Funny wondering if my Melody of Words may have inspired Bob Dylan, and then revisiting my poem and thinking about his music again inspired me to add so much more content.

With Leonard Bernstein, I was very relaxed dancing alongside him with our respective partners, both very young women, as we discussed the disco music playing in considerable detail until In the Bush - push, push in the bush - was too ribald for Bernstein, and he left the dance floor in disbelief convering his face with his hands.

Rewind, this was a party at Tanglewood following a student concert Lenny conducted, and I was standing there alone when he magically appeared out of a crowd noticing me with intense interest. We shook hands but I very wrongfully felt he was hitting on me and was too stiff.

Being what one girlfriend had noted "you're such a fox" around that time, I had days prior been sexually propositioned by a married man out of the blue while walking in the forest near Tanglewood together, plus an unisexual male couple had taunted me in an unfriendly way about how sexy I was on the Tanglewood grounds.

As you likely know Leonard Altman, Merritt Butrick, John Cage, Earl Wild, Don Shirley and Phil Mealey were all transformative influences in my life who happened to be unisexual, and they were beyond kind to me.

Merritt I believe was bisexual, and Don once introduced me to his son, so I assume he was married to a woman at one point. Leonard Bernstein was married to Felicia Montealegre, of course.

Returning to that night at Tanglewood, rather than being relaxed and friendly when Lenny showed intense interest in me, I was overly formal and stupidly with my guard up, a fellow student having said some things to me about Bernstein's attraction to younger men, and missed what surely would have been a great conversation, perhaps learning we had a common friend, Lee Konitz, Norman Lebrecht being the only person to date covering the revelation Lee made to me in the summer of 1990 walking through Central Park together, my having brought up Lenny, and Lee casually saying like it was nothing that Bernstein was a close friend when they lived in the same Manhattan apartment building - I'm guessing this was the late forties or early fifties - was an excellent pianist, and Lenny told him the song Cool was inspired by his playing!

And later on I realized that the general "jazz" influence on that greatest of all time show, was more specifically the jazz style of my jazz teacher and close friend Lee Konitz. Similar to my innovative insights into jazz, I've found, with the notable exception of Lebrecht, that this passes over the heads of music theater people who cannot hear it or would prefer to expunge it from music history

Many more details about Lee, Lenny and West Side story in Lee and Leonard: Konitz Figures In West Side Story.

There is my Maria Improvisation, and now when I play Lenny's songs on the piano, there is an added resonance recalling him, especially when playing Tonight.

- Michael Robinson, May 2024, Los Angeles

© 2024 Michael Robinson All rights reserved

Michael Robinson is a Los Angeles-based composer, programmer, pianist and musicologist. His 199 albums include 152 albums for meruvina and 47 albums of piano improvisations. Robinson has been a lecturer at UCLA, Bard College and California State University Long Beach and Dominguez Hills.