Friday, July 28, 2006

Cranbury Press

Concert brings the past to life

Vintage instruments and music get the spotlight

By Jessica Beym – Staff Writer

The Board of Recreation wants Cranbury residents to turn off their radios, mp3 players and televisions and experience music from a different era tonight, Friday, at the United Methodist Church on North Main Street.

    With an arsenal of classic guitars, Ken Lelen of Titusville will treat Cranbury residents to a show of vintage music from the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. The concert, held at 7 p.m. in Fellowship Hall, is part of the Board of Recreation's free summer concert series.

    Mr. Lelen has played guitar for more than 40 years and has about 30 vintage guitars, each with an individual sound. From ragtime and swing to blues and folk, each tune is played on a guitar specific to its era, adding an authenticity that Mr. Lelen said is uncommon today.

    "They're American-made acoustic, steel-string guitars," Mr. Lelen said, referring to his collection. "When people hear these tunes and the sound of a guitar, they realize the purpose of the evening is to enjoy the music. You can't get this sound out of a box or by electronically modifying something."

    Mr. Lelen, who performs more than 120 concerts a year up and down the East Coast and at age-restricted communities, said many listeners are familiar with the American tunes that were popular in those eras. However, they hardly ever hear the songs coupled with a guitar from the same time frame.

    For tonight's performance, Mr. Lelen will pick from a selection of seven guitars. He will also sing along to each tune, but would not say which songs he would be playing. "I'll introduce the song, the composer and the guitar that I'm using," he said, adding that he doesn't want to "give away the program."

    The manufacturers of his vintage, handcrafted guitars include Martin, Gibson, Regal and Washburn. Many of the guitars are still in their original condition, he said, adding that his oldest guitar was built in 1912 and the youngest is from 1955.

    "They're all well-crafted and have lasted because they were well-made," Mr. Lelen said. "They've been played for 70 or 80 years and withstood many weather changes. They all have a particular sound, or personality, because they've been played and been taken care of."

    Along with Mr. Lelen's singing, the sound and appearance of the guitars is something an audience enjoys, he said. "They have kind of a woody, warm sound to them that you don't hear often," he said. "It's something people are pleasantly surprised by. It's not something they hear too often."

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© 2006 — Packet Publications

June 6, 2003

Princeton Packet

Deeper Well

Ken Lelen's vintage music harkens back to an era when the pace
was slower and when music could be heard without distraction.

                                                                                          PHOTO: Mark Czajkowski
Ken Lelen and his vintage guitars

By Susan Van Dongen — Arts Reporter

The instruments are old, the songs even older, but the singer is anything but old-fashioned.

     Ken Lelen is no misty-eyed, free-spirited troubadour when it comes to his Vintage Music Concerts. Besides being a skilled musician with fine taste in choosing the songs he performs, he's a savvy businessman who planned his career's trajectory. Mr. Lelen has built up his audience slowly but steadily and calculated the best way to get in front of as many people as possible.

     Friends joke he took Vintage Music Concerts to vintage audiences, playing often for senior citizens, who may remember the songs along with their first smooch in a rumble seat. However, Mr. Lelen says the subtlety of the lyrics and the charm of the melodies appeals to a growing number of younger people as well.

     "I started playing for senior citizens, but found the venues and events that hire me are expanding. I'm delighted, since the songs whet the interests of a variety of audiences," Mr. Lelen says.

     His concerts are for people whose tastes are maturing, growing away from the heavy-beat rock and rhythmic dance music that Mr. Lelen says detract from the aesthetics and complexities of songwriting. "With these songs, the feelings and thoughts are expressed in a way people don't hear on the radio, or with Muzak or with music you hear on television or in film," Mr. Lelen says. "For people not familiar with the music, it touches something evocative - something they didn't know they were missing.

     On June 14, Mr. Lelen will revive another old-time form of entertainment — playing a live radio broadcast. Mr. Lelen will appear live on WDVR-FM's Heartlands Hayride program, broadcast from Brethren Church in Sergeantsville from 6-8 p.m. The show can be heard in Hunterdon County on 89.7 FM and in the Princeton-Trenton area on 91.9 FM. In addition, the public is invited to attend the broadcast and take part in something you don't see everyday. "I've done this now quite a few times," says the Titusville resident. "It's a great experience."

     Mr. Lelen will perform a trunkful of classic tunes — ragtime, blues and swing — on his collection of 20 guitars built from 1900 to 1948 by such noteworthy manufacturers as Epiphone, Gibson, Gretsch, Martin and Haynes. All produce music that is striking for its authentic sound without the assistance of electronic gadgetry. "They're all acoustic instruments," Mr. Lelen says, "and they're matched with music of the same period." His antique axes include a 1900 Bay State parlor guitar, 1932 mahogany-bodied Gibson L-00 and 1943 Martin 000-18 which, due to wartime shortages, was built with an ebony neck shaft instead of conventional steel bar.

     A successful journalist for 30 years, Mr. Lelen arrived in Central Jersey 15 years ago after helping launch several magazines, including Fine Homebuilding and Home Again. He also developed newsletters for various Manhattan publishers, freelanced business articles for newspapers and magazines in the tri-state region, and was a business news columnist for the Trenton Times. In 1997 he started the Apartment Section of the Washington Post and left full-time journalism a few years ago to pursue his dream.

     Mr. Lelen says he's always had an affinity for this kind of music, perhaps thanks in part to his bobby-soxer mother who owned a collection of jazz, swing and blues records. Raised on Long Island, Mr. Lelen's first instrument was flute. But, like many young musicians of his generation, the folk bug bit him and he picked up the guitar after hearing the Kingston Trio, Peter Paul and Mary and other folkies mix classic melodies with thoughtful lyrics.

     Mr. Lelen started playing vintage guitars ten years ago because he found "the guitars didn't 'want' to play rock'n'roll — they wanted to play ragtime and jazz standards," he says. In addition to material from the 1920s and 1930s, he writes and performs original songs with the same kind of wry wit, good humor and double entendres as songs by Dorothy Fields and Irving Berlin.

     His real passion is in delivering the honesty of the emotions expressed in these old songs, much of which is lost to the cacophony of over-produced recordings. Mr. Lelen says vintage songs also evoke a period in time when things could be savored more, when the pace of life in general was slower.

     "Entertainment today is taken on the run," he says. "When people listen to music, it's often turned on and off according to busy schedules. Those are just some of the factors that contribute to the public's tendency to listen to musical fragments, not complete thoughts."

     He also notes people read less and don't listen or talk in full sentences. Consequently, contemporary song lyrics also don't express complete thoughts. "With old songs — of which there's a bottomless well — there's a more complicated emotional content," Mr. Lelen says.

     "Sure, they appeal to older folks who remember them from their day. But I think younger people reach a point when they have to consider the emotional content of their lives and more deeply examine their culture. There's a whole other element of this vintage music. It speaks to us all, generation after generation."

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© 2003 — Princeton Packet

The Sound of Vintage Music Concerts

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Thomas "Fats" Waller's Ain't Misbehavin'

Ken Lelen’s repertoire spans the decades of the early and mid-20th Century. Songs in his concert programs range from ragtime, jazz and hill-billy to swing, crooner and popular tunes in the American Songbook.

     In performance he prefers to sing verses he finds in original sheet music and songbooks, and use unembellished acoustic orchestration he hears in many period recordings. Without reservation, Lelen likes this period music performed with period instruments for the substance and style it offers his audiences.

     To his delight, oldsters in audiences at clubs, libraries and senior centers say this is how they first heard the music. They also say Lelen's repertoire of legendary love songs is more fulfilling than the June-spoon, harvest-moon fare they're force-fed by bluegrass, folk and karaoke singers hired by tone-deft program managers at nursing homes and assisted-living facilities. Likewise, middle-aged and young adults offer compliments as well, commenting that vintage songs have more content or feel than most contemporary music.

     Playing any of the half-dozen vintage guitars he brings to each performance, Lelen likes to match a song with a guitar made in the same decade for an authentic, acoustic sound. Guitars and concerts were not amplified 80 years ago, so pick-ups, wires and electric gizmos are not installed to "improve" the guitars and performances today. To do so, Lelen says, would amplify the volume, but distort the instrument's tone and character. It also would adversely affect the condition and value of his precious period instruments.

     Years ago Lelen decided not to rely on lackluster PA systems or less-than-able sound techs at small venues. Instead, he uses a Fender Passport system to reproduce the sound of guitars and voice without embellishment, distortion or reverb. Given the unpredictable room conditions he encounters, this equipment has ensured quality sound reproduction at every venue. He uses a Shure SM-58 mic on voice and Shure SM-57 mic on guitar as well as strategic speaker placement for the bright and clear sound levels audiences demand. As a result, it takes 45-60 minutes to set up his sound gear and vintage instruments before a concert and, similarly,  30-45 minutes to re-pack his equipment following a concert.

     Over the past decade Ken Lelen has performed more than 925 concerts for about 85,000 people at a host of venues and settings across the eastern U.S. Audience sizes at these sites have ranged between 35 and 350 people, while the rooms he has played included churches, clubs, dining halls, schools, libraries, auditoriums, multi-purpose rooms, museums, basements,  living rooms,  gymnasiums,  lobbies,  art and

Ken Lelen at Wright WW II Museum,
Wolfeboro NH, May 13, 2004

antique galleries, patios and gardens. His most unusual performance space was a flag-draped tank garage — a gymnasium-sized building at the Wright Museum in Wolfeboro NH that houses World War II-era vehicles of mass destruction.

     Lelen believes there is considerable pay-off for his combination of period instruments, classic songs and faithful sound. Vintage Music Concert audiences say they understand the words to the songs they enjoy. They relish the emotions engendered by the music he sings. And they appreciate the classy appeal of vintage instruments used in a contemporary concert setting.

     In short, Lelen says, "You can't get this sound out of a box with plastic knobs."

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© 2010 Ken Lelen — All Rights Reserved

Ken Lelen Combo
Spring 2010 New England Tour
Monday, April 12, 2010 to Saturday, April 17, 2010
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We performed for 650 people at nine concerts across a six-day span.
I played five vintage guitars: 1912 Grauso; 1926 Maurer #493; 1936
Schmidt Sovereign OM; 1937 Kalamazoo KG-21; 1938 B&D Groton 1.

Monday, 12 April 2010

Tower One / Tower East, New Haven, CT
This was our first concert at this venue, which consists of two federally subsidized apartment buildings in downtown New Haven with 350 senior residents. Our sponsor drew a crowd of 35 people to a midday concert in a large, sunny dining room of 125 seats. Still, the concert was marked by noise in an adjacent café, people moving through of the room, audience conversations, people on cell phones and MIA program staff. Still, we gave 'em what we came for — a 70-minute concert of 19 jazz and swing hits — and left 'em happy with our music.

Pomperaug Woods, Southbury, CT

I've played this facility several times in the past decade; this was the first time for the Combo. The auditorium, called Wilson Hall, holds 75 people, and our sponsor drew about 50 people to an early evening event where we performed 17 songs in a 75-minute concert.

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Tuesday, 13 April 2010

Avery Heights, Hartford, CT
In the past five years I've played this hilltop retirement community two times a year before a crowd that ranged between 30 and 50 people. It was the first time for the Combo. We performed 15 songs in a 75-minute concert held in a large walkout basement called the Adams Room.

Arbors, Manchester, CT
We played 16 early jazz and swing tunes in a 65-minute concert before a crowd of 30 people in a musty basement at a large retirement village set just east of Hartford.

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Wednesday, 14 April 2010

Greendale Retired Men's Club, Worcester, MA
This early morning concert in the gymnasium of a local YMCA was the high point of our Spring 2010 New England tour. Our audience — a rousing crowd of about 250 men — smiled, hooted and cheered through the event. More surprising (for me, at least) was the fact that we played a 65-minute, 16-song program at 9:30 in the morning. As if that wasn't enough, several people who attended this concert sent friends to later concerts we offered on Cape Cod and in Worcester.

For more details on the Greendale Men's Club concert see Journal posting of April 14, 2010.

Heatherwood, Yarmouth Port, MA
Cape Cod is a world apart and Heatherwood is a gorgeous CCRC I've played each spring or fall for a decade. We filled the Meeting Room with 55 people for a 17-song, 80-minute concert.

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Thursday, 15 April 2010

Mayflower Place, West Yarmouth, MA
While on Cape Cod we also played this tidy retirement facility located near the town of Hyannis and Barnstable Airport. We were tickled by the arrival of friends and relatives of audience members from the Greendale Mens Club (see above) at this concert, where we performed 16 songs in a 75-minute concert for about 50 people.

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Friday, 16 April 2010

Overlook Community, Charlton MA
Overlook is an enormous, 450-acre retirement village run by the Masonic Health System in central Mass. While bass player Matt Koch didn't play this concert, I did perform a 16-song, 75-minute concert in Overlook's Performing Arts Center, a fabulous 280-seat theater.

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Saturday, 17 April 2010

Fox Hill Village, Westwood, MA
The final concert of our Spring 2010 tour in New England was before a happy crowd of 75 people at Fox Hill, an elegant retirement community in Boston's western suburbs. We performed 15 songs in a 75-minute set that was notable for the large number of family members who joined the Fox Hill residents in the audience. At events like this, the adult children of retirees often tell me they didn't realize they knew these songs or how much they liked them. Likewise, I always tell them it is my pleasure to see how much they enjoyed themselves at the event.

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© 2010 by Kenneth Lelen — All Rights Reserved

                                      Wednesday, 14 April 2010

Greendale Retired Mens Club, Worcester, MA

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This was a great concert for the Ken Lelen Combo and came halfway in our Spring 2010 tour of New England. We played for an ebullient audience of 250 men seated on metal folding chairs in a large gymnasium at the Greendale YMCA.
     Concert publicity, aimed at members of the Greendale Retired Mens Club, was successful in bringing people to the early-morning event. Even at our arrival we could feel the energy and hear the noise of the gathering crowd. And after a few preliminary club functions, we gathered our equipment near a speaker's podium and began a 65-minute, 16-song program at 9:30 a.m. — yes, a.m.!
     We opened the concert with "The Lady Is A Tramp," Richard Rodgers' and Lorenz Hart’s tune from Babes In Arms, their 1937 hit musical. The tune has long been known as a witty and sophisticated spoof of New York high society. The Greendale guys loved it — smiling, hooting and cheering throughout our rendition of the song.

     The guys also liked to sing and didn't need an invitation to join us. So before we knew it, they chimed in on "It Had To Be You," "You Are My Sunshine" and "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter."
     I displayed and played five vintage guitars, including the Floyd Riggs guitar — a 1937 Kalamazoo KG-21 that cost about $19 retail back in the day. Riggs (1918-2000), a native of Vienna, WV and World War II vet who owned 14 guitars and mandolins, played this Gibson-made archtop until the day he died. I’m the second person to own the instrument, which I call “the Riggs”. Lest it go unsaid, it worked well on “Moonglow” and “I’m In the Mood For Love," two swing-era dance tunes.
     Our thanks to the club’s program committee which, following a tip, called us out of the blue and invited us to entertain this group. As icing on the cake, several people who attended this concert also attended Vintage Music Concerts we offered later in the week in Worcester and on Cape Cod.

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© 2010 by Kenneth Lelen — All Rights Reserved

Milford Fine Arts Center, Milford, CT

Friday, 26 March 2010
Updated Monday, 31 October 2016

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In March 2010 the Ken Lelen Combo played for
the Milford CT Fine Arts Council, which hosts a
coffeehouse series in this former train station.

Our concert at Milford Fine Arts Center was the high point of Ken Lelen Combo’s Spring 2010 tours. We performed for 85 people in a Performance Coffeehouse — an all-acoustic venue located in a former train-station waiting room that was outfitted with 100 chairs set around 15 tables.
     The room was a long rectangle topped by a high ceiling. With a simple stage at one end and reception area at the other, we didn’t need a sound system. We could see everyone in their $15 and $20 seats and everyone could see and hear us.
     Unlike our audiences at retirement communities, our audience at Milford Fine Arts Center was not retirees looking to take a nostalgic bath in old songs. Here, the audience was the typical mixed-age group who frequent acoustic music clubs and offer musical programs by singer-songwriters or folk and traditional singers.
     To our pleasant surprise, the crowd at Milford Fine Arts Center was eager to hear ragtime, jazz and swing. They also wanted to hear vintage acoustic guitars made in the same era as the music and catch info nuggets about Tin Pan Alley and the characters who once dwelt there.
     Playing for a warm and friendly crowd on a Friday night, the concert went well for us. sang 18 songs in two 45-minute sets. I displayed and played five vintage guitars, including a 1933 Martin OM-18 once owned by Carl Sandburg. There were refreshments at the break in a separate area and free CDs on the tables for club members and their guests. After the concert we relished in the familiar hub-bub of people on the stage visiting me or Matt with questions and comments or grabbing a look at the guitars.
     In all, everything worked well. So, our thanks to William Meddick, director of the Milford Fine Arts Center, Laura Garrity, head of the acoustic-music club's coffeehouse committee, and a powerhouse of committed volunteers.

Here are the guitars played and the songs performed at Milford Fine Arts Center:

1938 B & D — Groton 1

            Lady Is A Tramp                                     ©  1937           

            Pennies From Heaven                           ©  1936

            Love Is Here To Stay                              ©  1938

            I’m In The Mood For Love                      ©  1935

1912 Grauso — Auditorium

            Nobody Knows You Down & Out           ©  1923

            After You’ve Gone                                  ©  1918

            Ain’t Misbehavin’                                    ©  1929

1925 Maurer — Style #493

            Georgia On My Mind                              ©  1930

            Dream Little Dream Of Me                     ©  1930

            Rising Sun Blues                                    ©  1934

1938 B & D — Groton 1

            I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm      ©  1937

_______________   BREAK   _______________

1938 B & D — Groton 1

            Abilene                                                    ©  1963

            My Dream For You                                  ©  1998

            Sunny Side Of The Street                       ©  1930

1937 Kalamazoo — KG-21 (Floyd Riggs)

            Glory Of Love                                          ©  1936

            Somebody Else Is Taking My Place        ©  1937

            Paper Doll                                                ©  1915

1933 Martin — OM-18 (Carl Sandburg)

            Peach Pickin Time in Georgia                 ©  1932           

1936 Sovereign — OM

            You Are My Sunshine                              ©  1940

            Tennessee Waltz                                     ©  1948

1938 B & D — Groton 1

            Don’t Be Ashamed Of Your Age              ©  1947

            On A Slow Boat To China                        ©  1948

            Sit Right Down, Write Myself Letter         ©  1935

            Goodnight, Irene                                      ©  1936

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                     © 2010 by Kenneth Lelen — All Rights Reserved

Elderweek Concert
Delaware County Community College, Media PA

Wednesday, 24 March 2010
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This concert was an unusual pleasure for the Ken Lelen Combo because few people knew about the event and our audience was a noisy, moving target.

         Our sponsor was Elderweek, an adult education series hosted by Delaware County Community College in Media PA. Several hundred people attended the event, which offered classes on senior health, finances and lifestyles. Of these, about 100 people visited the roped-off area of the lobby in the STEM Center for a brown-bag lunch and our Vintage Music Concert.

         Nevertheless, our 45-minute program went well enough for us, though it felt like it was over as soon as it began. I played four vintage guitars, sang 11 great old songs and told Tin Pan Alley anecdotes to amuse the audience.
         To my dismay, the concert was broken up by people coming and going, people talking on cell phones, and people sitting down, standing up or chatting as they passed into and through the lobby.

         Alas, 125 feet from where we stood was the STEM lecture hall, a large auditorium. It would have served nicely for a concert for Elderweek attendees. For unknown reasons, however, it was not considered appropriate by the event's sponsors.

         What’s more, publicity for the concert was limited. We saw it listed in the Elder Week program guide, but saw nothing about the concert at the college’s website. In addition, there were no posters, radio PSAs or press releases in the media.
         Still, our modest-sized audience was deemed a success, so showing up and doing a good job is reward enough after all.

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© 2010 by Kenneth Lelen — All Rights Reserved

Bad Moon Rising

Musicians mourn the demise of the moon in romantic songs

On July 29, 1969 Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, the first men to
land on the moon, planted a U.S. flag on the lunar surface. The 40th anniversary of the
moon landing is Monday, July 20. (AP Photo)

This article was originally published on July 12, 2009 in the following U.S. newspapers:
     •  Home News Tribune - East Brunswick NJ
     •  Desert News - Salt Lake City UT
     •  Northwestern - Oshkosh WI
     •  Phoenix - Muskogee OK
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By Chris Jordan — Staff Writer
CENTRAL JERSEY — Twenty years ago it was one small step for a man, but one giant leap for the demise of the moon in pop songs. When Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969, he all but squashed the classic pop song device of the moon as a romantic metaphor.

"The moon lost its romantic aspect," said Titusville historian and guitarist Ken Lelen, who plays ragtime, jazz and swing tunes as originally performed or recorded in the first half of the 20th Century. "Since the lunar landing, the moon has been devoid of that power. It's no longer a place for expressing romantic love."

Before Apollo 11 the moon rose often enough in song titles and verses. Blue Moon (1934) by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart; It's Only a Paper Moon (1933) by Harold Arlen, E. Y. Harburg and Billy Rose; Moon River (1961) by Johnny Mercer and Henry Mancini, and Fly Me to the Moon (1954) are a few moon-themed hits by writers of the Great American Songbook and Tin Pan Alley. The moon was a tangible but untouchable entity representing a physical and spiritual love that would never ebb. It was magical and imponderable, yet very real.

"The moon as metaphor for romantic love has run its course," Lelen said. "I'm not saying it's good or bad, but pop culture is done with it."

While there have been a trickle of pop hits since 1969 that used the moon as a romantic metaphor — most recently R&B's Walking On The Moon by The Dream — the majority of moon songs since the lunar landing conveyed something very different. For example, Bad Moon Rising (1969) by Creedence Clearwater Rising suggests impending Armageddon; Whitey on the Moon (1970) by Gil Scott-Heron deals with racial inequality and social unrest; and Man on the Moon (1992) by R.E.M. suggests the moon landing was faked.

Where did the love go? "We became a little more cynical," said Glen Burtnik of North Brunswick, former member of Styx and hit songwriter. "I remember when Frank Zappa announced he'd never write a love song and thinking that was a revolutionary point of view. Also, what happened, subconsciously, was the moon lost its mystique. It was no longer a celestial body that shined from the heavens; it became some place we could go visit."

Around the time of the moon landing, space references in pop songs also changed from romantic escapism to tales of interstellar exile (David Bowie's Space Oddity) and other-worldly party places. Those were especially prevalent in the Parliament-Funkadelic mythos.

"We threw rockets at it and finally hit, then we walked on it," said Philadelphia singer-songwriter Vance Gilbert, whose Unfamiliar Moon is one of his best-known songs. "There's a certain amount of mystique that we lost . . . it had never been touched — it was the ultimate manifestation of both God and love and you never touched it, but you knew it was there. I think after it got defiled, you got to know it."

In other words, been there, done that. At least we have It's Only a Paper Moon, Fly Me to the Moon, Blue Moon, Moon River, etc.

"Maybe it has run its course, but for singers like me, it's not going away," said musician and vintage guitarist Lelen. "There is no shortage of romantic songs with the moon as a focus of romantic devotion."

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Ken Lelen: unplugged and loving it.

Opening for jazz guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli, Ken Lelen will sing ragtime, jazz and swing and play vintage acoustic guitars with bassist Matt Koch on July 17, 2009, 8 pm, at the Minstrel Folk Project in Morristown Unitarian Fellowship, 21 Normandy Hgts Rd, Morristown NJ, $7. Info at 973-335-9489 and folkproject.org.

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© 2009 — MyCentralJersey.com  and  Gannett News