Those military, musical Schwarzkopfs

Word came the other day of the death of Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf Jr., the architect of the allied victory in the Persian Gulf War of 1991. The "compassionate general" was the closest thing to a war hero for Americans since Eisenhower.

I noticed in reading his obituary the absence of what I had long thought was a little-known fact: that he was the nephew of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, one of the leading operatic sopranos of the post-World War II years.

The general's father, H. Norman Schwarzkopf Sr., was a career Army man who was appointed to organize the New Jersey State Police in 1921 and was its commander until 1936. That put him smack dab in the middle of investigating the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh's baby in 1932, and he testified in the trial of Richard Hauptmann, who was later executed for the crime, although questions about his guilt remain.

So, quite an accomplished family -- law enforcement professional, war hero, accomplished opera star.

Well, almost. I did some googling and found that the connection to Elisabeth Schwarzkopf was indeed an urban myth, even though it was presented as fact in some obituaries when she died in 2006.

Elisabeth was an only child, so of course she didn't have any nieces or nephews. And her family was as firmly ensconced in middle-class Germany as the Norman Schwarzkopfs were in New Jersey. Norman Sr. was born in Newark in 1895, 20 years before Elisabeth's birth in Poland, and Norman Jr. was born in Trenton in 1934, in the middle of his daddy's biggest case.

It's a bass clef Christmas

Do you ever get to where all the partridges in pear trees, little drummer boys and downright sappy "Christmas" songs just start to make you wish it was Dec. 26?

Just for the record, I like Christmas music -- when it's done creatively, with some thought put into it, and keeps in the spirit of the season. It's supposed to be a celebration!

There's a couple of albums that have been out for a few years but I think are really good. One is by the a capella group Straight No Chaser called Christmas Cheers. With songs like the "Christmas Can-Can" and "Who Spiked the Eggnog?" it's the perfect antidote to those whose Christmas songs sound more like funeral music than tunes for the happiest of holidays.

A slightly older album that's also good is Squirrel Nut Zippers' Christmas Caravan, with its jazzy take on the holidays.

And of course there's plenty of live music to be found this time of year. The DSO's Christmas concert is good, I hear, or if you can stand it there's a Polyphonic Spree holiday concert, but I think you've already missed it.

But the one to go hear is undoubtedly the Dallas Merry TubaChristmas concert at noon on Christmas Eve at Thanks-Giving Square in downtown Dallas. It's 150 or more tuba and euphonium players, all volunteers, who bring their too-often-overlooked instrument to perform holiday music for whoever shows up. Actually TubaChristmas events are held all over the world, so if you're not in Dallas, go to www.tubachristmas.com to find one nearby.

Everybody thinks of the tuba as just going oom-pah, oom-pah, but in the right hands, it can produce some really cool music. It just might get you back in the holiday spirit!