Coincidences beyond coincidences, the passing of First Hearing’s Lloyd Moss, a fixture for a half a century on the classical music scene , his sensibility and generosity, enlarged our state of frontal lobes and cranium expansiveness…. of what life could be and become.
”One small step for man. A giant leap for mankind. ” Neil Armstrong, the Apollo mission, August 1969.
II
To appreciate the Lloyd Moss “First Hearing” you had to identify with that Kingston Avenue Beauty Parlor Crown Heights Brooklyn reality. Hearing his “daddy’s’” plastic radio…those sounds of big and small voices…Richard Tucker, Jan Peerce, Robert Merrill, around d the corner on EasternParkway, opposite 770, the Lincoln Terrace Park tennis courts beyond.
III
A religious rite every week, his “Voice of America” reveling in the opinions of Bob Sherman, Marty Bookspan, Edwin Downs,the host massaging their critical juices. Irving Kolodin ready toopine at a moment’s moment..
But Lloyd Moss in his tasteful buoyancy and diplomatic finesse, the listener would think he was back on the Armed Forces Network (in Japan) never offending anybody. …agreeing or disagreeing, with a poetic light touch . Not to make enemies, but to opine the passing of Mozart’s 39th in E flat, the strings cluttering their sound or not, the Cd recording hard with thefrittering or the linear notes” too small to read”.
All done with a humor and nonchalance, the criticism taken with a grain of a beauty shop on Kingston Avenue, Crown Heights, Brooklyn, his “Daddy” 24/7 with a classical music landscape. WQXR
IV
Being that all things are relative, the Southern Californiacounterpoint reared on Mulholland Drive. A perspective andvision that the late Marlon Brando, Jack Nicolson, Jan Popper ,Ucla’s opera workshop impresario, Will Durant(97 years at his passing) and his wife Ariel, “The Story of Philosophy” andLorentz Melchior, a Danish born basso in his retirement retreat,hearing Tracy& Hepburn pounding tennis balls ……… atopMulholland, overlooking the San Fernando Valley below.
A far cry from a Kingston Avenue beauty parlor, Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York.
The city that never sleeps, August 14, 2013.
