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Home , Grace Bumbry, Kennedy Center Honors, Mel Brooks

Administration of , 2009 / Dec. 6

Remarks at the Reception December 6, 2009

The President. Thank you. On behalf of Mi- ship, they renew our hope that brighter days are chelle and myself, welcome to the White still ahead. House. So let’s never forget that art strengthens Child in audience. Thank you. . And that’s why we’re making sure that The President. Thank you. [Laughter] This is America strengthens its arts. It’s why we’re re- a season of joy, tradition, and celebration. energizing the National Endowment of the Child in audience. Yay! Arts. That’s why we’re helping to sustain jobs in The President. Yes! [Laughter] And today it is arts communities across the country. It’s why our great joy to continue a holiday we’re supporting arts education in our schools, tradition, a celebration of performers who have and why Michelle and I have hosted students transformed the arts in America, our extraordi- here at the White House to experience the best nary Kennedy Center Honorees. of American poetry and music. And it’s why we’re honored to celebrate these five remark- We are joined by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, able performers who for decades have helped Members of Congress, and members of the to sustain and strengthen the American spirit. Kennedy family. I see sprinkled through the You can’t understand America without un- crowd some pretty fancy as well. derstanding jazz. And you can’t understand jazz, You’ve got the Queen of Soul; you’ve got Martin without understanding . His Scorsese, he knows a little bit about filmmak- mother was a classical pianist with high hopes ing; and my spectacular First Lady is here as for her son. And by the time he was 4, he was well. playing himself. But by the time he was a teen- I especially want to thank the man who creat- ager, he was tearing up local honky-tonks. Even ed these honors more than three decades ago his mother had to admit: “There is some hope and who has produced them ever since—and for David after all.” [Laughter] whom I was proud to name as cochair of the And perhaps it was World War II—his ser- President’s Committee on the Arts and Human- vice in Patton’s army—that changed his sound, ities—George Stevens, Jr.—George. forcing him, as he said, to work the war out of And I want to also thank Stephen Schwarz- his system by playing some “pretty vicious pia- man and the Kennedy Center trustees, as well no.” Whatever it was, his sound, the distinctive as President Michael Kaiser and all those who harmonies and improvisations of the Dave Bru- sustain President Kennedy’s vision of a “great beck Quartet, would change jazz forever, stage” celebrating “the best coming from this prompting Time magazine to put him on the country and abroad.” cover as the leader of a new jazz age. These performers are indeed the best. They Having brought jazz into the mainstream, he are also living reminders of a simple truth—and then transformed it with innovative new I’m going to steal a line from Michelle rhythms on albums like “Time Out,” the first here—the arts are not somehow apart from our jazz album to ever sell more than a million cop- national life, the arts are at the heart of our na- ies and still one of the best-selling jazz albums tional life. of all time. In times of war and sacrifice, the arts and Dave Brubeck has never stopped reaching these artists remind us to sing and to laugh and new audiences: performing for Presidents from to live. In times of plenty, they challenge our Johnson to Reagan, composing orchestral trib- conscience and implore us to remember the utes to Martin Luther King and Pope John Paul least among us. In moments of division or II, and even in his eighties, dazzling jazz festi- doubt, they compel us to see the common val- vals across America. ues that we share, the ideals to which we aspire, And I know personally how powerful his per- even if we sometimes fall short. In days of hard- formances can be. I mentioned this to Dave

1779 Dec. 6 / Administration of Barack Obama, 2009 backstage: In the few weeks that I spent with But the statute of limitations has passed. my father as a child—he came to visit me for [Laughter] about a month when I was young—one of the Suffice it to say, in his and , things he did was to take me to my first jazz no cow is sacred, no genre is safe. He mocked concert, in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1971, and it the musical—and Hitler—in “,” was a Dave Brubeck concert. [Laughter] And the in “,” and the hor- I’ve been a jazz fan ever since. The world that ror film in “.” he opened up for a 10-year-old boy was spec- But behind all the insanity and absurdity, tacular. there’s been a method to Mel’s madness. He’s And Dave, for the joy that you’ve given mil- described his work as “unearthing the truth lions of jazz lovers like me, for your six decades that is all around us.” And by illuminating un- of revolutionary rhythms, you are rightly hon- comfortable truths about racism and sexism ored, especially today, on your 89th birthday. and anti-Semitism, he’s been called “our jest- [Applause] er, asking us to see ourselves as we really are, He was born Melvin Kaminsky—— determined that we laugh ourselves sane.” . He never understood 4/4 time. For this, he is one of the few people ever to [Laughter] receive an Emmy and a Grammy and an Oscar The President. He’s still messing it up, Mel. and a Tony. Writer, director, actor, producer, [Laughter] Mel, I’m trying to say something composer, for his success, and for his psycho- nice about you, now. [Laughter] Please don’t analysis, we honor Mel Brooks. upstage me. [Laughter] Reflecting on the challenge of finding one’s As you can tell, he was born to entertain. voice, said: “God has al- [Laughter] Or as Mel Brooks explains it: ready planted that in your throat. It’s your job “Look at Jewish history—unrelieved lament- to free it up, to allow that beautiful thing to ing would be intolerable. [Laughter] So every shine through.” 10 Jews, God designed 1 to be crazy and True to her name, Grace allowed her voice amuse the others.” [Laughter] According to Mel, “By the time I was 5, I knew I was that to shine through and touch all those within its one.” [Laughter] range: around her family’s piano in St. Louis; on the talent show where, as a teenager, she And by the time he was 9, this boy from moved the host to tears; and then, after being had seen his first musical and dreamed of becoming the King of Broadway. turned away from one music school because of But World War II meant service in the Army, the color of her skin, her triumphant interna- or, as he put it, “the European Theater of Op- tional debut at the Paris when she was erations, with lots of operations and very little just 23 years old. theater.” [Laughter] Returning home, he With a pitch and presence like no other, she found success cranking out quips for Sid Cae- became a global sensation, moving audiences sar, or as Mel described his reaction to suc- at the great opera houses of the world. And cess, “panic, hysteria, insomnia . . . and years performing here at the White House, it was of psychoanalysis.” [Laughter] said that she moved Jacqueline Kennedy to That’s right, we’re reading back all your lean over and gently sing along the words to golden moments here, Mel. [Laughter] the President. Unfortunately, many of the punch lines that Defying every expectation, Grace Bumbry have defined Mel Brooks’s success cannot be then made the transition from mezzo to sopra- repeated here. [Laughter] I was telling him no. And over the decades that followed, she that I went to see “Blazing Saddles”—[laugh- displayed a range like few others, sometimes ter]—when I was 10. And he pointed out that, the middle ranges as a mezzo, sometimes the I think, according to the ratings, I should not highs of a , sometimes both in the have been allowed in the theater. [Laughter] same performance. Grace not only triumphed That’s true. I think I had a fake ID. [Laughter] in different techniques, she transformed them.

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And though she gave her final operatic per- heart, and one of those people is Bruce Springs- formance in 1997, she appears in recitals to this teen. day. After nearly 50 years, she remains the defi- He has said: “I’ve always believed that people nition of a diva in the classical sense: a divine listen to your music not to find out about you, voice worthy of the heavens. And tonight, 32 but to find out about themselves.” And for more years after she performed at the first Kennedy than three decades, in his songs of dreams and Center Honors for her mentor Marian Ander- despair, of struggle and hope, hard-working son, we honor Grace Bumbry. folks have seen themselves. Growing up in ’s Little Italy, They’ve seen their great State of New Jersey, Bobby De Niro always knew what he wanted to and they’ve seen their America in songs that be- be. Coming home from the movies, he’d act out come anthems: restless kids who were “Born to the parts. At age 10, in his school play, he made Run,” the struggles of workers in “My Home- a rather unlikely debut in “The Wizard of Oz” town,” the sacrifices of vets who were “Born in as the Cowardly Lion. [Laughter] the U.S.A.,” love and loss in “Streets of Phila- He has said, “My joy as an actor is to live dif- delphia,” a resilient nation in “The Rising,” and, ferent lives.” And in more than 60 films span- this year, a country “Working on a Dream.” ning more than 40 years, has It’s no wonder that his tours are not so much lived some of the most iconic and intense char- concerts, but communions. There’s a place for acters ever portrayed on film: a dying baseball everybody, the sense that no matter who you player in “Bang The Drum Slowly,” a young Vi- are or what you do, everyone deserves their to Corleone in “The Godfather Part II,” a de- shot at the American Dream, everybody de- ranged “Taxi Driver,” a troubled veteran in serves a little bit of dignity; everybody deserves “The Deer Hunter,” a brutal boxer in “Raging to be heard. Bull,” a vengeful ex-con in “Cape Fear.” Let’s I’ve seen it myself. Bruce was a great fan—a hope that was kidding when he great friend over the last year, and when I said that Robert is “full of something that he watched him on the steps of the Lincoln Me- wanted to express.” [Laughter] Don’t worry, we morial when he rocked the National Mall be- did a vet on him before he came in tonight. fore my Inauguration, I thought it captured, as [Laughter] well as anything, the spirit of what America But alongside his Oscar-winning emotional should be about. On a day like that, and today, I audacity there’s his versatility, from a coma pa- remember: I’m the President, but he’s “The tient in “Awakenings,” to an ever possessive fa- Boss.” [Laughter] ther in “Meet the Parents.” There’s his legend- And Bruce continues to inspire, along with ary method, not simply portraying characters, his house-rocking, earth-shaking E Street Band. but becoming them emotionally and physically, At 60 years old, he’s still filling stadiums, still and there is his love for his city, whether it’s di- whipping fans into a frenzy, still surfing the recting films like “A Bronx Tale” or founding crowd, still jumping off pianos, and still reach- the film center and festival that has energized ing new fans, and still being nominated for the arts in New York City. Grammys. It’s been a long road from that stage It is perhaps the great irony of his life—one at Stone Pony in Asbury Park to this stage to- of America’s greatest cinematic actors is a man, day, but this much we know, after more than 30 famously, of few words off the screen, and I can years and 120 million albums sold, Bruce attest to this. [Laughter] So I’ll simply say, Springsteen is still one “cool rockin’ Daddy.” thank you, Robert De Niro. [Laughter] Finally, we honor the quiet kid from Jer- Dave Brubeck, Mel Brooks, Grace Bumbry, sey—[laughter]—who grew up to become the Robert De Niro, , their sto- rock ‘n’ roll laureate of a generation. For in the ries are their own. But the part that they play in life of our country, only a handful of people the larger American story, that’s what we honor have tapped the full power of music to tell the here tonight. What they say is that with respect real American story with honesty, from the for the past, we can keep strong the traditions

1781 Dec. 6 / Administration of Barack Obama, 2009 and values that enrich us all; that with confi- that you’ve contributed to our lives. We are dence in the present, and in ourselves, we can very grateful. Thank you. overcome whatever comes our way; and that with faith in the future, America’s greatest NOTE: The President spoke at 5:28 p.m. in the “Glory Days” are still to come. East Room at the White House. In his re- So thank you to all of our honorees. Thank marks, he referred to entertainer Aretha you all very much for the joy and the beauty Franklin; filmmaker Martin Scorsese; and co- median .

Remarks Following a Meeting With Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and an Exchange With Reporters December 7, 2009

President Obama. I want to extend the We discussed issues of regional peace, and I warmest of welcomes to Prime Minister Erdo- indicated to the Prime Minister how impor- gan. I’m glad that I, personally, and the Amer- tant it is to resolve the issue of Iran’s nuclear ican people have a chance to reciprocate the capacity in a way that allows Iran to pursue wonderful hospitality that was extended to me peaceful nuclear energy but provides assur- when I visited Turkey in April. ances that it will abide by international rules As I said when I had the great honor of ad- and norms, and I believe that Turkey can be dressing the Turkish Parliament in Ankara, I an important player in trying to move Iran in am strongly committed to creating the best that direction. possible relationship between the Turk- And we discussed the continuing role that ish—between Turkey and the . we can play as NATO allies in strengthening Turkey is a NATO ally, which means that Turkey’s profile within NATO and coordinat- we are pledged to defend each other. There ing more effectively on critical issues like mis- are strong ties between our countries as a con- sile defense. I also congratulated the Prime Minister on sequence of the Turkish American community some courageous steps that he has taken that has been established here. We have had around the issue of normalizing Turkish-Ar- the opportunity to work together during this menian relations and encouraged him to con- recent financial crisis, given Turkey’s role as a tinue to move forward along this path. member of the G–20. And given Turkey’s his- We reaffirmed the shared commitment to tory as a secular democratic state that respects defeat terrorist activity regardless of where it the rule of law, but is also a majority Muslim occurs. I expressed condolences to the Prime nation, it plays a critical role, I think, in help- Minister and the Turkish people for the recent ing to shape mutual understanding and stabili- terrorist attack that was taken there and ty and peace not only in its neighborhood but pledged U.S. support in trying to bring the around the world. perpetrators of this violence to justice. During the course of our discussions here, And finally, I complimented the Prime we’ve had the opportunity to survey a wide Minister for the steps that he’s taken, often range of issues that both the United States and very difficult steps, in reintegrating religious Turkey are concerned about. I thanked Prime minorities and ethnic minorities within Turkey Minister Erdogan and the Turkish people for into the democratic and political process and their outstanding contributions to stabilizing indicated to him that we want to be as sup- Afghanistan. We discussed our joint role in portive as possible in further steps that he can helping Iraq achieve the kind of independence take, for example, assuring the continuation of and prosperity that, I think, has been ad- the Halki Seminary and addressing the vital vanced as a consequence of the election law fi- needs of continuing the Ecumenical Patriar- nally being passed over the weekend. chy within Turkey.

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