This past winter during a rather fertile time period in my life, I stumbled across a true creative yet oddball endeavor; a mumbling orchestra via http://www.craigslist.org/ the Chicago link in the artists section. I’d never seen anything like it before. To me, the concept was new, invigorating and perhaps the first collective mumbling orchestra of its kind.
I was already trying out for a conceptual sound orchestra based on hand movements & signals, not to mention my study of throat-singing, so I thought that I might fit in well with this idealism. The fellow who was initiating this concept was named Michael whose last name I didn’t know and just nicknamed him “Michael Mumbler.”
I received a couple of emails from him as part of a mass email campaign to the various folks who had corresponded. Within three or four weeks, a time was set to meet at a bar in Chicago, so we could all meet the other interested parties and do a little mumbling too.
From a January 8th email I received from him, he explained his idealisms and concepts for the orchestra: “It should look basically like a choral performance, but rather than singing, everyone will be mumbling. It's all pretty tightly scored, with sheet music & a conductor. (I'll conduct, though I'll probably be mumbling as well, as long as I can keep time & mumble at the same time.) The way it's currently scored, there are three styles of mumbling: plain, heartfelt, and angry. Each style has three volume levels: soft, medium, and loud. The "sextet" (which isn't titled yet - maybe it's called "drama for six mumblers") includes three baritones and three sopranos. (I'm separating these out by male & female parts, which may not be PC but I'll try it like that for now.) In each case, two voices make a chorus, & one is a soloist. Again, I want this to take only as much time as is absolutely necessary. I'm mainly very curious to see if the sounds we make as a group can remain interesting and entertaining for 20 minutes or so. My personal style of mumbling sounds something like Japanese (when angry) or Italian (when heartfelt) version of Yosemite Sam when he's swearing at Bugs Bunny. Your style can be whatever works for you; you just have to be able to start & stop on a dime.”
I could hardly wait until that Saturday in January rolled around & mapped out the location so I could get there on time and find a good parking space to boot. The name of the bar we met at appeared like a standard neighborhood bar called the Leadway Gallery, located on the corners of Farrugat & Damen in Chicago. So I walked about three blocks back to the bar and waited for a little while.
Pretty soon a young woman in her 20s that drove a red Saturn parked across the street from the bar and came inside. She asked me if I was here for the mumbling orchestra try-out and when I answered “yes,” she seemed relieved.
We began to make small talk. She told me a bit about herself. She had a music background she said and then asked me, “What’s your story,” to which I explained my musical roots & throat-singing studies. We both continued talking and waited patiently until a man with dark hair, a bearded face, long coat & hat walked through the bar doors. It was the orchestra leader, Michael Mumbler.
After exchanging introductions and informalities, he told us that he had corresponded with six other people. We were the only two of the eight that bothered to show up. From there we were set and off to rehearsal in the back room. Additionally, Michael told me he was from Seattle & drummed in a rock and roll band.
The mumbling consisted of, well mumbling notes on sheet music computerized out with varying symbols to depict the loud and softness of the mumbling tones. I had a ball with it. We rehearsed for what seemed like hours, when at some point it was wrapped out and it was promised that there would be another session in order. We exchanged phone numbers between the three of us and departed on exceedingly good terms that day.
Some weeks later I was wondering what had happened to Michael Mumbler and the mumbling orchestra project. His original intent was to get the orchestra together and then hold performances in varying venues around the city. There was also talk of different mumbling expressions. In any event I was excited by the possibilities.
So I called up Michael Mumbler and asked him what was going on with the project. He told me that because of other opportunities that had arisen he unfortunately had put the mumbling orchestra concept on hold. I was disappointed, but took it in stride that perhaps one day he would do it again & hoped for that phone call.
Fast forward to Thursday, July 14, 2005…on Thursdays I usually leave work early so I can commute to school for a voice lesson. For some reason on this day, I chose to drive down Skokie Boulevard in Skokie as a quick shortcut to the grocery store, followed by my usual route to school. A drive down Skokie Boulevard usually takes five minutes tops from Church Street to Dempster Street.
But not that day. No, traffic was reduced to a crawl and I couldn’t understand why. It took approximately 25 minutes to get to Dempster Street. In between that time, I flipped on WBBM-AM Newsradio 780 to see if I could catch any details as to why traffic was so slow in that area. As soon as I passed Dempster, I saw what all the commotion was about. I saw a red automobile flipped upside down and a crowd of people gathered on a sidewalk in from of the McDonald’s on the corner of Dempster & Niles Center Road.
The Skokie police department had blocked off the road between what looked like Bronx Avenue up to Skokie Boulevard. It was pretty safe to say a bad accident occurred, but I didn’t know what or how or when, until I got home later that night and learned the details.
Seems a young woman from Morton Grove by the name of Jeannette Sliwinski had some sort of fight with her mother, hopped into her car and decided to kill herself; a true to life death wish, if you will. Looks like she got what she had hoped for, but not in the way she wanted.
She apparently ran three red lights and rear-ended a car on Dempster, driving at 70 miles per hour in a 35 mile an hour speed zone, double the limit and ended up sending a man flying from behind the wheel of his car. The car she rear-ended flipped over and killed the other two passengers in the car.
What I read later about them was that all three men were all friends and played in varying bands in Chicago and all happened to work at the same place, Shure Inc., over on Touhy & Lehigh Avenues in Skokie. The three were just going to get lunch as routinely as it seemed.
Jeanette was lucky. Her life was spared yet will face a murderous memory for years to come. It’s hard to know what was going through Jeanette’s mind when she wanted to kill herself. I’ve known people that have attempted suicide and have saved a few souls from attempting to end their lives way too early.
I just remember reading about the car wreck story for days, but never made any connection to it, until over this past weekend when I read a letter in the letters section of the Chicago Reader, from music producer Steve Albini pouring out his heartfelt memories of one of the musicians who he formed a friendship with, a drummer named Michael Dahlquist, who was in a band called Silkworm.
It was the photograph placed alongside the letter that I recognized immediately; it was indeed Michael Mumbler. I went back to the two emails I received from him earlier in the year and re-read them silently. The second email I received from him was written exactly six months & 12 hours to the day before fate did him in dirty.
Michael had hoped one day the mumbling orchestra could be staged at the Cabaret Metro, a premiere night club in Chicago. Since that time I met with him, I’ve incorporated the mumbling concept into a few of my own performance pieces and will continue to do so for months to come.
His final email to me on January 15th read: This is a brand new thing, I've never done it before, & neither has anyone else as far as I know. I'm hoping it's a tremendous success right off the bat, but I'm trying to keep my expectations in check. It's probably more likely that it'll sound like total nonsense at first - but we won't know until we try it.”
Sadly, we’ll never get to know how the orchestra would have sounded like. My heart goes out to Michael's family & his friends' families who also lost loved ones.
As for Jeanette, I hope she gets life without parole.
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