've been watching Harpo and Chico in musical interludes on You Tube this afternoon. Funny and musically talented!

An interesting link about the musical talent of Groucho - as a singer.

That was a gag I guess, but Harpo was considered a world-class harpist and was originally going to be a professional musician.

From Wiki:

Harpo learned how to hold (the harp) properly from a picture of an angel playing a harp that he saw in a five-and-dime. No one in town knew how to play the harp, so Harpo tuned it as best he could, starting with one basic note and tuning it from there. Three years later he found out he had tuned it incorrectly, but he could not have tuned it properly; if he had, the strings would have broken each night. Harpo's method placed much less tension on the strings. Although he played this way for the rest of his life, he did try to learn how to play correctly, and he spent considerable money hiring the best teachers. They, however, spent their time listening to him, fascinated by the way he played. In his movie performances he played the harp with his own tuning.

After watching clips on YouTube, I watched two full-length Marx Bros. movies on streaming video. My 18 year old son walked in and said, "I've never watched a black and white movie...oh wait, I've seen Young Frankenstein." I invited him to watch but he said he wasn't interested...too bad for him. I was entertained.

Here Harpo plays some "serious" music.

Lunasong, thanks for that terrific information about the extraordinary "Harpo" Marx. Those early films from the 1930's, directed by Leo McCarey and others, were quite cheaply made and they show it!! Scenes in "Coconuts", for example, see the camera trying to get focus in a particular scene. Very embarrassing, but the performers themselves were wonderful. Margaret Dumont never thought any of the Marx Brothers were funny, though I cannot imagine how they ever thought she could ACT. She's embarrassingly bad!! Sorry your 18 year old son is prejudiced against B&W, but it's typical I'm afraid - I was an English high-school teacher and tried to undo all that prejudice in teenagers. They are very rigid in their beliefs at this age - just as adults are at the other end of the age spectrum. Imagine how indignant kids got when you told them they were rigid - but they surely are!! Peer pressure makes them rigid in their views, poor things.

I'm sure you can convince your son that the greatest films ever made are in B&W, starting with Karl Theodor Dreyer's "Joan of Arc" - which is a silent; not to mention "Metropolis", and most Lon Chaney films. The thought that the world of cinema could be reduced to megaplex trash just horrifies me!!

I found this delightful website by Harpo's son, Bill Marx.
www.harposplace.com

Harpo has apparently released 3 harp albums.
Meanwhile, Dad had started a whole other career as a recording artist. In 1951, he recorded and released an album of harp music for RCA. In 1957, he recorded another album, this time for MERCURY and in hi-fi. I was lucky enough to arrange some of the songs on this album. And it sold well enough for us to work on a second album in 1958. On this one I did all the arrangements.

Bill says he made the arrangement of "Take Me out to the Ball Game" that mitchflorida posted above.
...his memorable appearance on I Love Lucy... TV's #1 show at the time in April of 1955. I was there for that performance (and I even arranged the version of Take Me Out To The Ball Game that he plays on the harp) and it was later voted one of the top 10 episodes of I Love Lucy. I remember it because my dad looked so great at 67 years old. He'd actually suffered a mild heart attack earlier, but his strenuous performance showed no signs that he'd been diminished in any way. At one point, having thrown one of the actresses over his shoulder, he accidentally knocked his hat off. Without missing a beat, he knelt down and picked it up... while still carrying the actress!
Dad loved being onstage. (Even after 1963) he continued to make charity appearances with symphony orchestras and for the United Jewish Appeal. And every once in a while he'd get a hankering to do another TV special. (He approached Leonard Bernstein about a YOUNG PEOPLE'S CONCERT appearance and also thought about doing a Doublemint Gum commercial and going on Ernie Ford's show with a song he'd written.)

But ultimately, none of this came to pass. His last two professional appearances were on Mahalia Jackson's album, "LET'S PRAY TOGETHER" in 1964. (He accompanied Ms. Jackson on the harp as she sang Dad's most famous song, "GUARDIAN ANGELS".) And in the summer of 1964, he showed up at the Palm Springs Police Charity Ball, just a few weeks before he died.

Harpo also played clarinet, piano, and harmonica. You can find videos on Youtube.


Harpo practicing at home, circa 1960.


Bill on Harpo's playing:

Anybody who has seen a Marx Brothers movie knows Harpo is a lunatic... a wild man capable of the craziest things imaginable... and even some things that defy the laws of physics. (In one movie, he pulls a full-grown dog out of his coat; in another, a lit candle burning at both ends.)

But when he sat down to play the harp, Harpo became Arthur. You can see it in his face. He's got that rapt, hypnotized quality to his expression. These are my favorite moments of Dad's movie and TV appearances. (I love watching him in a Milton Berle show from 1959 and on the Ed Sullivan Show from 1961, where he really does a great job on the harp.)

What the casual Marx Brothers fan may NOT know is that Dad took music really seriously. And there has always been a fair amount of debate just what to do with Harpo Marx, harpist. So let me offer some background... and an opinion, that may be just a little biased... but not much.

I am a composer, arranger and performer. My instrument is piano. I studied at Julliard and I've played piano for over 50 years, releasing some jazzy albums in the 1960s, followed by popular ones based on my later "piano bar" career. I've composed symphonies and I've written for the harp. And so I am somewhat qualified to say the following:

The harp is an incredibly complex and difficult instrument to play. It looks simple, but it actually has thousands of moving parts, all housed within a block of wood that is kept under pressure and will implode if not played regularly. There are strings and pedals and tuning knobs and sounding boards and it's hard to tune.

And the harp really isn't that versatile. It has one, rather heavenly "sound" so it's usually written as a background instrument for orchestral color - the frosting on a particularly rich cake. It doesn't handle the melody as much as it underlines it. In other words... the harp is rarely the star of the orchestra.

My dad taught himself how to play the harp... as an adult. His mom sent him one when he was in his twenties and told him to learn it. So he did. He didn't get lessons and he didn't know how to read music. And the harp his mom sent him was a piece of junk. Early on he tuned it wrong and played it on the wrong shoulder.

One reason why it's a good idea to teach kids to learn instruments when they're kids is that kids' brains are engineered to soak up knowledge like a sponge. As we get older, our ability to learn... especially complex hand-eye-coordinated functions like playing an instrument... declines.

One thing my dad figured out pretty early on - it's relatively easy to play glissandos (those showy runs that go up and down the scales... and the strings) on the harp. And glissandos look impressive when you watch a harpist play one. Watch his early movies and you'll see him do that a lot in his own, unique, self-taught way.

But there's something else you can learn from watching him play the harp in his movies... beginning with "The Cocoanuts" in 1929 and ending with "Love Happy" in 1949. Dad gets a lot better at playing as time goes on. I think this is because Dad really loved playing the harp and he did it constantly. He'd practice for two or three hours every day. Maybe the first multi-tasker ever, he even had a harp in the bathroom so he could play when he sat on the toilet! Every musician will tell you in order to get better you have to practice... practice... practice.

He also got better because he learned a few things as he went along. Dad never really had a harp teacher - he never learned to read music and nobody ever "trained" him in the conventional sense. But he did have help from a really wonderful harpist named Mildred Dilling who helped him break some bad habits and who walked him through certain pieces he wanted to learn. He'd call her up and play something over the phone that was causing him trouble, she'd move her harp over to the phone and play it back for him until he could correct himself or match the sound she made.

Dad was also friends with some of the greatest musicians and composers who ever lived - George Gershwin and Oscar Levant, not to mention the studio musicians at MGM. And Dad picked things up every step of the way.

Despite this, Dad would never be considered a "great" harpist... in the sense that he could sit in an orchestra and do what orchestra harpists do - read music and play classical harp as a secondary role in a big symphony. Instead, Dad did what no harpist of his day did... or wanted to do. He played the harp like it was a solo instrument, interpreting popular and classical music through the harp.

Because of this, Dad ended up being a fairly controversial figure in the harp world. At first, classically trained harpists either refused to take him seriously or were offended by his style to the point where they ridiculed his performing. His popularity as a comedian almost precluded anyone seriously evaluating his harp playing. And his unconventionality probably would have doomed a serious critique anyway.

And then I got involved, for better or worse. I showed some proclivity for music as a kid, and my Dad just ate up whatever I learned. I leaned more toward jazz and complex rhythms and my dad was more into popular music and layered harmonies. But he was such a music lover he simply had to know what I was learning... and he had to absorb it through his harp playing.

In the 1950s my dad really grew as a harpist as I brought home the music I was listening to. His first album... for RCA... is a fairly conventional album of popular music, with his harp taking the lead. It sounds a lot like what you might hear him play in his later filmed harp solos.

By the end of the decade, when he made the Mercury albums... the music was much more experimental and complex. There were some amazing performers who worked on those albums, too. And they just made Dad want to be that much better.

Technically, Dad always struggled with rhythm, but he interpreted a melody like a singer did, with pauses and stops that made you realize the music was coming out of his heart and soul, and not his fingers.

I'm not sure many people who bought those Mercury albums in the fifties thought much about that. They probably bought the albums because they were Dad's fans. Harp connoisseurs probably didn't listen to them because they didn't like what Dad played or the way he played it.

Meanwhile, something was quietly happening. More people were becoming aware of the harp through Dad's movie and TV appearances. Some of them were inspired to take up the harp. Others were inspired to compose for it... not as a background instrument, but as a lead instrument. And not just for classical works, but for popular songs, jazz and even...later... rock.

And certain unorthodox music critics made an observation that was unarguably true: Good or bad, Harpo Marx was the only harpist of his time who used his instrument to interpret and perform popular music. People admitted to being influenced by his performances... and not just people who "didn't know any better," - people without musical training who simply liked what they heard. But formally trained musicians... folks who HADN'T taught themselves how to play when they were an adult without knowing how to read music, like Dad did.

Today, some of the world's leading harpists were inspired to pursue their studies because of Dad. Critics have rediscovered Dad's rarer performances and the Mercury albums and now consider them to be unique and wonderful. Good for you, Dad!

Harpo Marx certainly had his limitations as a harpist. He'd be the first to admit this. But I can proudly say he is one of the greatest and most influential harpists who ever lived. (Along with King David, of course) And the music he created still moves people. What else can a musician ask for?

Oh, and he taught himself how to play the clarinet, too... and the harmonica... and the piano.

Fantastic, Lunasong, I really enjoyed reading that. I can certainly see that 'rapt' look on Harpo's face when he's playing, and you can see it here on Chico's face when he's playing piano. These were musical and music-loving people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kDHD4Bs_EI

Originally Posted by CountenanceAnglaise

I'm sure you can convince your son that the greatest films ever made are in B&W, starting with Karl Theodor Dreyer's "Joan of Arc" - which is a silent; not to mention "Metropolis", and most Lon Chaney films. The thought that the world of cinema could be reduced to megaplex trash just horrifies me!!

I recently saw Metropolis with the sound turned off, and two of South Africa's top jazz musicians, Paul Hanmer and Feya Faku, improvising. It was awesome! Here's a link to the article I wrote at the time. http://artscomments.wordpress.com/20...-the-bioscope/

Moira, this is wonderful stuff. And your beautiful Jo-burg - I'd love to know more about that!! A friend of mine visits SA occasionally and loves it. So many of your people living here in Australia too, particularly Western Australia.

"Metropolis" is a wonderful film and I think the performance of the father (I've forgotten the actor's name) is just magnificent - he uses his eyes and body so expressively that it melts my heart. This is REAL acting, of the Chaney type. Not in the least overdone and so heartfelt you know exactly how the father is feeling, even though he's autocratic. The scene with the robot always reminds me of Dr. Copelius constructing the doll from the ballet by Delibes. There are some scenes in "Metropolis" which don't quite work, eg. in the garden with those birds etc. - that was over the top. But the Brechtian scenes of the workers all marching towards and from the lifts to come/go underground was pure theatre. And, of course, it was the mid 20's when those exciting things were happening theatrically in Berlin. So many fantastic things to be thankful for!! Who WOULDN'T LOVE SILENT CINEMA - a marvel, IMHO. Speaking of Chaney - his parents were both deaf so Lon learned to communicate using mime and he extrapolated those skills very artfully in some of silent cinema's most wonderful moments. Great to share this stuff with you!!

Isn't Wreckmaninov the satire version of the name Rachmaninov?

Originally Posted by CountenanceAnglaise

Moira, this is wonderful stuff. And your beautiful Jo-burg - I'd love to know more about that!! A friend of mine visits SA occasionally and loves it. So many of your people living here in Australia too, particularly Western Australia.

A lot of South Africans left South Africa after it became a democratic country. The ones who like the sun went to Australia.

I'm always happy to talk about the city of my birth, the city where I live, both the same place, Johannesburg. Someone once described her as "a tatty ***** with a heart of gold". It's a good description of this city. Once a month I try to do something I have never done before as in visiting a new place, taking a drive somewhere I haven't explored, seeing a new tourist attraction. It is a challenge to those of us who are old residents of a city to stay in love with it, and it is quite, quite do-able in a city this vibrant. This month a new major art gallery and a new major theatre opened. I haven't yet been to either of them. I did go to a new minor art gallery (ROOM in Juta Street, one of a series of galleries in an area the city is trying to promote as a fine arts precinct.) I also went to a jazz concert at a new casino that I haven't visited before.

It sounds as though you already love your city, despite the 'occupational' hazards of being there. Same where I live, Sydney. The crime!! OMG. But with over 4million people it's difficult to have a completely heterogeneous group who like each other!!

Perth in Western Australia is one of the most remote capital cities in the world - if not THE most remote. There's lots of sun, and a great deal of heat. You know what Noel Coward said, "mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun"!! Cheers.

Harpo on playing the clarinet, from his book Harpo Speaks!

(In 1931) I finally got up the courage to play the clarinet in public, and worked it into my act. Naturally, I didn't play it straight. What I did was rig some special tubing along my clarinet from mouthpiece to bell, leading into a hidden container of liquid soap. Halfway through a piece I would flick a valve, and bubbles would come out along with the music. This went over pretty well, although it limited my clarinet repertoire to one number - "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles."

"I'm Forever Playing Bubbles" with Milton Berle:


"When my Dreams Come True" from The Cocoanuts.


Read this link for a funny story about Harpo and the real Rachmaninoff.

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thanks for the video posts!!




"A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five."