NFL Broadcaster John Madden Retires
A question from Ukraine about the Hudson River School. And we take a trip to the New Orleans Jazz Fest. Transcript of radio broadcast:
30 April 2009
Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC in VOA Special English.
(MUSIC)
I’m Doug Johnson. This week …
We travel to Louisiana for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival …
And answer a question about a group of landscape painters.
But first, we tell about the retirement of football broadcaster John Madden.
John Madden
(MUSIC)
HOST:
Last weekend National Football League teams began choosing players for the next season. As young players prepare to begin their professional careers in the sport, one important person in American football announced his retirement. Bob Doughty tells us more about popular broadcaster John Madden.
BOB DOUGHTY:
American football broadcaster John Madden is loved by sports fans, coaches and players throughout the United States.
John Madden
John Madden
The former football player and coach brought his excitement and love for the sport to television viewers every time he announced a game. John Madden is known for his friendly personality and sense of humor. He is also known for explaining football as he announced the games. This helped people understand and enjoy the sport even more.
Last month, John Madden announced his retirement as a National Football League broadcaster. Madden is seventy-three. He says he wants to spend more time with his wife and family, especially his five grandchildren. Madden says his decision to retire was difficult because he loves everything about football.
He started as a professional football player. But an injury to his knee in nineteen fifty-eight ended his short career. He began his career as a head football coach in nineteen sixty-nine, when he was selected to lead the Oakland Raiders. He coached the team for ten years. He led the Raiders to a Super Bowl victory in nineteen seventy-seven. Two years later he retired and became a sports announcer for the NFL. John Madden was named to the Professional Football Hall of Fame in two thousand six.
Madden has announced eleven Super Bowl games during his thirty-year broadcasting career. He has won sixteen Emmy Awards for Outstanding Sports Analyst/Personality on television. His last game as a football announcer was this year’s Super Bowl in February.
John Madden’s huge influence on the sport of football continues. His video game, “Madden NFL,” is the best-selling sports video game in history. It has sold more than seventy million copies worldwide during the last twenty years.
(MUSIC)
Hudson River School
HOST:
Our listener question this week comes from an artist in Ukraine. Mykhailo Sydorenko wants to know about two American painters — Frederic Edwin Church and Albert Bierstadt.
These two artists were linked to a nineteenth century group of painters known as the Hudson River School. A “school” of painters refers to a group of artists whose work has a common influence. The Hudson River School painters are considered the first official school in American art.
Detail from
Detail from “Heart of the Andes” by Fredric Edwin Church
Their detailed landscape paintings showed the huge expansiveness of American wilderness. These paintings expressed a sense of wonder for America’s natural environment and its endless possibilities. The paintings also had a moral and spiritual message. The painters believed that nature was a direct representation of God.
The school was named after the Hudson River Valley in the state of New York. Many of the artists painted this valley and its surrounding areas. Some of the artists also traveled to paint in other countries.
The painter Thomas Cole is said to be one of the first members of this group. He became very successful, starting in the eighteen twenties. Like later members of the group, Cole was well educated in the traditions of European painting. But Cole made a clear case for creating a new art for the new land of America.
One of Cole’s students was Frederic Edwin Church. His famous painting “Heart of the Andes” was completed in eighteen fifty-nine. To create this work, Church had traveled for nine weeks in Ecuador making drawings. When the large painting was shown to the public, thousands of people paid money to see its strikingly real style.
Albert Bierstadt is best known for his paintings of the American West. He was influenced by later members of the Hudson River School. Bierstadt received his training as an artist in his native Germany. Although he started painting in New York and other eastern states, he began traveling west in eighteen fifty-nine.
His eighteen sixty-six painting “Yosemite Valley” gave many people on the East Coast their first introduction to California’s beautiful mountain area.
(MUSIC)
New Orleans Jazz Fest
HOST:
The birds are back, the bees are buzzing and the flowers are in full bloom. It is that time of year again. Warm weather means outdoor music festivals and one of the biggest is happening right now. Every year thousands of bands and fans travel to the southern state of Louisiana for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Faith Lapidus has more.
FAITH LAPIDUS:
The festival is celebrating its fortieth anniversary this year. More than five thousand musicians are expected to perform during the huge seven-day event. About four hundred thousand people are expected to attend. Whether you like blues or rock, Cajun, folk, Zydeco, country, or of course, all that jazz, you are guaranteed to hear it at Jazz Fest.
Wynton Marsalis
Wynton Marsalis
Jazz musician Wynton Marsalis is a native of New Orleans. Here is “The Razor Rim” from his newest CD “He and She.”
(MUSIC)
The nine-time Grammy Award winning Marsalis is one of the headliners at this year’s festival. Other famous performers include Neil Young, Etta James, Tony Bennett, Bonnie Rait and Sugarland. The Dave Matthews Band is also performing. This band’s mix of jazz, world music, folk and rock is a perfect fit for the festival. Here the band performs “Funny the Way It Is.”
(MUSIC)
Traditionally, most of the performers at the festival are not well known outside of Louisiana. More than eighty percent of the performers are locals, including Buckwheat Zydeco. Here is his song “I’m Gonna Love You Anyway.”
(MUSIC)
While the music may be at the top of the menu, let us not forget about the food. Lip-smacking, mouth-watering New Orleans cuisine. Visitors are enjoying crawfish etouffees, red beans and rice, gumbo, jambalaya and the famous fried pastries called beignets. We leave you with music from another New Orleans native. Harry Connick, Junior sings his song honoring the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
(MUSIC: “All These People”)
HOST:
I’m Doug Johnson. I hope you enjoyed our program today.
It was written by Lawan Davis, June Simms, and Dana Demange who was also the producer. For transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our programs, go to voaspecialenglish.com.
Send your questions about American life to mosaic@voanews.com. Please include your full name and where you live.
Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC, VOA’s radio magazine in Special English.
At the FIRST Championship, Kids and Robots Compete
Also: A listener question about Patrick Henry. And music by jazz artist Diana Krall. Transcript of radio broadcast:
23 April 2009
Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC in VOA Special English.
(MUSIC)
I’m Doug Johnson. This week …
We play new music from jazz artist Diana Krall …
And answer a question about American revolutionary leader Patrick Henry.
But first, we report on a “sporty” international competition in robot building.
(MUSIC)
FIRST Championship
HOST:
Last weekend, twenty thousand people gathered in the state of Georgia to watch students from twenty-eight countries compete with robots they built. More than ten thousand students and more than five hundred robots took part in the competition. Faith Lapidus tells us about it.
FAITH LAPIDUS:
The students and their robots competed at the FIRST Championship at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. FIRST is the short way of saying the organization’s complete name: For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.
Almost one thousand seven hundred high school teams entered a level of competition called LUNACY. The competitors came from eleven countries, including the United States.
Competitors at the FIRST Championship
Competitors at the FIRST Championship
In January, the organization sent identical supplies for robots to each team. The teams had six weeks to build robots that could compete in the LUNACY game. The playing area had six robots, three on each team. Each robot had another vehicle, or trailer, connected to it. The robots had to pick up large balls and throw them into the trailers of opposing robots. The robots were moving on a surface where they could slide. An alliance of teams from California, Illinois and Michigan won the LUNACY competition.
A second competition involved building a robot that could travel on uneven surfaces, move objects with unusual shapes and withstand physical stress.
Another competition was for younger students, ages nine to fourteen years old. Eighty-four teams from twenty-seven countries competed with robots made with LEGO products. They had to design, build and program robots to explore the Earth’s climate.
American inventor Dean Kamen started FIRST in nineteen eighty-nine to increase young people’s interest in science and technology. The organization holds robotics competitions around the world. It offers programs that help young people learn more about science, technology, engineering and mathematics, while building life skills. Many companies provide support to the organization.
Mister Kamen says the goal is about more than building robots. He says the student competitors showed they could solve difficult technological problems. And, he says that is good news because the world needs creative thinkers to help solve increasingly complex problems in the future.
(MUSIC)
Patrick Henry
HOST:
Our listener question this week comes from China. James Green wants to know about Patrick Henry, an important leader of the American Revolution.
Patrick Henry is most famous for a speech he gave in seventeen seventy-five to support his proposal to raise forces to defend the colony of Virginia against the British. Patrick Henry said, “give me liberty or give me death.”
He was born in seventeen thirty-six in Hanover County, Virginia, near Richmond. His father was a well-educated farmer from Scotland.
Patrick Henry
Patrick Henry
Historians say Patrick Henry was an intelligent boy but not always a hard worker. When Patrick was sixteen, his father bought a store for Patrick and his brother. It failed within a year.
At eighteen, Patrick married a sixteen year old named Sarah Shelton. Her father gave them a farm, house and slaves. But a fire destroyed the farm a few years later. The Henrys had six children together. But Sarah Henry became mentally ill and died in seventeen seventy-five. Henry then married Dorothea Dandridge who came from a rich and socially important Virginia family. He and his second wife had ten more children.
In seventeen sixty, when he was in his middle twenties, Patrick Henry had decided to become a lawyer. He became successful and gained fame as a rebel.
One of Patrick Henry’s first cases took on the British government and the Anglican Church. Henry won the case, condemned the clergy involved and questioned British rule all at the same time. The case won him fame for his power of speech.
Patrick Henry was elected to the Virginia legislature in seventeen sixty-five. He represented Virginia in the Continental Congress in seventeen seventy-four. He famously said: “The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American.”
However, Henry strongly believed in states’ rights over federal powers. He supported a weak central government. For this reason he fought the approval of the proposed United States Constitution.
But he lost that battle. Virginia approved the Constitution in seventeen eighty-eight. However, Patrick Henry used his powerful gift of speech to get passage of some amendments. These later became the Bill of Rights.
Patrick Henry served five terms as governor of Virginia. He died in seventeen ninety-nine at the age of sixty-three. In his final document to his family, he advised his descendants to “practice Virtue thyself, and encourage it in others.”
(MUSIC)
Diana Krall
HOST:
This week, we continue to honor Jazz Appreciation Month with the music of jazz singer and pianist Diana Krall. The Canadian-born performer recently released her twelfth album. “Quiet Nights” combines the sensual beat of Brazilian bossa nova with the smooth sound of jazz. Diana Krall says the songs are a love letter to her husband, British rock singer Elvis Costello. Barbara Klein has more.
(MUSIC)
Diana Krall
Diana Krall
BARBARA KLEIN:
That was the song “You’re My Thrill.” Like many songs on the album “Quiet Nights” it is a good example of Diana Krall’s soft and smoky voice.
Krall says she was influenced to make this album because of a trip she made to Brazil last year. She said she heard the sounds of bossa nova music everywhere she went.
Here is the album’s title song, “Quiet Nights.” This song by the Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim first became famous in the early nineteen sixties.
(MUSIC)
Diana Krall says that making “Quiet Nights” was a very natural and joyful process. At the end of recording every day, she says she had something wonderful to look forward to – being with her two infant sons.
Diana Krall will be performing songs from her new album in Canada and United States this spring and summer. We leave you with “Too Marvelous for Words.”
(MUSIC)
HOST:
I’m Doug Johnson. I hope you enjoyed our program today.
It was written by Dana Demange, Shelley Gollust and Caty Weaver who was also the producer. For transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our programs, go to voaspecialenglish.com.
Send your questions about American life to mosaic@voanews.com. Please include your full name and where you live. Or write to American Mosaic, VOA Special English, Washington, D.C., two-zero-two-three-seven, U.S.A.
Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC, VOA’s radio magazine in Special English.
A Busy Month for Poetry Slams and Jazz Jams
April marks National Poetry Month and Jazz Appreciation Month. Come along to a slam at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York. Transcript of radio broadcast:
16 April 2009
HOST:
Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC in VOA Special English.
(MUSIC)
I’m Doug Johnson. This week, we report about poetry and jazz because April is a special month for both arts in the United States.
Poetry Slams
The United States is celebrating National Poetry Month in April. There are large events, like the three-day Austin International Poetry festival in Texas. There are small events, like Poetic Voices, a performance by the best teenage poets of Cass County, Missouri. And there are poetry slams. Mario Ritter tells about these competitions, the slammers and the poems.
MARIO RITTER:
The Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York
Nuyorican Poets Cafe
A poetry slam is a competition in which poets perform one of their pieces in front of an audience and judges.
The poem can be no longer than three minutes and is rated from one to ten.
Most slammers are very theatrical in their performances. The poems can be about personal subjects or world events. Two weeks ago, sixteen year old Stacy performed a poem about the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City in two thousand one. The slam was held at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York. Here is part of her performance:
The black death demolishes civilization. Now we’re making foundations for the recovering patients, cause for some reason we can’t find any explanations for the contaminations.
Whether it’s the Plague or AIDS; STDs or HIV; there are no answers. And we can’t find the cure for cancer so…
Ashes to ashes we all fall down. Operation cremation without any consolation.
A blind architect doing renovations on a historical creation. Double jeopardize thousands of innocent lives; trying to buy avowal but could barely keep themselves alive. Leaving only a handful that survived.
Flight Eleven and One Seventy-Five with the illegal medications that overdosed our population, led us to receive a leave of absence for an unnecessary vacation and we became addicts. Developed unheard of addictions; unintentionally using needles shooting up intoxications; popped pills laced with devastation; sniffing lines of contamination; hallucinations of peace in our nation; unwilling levitation meeting heaven before expectation.
They called the cravings 9/11; I call it violation; molestation; split the towers like a virgin and seduced her with sensual conversation.
Eighteen year old slam poet Safia Elhillo deals with another serious issue in her poem, “Immigrant City.” The poet read it at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
I saw you
Disembark at Metro Center
Transferring to the blue line, preparing
To board your third bus
Back to Skyline Towers:
The commute from
Metropolis to Immigrant City
Cheekbones sculpted like Sahara dunes
Lips chapped to mimic sidewalks
Of this Promised Land;
Oh, how they tricked you.
They tricked us.
Shoulders stooped, broad back
Bent with weighted expectations from
Umi, Khaltu, Fatima and Baba
Eagerly awaiting your return, the
Conquering hero
With Big Macs
And blue jeans
For all
They tricked us.
Friday night prayers in
Ramshackle mosques, I watched you
Stiff in your new collared shirt
Ankles rubbed raw by pleather loafers
Hair shaved carefully close to camouflage
The giveaway kinks and curls.
I saw me in you;
Like how we both exaggerate
The twang in our r’s
To outweigh the okra and rice
Laying heavily across our tongues
Forcing extra syllables
Painfully turning b’s to p’s
Rolling eyes in exasperation at those
Homely folk back in the old country
Arrived with open arms
Open eyes, open hearts
Ready to receive our
Honorary title as Americans
Instead shoved into closet-sized apartments
Watching our PHd holding brothers
Drive taxis
Our law-student sisters
Mop floors
Our bright babies
Repeating grades
“Sharp mind, but he can’t go anywhere
‘Til he gets a better grasp on the English language”
I saw you
Eyes alight with recognition upon
Hearing the familiar falter in my accent
You are not alone
But our togetherness makes us
All the more outcast
As we board our third bus
To Skyline Towers
Destination:
Immigrant City
We may not be home, but
Stop by sometime
For mint tea and palm dates
Stories of Omdurman sands and
Khartoum rickshaws
Compare notes on the experience
Of sandal-clad feet upon concrete
Chuckling far too loudly, as is
The Sudanese way,
Long into the ‘Isha hours
Safe from metropolitan disapproval
Of the Arabic interwoven in our jargon
They may have tricked us,
Equating broken English with
Broken spirits
But they underestimated our safe haven
In each others’ arms, each others’ hearts
Right here
In Immigrant City
Safia Elhillo
Safia Elhillo
Safia Elhillo was born in Rockville Maryland. Both of her parents are from Sudan. She now lives in Washington, D.C. with her mother and brother. Safia says she wrote her first poem for a high school English class three years ago.
But she says she grew up around poetry. Her mother enjoys reading poetry, especially poems by Rumi and Khalil Gibran. Safia says she also likes poems by Nikki Giovanni and Suheir Hammad. Safia gives special praise to all the young poets she has met during the past two years she has been writing and competing in slams.
Safia Elhillo says writing poetry will always be a part of her life. She says performing her work has helped her defeat her severe nervousness. She hopes to attend college at New York University and study art therapy.
Here she reads a poem about her best friend, “Malik:
He stepped off the sun,
Sweat of the islands still glistening on his brow.
Man-child, all grown
Squinting into the horizon
Maps etched into his calloused palms.
Gilded boy spilling
Golden glow onto cracked sidewalk
Outside the corner bodega;
He’s here to heal.
Child of the cosmos,
Mind traveling through
Warm sands and subway tracks
Humming lullabies in broken Arabic, like
“Ahibak, akhi”*
(*ahibak, akhi: I love you, my brother)
And it’s been far from easy
On my clumsy days;
Caught me, placed me upon a broad shoulder
Atlas manifested but I
Called him Midas
The golden king.
Swinging my legs in time to the
Verses we conjured:
Jabao Jibaro,
Sergeant Saffron,
Brother Bear,
Yes,
Ahibak akhi.
Voice rumbling from the planet’s core
Face upturned; see
Children of the universe,
They shine in the night;
And we do.
Cracking jokes, grins,
Long past the crack of dawn
Like
“How long will you be up?”
“Forever.”
Yes.
And
Your name is in the title,
’cause I’ve learned, and
Don’t dedicate time, energy
And poems
To what’s not built to last.
Jazz Appreciation Month
HOST:
April is not only a time for poetry. It also marks the eighth yearly Jazz Appreciation Month. The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. started the event. It is now celebrated in all fifty American states and in forty countries. The aim of Jazz Appreciation Month is to bring public attention to the rich past and present of jazz music. There are special programs on jazz at museums, schools, colleges, libraries, concert halls and on public broadcasting. Jim Tedder has more.
(MUSIC)
JIM TEDDER:
Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman
That was “Jungle Blues” by the famous bandleader Benny Goodman. The Smithsonian is observing the one hundred year anniversary of Benny Goodman’s birth.
There have been several discussions and musical programs about “The King of Swing” and the musicians who played with him. This month the museum is also releasing a collection of one hundred ten jazz recordings that help tell the history of jazz.
Jazz Appreciation Month is also honoring musician and composer Chuck Mangione. He has released thirty albums. Mangione is best known for his Grammy Award-winning single, “Feels So Good.”
(MUSIC)
John Edward Hasse is the curator of jazz at the National Museum of American History. He says jazz has been called “America’s classical music,” “the sound of freedom” and even “the sound of surprise.” He says whatever you call it, jazz has played a huge role around the world in opening up musical creativity.
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald
One reason the Smithsonian picked April to honor jazz is because many great jazz artists were born this month. They include Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Lionel Hampton and Herbie Hancock. Here is Ella Fitzgerald singing “April in Paris” with Louis Armstrong.
(MUSIC)
Countries around the world will also take part in honoring jazz this month. For example, in South Africa, Cape Town’s jazz festival included performances by more than forty international and African jazz performers. The Estonian capital of Tallinn will hold its own jazz festival. We leave you with a song by the Cuban saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera who is to perform at this event.
(MUSIC: “Miami”)
HOST:
I’m Doug Johnson. I hope you enjoyed our program today.
It was written by Dana Demange and Caty Weaver who was also the producer. For transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our programs, go to voaspecialenglish.com.
Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC, VOA’s radio magazine in Special English.
