Today’s early morning cycling expedition took me past a magnificent pear orchard in the hills west of town. Here is the orchard…
…and here are pears taking on color and that lovely pear shape.
Apples are the principal cash crop in this area of Eastern Washington State, but in a good year pears do nicely for their growers.
Mulling over what music about pears to use with this post, I quickly ran out of options. You’d be surprised how few songs there are with “pear” in the title. So, I made the obvious choice. 
Erik Satie (pictured left) wrote Trois morceaux en forme de poire (“Three Pieces in the Form of a Pear”) in 1903. The legend is that it came in reaction to ClaudeDebussy’s suggestion that Satie should pay more attention to form in his music. The accuracy of the legend has been challenged, but it makes a good story. And Satie made good music. This is one of his best-known compositions. We hear and see it by the duo piano team of Giovanni Carmassi and Giuseppe Fricelli.
Still on the question of pears—I wrote liner notes for a 1974 Phil Woods quartet album, Musique Dubois. The notes ended,
The control room clique is congratulating Woods on an unusually successful record date. He thanks them, smiling a bit wryly, as if he knows something they don’t. Then his horn is into its case and he’s into his mackinaw and headed for the door, leaving an announcement:
“I’m gonna go get me a pear.”
Years later, Phil told me that wasn’t what he said. It was, “I’m gonna go get me a beer.” He liked my mishearing of the word so much that when he saw the rough draft of the notes, he didn’t ask me to correct it. In every reissue it has remained, “I’m gonna go get me a pear.”
Nous devons avoir toujours un espoir pour poires!
(just showing off)
Which means, If I recall a bit of my rudimentary French, “We must always hope for pears.”
A good thought.
That was a great set of liner notes, but weren’t they edited for the CD reissue? Maybe I’m thinking of another release.
The late Joel Dorn reissued Musique du Bois on his 32 Jazz label. I think Ken is right; the notes were abbreviated. I remember not being pleased about that, but I can’t check because I no longer have the CD.
I have to put in the fact here, that the nickname of the late German chancellor Helmut Kohl (certainly a non-jazz man) was “die Birne” (the pear”).
Seem to remember part of a song lyric:…”When it’s orange blossom time in Orange, New Jersey, we’ll be peach of a pear (sic)
Slight correction. The lyric is:
==============================
When it’s cherry blossom time in Orange, New Jersey
We’ll make a peach of a pair. I know we canteloup
So honeydew be mine
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It is Lobby Number, sung by Danny Kaye in a movie (“Up in Arms”). My guess is that the lyric, and maybe the music too, was written by Sylvia Fine.
I vividly recall buying this album, Musique de Bois, in 1974. It became one of my all time favorite Phil Woods albums. What a rhythm section, too! In addition to the fabulous music were the wonderful liner notes, and I laughed at Woods’ parting “I’m gonna go get me a pear”. I always wondered what he was referring to; perhaps it was code for something else he may have picked up in Europe during his European Rhythm Machine Days? Now I know, and good for him letting the “mis-hearing” remain in the notes!
For the record (ha), the rhythm section was Jaki Byard, Richard Davis and Alan Dawson.
This was my first record of Phil’s, too, and I loved it, but interestingly, Phil didn’t like the record, which is why he went out for several “pears” after the session. Too much of a blowing date was the gist of his dissatisfaction. It, was a big reason why he decided to form a regular group with his brother-in-law, Bill Goodwin. Phil wrote: