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gets struck by lightning,



takes off.

Thankful and thoughtful today, at least trying to be. A glance at the playlist would suggest that I played an awful lot of songs (but they're not awful songs, I promise). The truth is that I added a lot of gimmicky stuff like goofy little interludes and old radio ads. While Sly and the Stone were the artists of the day, I also played two by Craig Handy, some rock, some country, and some etc. to go along with the jazz. Catamount Community Radio airs on WWCUFM on Sunday mornings from 10-12 (East Coast time).

Here are some lyrics from Fairground Attraction that I like:

Sky with some diamond stars
Empty streets with just occasional cars
Here we lie in a lullaby of stillness
In our room.

[...]

All of the letters in all of the words
In all of the books all over the world
They're nothing but sounds and vowels and nouns.
For talking to strangers, that's all they were

[...]

Orchestra of tiny hearts
It's like pepper sprinkled on our hearts
We're threading a needle with boxing gloves
When we try and talk about love

I put Cornelius in the background while we listened to Howard Nemerov read his poem, "Thanksgrieving." I transcribed it from a sound file, so I'm not sure where the line breaks are, so I'll render it as prose.

"Infant mortality didn't, as they say, claim me, though it damn near did. So I grew what they call 'up.' To the childhood illnesses routine for those times I added only paratyphoid on my own. I was never starved nor did my parents whip me or leave me chained to the bed. Nor did I get born a Jew in Germany. Plus, I went to their war and didn't die of it. Leaving aside my adventures among the dentists (your teeth are fine but those gums have got to go), my skirmishes with medicine include but a couple of major operations and a few discomfortable bothers with skeleton and strings. I have so far stayed out of asylums and jails and given the smawth and fewth of my abilities, have been lucky in being steadily employed. I'm still with the same dame, have three sons; have lost to death up to this day only a few family and five good friends. So help me, life, I may still make it to the end."


1. Sly & the Family Stone – Thankful & Thoughtful
2. Duke Ellington - Jazz a la carte
3. Craig Handy – In a Sentimental Mood
4. Fairground Attraction – A Smile in a Whisper
5. Hank Williams – (I Heard that) Lonesome Whistle
6. John Lewis – December, Remember
7. Dave Douglas – November
8. Bob Marley – Give Thanks and Praise
9. Lattie Moore – I'm Not Broke, But I'm Badly Bent
10. Howard Nemerov – Thanksgrieving
11. Cornelius – Tone Twilight Zone
12. Dr. John – Mama Roux
13. The Rumble Strips – Cowboy
14. Jimmie Rodgers – Blue Yodel No. 9
15. Teddy Wilson – Sweet Georgia Brown
16. CRC – There's Fun in Your Feet
17. Mose Allison – New Parchman
18. Craig Handy – Sippin' and Sliding
19. RIAA – KKK (Kooky Komedy Kut-Up)
20. Sly and the Family Stone – Thank you (Falletinme Be Mice Elf Agin)
21. Ella Fitzgerald – Here in my Arms
22. Coleman Hawkins – Allen's Alley
23. Jill Sobule – League of Failures
24. Trilambs – This is the Beatles
25. The Beatles – Glass Onion
26. T Rex – Hot Love
27. The Dandy Warhols – Colder than the Coldest Winter was Cold
28. Johnny Fortune – Siboney
29. Cachao – Siboney
30. Bebo Valdés – Al fin te vi
31. Pizzicato Five – Readymade FM
32. Cecil Gant – I Wonder
33. George Jones – Relief is Just a Swallow Away
34. Chalie Parker – Melancholy Baby
35. Chris Bell – You and Your Sister
36. Hot Lips Page – St. James Infirmary
37. Johnny Hodges – Passion Flower
38. Sly & the Stone – Thankful & Thoughtful


Craig Handy

In spite of some problems with my horn, I've been enjoying rehearsals.

Here is the poster for the concert:

My memories of the buck pole involve snow, and blood dripping on it.

I don't remember exactly the circumstances, but Luis invited me to accompany a group of American students he was chaperoning on a trip to Morocco. Yeah, I'm in. At the time I was a Fulbright scholar living in Granada (Can you believe that?).

So, to the best of my memory, we had visited Fez and some other places and were heading south to Marakesh. We stopped at an open air market just for curiosity's sake.

Now, for some reason, Moroccans don't like getting their picture taken. It could be that they consider the picture making a robbing of their soul; or maybe they merely figure that if the Europeans, slumming in their North African nation, are snapping pictures of them they should be remunerated accordingly.

So after visiting the market, I got back into the van, and decided to take a picture of some boys as we were pulling away. As I was doing so, one of the boys pulled out a knife and waved it at me in a menacing yet playful way. Of course, being in the van I was in no danger, but it is strange that the picture that I took at that moment never came out. Or maybe I never took a picture.

My roommate during the trip was this young fool by the name of Montoya. He would keep his passport under his pillow as he slept at night. One day he packed up and left, forgetting his passport under his pillow. One of Luis's Moroccan friends was kind enough to retrieve the passport, ride in a train all the way to Rabat or Casablanca, or wherever we were at the time, just in time to deliver the passport to Montoya.

Certainly Luis made sure that Montoya compensated him for his trouble.

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1.

Jim Dandy: "THE AMERICAN DREAM! (Just a down payment away!)"
Steven: "Two boats! Daddy you rock my world!"
Mark: "Here are the keys, darling. Me and the boys got some choreography to work on!"

2.

Jim Dandy: "An American Nightmare. (Paid in Full)"
Steven: "Power source for WorldCom iGoogle server farm and bathers. Photo circa 2021."
Mark: "Ah, the salty air! The surf! The bathing beauties! The smell of fresh crude!!"

Sorry, Marie, your comments were deemed inappropriate.

"Coffee Time..."



Well, another week, another show, and not a bad one, in all modesty. Last Sunday, chllin' after the show, listening to the radio via the internet, I heard a song on Harry Shearer's Le Show that caught my fancy. I quickly jotted down a few of the lyrics, and then typed them into the Google search engine, and found out the tune was Jill Sobule's "League of Failures."

I've been a miner for a heart of gold,
A dreamer who just won't wake up.
I thought I'd plunge into the deepest vein,
It wasn't deep enough.

[...]

Still have your picture on my wall of faith,
Next to the grocery list.
I keep forgetting I should take you down,
I'm gonna take you down.

Speaking of lyrics, how about these lines from Rufus Wainwright?

I tried to dance Brittany Spears
I guess I'm getting on in years.

Or maybe these, from Franz Nicolay:

I was 26; she was 17
Too angry for lovers
and too close for friends
If you can't love me, baby
maybe we can just pretend.

(Here, my mind, during the pause after "if you can't love me, baby," inserted, "maybe your sister can." Bad Mark.)

This bit reminded me of Springsteen:

When we met I was broke
now I got a pile of tens
And baby, let's go out tonight
and see how fast I can spend.

This is where I write that the show streams on the internet when you point your browser at Power 90.5 from 10-12 on Sunday mornings (Carolina time).



1. David "Fathead" Newman – Alfie
2. Steely Dan – Everything Must Go
3. World Standard – Looving Spoonful
4. Tarwater – To Maouf
5. Bebo Valdés – La comparsa
6. Bill Frisell – The Tractor
7. Hank Mobley – Remember
8. Kronos Quartet – Cuatro milpas (circa 1926)
9. Vincent Price – Music, When Soft Voices Die
10. Jill Sobule – League of Failures
11. The Meadowlarks – Please Love a Fool
12. César Romero – Thought for Today
13. Rufus Wainwright – Vibrate
14. Jimmie Lunceford – Organ Grinder's Swing
15. Jungle Brothers – Tribe Vibe
16. Riyuichi Sakamoto – Undercooled
17. Anthony Hamilton – Coming From Where I'm From
18. Roy Hargrove – Strasbourg / St. Denis
19. The Heavy – Small Change Hero
20. Daniel Owino Misiani – Dr. J. Abuya
21. Maravilla – Se ha acabado
22. Tony Shwartz – Nuyorican Food
23. Studio Group – Kiss of Fire
24. Franz Nicolay – Cease Fire, or, Mrs. Norman Brown
25. Joe Henderson – But Not For Me
26. Andre Williams – Bacon Fat
27. Don Byron – Royal Garden Blues
28. Funky Butt Brass Band – Soul Serenade
29. The Noisettes – Never Forget You
30. Bajo Fondo Tango Club – Air Concrete
31. Mississippi Gabe Carter – Big Fat Woman
32. The Spiritual Jubilators – Precious Lord

Two by Camille, two by Bebo Valdés, two by Mickey & Sylvia. Three versions of "Caravan." Jimmie Rodgers goofing with the Carter Family on the radio, and much more. The show streams live on the internet on Sunday mornings (10-12 East Coast time) on WWCU-FM.

Camille is a French singer qui fait également la voix française du personnage de Colette dans Ratatouille, un film du studio d'animation Pixar, sorti en août 2007. I think Aiesha once mentioned to me that her boyfriend is Rachid Taha.

Bebo Valdés is still going strong at 90 years of age. I hear that he just recorded an album with his son Chucho, who himself at 68 is no spring chicken.

Here are a couple tidbits on Jimmie Rodgers from Wikipedia:

"Rodgers decided to travel to Asheville, North Carolina, later that same year (1927). On April 18, at 9:30 p.m., Jimmie, Sam Biglari, and Otis Kuykendall performed for the first time on WWNC, Asheville’s first radio station. A few months later Jimmie recruited a group from Bristol, Tennessee called the Tenneva Ramblers and secured a weekly slot on the station listed as "The Jimmie Rodgers Entertainers."

"On July 16, 1930, he recorded "Blue Yodel No. 9" with jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong, whose wife, Lillian, played piano on the recording."

Reverend Frost on Sylvia and Mickey:

"This popular duo began recording together in 1956 and enjoyed a US R&B chart-topper that year with ‘Love Is Strange’, which peaked at number 11 in the US pop chart the following year. This enduring call-and-response song is rightly regarded as a classic of its genre, and later became a minor UK hit when recorded by the Everly Brothers.

Prolific session work for Atlantic Records, Savoy, King and Aladdin earned the former the epithet Mickey ‘Guitar’ Baker, while the latter had made her recording debut with jazz trumpeter Oran ‘Hot Lips’ Page as early as 1950. Yep, Mickey was a music instructor and Sylvia one of his pupils!

The duo eventually bought their own nightclub, established a publishing company, and formed their own record label , and they had further success with ‘There Oughta Be A Law’ (1957) and, after a brief hiatus as a duo, ‘Baby You’re So Fine’ (1961), but their career together was undermined by commitments elsewhere. They continued to record together until 1965. After that, Mickey had a successful career as a studio musician. Sylvia had a huge hit in 1973 with the song 'Pillow Talk.'"

I found this bit on Woody Phillips at Amazon.com: "a novelty artist who performs well-known holiday songs and classical pieces on common hand tools. After his training at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, he worked as a cellist and arranger of early American folk music. In 1998, he released his saw-, power drill-, and hammer-orchestrated versions of Christmas standards on A Toolbox Christmas, and followed in 2000 with his personalized ode to composers of the 18th and 19th centuries; Toolbox Classics. ~ Zac Johnson, All Music Guide"



An anonymous commenter on a blog somewhere said this about the rough barber shaving off Castro's beard: "As I recall reading somewhere .. the CIA actually approached Ian Fleming and asked him for ideas and he provided them with a few ideas including LSD on Castro's SCUBA mouthpiece combined with itching powder in his wetsuit, to make him go crazy and drown; thallium salts in his cigars or hat to make his manly beard and hair fall out and thus emmasculate him; projecting a massive religious icon in the sky above Cuba to induce revolution against communism; and probably more that the CIA never actually tried."



1. Ron Afiff – Dolphn Dance
2. Camille – Quand je marche
3. Rahsaan Roland Kirk – Alfie
4. Ella Fitzgerald – Wait Till You See Him
5. Piero Umiliani – Lady Magnolia
6. Slam Stewart & Major Holley – Close Your Eyes (Shut Yo' Mouth)
7. Bebo Valdés – Tres lindas cubanas
8. Ceux Qui Marchent – Nola
9. Blossom Dearie – Thou Swell
10. Radio fun with The Carter Family & Jimmie Rodgers
11. Ray Charles – Heaven Help Us All
12. Duke Ellington – Caravan
13. Fred Hersch – Caravan
14. Johnny Santo – Caravan
15. Dorothy Dandridge – Smooth Operator
16. Omer Avital – Arrival
17. Craig Duncan – Wabash Cannonball
18. Mickey & Sylvia – Love is Strange
19. Christian McBride, Nick Payton & Mark Whitfield – Chameleon
20. Wycliff Jean – Gone Till November
21. Phil Celia – If Butch the Rough Barber Man Shaves Castro
22. Tony Allen – Gbedu
23. Tony! Toni! Toné! – If I Had No Loot
24. Darrow Fletcher – The Pain Gets a Little Deeper
25. Camille – Ta douleur
26. George Cables – Tasshi's Night Out
27. Mounir Mourad – The Factory Theme
28. Woody Philips – Habanera
29. Charlie Parker – Now's the Time
30. Bebo Valdés – Danza Bº 1
31. Mickey & Sylvia – No Good Lover
32. World Saxophone Quartet – Requium for Julius
33. Mount Eagle Quartet – When I Take my Vacation in Heaven


Jimmie Rodgers


Mickey & Sylvia


Bebo Valdés

I'm going to post two images, without comment.

If you read this, please provide commentary.

I will then repost the blog entry, but with your comments as narration.

1.


2.

The welcome mat at our house says "Wipe your paws." Each time I see it, I mentally say to myself, "Wipe your ass."

My wife has left a book on the kitchen table for months; it is Deepak Chopra's Creating Affluence.



Each time I see it, I mentally say to myself, "Creating Flatulence." It's almost an anagram.

A student shared a spoonerism the other day (where you exchange the first sound of each word). On the way to Cherokee there's a gas station called "Fuel Mart."

We in the department share a refrigerator where we can, say, keep our lunch chilled. One colleague has filled up the bottom shelf of the door with bottled water. There are four or five bottles, each with her initials marked on the cap, and each with only about an ounce and a half of water in it.

In the men's bathroom of the local Chinese restaurant, there is a portrait of a bear. It was made with a large color photocopy of the bear's face. However added to the portrait is teddy-bear fur, turning the thing into a two-dimensional teddy bear.

Today, Walking, Trucking, and Blue Skies. Plus, I snuck in a Scriaban prelude played by Horowitz. As for walking, I put on an instrumental version of "Walk This Way," by way of background music, and read the following quotation from Soren Kierkkegaard:

"Above all, do not lose your desire to walk: every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness; I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it ... but by sitting still, and the more one sits still, the closer one feels to feeling ill ... Thus if one just keeps walking, everything will be all right."

As for the trucking, Junior Brown and Dave Dudley; the two of them together doing "Semi-Crazy," and then the quintessential truck-driving song, Dudley's "Six Days on the Road."

Blue Skies? Well, we had to start with this gem that I found over at Chris O'Leary's sight, Locust St., "It Ain't Gonna Rain No Mo'":

"Wendell Hall's two-million-seller of 1923, is arguably a rock & roll record, at least in spirit. It's got the whole bag: yodels, howls, whines and sneers, riffs, death, puns, general nonsense, bad attitudes, jokes about animals, jokes about sewers, barefoot girls. Everybody from Bob Dylan on down has stolen from it:

Saw a sign in a hardware store:
"Boy wanted, 16 years,"
Now that's too long to wait for a boy,
It brings eyes to my tears

Hall was a red-headed ukulele player from Kansas. He was a song plugger, a vaudeville rambler, a radio man (even got married on the air). "It Ain't Gonna Rain No Mo'" was the first national radio hit, mainly because Hall traveled cross-country in the summer of 1923, playing at over 35 radio stations, touting his record and his sheet music. To plug the latter, Hall, brilliantly and shamelessly, would keep adding verses to the song (reaching 100 at one point) and then reprint the sheet music with his new lines--in this way, he sold over 10 million copies (& many of the verses were wholly plundered from "traditional" folk songs, often by black musicians). He died in 1969, having never come close to that success again. Then again, few could have."

I also played Tom Wait's "Blue Skies," and Harry Connick, Jr.'s version of the old Irving Berlin song.

BTW, Chris has a David Bowie blog that will be worth your while, if you like Bowie.

Catamount Community Radio airs on La poderosa 90.5 Sunday mornings from 10-12 (Carolina time).


1. Tom Waits – Anywhere I Lay my Head
2. Esbjörn Svensson Trio – I Mean You
3. Roscoe Snowden – Misery Blues
4. Sly & the Family Stone – Poet
5.Tin Hat Trio – Helium
6. Ahmad Jamal – Autumn Leaves
7. Randy Newman – The Girls in my Life
8. Benjamin Verdery – Kiss
9. Ernest Tubb – Walkin' the Floor Over You
10. Junior Brown – Semi-Crazy
11. Tom Waits – Blue Skies
12. Armen Stepanyan – Es Kisher, Lusnyag Kisher ...
13. Wendell Hall – It Ain't Gonna Rain No Mo'
14. Harry Connick, Jr. – Blue Skies
15. Louis Armstrong & Earl Hines – Tight Like That
16. Merle Haggard – Misery and Gin
17. Duke Ellington – The Star-Crossed Lovers
18. Candi Staton – Freedom is Just Beyond the Door
19. Old Radio Ad – "Serves You Right in the Car"
20. Dave Dudley – Six Days on the Road
21. Bobby Rock – Walk this Way
(background for the Kierkegaard quote)
22. Tom Waits – Walking Spanish
23. Kitty White – I'm Gonna Be a Fool Next Monday
24. Johnny Cash – My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You
25. Kaki King – Carmine Street
26. Vladimir Horowitz – Scriaban's Op. 16, No. 4 in Eb minor
27. Prince – 1+1+1=3
28. Meade "Lux" Lewis – Bear Cat Crawl
29. Willie Bobo – Spanish Grease
30. Coleman Hawkins – When Lights are Low
31. Lightnin' Hopkins – Another Fool in Town
32. Henry Mancini – Peter Gunn
33. David Widelock – Aung San Suu Kyi
34. Big Maceo – Detroit Jump
35. 菅野よう子 – Wo qui non coin
36. The Gospel Harmonizers – God Will Take Care of You

Yesterday we took pictures for the poster to publicize our performance on December 1. Pavel asked that we wear a white shirt with dark pants. So I wore the dress shirt that the drunken Japanese guy gave me this past summer in Shikoku.

As I recall, Masa and I had finished our meal and paid, when we were invited to the bar, where we were fed drinks and seafood on the house. The guy who gave me the shirt was the son-in-law of the owner, who was behind the bar. To reciprocate, I gave them the Barak Obama tee shirt off my back along with the usual osetti slip.

As for the music. I think I'm making some progress, but I'm finding it hard. At least I'm lost less often, and if I can't always read the parts, well, they are less mysterious than they were at the beginning.

I may get a solo on one tune. We shall see. OK, time to go home and practice.

The usual excellence in radio, on Power 90.5. The show airs Sunday mornings, from 10-12 (Carolina time).







1. Duke Ellington – Passion Flower
2. Abdullah Ibrahim – Moniebah
3. John Coltrane – Bessie's Blues
4. Louis Armstrong – Sugar
5. The Moonglows – Most of All
6. Teddy Wilson – You're Driving Me Crazy
7. Craig Duncan – Wabash Cannonball
8. Prince – Crimson and Clover
9. Bix Biderbeck – I'm Wondering Who
10. Brad Paisley – Ticks
11. Jossie Esteban y la Patrulla 15 – Pegando pecho
12. Chris Sprague – Diesel Smoke and Cigarettes
13. Diz & Bird – Salt Peanuts
14. Greg Hopkins – Here's to my Lady
15. Buck Owens – Under the Influence of Love
16. Ben Webster – Frog & Mule
17. Yusef Lateef – Sun Dog
18. Brenda Lee – Break it to me Gently
19. Jimmy McGriff – Sugar Sugar
20. Burning Spear – John Burns Skank
21. Jeff Coffin – The Mad Hatter Rides Again
22. Grandmaster Flash & Kurtis Blow – Live at Randy's Place (1979)
23. Towa Tei – IQ Infinity
24. Bing Ji Ling – You Shook Me All Night Long
25. Masada – Tahah
26. Frank Sinatra – Deep in a Dream
27. Radio Tarifa – Rumba argelina
28. Grupo Rosado – El super corcho
29. Quincy Jones – Sanford & Son Theme / The Streetbeater
30. Don Gibson – Sea of Heartbreak
31. Fats Domino – Helping Hand
32. Jurassic 5 – Freedom
33. Les Dum's – Le danse des grandes singes nus
34. 三宅純 – Lotus Isle


Craig Duncan


Grandmaster Flash

On the ride up to Boone with Pavel, he invited me to play second tenor in the university's jazz ensemble. This may be a stretch for me, as I'm pretty much a self-taught saxophonist with very little experience sight reading. Granted, I've been taking piano lessons for three years, and my reading is getting better, but I haven't played saxophone in a formal (note reading) band since I was in the ninth grade (the '77-'78 school year). So it's been awhile. I've been a saxophone dilettante now for maybe the last five or six years; sometimes I play a lot, sometimes I hardly play. But I've pretty much limited myself to playing by ear or else by lead sheet. A few years back I played bari in the "B" or second string band. This is a little tougher assignment.

How has it been so far? Well, I've rehearsed twice with the band, and I would say that more often than not I'm lost. But I want to make it happen, so I've been practicing. I even took a lesson with Tyler. Today I took my recording gear and recorded the rehearsal, in order to play along with the pieces as I practice. I'll continue with updates on how it goes until our concert, which is in early December. So basically, I have a month to get it together. We're playing

Satin Doll, and A Train. We haven't even rehearsed the pieces yet since I've joined the band. At least I'm familiar with them.

The Chicken. An old James Brown (Maceo) number. With the exception of the complex passage starting at measure 47, I'm doing OK. I recorded Tyler playing it last night, so I have that to work with.

God Bless the Child. Not too hard, but there are some high notes that I hardly know how to finger.

There's a Charlie Parker number that I look forward to playing, and a Maynard Ferguson chart that's not too bad.

Plus another six tunes or so.

Last Thursday, in lieu of rehearsal, we had a clinic with Jeff Coffin and his band. He's played with Dave Matthews and Bela Fleck, but his band, the "Mu-tet", with Felix Pastorius on bass and a couple of other monsters, was great.

I'll let you know how it goes. It'll be an adventure. Rehearsal on Thursday and another lesson with Tyler on Sunday.

This past Thursday, saxofonisit Jeff Coffin was on campus to give a clinic on jazz improvisation. I was happy to be able to go, if only to hear him and his group play. It was a surprise, and those guys could pick! Coffin is a member of Bela's Flecktones, and plays with Dave Matthews, but I think I like him in his solo format best (with his group the Mutet), being a fan of the saxophone, and especially the sound of it alongside a trumpet.

Speaking of saxophones and trumpets, prohibition, which lasted, if I'm not mistaken, from 1920 to 1933, was not good for jazz, because the speakeasies, where the booze flowed, tended to keep a low profile, which meant no jobs for horn tooters.

Speaking of jazz musicians, when we listen to music from the 1920s, we like to hear Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives and Sevens, we like King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Bessie Smith. But back at that time, who was actually the most popular? Paul Whiteman. He played it sweet and pretty, and really couldn't play hot or blue. But he hired guys who could, like Bix Biderbeck. When New Orleans clarinetist Gus Mueller quit the band, he explained to Whiteman: "I jes' can't play that 'pretty music' that you all play. And you fellers can't never play blues worth a damn."


Paul Whiteman

In fact, despite the fact that Whiteman now sounds pretty tame to our 21st century ears, he was widely admired back in the twenties and thirties, even by such giants as Duke Ellington.

These last three paragraphs wouldn't have been possible without my reading the first 80 pages or so of Elijah Wald's How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll, which was nice surprise gift from Jim Dandy.

I played Tom Waits' "Goin' Out West," from his forthcoming live album, the first seven tracks of which are available for free at his web site. Apparently it will be a two-disc joint, the second disc comprised only of his between-song banter.

Happy Birthday, Yusef Lateef (89 yrs. old, on October 9).



Catamount Community Radio airs Sunday mornings from 10-12 (NC time) on WWCUFM.


1. Haruomi Hosono – Windy Land
2. Nat Cole – It's Only a Paper Moon
3. Miles Davis – Jitterbug Waltz
4. Erroll Garner – This Can't Be Love
5. Yusef Lateef – Titora
6. Los Amigos – Gandinga, Sandunga y Mondongo
7. Jelly Roll Morton – Spanish Swat
8. Mauricio Smith – El Green Hornet
9. The Seatbelts – The Egg and You
10. Paul Whiteman – Charleston
11. Ry Cooder – He'll Have to Go
12. Dirty Projectors – Two Doves
13. Ornette Coleman – Lonely Woman
14. Lee Dorsey – Would You?
15. Ronnie Love – Chills and Fever
16. Dinah Washington – Fat Daddy
17. Tom Waits – Goin'' Out West
18. Jeff Coffin – First Comes Last
19. James Brown – The Chicken
20. Nina Simone – Do What You Gotta Do
21. Hot Lips Page – Now You're Talking my Language
22. Sufjan Stevens – Ring Them Bells
23. Cozy Cole – Charleston
24. Count Basie – Jive at Five
25. Frank Zappa – Zoot Alures
26. Mangual & Patato – Massacote
27. Jeff Coffin – The Mad Hatter Rides Again
28. Jeff Harris – Chills and Fever
29. Yusef Lateef – C.N.S.C.
30. Nobukazu Takemura – Fallslake


Jeff Coffin

My daughter was walking through the house with a silly walk that would have certainly been approved by Monty Python's Ministry. She asks, "How am I walking?"

"Sillily," I replied.

Then I started thinking of the word. To make an adverb out of an adjective in English, you simply add the suffix "-ly." But "silly" already ends in "-ly," So you're forced into a a sort of double "-ly." "Sillily" didn't exactly roll off my tongue; it dripped off with a st... st... stuttering hesitation.

For the next half hour, I walked around the house saying to myself, "sillily."

Alexander Scriabin was a Russian Romantic composer who wrote some beautiful music. I don't know his music very well (my knowledge of classical music is limited), but I've decided to look into it. This because of a curious convergence of references within the space of a week.

1. The piano forum I attended two weeks ago today. For me, the highlight was my piano teacher, Andrea Adamcova, playing something by Villa Lobos, but one the earlier performers played a prelude by Scriabin. I thought to myself, "I like this music, especially the harmonics of it." It was one of the better moments in the recital.

2. In the second set of his show, Chick Corea played a prelude by Scriabin. For the second time in a week I heard Scriabin's music being performed live.

3. One of Pavel's photos reminded me of Arthur Rubinstein.



And since I was thinking of Arthur Rubinstein, I naturally went to the Wikipedia site dedicated to him, where I learned that, "Rubinstein, in conversation with Alexander Scriabin, named Brahms as his favorite composer, a response that enraged Scriabin."

Alex Ross: "In Russia, the composer-pianist Alexander Scriabin, who was under the influence of Theosophist spiritualism, devised a harmonic language that vibrated around a 'mystic chord' of six notes; his unfinished magnum opus Mysterium, slated for premier at the foot of the Himalayas, was to have brought about nothing less than the annihilation of the universe, whence men and women would reemerge as astral souls, relieved of sexual difference and other bodily limitations."

Now I must seek out his music. I'm thinking maybe a collection of preludes played by Horowitz.

Pavel and I motored up to Boone a week or so back to listen to Chick Corea do a solo piano show. Corea was an important influence on Pavel, who cites him as one of the reasons why he took up jazz. I'm a jazz buff myself, but I often steer clear of fusion, and although I had listened some to Corea in the past, I wasn't in the habit of giving him a lot of thought. When I did think of him, I thought of him as the Return to Forever guy who is into Scientology. A couple of years ago I saw a show on a public TV station about some of his work as a composer of string quartets that was moderately interesting.

So, needless to say, even though I had a rough idea, I really didn't know what to expect from Chick Corea. I was pleasantly surprised. It was like somebody .... somebody with ridiculously mad chops, that is ... playing in your living room for a close friend. Or in this case, a thousand close friends.

He started with an improvisation, as he put it, "to get to know the piano." A simple motif that became increasingly complex as he elaborated on it. Muy interesante.

He followed that with one of his more famous pieces, "Song for Armando." The Armando in question is his dad, himself a jazz musician who led an old-timey jazz band in the Boston area when Corea was a kid. A nod to Corea's Spanish heritage, the song has the rhythmic feel of salsa. Well-played.

Next, Bill Evans' "Waltz for Debbie," an interesting piece with alternations of 3/4 and 4/4 time. Corea described it as something he had been working on, which I take to mean that he's been playing it a lot lately, and thinking about it. His version had a percussiveness that I hadn't noticed in Evans' recording of the piece.

Perhaps the highlight of the evening was the handful of Thelonious Monk tunes that he played next. I love Monk, but "Pannonica," the piece he started with, is not among the tunes I was familiar with. A lovely thing, and Corea played it beautifully. He continued with "Monk's Mood" (I love that piece), and then "Blue Monk." A great tribute. He didn't try to play Monk like Monk played, with that idiosyncratic herky-jerky style, but rather in his own style, which, while percussive, is also smooth and elegant.

He closed out the first set with Bud Powell's "Oblivion." Stylistically, Monk and Powell are pretty divergent; this in spite of being friends, contemporaries, and initiators of what we sometimes call be-bop. But Corea played Bud Powell with the same insight and brilliance that he brought to the Monk pieces, making the tune his own.

He dubbed the second set "a visit to his practice room." He started off with a piece that I didn't recognize, probably a Return to Forever thing that a friend had requested. After that, he got out the sheet music and played something by Domenico Scarlatti. It was nice, and after finishing it, he was so pleased (or perhaps not pleased enough) that he decided to repeat it.

Then he played a beautiful prelude by Scriabin. He not only played it well, but also intercalated improvisations that were quite nice. As an aside, I'll mention that the mountains are somehow conducive to respiratory problems, so there was a lot of coughing going on that night in the auditorium. To his credit, Corea didn't let it bother him. In fact, he coughed himself midway through the piece. He halted, coughed, then continued. It was oddly appropriate.

To close out the concert, he played several of the pieces that he wrote from his numbered series inspired by children. Some of this music is simple, and some of it is highly complex, but all of it is playful, and I can hear the spirit of childhood infused in it.

All in all, a good show, and worth the money spent on the tickets and the hours spent on the highway.

On this morning's show, some funky organ, some good jazz, some sweet soul, some etc. Tune in Sunday mornings 10-12 (East Coast time) on The Mountains' Most Powerful Mix of Music, or so they say.





1. Prince Lasha & Sonny Simmons – Congo Call
2. Norah Jones – Don't Know Why
3. The Real Group – Commonly Unique
4. Ella Fitzgerald – Cow Cow Boogie
5. Tiny Grimes Group with C. Parker – I'll Always Love You Just the Same
6. Dionne Warwick – I'll Never Fall in Love Again
7. Clifford Brown – Joy Spring
8. Joss Stone – Fell in Love with a Boy
9. Wynonie Harris – Wine, Wine, Sweet Wine
10. Jean Shepherd – Many Happy Hangovers to You
11. Geisha Girls – Montrer su la barre fixe
12. Doris Troy – Just One Look
13. CRC – The Finest Dairy Dairy Products
14. Coleman Hawkins – One O'Clock Jump
15. Lonnie Smith – Spinning Wheel
16, Phil Ranelin – Sounds from the Village
17. Anthony Hamilton – Do You Feel Me?
18. 菅野よう子　 – Wo qui non coin
19. Johnny Hodges – Autumn in New York
20. Los Lobos – Can't Stop the Rain
21. Yoko Kanno & the Seatbelts – Too Good, Too Bad
22. Barack Obama – My Number
23. Sonny Rollins – Bluesongo
24. 三宅純 – Lotus Isle
25. Moondog – Down is Up
26. Jimmy McGriff – Signed, Sealed, Delivered
27. Sly & the Family Stone – Can't Strain my Brain
28. Nicholas Payton – People Make the World Go Round
29. Amy Winehouse – Love is a Losing Game
30. Marc Ribot – Happiness is a Warm Gun
31. Jonathan Coulton – You Ruined Everything
32. Prefuse 73 – Dabrye 73.3 Megamix
33. Don Byron – "Leopold, Leopold..."


Yoko Kanno


Dr. Lonnie Smith