How I Discovered the Jupiter Symphony

Plus Woody Allen's 11 Favorite Things and How This Newsletter Came To Be

Woody Allen keeps making movies long after most people are dead. His 50th and latest, Coup de Chance, came out in the fall and it’s entirely in French. Woody is 88 years old.

His best and most beloved film, Annie Hall, appeared in theaters in 1977. He wrote, directed and starred in it as he has done for many of his movies. Two years later another big film of his, Manhattan, featured a scene in which Woody’s character—as always the part he played was a fictional version of himself—reveals what makes life “worth living” to him. These are the 11 people and things he names:

Groucho Marx.
Willie Mays.

The second movement of the Jupiter Symphony.
Louis Armstrong’s recording of “Potato Head Blues.”
Swedish movies.
Flaubert’s Sentimental Education.
Marlon Brando,
Frank Sinatra.

Cezanne’s masterly paintings of apples and pears.
The crabs at Sam Wo’s.
...“And Tracy’s face.”

Tracy is a character in the movie, played by the young Mariel Hemingway, but all the other items exist, or existed, in real life and clearly stem from Allen’s own personal interests and enthusiasms. It’s quite a list, no? One seeming omission is the man who composed “Rhapsody in Blue” with its buoyant clarinet solo soaring over the skyscrapers and street scenes of New York in the opening of Manhattan, unusual in that it was shot in black and white. You would have thought Woody, a clarinet player himself who praises George Gershwin and his “great tunes” in the voice-over, would have included him. Oh well it’s his list, not mine.

One fascinating name that did make the cut is that of Sinatra, who in 1966 briefly married Mia Farrow who later had a long relationship with Allen in which they had one biological child together and adopted two more. After which Woody became romantically involved with another adopted child of Mia’s, Soon-Yi Previn. The two then got married, unleashing a toxic stream of ugly claims and counter-claims and accusations and denials about his alleged sexual abuse that continues to this day.

Shying away from all that as if from a burner on a hot stove, I found the list fascinating and thought-provoking for a variety of reasons. Most surprising to me is how much it revealed about what I know and do not know. To be painfully honest, I had never heard of the Jupiter Symphony, had never listened to it, and had no idea who the composer was. And what makes that second movement so special? No clue.

Groucho and Brando were no-brainers in the movie category, but even here some real cracks in my knowledge base showed through. Allen refers to Swedish movies in the plural. Is there more than one? Besides “The Seventh Seal” and that creepy white dude in the black cape and hoodie, I’m pretty much a blank slate when it comes to the Swedish cinema.

And who’s Sam Wo? In that hilarious scene from “Annie Hall” Woody and Diane Keaton are playing around in the kitchen cooking lobsters, not crabs, so I’m going to need to do some digging into that one too. Far more embarrassing, however, than not knowing about Allen’s taste in shellfish or any Swedish directors besides Ingmar Bergman or even the composer of the Jupiter Symphony was his mention of Louis Armstrong’s recording of “Potato Head Blues.”

I’m a real jazz head, or at least I thought I was. I love the music. And although I had heard some of Armstrong’s songs I did not know “Potato Head Blues” or why it would deserve to rank in stature alongside the immortal Vito Corleone or the wondrous Impressionist painter Cezanne. This, then, led to another thought. Why not keep going? Why stop here? This was only one man’s list of wonderful things in life, and look how much it had already taught me about myself. I bet I could discover a lot. And learn a lot. And maybe other people—the readers of Tilting West—might be willing to jump in and take the ride with me, making discoveries of their own.

Btw, I just looked up the composer of the Jupiter Symphony and listened to it in its entirety, including that sublime second movement. Not bad. That Mozart has a future in the music business.

Next week we’ll explore the wonderful world of Satchmo Armstrong with cameo appearances by Snoop Dogg, Willie Nelson, Bing Crosby, Guy Lombardo and Wynton Marsalis. Oh yeah, we’ll get to the bottom of that crazy “Potato Head Blues” thing too.