Greg Stepanich

Stumbling into the music coffeehouse

While down in Miami Beach on Saturday night, I waited out the interim before the Lincoln Theatre opened for the New World Symphony concert by heading to the Starbucks next door.

And it turned out to be what is apparently the only Hear Music Coffeehouse in Florida (the pic above is the one in Austin, Texas). This is old news to a lot of people, no doubt, but I was not aware one of these stores was nearby. (Here's the Web page.)

I'd read about what Starbucks was trying to do at its stores when it came to offering music, but I wasn't aware that I'd stumbled into this concept, in which you can download the music you want through a wi-fi connection (here's a Miami Herald story about it).

It's certainly the first time I've seen a Starbucks like this, with CDs around the room, a big flat-screen on the wall displaying the cover art of the music that was playing, and under the art on the same screen, the names of people who were burning custom discs, or having discs burned for them (I'm not sure).

Frankly, there are times when it's great fun to just wallow in all-out commerce, and this was one of those times. It was a blast to be there on a beautiful night, with a big, bustling crowd outside, a samba band (with dancers) doing its thing down the plaza, the aroma of all sorts of great food, and a ticket for a hot concert in my bag.

And then to duck into a coffee shop and find all that music! It was capitalist sensory overload, and I was happy to be in it.

Aside from all the house collections on the shelves, I was particularly pleased to see that there was a small classical section, and not a bad one considering its size.

Just at random: They were offering the Emerson Quartet/Leon Fleisher double disc of Brahms (perhaps they'll bring one of these pieces with them to the Four Arts when they appear in January); Keith Jarrett's recording of the complete Shostakovich preludes and fugues; the Lorraine Hunt Lieberson disc of her husband Peter Lieberson's songs to poems by Pablo Neruda.

I grabbed all three and didn't look a whole lot more, already feeling that I was going to spend way too much had I stayed any longer.

With the coffee I also bought, I spent the next few minutes looking at my new purchases and reading the last pages of Peter Gay's Modernism, which is coming out this month, and which I'm planning to review. That's my kind of moment: New music to listen to, a new book to finish and a comfortable place to read it while sipping something delicious.

The Brahms disc is lovely so far, and I've started listening also to the Lieberson songs. They're made especially poignant by Lorraine Lieberson's untimely death last year, but it's also worth mentioning that the Neruda poetry (from 100 Love Sonnets) is a wonderful collection to set to music. I've only heard two of the settings at present, but they're rather nice: Warm and sensitive, with a Barber-like tonal language.

Good discs worth listening too more carefully — haven't gotten to Jarrett yet — and an unexpected bonus from spending a few moments before a concert to kill some time.

For me, the Hear Music Coffeehouse was a standard music store more than a modern computing experience, but I was unprepared. Next time, I'll bring a laptop and do some real music surfing.