Island
Living 37: Troubadours of the Harbor
by A. D.
Coleman |
|
The most distinctive
form of entertainment Staten Island can call its
own doesn't actually take place anywhere on the
Island proper, but rather traveling to and from
it: the performances you catch on the Staten Island
Ferry, whose quantity and variety always increase
dramatically as the weather gets warm. We’re
heading into prime season for ferry acts right now,
and it’s time someone paid tribute to the people
who either help us to calm down after a hard day’s
work or get us to lively up ourselves and bounce
forward cheerfully into whatever’s coming next.
Of course, insofar
as the tourists are concerned, the ferry ride itself
is certainly the main drawing card, the Island's
top act; it's all (unfortunately) that most of them
will experience of Island life. But this cluster
of performers who -- not content to have all the
world as a stage -- do their strutting on the decks
of the boats that ply the waters between South Ferry
and St. George are our troubadours of the harbor,
the cast of the greatest show on H2O:
the Staten Island Ferry Orchestra and Choir.
They're not
an official orchestra or a rehearsing chorus. Mostly
they play alone, or in small group of two and three.
They make their water music independently, and in
fact most of them don't even know each other. Yet
they have provided me -- and countless others, yourself
perhaps included -- with some of the most memorable
musical and theatrical moments I've experienced
as an Islander.
Collectively,
the ferry performers I've seen and met have become
a fixture in my life. I've resided in Stapleton
since 1967. I work at home, and don’t ride
the ferry daily -- maybe two or three days a week,
on average. But those three decades-plus add up
to (among other things) a lot of ferry rides, and
literally hundreds of encounters with entertainers
-- primarily but not exclusively musicians -- who've
offered up their talents in that unusual, al fresco
setting.
As a one-time
semi-professional musician myself (I played in rock
bands in San Francisco and Staten Island between
1966 and 1970), I find the very thought of playing
the boat both thrilling and daunting. The setting
is idyllic: you're out on the water, with that peculiar
sense of suspended time that a sea cruise (even
a miniature one) generates. The harbor and the skyline
are never less than picturesque, and sometimes breathtakingly
beautiful. The patient, gliding motion of the boat,
the soft rumbling of the engines, the clean salt
smell of the sea -- these create an atmosphere in
which any heartfelt sound takes on a special resonance.
Are they a special
breed, these performers who will risk hecklers,
the stares of lobotomized commuters, the periodic
hassles with crew and cops, and the occasional but
real dangers of working on a moving vehicle? I suspect
they are, though I have no real proof. Certainly
they're as varied a group of artists as any. Over
the years, I've seen mime, juggling, magic and mind-reading.
Musically, it's ranged from Peruvian and Caribbean
through classical chamber music, ragtime, jazz,
and assorted mixtures of American folk/pop/rock/blues.
Why do musicians
play the ferry? They cite a variety of advantages.
Unlike the subways, the ferries are quiet. Unlike
the street, the acoustics are good -- the sound
doesn't evaporate, as it tends to do in the open
air. It's cool in summer and -- especially important
-- warm in winter. ("Somehow I just never realized
that it was heated until the first time I
tried playing there," I remember being told
bemusedly, long ago, by a former ferry regular --
sax player Herman Wright, an unofficial historian
of New York City street music.)
Some years back
I chatted for awhile with singer-guitarist Paul
Clarke, who played the ferry steadily for a long
stretch. He preferred the weekend, with its heavy
tourist contingent, because "they're out to
enjoy themselves. The commuters seem very heavily
burdened -- tired, preoccupied -- and you have to
respect people's ears and their desire for silence.
But I have this vision of everybody bursting into
song on the ferry -- a robust chorus of 'We Are
The World' -- and the boat just taking off like
an aquaplane."
Certainly these
performers take their work seriously. They do it
to learn the lessons of performing in public, and
because they like to play for others, and because
the ferry is a remarkable setting for whatever one
has to offer. None of them is in it strictly for
the money, but no one turns the contributions down,
either. "It helps fill in the holes between
other gigs," said one performer with whom I
spoke.
As for the quality
-- well, let's say it varies. I've never heard anyone
who was out-and-out awful; the worst I ever encountered
was mediocrity, which is tolerable when combined
with the ferry ride. After all, it's avoidable;
unless the boat is jammed, you can always get out
of earshot. The boats' acoustics are such that the
sound doesn't carry far; you really can't hear much
from deck to deck or from one end to the other.
But that particular instance of less-than-prime
afforded another mediocre guitar player (myself)
the opportunity to learn a chord change I'd never
been able to figure out before. So even the worst
of it has its redeeming values, and the best of
it more than compensates you for your tolerance.
What's most
remarkable to me about the current crop is their
professionalism. They may be singing for their supper,
but these are not earnest novices thrashing out
endless choruses of "Let It Be," nor the
woebegone, incompetent types to whom you give a
quarter in the hope that they'll shut up and scuttle
off. Rather, these are serious performing artists
who play the ferry (sometimes, too, the subways
and the streets) because they choose to, not because
their skills aren't of the highest caliber. "I've
got a captive audience for a whole half-hour,"
the aforementioned Herman Wright once told me. "It's
not like the street, where people will listen to
half a song and then move on. I'm there with them
and they're right with me, so they can hear the
full range of what I can do."
The kind of
entertainment you can encounter here on the world's
cheapest ocean voyage ranges widely, as I can testify
from experience. There's no telling what you may
see or when you might see it. The scheduling is
not only unpredictable but nonexistent. Among other
things, the element of surprise is on the side of
the performers: all of a sudden they're just there,
right in your face. Some are one-shot events, striking
like lightning, caught purely by chance. Then you
have the regulars, the ones you look forward to,
the performers you get to know. They become like
familiar, comfortable slippers -- with the advantage
that you get to slip into them before you
get home.
So just keep
your eyes and ears open -- there's no telling who
or what you might get to hear as you float between
the Island and the core of the Apple. And put some
change in the hat, or the guitar case, as you leave.
Consider it a contribution to keeping alive the
legend of the carefree, devil-may-care, unfettered
musician content to be, in Joni Mitchell's words,
"playin' real good, for free."
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©
Copyright 2001 by A. D. Coleman. All rights reserved.
By permission of the author and Image/World
Syndication Services,
P.O.B. 040078, Staten Island, New York 10304-0002
USA.
