126. Jed Distler, pianist and actor

Sunday, September 1st, 2024 @2pm | A Virtual Concert “The Gold Standard”

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This concert is brought to you by:

Serial Underground

at
Cornelia Street Café


our fiscal sponsor [501(c)(3)]:
Composers Collaborative Inc.
Helping creative and performing artists initiate vital collaborations, produce innovative performances, and disseminate and preserve their work.

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126.

Salon Concerts at Klavierhaus
Jed Distler, artistic director

presents

A Virtual Concert
“The Gold Standard”

Jed Distler, piano and voice
Ed Schmidt, writer
Arnold Barkus, director

Sunday, September 1st, 2024 @2pm

Recorded 8/7/07 at Cornelia Street Café
29 Cornelia St
New York, NY 10014

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Jed Distler / Ed Schmidt

The Gold Standard

To Whom It May Concern
I Will At No Point Tonight
The Rules
Family History
Piano Interlude I
...take it from the top?
A Dance Class in Queens
A Brief History of Money
The Prophet of Profit
Unfinished Business
Piano Interlude II
C Major Fantasy
...I could pay for the war...
Finale

Developed for Composers Collaborative, Inc.'s Serial Underground series at New York's legendary Cornelia Street Café between 2004 and 2006, “The Gold Standard” is a 60-minute theater piece for acting and singing pianist, performed by Jed Distler, who wrote the music. The book and libretto are by playwright Ed Schmidt, directed by Arnold Barkus with lighting design by David Lovett.

Schmidt describes this one-man tour-de-force as “the story of one helluv’an observant piano player doing battle with the demons of a cultural ecology.”

Here is Distler's performance recorded live at the Cornelia Street Café in August 2007, filmed by videographer Carlton Bright.

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Since moving to New York in 1978, Jed Distler has forged a singular, unusually multi-faceted composing career. He began studying composition at the Julliard Pre-College with Lawrence Widdoes and Andrew Thomas, and later as a Sarah Lawrence College undergraduate with Joel Spigelman and David Maslanka. Early experiences writing for small theater and dance groups played a key role in Jed’s creative development, along with his more than twenty years serving as musical director and guest faculty member at Sarah Lawrence. In 1987 his first large-scale work, The Death of Lottie Shapiro (an evening length song cycle with four sopranos and piano featuring texts by his mother, the late Bette Feitelson Distler) was hailed by Michael Redmond in the Newark Star-Ledger as “as "a masterpiece, a song cycle without parallel in the serious music of contemporary America.

Jed’s increasing visibility as a virtuoso performer led him to develop original pieces that involved speaking and playing the piano simultaneously. His works in this genre include 110 for 911 (2003) for speaking pianist and electronics, which incorporates the entire text of the collective poem Word Tower Two initiated by City Lore, curated by Bob Holman, and collectively written by 100 poets in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Jed penned his own autobiographical texts for Assault on Pepper (1997), a deconstruction of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album. Jed’s other noteworthy piano works with text include Anegada (1998) for pianist Kathleen Supove, a Duke Ellington centennial fantasy entitled Am I In Tune With The Piano? (1999), The Seduction of Commonplaces (2003) with texts by Hector Berlioz, and his magnum opus The Gold Standard (2007), a piano theater collaboration with playwright Ed Schmidt and director Arnold Barkus. In 2013 Jed’s “Broken Record” for 175 keyboards was performed on Cornelia Street, and helped set the Guinness Book Record for world’s largest keyboard ensemble.

In addition to commissions from Jenny Lin, Symphony Space, IonSound, the American Composers Forum and Song in Music, Jed’s works have been recorded by Margaret Leng Tan, Guy Livingston, and Quattro Mani, among other New Music luminaries. His String Quartet No. 1 (the Mister Softee Variations) remains an annual summertime tradition on New York Public Radio. Current projects include a chamber opera Tools, in collaboration with writer Luigi Ballerini and artist Maria Scarpini, plus an ongoing series of Piano Bagatelles that amounts to 275 pieces as of October 2018. Each Bagatelle is dedicated to a different pianist or composer colleague and friend

He has scored background music for NPR documentaries, airline boarding videos and cable television shows, composed special material for children’s concerts at Lincoln Center, written string arrangements for the late songwriting legend P.F. Sloane, and published his own transcribed jazz piano solos by Art Tatum, Duke Ellington and Bill Evans. For Steinway & Sons, pianist Lara Downes recorded Jed’s arrangement of Kurt Weill’s Lost In The Stars plus the CD “A Billie Holiday Songbook” that features Jed’s virtuoso arrangements based on songs associated with the legendary singer. Jed’s most recent solo CD, Meditate with the Masters, released by Musical Concepts in 2011, contains soothing, relaxing original piano pieces based on familiar classical themes.

Colorado College, Denver University, the University of Kansas/Lawrence and the University of Nevada/Las Vegas have hosted Jed as a resident composer and guest teacher. In 2012 Jed’s presenting organization ComposersCollaborative, inc. received an ASCAP Deems Taylor award in recognition for his long-running new music variety show Serial Underground held monthly at New York’s Cornelia Street Café, which sadly closed its doors on January 1, 2019.

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Ed Schmidts plays have been rejected by some of the most and least venerable theater companies in America, including Arena Stage (“not right”), Manhattan Theater Club (“really don’t think it’s right”), Lincoln Center Theater (“don’t feel the play is right”), Roundabout Theatre Company (“don’t think the piece is quite right”), Alliance Theatre Company (“not for us”), Huntington Theatre Company (“isn’t right for us”), Ensemble Studio Theatre (“not right for us at this time”), Playwrights Preview Productions ("isn't for us at this time"), Williamstown Theater Festival (“don’t feel it is right for us at this time”), American Place (“do not feel that it is a play for us at this time”), Hudson Guild Theatre ("unable to use it at this time"), Crossroads (“at this time, we have no further interest in it”), Mill Mountain Theatre ("does not meet the production needs of the theatre at this time"), McCarter (“not appropriate to the needs of our theater”), Denver Center Theatre Company (“does not suit our needs at this time”), Los Angeles Theatre Center (“does not suit our needs at the present time”), Primary Stages ("isn't right for our present needs"), Lifeline Theatre ("not suitable for our season"), Dramatic Risks ("do not find your script suitable for our readings or productions"), Geffen Playhouse (“does not fit our production needs currently”), Oregon Shakespeare Festival (“does not suit our current artistic needs”), George Street Playhouse (“does not fulfill any of our current needs”), Victory Gardens (“does not fit into our plans for our current season”), Public Theater (“does not fit our programming”), One Act Theatre Co. ("does not fit into our long-range programming"), Northlight Theatre ("doesn't fit our current programming needs"), Guthrie Theater (“doesn’t fit into Joe Dowling’s plans right now”), Philadelphia Festival Theater (“will not be able to include it in our season”), Goodman Theatre (“will not be able to offer the play a home”), Long Wharf (“not a project that we are able to place in our upcoming season”), Mark Taper Forum (“not able to include the piece in any of our current programs”), Seattle Rep ("hasn't found a place in our production plans"), Manhattan Punch Line ("has not been scheduled for production"), South Coast Rep (“haven’t found a slot for it here”), Scholastic Productions ("nothing I can use"), Paper Mill Playhouse (“not the type of show that we are looking to produce”), Old Globe (“not the kind of work I respond to”), Playwrights Horizons (“too schematically drawn for our tastes”), Manhattan Class Company (“not interested in working with you”), Cleveland Play House (“unable to persuade the powers-that-be to choose it”), Zebra Crossing Theatre (“generally do not depict this type of behavior on stage”), Double Image Theatre ("unable to keep your script any longer since our office space is limited"), New Playwrights’ Theatre (“seeking liquidation under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code”), Immediate Theatre (“out of business”), and the North Carolina Black Repertory Company (“please refrain from calling the office about your scripts”).

The rare productions of Mr. Schmidt's plays have been dismissed by the New York Sun ("Overdone!"), New York Magazine ("Overlong!"), the New York Times ("Self-pitying and overwrought!"), American Theatre Web ("Long-winded!"), Chicago Reader ("Insufferable!"), Wolff Entertainment Guide ("Cumbersome!"), Chicago Tribune ("Didactic!"), Seattle Weekly ("Mildly engaging!"), the New York Times again ("Not uninteresting!"), the L.A. Times ("Not completely convincing!"), the New York Times again ("Not very weighty!"), the Los Angeles Daily News ("Unsurprising!"), the Cleveland Jewish News ("Not great theater!"), the Sacramento Bee ("No masterpiece of writing!"), the New York Times a fourth time ("Mediocre, conventional!"), the Village Voice ("Bad writing!"), Time Out New York ("He's a failed playwright!"), the New York Observer ("I would be less than candid if I didn't admit to feeling tempted to slip out!"), WVOX radio ("Preaching to the converted!"), Time Out New York once more ("Has the general air of cable-access theater!"), Newsday ("Looks a lot like emptiness!”), the El Dorado County Reporter ("Children will not enjoy this play!"), TheaterMania ("Your belly is more satisfied than your mind!"), and KXJZ radio ("Be sure to visit the restroom on the way in!").

Mr. Schmidt has been variously described in the press as "of average height and slight build" (in Time Out New York, by Jason Zinoman, who is also of average height and slight build), as "sturdy and pleasant-looking" (in the New York Times, by Bruce Weber, who is also sturdy and pleasant-looking), as "an earnest-looking Martin Short" (in Show People, by Joel Stein, who is a sarcastic-looking Jonathan Safran Foer), and, most generously, as "a fairly ordinary-looking middle-aged white guy with thinning hair [and] a little bit of a gut" (in the New Yorker, by Hilton Als, who is a fairly ordinary-looking middle-aged black guy with a full head of hair and a lot more than a little bit of a gut).

He has been rejected by the agents Scott Hudson (“did not really work for me”), Richard Krawetz (“needs some more development”), Wiley Hausam (“not passionate enough about the script to become involved”), Peter Franklin (“did not have the kind of enthusiasm for the play which I would need in order to feel I’d be the best agent for it”), and Helen Merrill (actually, she wanted to represent me, but when she called to tell me so, I informed her that another agent had already agreed to sign me, so then she’s all “How dare you double-submit scripts!” and I go, “Whoa, lemme expl—” but she just starts whalin on me and I’m like, “Whatever,” and she freakin hangs up … all of which transpired, of course, before Ms. Merrill’s untimely death).

One of Mr. Schmidt's plays, "Mr. Rickey Calls a Meeting," is number 26 on the list of "52 Terrible Titles of Plays That Were Actually Produced and Published," compiled by Wendy MacLeod, whose play "The House of Yes" must have been number 53.

Mr. Schmidt tried his hand at television when he was hired as a writer on the History Channel's series, "The Men Who Built America." It was a nine-week job. Mr. Schmidt lasted three.

After graduating from Philips Exeter Academy (High Honors), Mr. Schmidt was rejected by Harvard University, though he probably wouldn’t have gone even if he had been accepted. After graduating from Williams College (don’t ask), Mr. Schmidt applied to the Yale School of Drama, was wait-listed, then, upon reapplication a year later, was rejected outright.

Mr. Schmidt is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America (double major: poultry and forcemeats). He is represented, seemingly out of pity, by Chris Till, of CAA.