pt at large

CVS Orchestra Al Fresco

October 10, 2021

Phil, also known as Dutch (not Doug) Is bringing the joy to the quiet parking lot behind CVS on Main Street in Watertown.

This man is no amateur. He got his affinity for music by listening to his mother’s piano playing and singing when he was a kid. After learning music theory at the Berklee College of Music, he joined a bunch of rock ‘n’ roll music bands , one of which opened for Ray Charles (not sure where or when). Star struck, he and his mates got to watch Ray perform from the wings at the side of the stage.

Today, situated behind the back door of CVS on Main Street, Watertown, there’s always lots of foot traffic. Street musicians and buskers have to have a specific frame of mind to perform. They go through stretches of time where people pay more attention to the parking meters or their phones than to them and their music.

Buskers like Dutch Phil (not Doug, as I refer to him in the video) are here because they they need to play, sort of like they need to breathe.They may pocket a few dollars to cover gas money and a meal or two. When they perform solo, they’re playing for their muse and to feed their psyches with the creative process that, like a songbird in its cage, needs the freedom to stretch its wings and explore the world before returning home.

There is a lotta magic that Phil coaxes from his Yamaha electric keyboard - powered by a cord attached to the battery of his car a few spaces away from his makeshift bandstand strategically set up across from the exit of CVS.  Musicians like Phil have a vast library of standards tucked away in their memory cells. It amazes me that he can switch from blues to the American songbook to swing to rock ‘n’ roll at his own whim or the request of a passerby.

His sense of phrasing and tempo is elegant. His spontaneous riffs and quotes from other songs appear then disappear back into the main frame of the song like the beams of the headlights disappear after passing his bandstand.

His curly gray hair poking out from under his baseball cap, he is totally present. Nevermind this is a bland concrete parking lot. This man is a commanding presence with the improvisational spirit of a Keith Jarrett. Who cares if the audience is a bunch of empty cars and the occasional shopper at CVS or visitor to the ATM machine at the bank next-door. My guess is that he's imagining playing for a full house at the Chevalier Theatre in nearby Medford, MA.

He doesn’t appear to have a definite schedule. He does have an unshakable presence and a remarkably nimble style that that samples music from every genre he’s ever heard..he's a one man mood elevator, as powerful as a prescription you just got from CVS.

This rollicking video of "When The Saints Go Marchin' In" is Dutch Phil in full, with impressive keyboard panache in his over the top concluding riff.

 

Video by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Apologies, this it Dutch playing, not Doug.

 

 

 

Hanging Out To Dry

Hanging out to dry...a rare sight, colorful, reminiscent of a time BD...before dryers.

Photo by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

An Autumn Nocturnal Ramble

A nocturnal ramble up Palfrey Street and beyond...

 

A perfect cloudless autumn evening, dusky dome of the universe overhead, Jupiter presiding in regal resplendence.

 

This is a night for rambling and ruminating.

 

Trees lining the street, not yet yielding their chlorophyll, exhale the oxygen I am breathing in by the lung-full on an inspired march up the 45° incline of Palfrey Street.

 

The organic olfactory rush of just-cut grass, freshly laid down mulch covering gardens and flowerbeds, the uncomplicated quality of it in the still of the night, catches me by surprise, transports me to my earliest memories of autumn evenings when I was a kid. 

 

I’m overwhelmed by nostalgia, grateful for the time travel to a simpler, less fraught world, one in which the biggest choice that I  pondered for the whole month of October was how would I make a really fun costume, one in which my mother would perennially come to my rescue.

 

The Halloween lights and decorations along Palfrey Street, eye popping or subtle, a welcome tonic showing home owners having fun in these days when we’re grateful to be reminded of a sense of normalcy. 

 

Feet propped up as I sit on my front porch, I'm satisfied with an invigorating march around my neighborhood  with surprising reminiscences from the past and an aromatherapy session to boot.

Jupiter, a luminously present, nearly upstaging the moon.

Watertown from one of the highest elevations in town, Palfrey Street.

 

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

 

Terrence Blanchard: From New Orleans To The Met

The murder of George Floyd, captured on video for the world to see, was an inflection point in America.

In tandem with or a result of the ghastly sight and evolving Black Lives Matter consciousness, companies began to realize that black people were consumers. Commercials for clothing, electronics, insurance, cars and trucks, home repair products, are pitched by black men and women and interracial couples. The abrupt change would not have  happened before George Floyd. Rational talk about racism is now a regular feature on radio and TV. Another post-Floyd shift,

Not everyone may be thrilled about that. But the persistent  history of neglected acknowledgement of contributions of creative black talent needs to be registered.  Much is written about how immigrants, which most of us were at one point, enriched America. Black people, to state the obvious, were transported here and became enslaved people. The effects on them and on us are rippling through our culture this very minute.

Black writers, singers, dancers, actors, actresses, film makers have occupied a sub-strata of our culture for decades. No longer.  Think about the singers and  songs seared into memories of your teenage years, songs that were the backdrop of your romancing and dancing. And remain embedded there with everyone from Aretha, James Brown and their successors to this day.

This is more than entertainment. It shapes our culture.

How much have we given due respect to the creative talent, inventiveness, with which they enrich our lives. I have listened to Terrence Blanchard play at the annual Satchmo Summerfest in New Orleans. 

Terrence Blanchard's creative juice was obvious at Sculler's Jazz Club in 2010.

https://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2010/09/terence-blanchard-trumpeter-and-trio-at-scullers-jazz-club-1.html

But I'll bet no one in the audience would have guessed his genius would be in full bloom at another stage, nearly another planet away culturally, The Metropolitan Opera in October 2021.

Seeing his work at the Met is a huge step forward, an eye opener, a reminder of the depth of the pool of black talent and its pervasive influence on me and generations of white folks before me and after me. I am watching an inflection point become a cultural shift that affects all of us.

FIRE SHUT UP IN MY BONES, TERRENCE BLANCHARD,

 

 

Willie Nelson singing for his supper...

WHAAATT!?

C'mon, Willie...

I was startled then downright dismayed...two seconds into a commercial break on CNN, here you come singing "You Were Always On My Mind." for a Fed Ex commercial…."Willie Nelson x FedEx | Delivering for Earth"

What are  you thinking?

Your voice belongs in lots of places, from Farm Aid that you founded in 1985 to Honky Tonk road houses, but this Fed Ex business is a bridge too far.

The only damn thing that will make me feel at all better is if every penny Fed Ex pays you goes straight to the United States Revenuers to pay for your federal taxes this year. We all remember what happened in 1990 when the IRS raided your home, seized your  possessions and auctioned them off to pay a $16.7 million dollar tax debt.

You've never been short on telling us what's on your mind. I'm not entitled to do anything but listen to your vast and adventurous catalog of songs but I sure would like to know why oh why you agreed to hitch your wagon to Fed Ex.

You support environment causes and farmers who depend on a stable environment.

The Fed Ex commercial touts its commitment to reducing its carbon imprint  but hey, FedEx had more than 200,000 motorized vehicles in its fleet in 2019. To its credit it added 2944 electric vehicles that included delivery trucks, forklifts and airport ground service equipment.

Fine and dandy, but FedEx's airline cargo division boasts a huge fleet of 691 aircraft, twice as many as Ryanair, Europe's largest airline, and nearly three times as many as British Airways.as of 2017. In 2018, it's estimated that global aviation – which includes both passenger and freight – emitted 1.04 billion tonnes of CO2. This represented 2.5% of total CO2 emissions in 2018. Aviation emissions have doubled since the mid-1980s. That ain't hay.

As my dear readers have figured out after watching tons of hours of TV since March 2020, the songs pitched to sell product aim for our hearts then make a break our our wallets or try to improve our opinion of the aspirations of the corporation.

Hearing a song by Willie or Smokey Robinson transports us to the first time we heard it, who we were with, what we were doing, and the world in which we were living at the time... a cagey strategy to co-opt our buying choices by playing on my emotions.                       

Corporations began to capitalize it in 1926 when they knew most of America was tuned into their radios. Since March 2020 most of us have been glued to our TVs. Branding by using songs deeply embedded in our consciousness is a sneaky, powerful soft sell. Not fair. But effective on TV.

Willie, maybe Fed Ex delivers your monthly supply of weed.

For god's sake, grow your own.

PS

Amanpour & Company interview shows Willie's amazing memory

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/amanpour-and-company/video/legendary-musician-willie-nelson-his-letters-america-nie80g/

 

 

 

 

 

John Prine - Angel from Montgomery

John Prine - Angel from Montgomery

Simple, Direct. Poetic. Imagery that made John Prine one of the great songwriters of all time.

If these first eight lines don’t duck you under the water to get a John Prine baptism nothing will.

I am an old woman
Named after my mother
My old man is another
Child who's grown old
If dreams were lightning
And thunder were desire
This old house would've burned down
A long time ago

I’ve listened to this song for years. And assumed that an “Angel from Montgomery” was some form of miraculous visitation that would carry the lonely woman off to another kitchen filled with rich conversation and a partner who made her feel alive.

Prine says that “I think the more the listener can contribute to the song, the better; the more they become part of the song, and they fill in the blanks.”

He relished the idea that your idea wasn’t the same as what had in mind.

I always thought that Angel from Montgomery would transport the old woman to a life rich with relationships and things that mattered..

One of the blanks I filled in…
An "Angel from Montgomery" refers to a pardon for a prison sentence from the governor. It is also used to refer to a last-minute pardon from the death sentence. The phrase originated in Alabama where the capital is Montgomery. I thought she was praying for a pardon from a loveless marriage that would set her free to find her cowboy. I think that John would appreciate that one.
https://www.jpshrine.org/lyrics/songs/trivia/angelfrommontgomery_t.htm

Once he wrote the line about a cowboy, he got obsessed with finding an image to hang it on. He rooted around till he found the cover of a book of Grand Ol’ Opry posters. Lo and behold one poster shows a man atop a bucking bronco with the title “Angel From Montgomery.”

Serendipity meets creativity.

The first time I heard Bonnie Raitt sing it, those words pouring out of her heart, I assumed she wrote it. No idea it was composed by a man. Prine is probably the only male who could think of writing it as a woman and pull it off. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toJ3ZYWRh24

And Raitt performing it with Prine in 2020

https://www.npr.org/2020/04/10/830101087/watch-and-weep-john-prine-and-bonnie-raitt-perform-angel-from-montgomery

John Prine wrote a three-minute song that captures a lifetime of living.

XXXXXXX

"Angel from Montgomery" written by John Prine, originally appearing on his self-titled 1971 album John Prine.

Lyrics

I am an old woman
Named after my mother
My old man is another
Child who's grown old

If dreams were lightning
And thunder were desire
This old house would've burned down
A long time ago

Make me an angel
That flies from Montgomery
Make me a poster
Of an old rodeo
Just give me one thing
That I can hold on to
To believe in this livin'
Is just a hard way to go

When I was a young girl
Well, I had me a cowboy
He weren't much to look at
Just a free ramblin' man

But that was a long time
And no matter how I tried
The years just flowed by
Like a broken down dam

Make me an angel
That flies from Montgomery
Make me a poster
Of an old rodeo
Just give me one thing
That I can hold on to
To believe in this livin'
Is just a hard way to go

There's flies in the kitchen
I can hear 'em there buzzin'
And I ain't done nothing
Since I woke up today

How the hell can a person
Go to work in the morning
Then come home in the evening
And have nothing to say?

Make me an angel
That flies from Montgomery
Make me a poster
Of an old rodeo
Just give me one thing
That I can hold on to
To believe in this livin'
Is just a hard way to go

To believe in this livin'
Is just a hard way to go

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOg7mAkrKJw

tiny desk in march 19, 2019 , also shows Prine's puckish sense of humor

Prine's tongue in cheek song, "Jesus, the missing years.." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suoJ6mLVBlU

and his last recorded song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L21Tc_DtL6M

John Prine died of Covid related illness in April 2021

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/john-prine-obit-253684/

 

 

 

Gerard's Sky High Priced Pies

May 1, 2021

By the time you pass the hand painted sign in white chalk on a black piece of plywood, the one that reads, “HOME MADE PIES” it’s probably too late. Doing about 50 mph eastbound on busy Route 2 you are passing Gerard’s Panetta’s Farm. Unless you have very quick reflexes, you’ll have to wait till next time to see how good those homemade pies might be.

Last year a house guest brought a Gerard’s Pie for dessert. It made an impression on my taste buds.

Today, the farm stand is the last stop after a stroll down Main Street in Concord. As soon as I saw the first sign, I was on a landing path to the quirky farm stand. It looks like countless other such stands in the area. Except for the giant refrigerator packed with those pies that dominates one side of the store. 

 I am about to buy two large 9 inch pies till my travel companion tugs on my sleeve, pointing to this sign... "Fresh PIes Daily LG $27.95, SM $17.95"

After recovering from sticker shock, I settle for a 4-and-a-half-inch strawberry rhubarb pie at $17.95 and head for the counter nearly hidden by a wall of bric-a-brac.

 “We’ve been making pies for 26 years,” says Amy. Her husband is the real deal Gerard.

“Once we began selling more and more pies, we outsourced the baking. Companies gave us great samples. Once we got into production, the quality went downhill and didn’t match what our pies tasted like. We decided to make our own pies.”

Judging by her age, they must have started in their young twenties.
They’re doing something right.

“50% of our customers are loyal frequent buyers,” Amy says. “Last week one of them gave a pie to a friend in Westborough. Two days later, the recipient drove here to buy some of her own.”

There are over 50 pies in the giant cooler.

I have a friend who makes the best pies, crust, fillings I’ve tasted since the days my grandmother’s pies ruled the earth. Gerard’s don’t compete with those but are some of the best non-homemade pies around.

They taste real good…but $27.95 good? I don’t think so.

  

Aside from the range of classic farm stand products, those two refrigerators against the wall are filled with a Pillsbury inspired gold mine.

The rest of the offerings at the farm stand are in line with those of other stands in the area. The small strawberry rhubarb pie? I'm still scratching my head at the price but give credit to Gerard and Amy for having a sense of supply and demand and the power of their reputation.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

 

Loretta Lynn: Still Woman Enough...at 89!

And, according to this interview with Raina Douris, she still is.

https://www.npr.org/2021/04/23/990217558/loretta-lynn-transforms-classic-songs-on-still-woman-enough

No way you'd ever guess the woman belting our these songs on this album was anywhere close to her age. She's got the pipes, the attitude, and the overwhelming desire to let those vocal chords and coal country lungs loose. I don't believe she can spend a day without singing any more than she can spend one without breathing.That Kentucky twang and her emotional grounded-ness in the hollers around her is as deep as those coal mines a few miles from where she  was born. Her natural beauty has been enhanced by modern day face lifting...vanity, commercial necessity? Who knows.

Nothing artificial is necessary to alter that piercing, achy, proud, pure tone of voice with pitch perfect tonality she's had no inclination to cap since she was born in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky on April 14, 1931.

"She became a part of the country music scene in Nashville in the 1960s. In 1967, she had the first of 16 No. 1 hits, out of 70 charted songs as a solo artist and a duet partner.^[10] Her later hits include "Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' (With Lovin' on Your Mind)", "You Ain't Woman Enough (To Take My Man)", "Fist City", and "Coal Miner's Daughter".^[11]

Lynn focused on women's issues with themes about philandering husbands and persistent mistresses. Her music was inspired by issues she faced in her marriage. She increased the boundaries in the conservative genre of country music by singing about birth control ("The Pill"), repeated childbirth ("One's on the Way"), double standards for men and women ("Rated 'X'"), and being widowed by the draft during the Vietnam War ("Dear Uncle Sam").^{[12]" Wikipedia}

^{During the interview, Lynn says "Tell the truth in your songs."}

That's exactly what she did, in subjects so far ahead of public taste that some radio stations refused to put then on air.

https://www.allmusic.com/album/still-woman-enough-mw0003469057

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loretta_Lynn

Personal aside: a photo of Loretta Lynn before she had all that youth culture work done on her face would be a master stroke against ageism that apparently equates age and appearance with ability ...or even worse, your relevance.

Is it too hard to equate what your ears are hearing with this lovely aging face taken a few years ago (much more appealing than the plastic face she acquired more recently?)  C'mon, Loretta, your face right there is inspiring for young singers to grow into and for your contemporaries to be proud of.

 

The Ice Panda

 

February 26, 2021 

He appeared this morning  . On a small patch of snow. The only remnant of the 2 feet of a snow bank, now evaporated,  that had lined my street for the past 10 days.

Upright. Indomitable. Inscrutable.

A mystery, a miracle, a little soldier of fortune

He was about a foot away from where my snowblower would have shredded his poor furry body. And another foot from where a giant snow plow would have relocated him Lord knows where and how far away.

He scared a neighbor who thought it was a deranged overgrown possibly rabid chipmunk to be avoided at all costs earlier in the morning.

Close inspection revealed he must have been a well-loved object of affection by a child somewhere within plowing distance of the front of my house. Its gray matted down and soaked weight and the fact its tiny feet were frozen to the ground helped him maintain an upright posture, looking alert, perhaps a sentinel guarding against other marauding soaked toy animals with malicious intent.

Three hours later, after a trip to Home Depot to buy supplies, there he was, not having moved one inch. By nightfall, his island of snow had totally disappeared and there he stood watching, waiting for something to happen.

An act of kindness was in order, A gesture, a salute, recognition of a minor miracle. I lashed him to the top of the fire hydrant a few feet from where he had been keeping watch to give him a better view of the surroundings. And elevate him to the safe throne he so richly deserved after all his travails.

Sometime in the coming days he may be seen and retrieved by his owner. In the meantime there's a glint of satisfaction in his two tiny black eyes. Against all odds, he has prevailed and has a future.

POSTSCRIPT

His nickname was suggested by a friend who recalled the discovery of Otzi the "Ice Man" found in Italy's south Tyrol mountains in 1991, although not with a copper ax in in hand!

First appearance of the Ice Panda after a warm windy night evaporated the  remainder of a snow bank in front of my house.

Vigilant night...

and day...

The Icc Panda appeared after a major ice melt of the snowbank over a week of unseasonably warm temperatures.

Photos  by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

"Virus’s long reach imposes a heart-wrenching isolation on all of us...

... imposes a heart-wrenching isolation on all of us."

March 28, 2020

The story resonates today in different forms and still animates the way we live our lives on earth these days...

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/03/28/metro/viruss-long-reach-imposes-heart-wrenching-isolation-all-us/

These are the kinds of stories I need to read these days, kaleidoscopic scope and breadth about the young, the old, and the in-between, how we are navigating roiled waters, managing our dreams, aspirations, callings, making peace with them in a disorienting present, uneasily, but resolutely.

Luminous details, small brush strokes, bore right down to the bedrock of who we are and connect us in unexpected ways...all important reminders of our shared humanity usually overshadowed by the surface tension of what used to be daily life.

PT

Opening Day at Fenway Park - Covid19 Vaccinations!

February 1, 2021

https://www.boston.com/news/coronavirus/2021/01/30/coronavirus-vaccine-fenway-park

Phase 2 of the Massachusetts rollout of Covid vaccine began yesterday, February 1 at Fenway Park in Boston.

 

The Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC) hit a Grand Slam..

No Fenway Franks, no hawkers tossing paper bags of peanuts up ten rows in the grandstand with better accuracy than some of the pitchers on the mound,  no guys standing on milk crates in the concourse selling programs, no sound of a full house crowd cheering on the Sox - something waaay better - the first round of vaccinations in Phase 2 in Massachusetts.

The concrete concourse inside the 112-year-old diamond in the rough known as Fenway Park (or 'Paak' depending on where you grew up) had a lineup of volunteers and professionals who worked together with the efficiency of the crew that covers the entire infield in five minutes flat when the rain begins to fall during a ball game.

Today demanded that kind of efficiency - a nor'easter was on the way. In a blast email from CIC, everyone with an appointment after 2 PM was urged to cancel or report in the morning. I was in the lineup at 10 AM, my friend Susaan at 3:30 PM. We rolled out to Fenway at 9 AM. Beat the storm, maybe even beat the crowd. We did beat the storm. Beat the crowd not so much - lots of people had the same idea we did.

Not to worry. The CIC logistics managed the plan like a veteran manager would pencil in his lineup for a big game. This huge set up with hundreds of moving parts from entry at Gate A on Jersey Street to the exit on the same street. It was flawless.

Show your confirmed appointment at Gate A. Enter the concourse. Read the signs inside the door. Stay on the circular 6 foot decals. Get a little loose about compliance and a floor manager points to the decal. You sheepishly stand right on it. When you reach a row of desks separated by plexiglass, show your insurance card,  sign a form confirming normal temperature and no contact with anyone with Covid19 symptoms and you join the line ahead.

The line snakes way up the concourse to a destination unseen as yet. Every 30 to 90 seconds follow the person in front of you to stand on the next 6 foot decal. After half an hour, notice the 15 minute waiting area in which people are sitting after being vaccinated. You're getting close.

Ten minutes later see a row of chairs, tiny desks and a nurse or medical student vaccinating those ahead. One raises her hand. I'm walking from the on-deck circle to the plate.

I am inexplicably nervous for a moment then full of anticipation. Amanda greets me, has a sealed vaccination needle of Pfizer–BioNTech COVID‑19 vaccine ready. Which arm?  Take off shirt. Right arm. A quick alcohol rub to clean then a shot i barely felt. WOW...DONE!

Amanda fills out a COVID-19 Vaccination Card with my DOB, Product Name,  Manufacturer and Lot Number on one side and "Reminder! Return for a second dose! with 2/22/21 she's inscribed on the reverse side.

Another card she gives me - "Important Next Steps" has  an address cic-health.com/Fenway and a QR code on one side and "Please remain in the observation area until 11:07 AM on the other side.

I am directed to a chair by a volunteer who checks the time. A few minutes later another volunteer with a laptop on a rolling cart greets me. "Would you like to schedule your second dose?"

"Yes indeed!" Then and there I officially sign up for my second dose on February 22.

While waiting for the next 15 minutes I peruse the "What to Expect after Getting a Covid-19 Vaccine" brochure.

What seamless planning and execution! Fenway Park is easy access by public or private transportation, the whole shebang happens undercover and indoors so no worries about weather.  Semi-trailer sized space heaters keep the concrete and steel interior warm. It is 32 degrees F outside.

A first dose of vaccination is not a magic bullet. I still need to mask up, wash my hands, keep a small social bubble. I'll do the same after the second dose. I'm doing what's necessary because some day down the road I want to go dancing, head to my favorite eateries, and visit my friends in Lafayette, LA.

Everyone here today has hopes, dreams, and anticipation for a future without Covid. Some have had losses so much deeper than mine, losing friends, parents, businesses. I am healthy enough. My friends and families have not been savaged by Covid 19. I am mindful and grateful for that.

I'm in that crevice between grieving for what's lost and hoping for what can be recovered. Time and again i remind myself of the words of the poet Antonio Machado as he considered the 600-mile pilgrimage walk  El Camino Real -  "There is no road, walking makes the road."

I'm walking.

XXXXXXX

Start at Gate A on Jersey Street

 Line up, sign up

Follow the line...

My turn !

Make an appointment for second shot while in recovery area

 

Photo opp on the way out...

Who knew the most important event this year at Fenway would have nothing to do with baseball!

Photo by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

Helpful sites

https://www.nbcboston.com/news/coronavirus/public-to-get-first-glimpse-of-fenway-mass-vaccination-site/2288562/

https://www.boston.com/news/coronavirus/2021/01/30/coronavirus-vaccine-fenway-park

https://www.mass.gov/info-details/covid-19-vaccination-locations

or Google "how long is the california el camino real"

 

 

 

Photo Essay Draft: Tuscany

TEST TEST TEST

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Tuscany

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Joan Baez: A New Stage

December 28, 2020

20/12/28 Joan Baez/Stacey Abrams

Joan Baez: A New Stage

When 79 year-old Joan Baez announced her farewell tour  ending her public singing career I assumed she was sailing over the horizon and anchoring at some distant island of quiet retirement. Wrong.
https://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2018/09/joan-baez-fare-thee-well.html

Today my friend Myke Farricker dropped in to deliver a Christmas present.

From the size and shape I could tell it must be a photo, perhaps one of the historic fundraising bike rides we have done for the ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis)s) cause . Wrong again.

The bold and beautiful limited-edition portrait of Stacey Abrams stunned me.

“Check the name of the artist,” Myke says. Another shock.

Joan Baez.

It’s not a far leap to know that Baez as always had a social activist streak.

Now instead of using her one-of-a-kind immediately recognizable voice she is using color and canvas to make her point.

I don’t know whether artistic ability comes from the left brain or the right brain or the heart. All I know is that her drive to put her shoulder and talent to the wheel of social justice is unrelenting. Never happy with the status quo of politics in general, the past four years have been a car-crash affront to her political sensibilities.

She is pushing back.

To her, music has always had a point.In her politically framed songs, she knows that her sentiments can be a driver to raise consciousness...and money.

Painting has become her new voice, she is a force to be reckoned with. This may be the most important stage in her life.

Case in point: 100% of proceeds pledged to Abram's "Fair Fight" PAC

 

 

• DETAILS
• Handmade

 

• Height: 15.5 inches
• Width: 11 inches

Description

 

Limited edition (250) archival pigment prints of the Stacey Abrams portrait painted by Joan Baez titled "Georgia on my Mind." Printed on Moab Entrada natural paper, these prints measure 11" x 15.5" including a one inch deckled border. Each print has been personally hand-signed and numbered by Joan Baez and comes with a certificate of authenticity. Prints are $200 each. Shipped in durable triangular tubes.

 

Another portrait ...sent to me by Susaan Straus...a friend  just tried to  purchase...SOLD OUT!

This photo from  Joan Baez website

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

Winter Holiday: Solstice, Hanukkah, Christmas and Kwanzaa: American Routes Radio

The vapor trail from Santa's sleigh heading back to the North Pole may be dissipating but the music in his wake is still ringing in my ears thanks to American Routes...

LISTEN right here...http://americanroutes.wwno.org/archives/show/1200/Winter-Holiday-Solstice-Hanukkah-Xmas-Kwanzaa

This week's edition of American Routes - Two hours of Americana that celebrates a whole range of songs for the season.

Tune in and feel the pulse of the season in as many flavors as you find in a fruitcake - rhythm & blues, blues, ballads, country and rock, in as many tempos as the number of ornaments on your Christmas tree, Hanukah bush or colors on your Kwanzaa candle holder.

Spitzer is the equivalent of a Santa Claus with a bag of gifts that satisfy the soul thirsting for seasonal sentiments only quenched by voice and instruments. Not to mention that a few of them are played as universally as Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer.

From the first selection to the last, Santa Spitzer dispenses gifts he has shopped for all year long, hidden in his closet, and gleefully stuffed in the bag he opens for us today.

The first hour features several artists you'd never hear on your radio and rock or croon righteously. The second hour is loaded with familiar artists moved by the spirit of the season and deliver chestnuts disarmingly recast from the original versions. Eartha Kitt, Chuck Berry, Willie Nelson, Otis Redding, Herbie Hancock with Corinne Bailey Rae, John Coltrane all slide into the program as easily as the big man with the round belly slides down our chimneys.

The second hour is more dedicated to songs celebrating Hanukah, Kwanzaa, Christmas and New Year. Opens with lyrical Andy Statmam's Klezmer clarinet solo "Old Brooklyn" followed by a marzipan collection of Carole King (Hanukkah songs), New Birth Brass Band, Chuck Berry, Willie Nelson, Otis Redding,  Herbie Hancock with Corinne Bailey Rae, Bruce, John Coltrane, among others. 

Spitzer doesn't just drop presents under the tree. While you open his carefully wrapped gifts he tells you stories of where he found them and how they fit so synchronously with the other presents. After Chuck Berry's bluesy "Merry Christmas Baby" ... "Berry is covering in 1958 the original that Charles Brown made famous in 1947. Other covers were made by Elvis, Otis Redding, and Mae West..."

After the first of John Coltrane’s two compositions," This is a 1963 take on 'Greensleeves,' the old ballad from 1580 with Coltrane joined by his legendary quartet, piano McCoy Tyner, bass Reggie Garrison, and trumpet Freddie Hubbard."

I love this. Music has roots, songs and interpretations have antecedents. Every week Nick Spitzer digs in and tells us about them on American Routes.

"With Kwanzaa upon us, we'll close with music from the Georgia Sea islands, Lord Invader and his calypso composition Father Christmas," Spitzer says. Up comes West Indian singer Lord Invader joined by playful saxophone, drums, hand cymbals and hand clapping  followed by the Georgia Sea Island Singers "Join the Band" with an up-tempo penny whistle and hand clapping song that carries the message just fine.

My memories of Christmas past evoked by this day's American Routes is as intense my memory of incense wafting over the pews at Midnight Mass at Mount Carmel Church when I was a kid.

Listening brings home to me that the grip these secular songs have on me is as strong as any traditional or religious songs recalled from my youth. And reinforces how deeply embedded the contributions of Black musicians and singers are in our Christmas songbook and culture.

 

Frank Morgan: Listen To The Dawn

First cup coffee series...listening to a reorganized  collection of CDs while enjoying those first sips of rich coffee...

Frank Morgan: Listen To The Dawn, 1993

Frank Morgan, alto saxophone; Kenny Burrell, guitar; Grady Tate, drums and a young Ron Carter on bass, for 5 of the 8 tracks.

First track,"Share The Dawn," a Kenny Burrell composition - rarely have sax and guitar shared the same bed with such easy intimacy. Their take on Rogers and Hammerstein's chestnut "It Might As Well Be Spring" is as fresh as a daisy. The trio of Morgan, Burrell (three originals),  drummer Grady Tate and, for 5 of the 8 tracks, a young Ron Carter (one original composition) on bass are on a groove of intuitive repartee.

Soft swing with Morgan's signature bop inflected solos flights are underpinned seamlessly by Burrell, Tate, and Carter. A dawn to dusk mix of spritely,  one touch of sly Latin (Ellington's "I Didn't Know About You," and tender melancholy are stirred and not shaken. Morgan and Burrell finish where they started on the last track, "Goodbye."

 

 

 
 Frank Morgan (1933-2007) learned from and played with the best. He also fell into a drug habit, as did many of the best including his mentor Charlie Parker, but clawed his way back for the last set of his career. He persevered...not many musicians have a stint in San Quentin on their resumes.

OF INTEREST

https://www.michaelconnelly.com/extras/sound/

Sound of Redemption: The Frank Morgan Story is an absorbing documentary about a gifted alto sax player and Charlie Parker’s protégée, Frank Morgan

AND

>Harry Bosch – had a particular affinity for the saxophone. Its mournful sound, like a human crying out in the night, was what he was drawn to. The detective saw the worst of humanity every day on the job. He found solace every night in the sound of the saxophone."

Harry Bosch,  a fictional character in a series of Connelly's books, is a veteran police homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. Connelly weaves together his complex, layered character over several books.

Michael Connelly asked Morgan to compose beginning and ending solos and between chapter clips for one of my favorite Connelly audio books, The Overlook.

Connelly drops names of musicians and songs in every book he's written...impressive.

I had to go to google when he dropped the name of. trumpeter Tomasz Stanko , one of Harry Bosch's favorites.

 

Noel Ramble

December 21, 2020

'Tis the season...and a perfect night for a pre-Christmas ramble in the neighborhood illuminated by holiday displays and the light of a waning Beaver Moon.

 

Noel Ramble

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The Benny Green Trio: That's Right

First cup coffee series...listening to a reorganized  collection of CDs while enjoying those first sips of rich coffee...

A very together trio - Benny Green, piano; Christian McBride, bass; Carl Allen, drums, 1992

Dexterous piano riffing, inventive, swing to bop, creatively arrangements, cool ensemble work throughout. No wonder this seems familiar even though it's first time I've played it in years. Ideas from playing for 4 years with Betty Carter and 2 1/2 with Art Blakey and  listening to the likes of Bud Powell, Tad Dameron, Erroll Garner, Horace Silver, John Coltrane and Miles Davis ( "Something I dreamed Last Night") have percolated and informed his style and approach to each cut on the album.

Elements of shuffle, stride and swing - they're all in there. He plays "Cupcake", a Green original (there are 4 originals here), in a really cool swing beat.

In the liner notes, Leonard Feather comments on Green's 'double handed chording' that learned from listening to George Shearing and played on "Me And My Baby" and that "Hoagie Meat" is played in 24 bar blues in 3/4 time -  that tells me  how little I know about the structural elements that are embedded in the music I love and how much all forms of music have antecedents.

This album is gonna get lots of play. I'll feel quite proud of myself if I can pick out those 24 bar blues in 3/4 time and realize where else I've heard it used. The list of songs in 3/4 time above surprised me.

Nearly an  hour's worth of music to enjoy and learn from.

Harvard Square: A Sunday Uplift From The Grips Of A Pandemic

Sunday, December 13, 2020

Manna from heaven comes in many forms during these months of pandemic. A Sunday afternoon jaunt to Harvard Square ranks right up there with the miracle of the fishes and the loaves of bread. Since March, only places I have frequented are the market, Home Depot, CVS and my favorite restaurants to pick up takeout food at their doors. For those of you keeping count, that’s 9 months.

Lately, I have been beset by maddening intractable technical issues on my desktop. A trip to one the most iconic places in metro Boston is just the ticket. If my computer can’t reset, I can.

Harvard Square on a Sunday afternoon is a destination known around the world. Battle scars from the pandemic are obvious. Some of the stores that have anchored the square for generations have been shuttered. Some have moved to another part of the square when their rents were jacked up, others have reestablished themselves in other neighborhoods. Some sadly will never reopen. Despite the economic toll the square is still a drawing card of the first order.

There is enough meat left on the bones of the place to give old timers like me a sense of continuity on this circumscribed patch of Cambridge that has drawn locals and visitors to it for generations. 

The emergence of free and fabulous street entertainment in the past 15 years - jugglers, magicians, pantomimists, acrobats, goofy and dog and pony shows without the ponies and hallelujah – music - is a huge draw. 

You’re not tripping over them as you walk from store to store, the city regulates where they can entertain. The most coveted place for entertainers is the section smack in the middle of Brattle Square, at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street, and John F. Kennedy Streets

On warm summer nights, spectators by the hundreds make a beeline there to be thrilled by some of the most original street acts in any town you’ll ever visit.

Heading down Brattle Street from what used to be Nini’s Corner (forced to move after decades), we hear the strains of a righteously ramped up cover band. Whatever else was on the to do list is immediately scratched. Live music, talented musicians, outdoors in the fresh air, real dance music, totally fabulous, oh yes, we are heading there right now.

Most people are tapping their feet or swaying to the music or wiggling their butts. A few are free styling  the music by themselves. All wear masks.

I have absolutely got to dance right now. I have not partner danced since March. This feels like the oasis I have been dreaming about for months. 

“Baby, we’re going to dance,” says I.  

My shopping companion, the one who came up with this idea, is quite the rug cutter at her Arthur Murray Dance Studio and knows the steps to just about any dance known to man. She and her teacher compete in routines they’ve practiced with total sang-froid in front of tables of judges and loads of spectators. 

She is hesitant to dance outside her familiar territory of polished oak floors and nattily attired cohorts.

I flunk at memorizing a routine. I intuitively follow the beat and channel it into dance…with style, joy, and absolute confidence that I can make it work no matter my partner’s level of expertise.

We step out of the crowd.

After so long a time without live music and a place to dance, I feel like a lemming inexorably heading toward the cliff. A sense of the preordained in play, I’m positively certain that when I reach it, I’m going to defy gravity, soar, and take her with me.

Partner dancing fills a place in my heart and psyche that has not been fed since March. For the next 15 glorious minutes, my partner relaxes, erases her habit of dancing to a creative routine she has mastered and goes with my flow.

I am in an altered state and have no fear of being arrested for it. My troubles and cares have dissipated in 4/4 time. A vital part of my life has been a resurrected like Lazarus. No drugs, no alcohol. Just following the stylings of fabulous singer Lois Lane and The Daily Planets. Christmas has come early. 

I lead. She follows. It is as simple as that.

Heading down Brattle toward the action in Brattle Square.Everyone wears a mask..it's the law.

 

Teen band in front of new Harvard Coop; on the way down Brattle Street

 

Harvard Yard across the street; original Harvard Coop on corner of Brattle and Massachusetts Avenue. Everyone wears a mask.

Lois Lane and band cover the classics...first rate mood elevator...Lois Lane and The Daily Planets

SIDEBAR

"Lois Lane and the Daily Planets are a mainstay in the Boston area music scene. Specializing in R&B, funk, soul, jazz, rock and pop, Lois Lane and the Daily Planets are sure to satisfy even the most demanding audiences! Once the crowd is on its feet they do not sit down.

Lois Lane herself, is a phenomenal singer and a natural entertainer and is known for getting and keeping the crowd on their feet dancing and laughing. Gifted with outstanding people skills, Lois reaches out and touches the heart of everyone from nine to ninety! You are guaranteed to have a great time listening, dancing and celebrating to this great entertainer and band.

Backed by a powerful rhythm section in guitarist Peter Fedele, bassist Lee Lundy and drummer Cliff Goodman, the show is always energy-packed experience to remember!:

https://www.reverbnation.com/loislaneandthedailyplanets

Up and comers...snag a place between the two Harvard Coops and their own echo chamber

Photos and videos by Paul  A. Tamburello, Jr.



 

Keith Jarrett: The Köln Concert

First cup coffee series...listening to a reorganized  collection of CDs while enjoying those first sips of rich coffee...

 

His left hand pounding with vigor and occasional rhapsody, right hand trilling like a lark with occasional riffs reminiscent of a choir at a distant white clapboard church,  is an acoustic balm to ease soul and body in troubled times.

A reader told me about Keith Jarrett's current health, his penchant for perfectionism, and stand-offish relationship with a  live audience. .https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/21/arts/music/keith-jarrett-piano.html

The 1975 recording is of sweepingly surpassingly in the moment lighting caught in the bottle.As of now, the bottle may be capped forever.

 

Horace Silver: Songs For My Father

First cup coffee series...listening to a reorganized  collection of CDs while enjoying those first sips of rich coffee...

 

1963,1964

The first cut on this album, "Songs For My Father," John Tavares Silver, who happens to be the nattily dressed man on the album cover, is still today the most recognizable Horace Silver composition. All but one of the ten cuts were composed by Horace at the piano.

Blue Note has a great catalog of jazz from the mid-fifties to the late sixties, one of the richest periods in jazz history. Horace gives his side men plenty of space to play around him, from rich solos to subtle underpinnings to his 88 key center of gravity.

 

Sarah Vaughn: The George Gershwin Songbook Volume 1

The morning coffee series:.listening to a reorganized  collection of CDs while enjoying those first sips of rich coffee...
December 7, 2020

Sarah Vaughn’s voice and phrasing take a backseat to the strings and intrusive orchestration in much of this album but… the last three songs with snappy big band arrangements mercifully without strings give us full throttle Sarah without the clutter. Gershwin and strings were never a natural combination.

reply by fellow jazz enthusiast who sends me this

"Ain't  Misbehavin" by Foe Pass on Oscar Peterson show

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_kUJa1PueM

 

 

 

 

 

 

NPR: COVID-19 Hits Hard For South Louisiana's Cajun Musicians

On Nov 28, 2020, at 4:25 PM, Bernard Ussher sent:
https://www.npr.org/2020/11/28/938574647/covid-19-hits-hard-for-south-louisianas-cajun-musicians

My reply to my good friend Bernard who lives in Lafayette, LA.

All  I have to do is look around my own city to see the economic effects of the pandemic. Many of my favorite family owned restaurants shuttered,  maybe for good. Having eaten at their places so  often, I know the owners. I feel their loss and and grieve for lost connections to them...my favorite bars, dive bars, small dance venues, my own barber shop all closed. Some are gone for good. That hurts. 


Practically having a second home with welcoming friends with whom I've stayed in Lafayette for years, what's happening with economic scene in Lafayette is what's happening in my own home town except on a broader scale
.

The ubiquity of music and the merriment of dancing is crumbling as fast at the chunks of ice falling into the sea from icebergs at the poles of the earth. Music and dancing have been embedded in this culture for generations, from  farmers and fishermen to everyday folks. For as far as they can remember, they've relied on it to ease everyday tensions and, as they say down there, "laissez les bon temps rouler"...Let the good times roll. No more.


Some readers of this blog live there. Some of you were born there. Hundreds of people from around America head to SW LA for the sole purpose of joyfully dancing to the music in those parts. 


You've all experienced the dancing, the music, and the inner glow of emotional sustenance that lights us up like two-stepping Roman candles when we partner up on the dance floor. There's the manifest joy of dancing in the dust, in parking lots, muddy fields, dance halls with floors old enough to remember Prohibition, and the camaraderie between dancers and musicians that’s as natural a combination as red beans and rice.

The pandemic hurts musicians in the pocket book and in their own hearts. I’ve danced to so many bands there that I feel like those musicians are part of my family. I know they’re not giving up. It's not in their DNA. Sure they can find a job to put food on the table. Their hearts will still beat but not in 4/4 time. They'll breathe the oxygen but it won’t have whiffs of sweat and BBQ and beer-soaked wood dance floors.


My last trip to Lafayette was to visit Bernard and Rubia on the last days of February and first few of March 2020.  If not for the pandemic, I’d have been down there for festivals and any ‘ol weekend of good company and rousing music a dozen more times. I can still dance in my kitchen. I worry about the people in Lafayette who struggle like my people here.

I worry about the musicians who animate the culture, give it a common rhythm, and don’t get paid to play in their kitchens and don’t make very much on Zoom performances.

Men and women in SW LA miss their Cajun and Zydeco music. Music in this part of the country is not just a weekend thing. And it’s not only a night-time thing. Dancing begins right after your first cup of coffee on Saturday and Sunday mornings and happens every night of the week, and at weddings, public parks, and BYO house parties. Most of the musicians who played on Saturday and Sunday mornings played somewhere the night before, If you think you’re tired, think about that…then leave a good bunch of folding money in their tip jar and buy their CDs.

To me, the gift of music is a survival mechanism. Listening to it juices me up, takes me into an orbit high enough to put the pandemic into a far away box.

John Burnett's NPR story that I read ended with the words "Music — like seafood and family — is the nucleus of Cajun culture. It's not going away. It's just gone virtual.”

Honestly, I doubted that the music and musicians could rebound…until I listened to Burnett’s story with the music embedded inside it.

That’s when I began to believe that, like the crawfish that begin to emerge from the mud of the rice fields that are flooded every autumn, Cajun and zydeco music will survive until the pandemic is controlled enough and then re-emerge to resume all over SW LA.

In the meantime, think of the money you have not spent when flying to Louisiana, staying at motels, dining out, renting cars, paying to enter the dances. Find out a way to send money to the musicians you love and have danced to.

THE BIG PICTURE...
Like looking through binoculars to see in detail, turn the lens around to look at the big picture.


The story is way beyond Lafayette. This is a coast to coast story. You feel it wherever you live. And you can do something about it.

Whether it's musicians who've raised your spirits, mom and pop stores or locally owned eateries or dive bars that are on your weekly glide path, find a way to pay forward your gratitude.

Keep ordering that take out food. Find a local source for what you found on Amazon. Let's transform  "Let The Good Times Roll" to "Let The Pecuniary Gratitude Roll". You can do this.


Give the kind of love that will ensure that all your local faves will be there when the coast is clear and you need them to feed the hole in your life that has become deeper and darker than you'll admit.


Louis Armstrong is said to have signed his letters “Red beans and ricely yours” .
I follow suit,
Red beans and ricely yours,
Paul Tamburello
 
 

Birth Of The Cool; Miles Davis

Morning coffee series...

November 8, 2020

Recorded in 1949, 1950. Big band sound produced by a small classic core of musicians that give it an air of intimacy as if produced in a dimly lit room with a cloud bank of cigarette smoke obscuring the cramped stage. Listen closely enough and imagine the sound of ice cubes swirling around in tumblers of scotch.

 

 

Marcus Roberts: Gershwin For Lovers

First cup coffee series...listening to a reorganized  collection of CDs while enjoying those first sips of rich coffee...

A surprisingly versatile and imaginative take on George Gershwin

 

Mini Pre-Midnight Ramble: Halloween Treat - Blue Moon and Mars

October 31, 2020

I bought a couple of bags of candy but not one trick or treat kid came to the door tonight.  Not surprising considering the pandemic now have enough chocolate to snack on for a month.

When it was clear that the streets would be empty for the night, I took a brief walk in search of he full moon I had read would be rising up there somewhere.

A minute later, red tinged Mars showed up to join the 'Blue Moon', a pretty neat trick on Halloween.

“Once in a blue moon” explained…

The Oct. 31 full moon also happens to be a "blue moon," a designation for the second full moon to occur in a single calendar month. Blue moons are relatively rare as well, occurring on average just once every 2.5 years or so. Blue moons are relatively rare as well, occurring on average just once every 2.5 years or so. It won't happen again until 2039.

By then I will have consumed all that candy.

Whoa, from my history of  Midnight Rambles, I recognize that reddish planet.

Surprise...Mars in the clear sky!

Photographs by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Gerry Mulligan Meets Ben Webster

First cup coffee series...listening to a reorganized  collection of CDs while enjoying those first sips of rich coffee...

October 27, 2020

Recorded November 3/December 2, 1959

Ben Webster was reputed to have been a  very difficult, angry man.

His music was a 180...says David, my knowledgeable friend of 50 years.

 

 

 

 

I Voted!

Cross every T and dot every Y...my vote's gonna count

Aiming for a new tomorrow...

Photo by  Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

American Routes: Sounds Of Solace

October 18, 2020

Nick Spitzer, host of weekly program American Routes on WWNO, is the most eclectic curator of music of  the American musical landscape. His weekly two-hour program  serves up helpings of blues, country, soul, Tejano, Cajun, zydeco, jazz and surprises in between.

Every so often, he surprises me with an out of left field choice. This week's out of the gate opening selection, "Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting," by Charles Mingus (Blues and Roots, Atlantic Records) is straight ahead jazz with a different feel.

I'm thinking how the heck does Charles Mingus's jazz composition fit in here...then recall the title of this week's program.

Nick is a master of identifying a theme and finding music and musicians to build a subtle playlist that holds it all together. Every week he knits a musical and cultural quilt. By the time he's done, you feel the warp and the weft of American music and the backgrounds and histories of men and women who made it.

His intro for this week's program he's titled 'Sounds of Solace'.

"We reflect on these difficult times with sounds of solace and uplift to see us through solitude and the unknown. From Blue Skies and the Milky White Way to down home and earthly struggles with Mavis Staples and Elvis, Bill Monroe, and Louis Armstrong."

What ensues is a tapestry of  what Spitzer describes as "memory, hope, uplift, and contemplation" ...ballads, folk,  blues, country western, rock 'n roll, jazz, and pop from artists with household names and a few you've never heard of but fit the bill perfectly.

http://www.americanroutes.org/archives/show/1190/Sounds-of-Solace

Spitzer unleashes a calming musical frontal attack on the pandemic. Each song is introduced with dates, record labels to set time and place, and he digs in.

No pedant, he's the drum major, twirling stories introducing each song with palpable energy and contained enthusiasm that reinforce why the song belongs in the today's theme, Songs of Solace.

American Routes began 90 minutes ago as I was listening to WUMB, Boston, on my desktop. I'm still in my chair, now in the midst of  Bonnie Raitt's 1974 cover of  John Prine's "Angel From Montgomery." 

Songs of Solace is  delivering the goods.  Music is a balm, a solace, and Dr. Spitzer is making a virtual house call.

 

 

 

 

Concert for Rebecca

September 19, 2020

Al fresco concert for Rebecca...

No matter from whence it comes, music lifts the spirits.The right music at the right time sprinkles ethereal fairy dust that for brief sparkling moments ever so softly and subtly temporarily neutralizes  pain and the shadows of mortality. It can happen in churches, temples, dive bars, back yards and warm kitchens. It happened here today. Erin Harpe, an RW fave, provided the musical groove that called down the spirit.

That spirit came down and sat beside us as soon as it heard Harpe's robust, Piedmont blues dexterous finger picking, a perfect match for the songs in her repertoire. Obvious in the videos below. And her stage (lawn?) patter that introduced songs that often had a distinct ragtime rhythm with a bluesy twist. The style was sourced in African American songs that gained popularity from the mid 1920s to the the 1940s. If you've ever heard a Josh  White song you feel it.

Contemporary artists like Keb Mo, Ry Cooder and David Bromberg carry on the tradition. And this afternoon, Erin Harpe gives us a front row seat and treat with her deeply felt Piedmont picking and stylings. Once you listen to the style, you can hear traces of it in other regional styles that veer into the style with string  bands and ragtime.

https://www.erinharpe.com

Erin Harpe and Jim Countryman, aka the Country Blues Duo. Jim Countryman provides the bassline the way a cement foundation  supports the frame house above it,  not flashy,  certainly essential and occasionally playful.

 

 

 

 

 

The Kazoo is an  unexpected surprise in Erin's musical grab bag...what a hoot!

More KAZOO on this jaunty swing gem.

A terrific cover of John Prine's "Angel From Montgomery."

We need angels today. This is more than a lawn concert. It is a wish of a woman to fill her heart and ears with sounds that make her happy, stir neurons that palliate and cast rays of sunshine down roads with vanishing points that we as her invited friends cannot imagine staring into.

A dark undertow runs under the rich melodies, vocalizing. and presentation. Reflexively I am loving the music. And can't shake the reason I am siting here with a woman I have shared so much with. Her days are numbered.

She has invited a handful of us because she knows we are kindred spirits, transfixed with the same kinds of music that lifts, cradles, sends us into corners in our psyches and onto dance floors real and imagined in which we dance with passion, effervescent energy in the immediacy of now.

She wants us here to share this now with her. It is all we have. 

Videos and photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

Dancing at Chez CVS

August 25, 2020

6:00 PM, dusk fading to evening

LIVE MUSIC!   I haven’t heard live music since the Ides of March, 2020. No matter that it’s coming from a masked bearded guy in a white cowboy hat playing an electric keyboard powered by a cable he runs from his car to his outpost on a slab of concrete at the end of a row of parking meters. The music is a merry mix of American Songbook, Blues, and Rock ‘n Roll. And it’s good!

I haven’t danced anywhere but my kitchen for months. I’m Fred Astaire wishing a masked-up Ginger Rogers would detour from heading for CVS or the  Bank ATM machine across the parking lot and join me in a Covid inspired lead and follow from six feet away.

Show time. I chivalrously extend my hand. In a virtual twinkling, there she is, in heels, a glorious smile of approval on her face as I lead her through a series of swing, fox trot and a rumba routine, brilliant and spontaneous. Just the kind she likes. She’s missed a live connection too.

Phil, “Dutch Phil” he says, Is bringing the joy to the quiet parking lot behind CVS on Main Street in Watertown. He got his affinity for music by listening to his mother playing piano and singing when he was a kid. After learning music theory at the Berklee College of Music, he joined a bunch of rock ‘n’ roll music bands.

“Early on, we got a gig to open for Ray Charles. After we finished, they put us in the wings at the side of the stage. I’ll never forget watching him and the Raylettes perform.” The word starstruck comes to mind,

Situated across from the back door of CVS on Main Street, there’s always lots of foot traffic.

Street musicians go through stretches of time where people pay more attention to the parking meters than to them and their music. Guys like Phil need to perform in parking lots because Covid has dried up all their gigs. A few bucks in the tip jar is good, might pay for their dinner but won’t satisfy their jones to perform.

When they perform solo, they’re playing for their muse and to feed their psyches with the creative process that, like a songbird from its cage, needs the freedom to stretch its wings and explore the world before returning.

 

There is a lotta magic that Phil coaxes from his Yamaha electric keyboard. All the more incongruous that it’s powered by a cord attached to the battery of his car a few spaces away from his makeshift bandstand.

Musicians like Phil have a vast library of standards tucked away in their memory banks. It amazes me that he can switch from blues to the American songbook to swing to rock ‘n’ roll at his own whim or a request from a passerby.

His sense of phrasing and tempo is elegant. His spontaneous riffs and quotes from other songs appear then disappear back into the main frame of the song like the beams of the headlights that disappear after passing his bandstand.

An improbable sight, his bushy gray hair poking out from under a white cowboy hat, slouched in a faded saggy camp chair, he is in his own universe, playing for an unseen audience he clearly feels. The gray concrete parking lot is Phil’s proscenium.  This man is on stage with the improvisational spirit of a Keith Jarrett. The audience is a bunch of empty cars and the occasional shopper at CVS or visitor to the ATM machine at the bank next-door. If that bothers him, he doesn’t show it.

As for me, this is the most fun I’ve had on a dance floor since March 15, 2020.

Song Of The Day: "Don't Be Cruel" - Reinvented

Whooeeeee, never thought someone could, or would, take this song by you know who, turn it upside down, let the sound of the coins falling from its trousers produce a song track, utterly its own, groove heavy, emotionally convincing, reeking of the 1950s ... voice, phrasing, backup singers, and tight band that makes every note count. And a bass line running through it like a freight train with a metronome in the firebox. I don't remember dancing to the original but this version begs you push the chairs back in the kitchen. And is that an organ introducing the song? Oh, my. This song has it all going on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-STFyfsdoVA

I Voted!

August 24, 2020

Creative dropbox located between the Watertown Free Public Library and Town Hall, Watertown, MA...return your books or return your ballot!

A sad, and scary, comment on the uncertainty that ballots sent through the USPS may not reach their destination on time. I'm taking no chances. My ballot was mailed to me August 13, 2020. My ballot was tabulated at Town Hall the day after I put it in the drop box. No worries about recently appointed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, businessman and Republican Party fundraiser,  messing with my vote.

I never thought the day would come when I would question the safety and sanctity of my right to vote.

Photo by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

FLASH...UPDATE!

I tracked my ballot at www.TrackMyBallotMA.com

9/1/2020 State Primary

Ballot Mailed: 8/13/2020

Ballot Received August 25, 2020

Status: Accepted

My ballot was scanned and accepted at Town Hall. The ballot was transported to my voting precinct location, scanned and counted.

I will receive a ballot for the November election soon. I will complete the ballot and return it to the same drop box and track my vote the same way. As in the primary election, my ballot will be transported to my voting precinct location, scanned, and counted.

I am horrified that the president is casting doubt on the election process.

Postmaster DeJoy's meddling with the systems of the country's drop boxes and the internal systems of sorting mail, including mailed ballots efficiently, is an assault on citizens' right to have their ballots received  and tallied on time.

NB: Read and follow instructions, especially where to sign and date. Ask your town hall if you have questions. Melania Trump's vote was disqualified because she did not sign where required. Pay attention!

PLEASE VOTE and VOTE EARLY!

Mid-Day Ramble: "We Can Do It!"

 Oh boy! I smiled when I noticed them on a Midnight Ramble. The smile on my face was as bright as the noonday sun when I read the inscriptions on the stones today. The colors on the stones outdid the flowers nearby. And the messages? See for yourself.

This has to be the mail deliverer's favorite stop of the day. For everyday passersby, it's a shrine.

In times of flux, social change and uncertainty, words matter. They mattered when, in 1883, Emma Lazarus wrote these words inscribed on the base of The Statue of Liberty:

“Give me your tired, your poor,/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,/The wretched refuse of your teeming shore./Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,/I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” words inscribed on the base of The Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.

Today we are masked masses, eager for the day we can breathe free again, who can appreciate a momentary uplift by reading the messages painted on these petra-petunias arranged on the steps.

We're learning to see through our masks and connect through our eyes, our laughter, and our attitude.

YES we can!

Easier some days than others...that's why we need those messages on the other stones!

That's when the fun begins...

The best rock garden ever!

and you can see it all the way down the street.

FLASH...I just learned that these artistic rolling stones were painted and captioned by the homeowner. She recently painted messages honoring women's rights...stay tuned for a photo update.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

https://www.biography.com/writer/emma-lazarus

 

 

 

Midnight Ramble: Firefighter Memorialized

August 15, 2020

Midnight - Mars rising as I head down Oliver Street. I never know what might be revealed on the ground during a Ramble. Overhead, I can count on bright Jupiter, as close to a neon sign you'll ever see, dominating the cosmos, along with Saturn, the Big and Little Dippers, Polaris, and a host of constellations that became more visible after Covid-19 closed the state down and emissions from automobiles cleared away.

Tonight's Ramble has a target - drop off my Water/Sewer quarterly payment, due today,  into a drop-box next to Town Hall.

Pieces of Watertown history are abundant on the way to Town Hall.

Even before Covid-19, death can visit suddenly as it did with this beloved 20-year veteran of the Watertown Fire Department. Cemeteries aren't the only place to memorialize the departed.https://patch.com/massachusetts/watertown/2-alarm-fire-watertown

On Main Street Rt 20, a virtual gravestone...

reminds citizens and firemen alike that the call of civic duty has hazards...

that need to be acknowledged.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

George Washington: Good Trouble in Watertown, MA

August 3, 2020

If you'd been standing around this corner, a main thoroughfare not far from the Boston Post Road, in the spring and summer of 1775, you'd have seen a who's who of American history riding through the streets of Watertown, MA.

When passing through Watertown, George Washington spent the night at Widow Dorothy Coolidge’s tavern. The tavern was located at the present site of the MBTA Bus Terminal landing next to the Charles River.

“We lodged in this place at the House of a Widow Coolidge near the Bridge, and a very indifferent one it is.”

High rating for historic significance but Widow Coolidge's lodgings get a pretty poor rating on Ye Olde Trip Advisor.

What was really on the menu was what the late Congressman John Lewis would say was getting into 'good trouble'...plotting to overthrow the British Government and embrace self-rule.

TO BE CONTINUED WITH FURTHER RESEARCH

MANY THANKS TO NEIGHBOR AND HISTORIAN MARILYNNE K. ROACH FOR INVALUABLE INFORMATION ABOUT ALL OF THIS!

 

 

 

 

Collaboration, Complicity, Enabling, Resisting

A long read. A call to action. Find the levers that work for you. Act now.

Download Collaboration Anne Applebaum

 

Epic Beethoven ‘Ode to Joy’ flashmob...

July 22, 2020

If banks across the world paid homage to their founding and made a subtle commercial for themselves while they were at it, this would be the great grandmother of all of them...in Sebadell, Spain, May 31, 2012

 

Surprise and a sense of joy on the faces citizens from 7 to 70 is a universal response to emotive music...contagious, too. I cheered.

"We will be back."

They intend to come back? Hope? A coping mechanism?

Whatever it is, it's the spirit that we call up every day in the midst of living with the pandemic.  Here they are, in living rooms, kitchens, offices, keeping their chops sharp, virtually connecting with their colleagues while their families make dinner and their children dance in the kitchen. 

They don't know how or when it will happen.

Not the point. A musician at the 2:16 mark is wearing a surgical mask, playing through the reality of a global pandemic. The point is they intend it to happen.

Lord knows, we all need something to look forward to, even if it will happen in a way we don't yet comprehend.

Embrace uncertainty...and be ready to perform when the time comes!

 

Willie Nelson: Willie Nelson: National Treasure, World Class Composer/Musician/Singer, Iconoclast, Weed Lover

Willie Nelson: National Treasure, World Class Composer/Musician/Singer, Iconoclast, Weed Lover

Featured on World Cafe interview with Raina Douris, July 8, 2020

10 ET - 11 ET

https://www.npr.org/2020/07/08/889063221/willie-nelson-inhabits-the-songs-of-others-on-first-rose-of-spring

For my money, Willie Nelson is the Voice Of America. Born April 29, 1933, he learned to play guitar from his grandfather and at the age of 10 was performing at local dances. The Voice Of America began broadcasting in 1942, a year before Willie got a band going. They both represent America in their own distinct ways. Willie is probably better known and listened to more often.

Nelson is a man of few words. Whether consciously or not, he's the laconic cowboy, his mind in the saddle, heading to a destination that will unfold as he rides. You're more likely to learn what he's thinking by listening to the verses in his songs. In conversations with a well-prepared interviewer like Raina Douris, he makes his words count.

Willie inhabits a song as naturally as he breathes. A couple of lines into one his songs and you instantly recognize the voice, high pitched, vaguely nasal, and beautifully in tune. A few more bars and you recognize the sounds he strums from his trusty guitar "Trigger." No one picks a guitar like Willie, a mix of south of the border riffs he heard growing up in Abbott,Texas, punctuated by licks inspired by Django Reinhardt.

Raina Douris, host of World Cafe, sets up the first 20 minutes of tonight's show.

"Willie Nelson’s 70th studio album, First Rose of Spring, came out last Friday – And just a few days before its release, the country music legend spoke with host Raina Douris. Willie shares about following his instincts when choosing songs to record, the advice he gives his kids Lukas and Micah as musicians, and how he feels about growing older in country music. Plus, we’ll hear about the new memoir he’s working on with his sister, who was Willie’s music teacher as a kid, and we’ll listen to some of the songs from First Rose of Spring.

She's interviewing Willie by phone because of the virus. He's on one of his ranches outside of Austin where his 47th annual July 4 party will be live streamed online. "If we musicians don't play, we go a little crazy so we really needed to do this."

Willie's songs have been sung by countless others. His ballads about love range from wistful, melancholy, tender, vulnerable, personal and universal, often within the same stanza. There may be a handful of people in America who have not heard Patsy Cline sing Nelson's "Crazy." Raina chooses it to get the show going on solid footing.

"First Rose of Spring," released on July 3, is Willie's 70th, gulp, album. He's only written a few songs on it, the rest are covers of songs he loves. Douris cues up the title song, "First Rose of Spring."

Here's Willie sing-talking, his guitar strumming to underpin the emotion of the song, a man recalling a first moment with a woman, a softly poignant memory Nelson is so good at exploring. From Willie's first words, you intuit emotionally that it's going to touch your heart so you just surrender and lean into the song. Fragments of memories of my past float to the surface. The beauty of Nelson's songs is that his lyrics always leave a space for us to add our own.

"I like songs that tell stories," he says. 'Don't Let The Old Man In,' written by Toby Keith is one of  those."

https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/8490429/toby-keith-clint-eastwood-inspired-dont-let-the-old-man-in-the-mule-interview

"There's a line in there that really floored me. 'Many moons I have lived, my body's withered and worn, but ask yourself how old you'd be if you didn't know the day you were born.'"

Douris plays the song. Willie's voice is steady and true. His trademark guitar licks shine like a neon light that marks the entrance to the roadhouse you've been looking for after a long haul on the highway.

I love "Don't Let The Old Man In." I'm not too many years behind Willie. We know we're closer to the end of the trail than the beginning. The affirming lyrics are a map with signposts reminding people getting on in years how to blaze the trail. I can't sing a lick but Willie and I are on the same page. That old man ain't gonna be darkening our doors any time soon.

This is a man comfortable in his own skin, no pretension, an introspective man who taps into his experiences with a memory sharp as a tack.

Raina Douris sets up the next thread. Willie's writing a memoir with his sister Bobbie, two years older, who taught him to  play the piano "as soon as my legs were long enough to touch the floor. I listened to her play Stardust, Moonlight In Vermont, Down Yonder and all those great songs... and learned to play music from her."

"We're going to write it together and make an audio book, maybe make some money from that," says Willie, ever the one to keep an eye on the bottom line.

"Me and little sister are old friends, we take care of each other. She learned music before I did and taught it to me."

"Is there a song you both like that we could put on next?"

"Down Yonder, an instrumental, is one of her favorites, she plays it at the end of our show every night,"  says Willie.

Raina was ready. In five seconds comes a rousing rollicking instrumental, Bobbie pounding  those keys. probably keeping time with her feet. You can find it on Willie's 1975  'Red Headed Stranger' album. I could just about see it being played on a dilapidated saloon piano. That album changed the course of country music.

https://www.wideopencountry.com/the-fascinating-story-behind-willie-nelsons-red-headed-stranger/

"What are your sons up to?" asks Raina.

"I tell them to follow their art, follow their instincts, if someone tells you you can't do it, that's a good reason to show them that you can." Sounds like the Red Headed Stranger to me.

"Lukas is making an album of Roger Miller songs, Micah and I have helped him cut a couple of tracks already. Micah has a band. It's great to be working with your kids, especially when they're good," says Willie.

Raina heads back to the "First Rose Of Spring" album.

"I want to play 'We Are The Cowboys' by Billy Joe Shaver in 1981. Nelson cut the song with Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson and Shavers in 2002. Why did you want to put this song on  'First Rose of  Spring'?"

"I love the song and I love Billy Joe and I thought it was an appropriate song to do in these times," Willie replies.

"Why?"

" 'Cowboys are average American people, Cowboys are Texicans and Mexicans, blacks and Jews,' that line that covers a whole string of people. Cowboys have the same mentality. We like wide open spaces, like to sing and pick for folks, Billy Joe feels the same way."

"It's  been 40 years since it was recorded. What is the cowboy in 2020 America?"  asks Douris.

"In this particular time, there's a line in there 'we can get the job done'. I think that applies to all of us, cowboys and cowgals. We're all doing what we can to help our country and make it better."

Hard to tell if his audience will interpret that line the way he does but no denying that he's reading the news, thinking about what's ahead for the country, and that we’ll get the job done.

LYRICS

Texans are gathered up in Colorado
The kid with a fast gun ain't with them today
The cowboys are riding tall in the saddle
They shoot from the heart with the songs that they play

There's a right handsome woman on up around Boulder
They got slick hardwood floors and a pot belly stove
She swears I am someone she can believe in
She's the best Colorado gal I've ever known

We are the cowboys the true sons of freedom
We are the men who will get the job done
We're picking our words so we won't have to eat them
Were rounding them up and then driving them home

Cowboys are average American people
Texicans mexicans black men and jews
They love this old world and they don't want to lose it
There counting on me and there counting on you

The world will breathe easy when we stop the bleeding
The fighting will end when all hunger is gone
There's those who are blind so we'll all have to lead them
It's everyone's job till we get the work done

We are the cowboys the true sons of freedom
We are the men who will get the job done
We're picking our words so we won't have to eat them
Were rounding them up and then driving them home
Were rounding them up and then driving them home.

I smell sagebrush, smoke wafting from a pot next to a chuck wagon, and cool breezes rolling across the prairie as night falls.

"There seem to be two themes in this album, getting older and beautiful love songs," says Douris.  "I wonder if you  would talk about 'Love Just Laughed'".

Willie quotes the first lines.

'She said, "Please don't let me go"
I said, "I gotta let you go"
And love just laughed.'

"That's pretty much the whole story. Love does what it does, it doesn't ask us what we want."

Willie's a deft impressionist painter with words. His purposeful brush strokes strike a chord with moments we've lived, emotions we've felt, people we've loved and maybe lost. Love just laughed. No judgement. Just a fact.

Douris plays the song.

Last question. "Music today trades on youth. Do you think you've been able to grow old with country music?"

"Well, I don't know how other people feel about it but I'm tired!" says Willie with a chuckle. "I like to do what's easy. Music is easy. Playing with my boys is easy. The everyday living and breathing, sometimes that can be difficult."

Douris defuses that admission. "Well, you don't seem tired," and laughs with surprise.

Willie's answer was revelatory. He now appears more comfortable riding in the corral than on the prairie and acknowledges it in a lighthearted but telling exchange. It's part of Willie's charm. He'll tell you what he's thinking, no filter necessary.

"I'd like to finish with 'I'm The Only Hell That Momma Ever Raised'."

Willie's raspy chuckle tells you he's good with that.

"It's one of my favorites on the album. It was written by some Nashville writers several years ago. Johnny Paycheck had a big hit with it. I've always loved the song and decided to put it in the album. During our last tour, I ended each show with the song... I  thought heck let's record it."

The song is a clone of Merle Haggard's "Momma Tried, " an anthem that Willie's Texas crowd loves.

World Cafe's interview is coasting to a close. The Red Headed Stranger still rides tall in the saddle.

 

Midnight Ramble: Full Buck Moon waxing

July 2, 2020

Full Buck Moon Waxing with company of Jupiter, Saturn

Officially full July 5, 2020 12:44 AM EDT

When the new antlers of buck deer push out from their foreheads in coatings of velvety fur. It was also often called the Full Thunder Moon, thunderstorms being now most frequent. Sometimes this is also called the Full Hay Moon. 

"Hey, Pardner,"

First thing I do as I walk out the door, hail Jupiter in the southern sky. Stunningly brilliant. Right up there in lights from about half hour before midnight until dawn. The latest, well, earliest, time I've seen its headlight in the sky was about 3 AM on a really really late ramble. We've become walking buddies, chat about our neighborhoods, how his neighbor Saturn, dimly visible nearby, is doing, and ask what the old boy thinks about the goings on down here.

We're an unlikely duo, me at moving along at three miles and hour and my pal orbiting the earth at around 29,236 miles per hour. He's the only one looking over my shoulder every night. I miss him when he's taken a powder behind cloud banks. Before March, business as usual down here meant that there was a cataract of pollution dimming the view of him and his neighborhood. 

I'll bet I'm looking at Jupiter and Company in the same deep blue, see-through dome overhead as George Washington and George Washington Carver viewed it back in their day

I need company these days. Round midnight, Jupiter's out there waiting for me.

Tonight, he's sharing the stage with a waxing Full Buck Moon and Saturn, farther away, smaller, dimmer. He doesn't mind sharing the stage. He has about 21 of the 30 days of the week all to himself. And all of them with me, one of his biggest boosters on this planet.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Full Buck Moon July 2, 2020

Splendid Jupiter, Saturn to the left, dimmer, way more distant, a treat when not obscured by cloud banks.

Changing Of The Guard: 8:05 PM - 9:03 PM

June 26, 2020

Changing Of The Guard: 8:05 PM - 9:03 PM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8:05 PM - Waxing crescent moon...

8:10 PM My perch in the front row...

8:12 PM no movement,  no sound... porch sitting... a centering meditative experience, undisturbed, deeply satisfying, a sound/no sound environment, trees breathe, leaves flutter with the sibilant rush of a lover's silk robe slipping willfully from shoulders, draping in slow motion to the floor.

8:25 PM except from Fred Robin, frequent visitor and earthworm miner who visits every day...cocks his head  in a silent salute as I quietly greet him then goes about his foraging. Fred the kingdoms spokesman for the evening, a foraging robin becomes a winged zen master showing me the way of the universe.

8:54 PM  Arturo Ui stationed  behind me never misses activity outside his door....

9:02 PM absorbing the enveloping evening in a silence beyond all comprehension. Jupiter, mute and massive, shuffles into its slippers, surveys us from a safe distance.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

Don Lemon: Anchor, Bridge

June 22, 2020

Don Lemon: CNN Anchor, Bridge

Don Lemon is paving the way every night to expand the conversation about racism in America. He is thoughtful, presents his authentic self every night, and differentiates his opinions from the news clearly.

He’s deceptively good at tackling the heretofore third-rail subject of racism, touchy to explore even with a CNN audience. Low key before the George Floyd murder, he registers the event with sense of the now, recognizing that this is the time to open up the talk and that he is going to use his platform to do it.

I can think of no other highly visible black man in the media constellation who has the credibility, sensibility, and a smoldering repugnance at a nearly profane sense of systemic racial injustice regarding black men in particular.

George Floyd's murder in plain daylight, captured on video, lit a fuse in the national psyche. Lemon lets it burn. But in a way that he intends, figuratively speaking, to cause as much imploding as exploding. When white folks begin to notice then come to grips with entitlement and privilege that comes with their skin color and begin to notice it without feeling called out that’s quite a feat.

Lemon is doing that. When he launched a podcast titled "Silence Is Not An Option," he put his words into action.

Excerpt from "Silence Is Not An Option"

I know that this issue, like this country, isn't just black and white — we're all impacted by this, and we all have work to do. Listening to this podcast won't wash away your sins, and you won't get a certificate at the end. You may still say the wrong thing — hell, I am sure at some point I'm gonna say the wrong thing — but silence is not an option. We've got to talk about this and find some concrete steps forward, together.

The stone he’s cast into the pool of race consciousness is making a ripple on shores heretofore unlapped . A news anchor, yes. And a bridge to a national consciousness about race.

 

Regular Sex: Mature and Often

June 23, 2020

What makes your skin feel more supple and makes you appear five to seven years younger? No, not Oil of Olay… SEX !

That high-pitched sound of bed springs creaking in senior living communities across America is because residents just read this comment by Dr. David Weeks on the bulletin board of their recreation center. Weeks says people formerly called elderly can “shave between five and seven years” off their appearance by having regular sex. The more orgasms the better. Let endorphins rage.

Those endorphins are leeetle miracle workers, he says.  They can act as a natural pain-killer, reduce anxiety, boost circulation and release a human growth hormone that makes the skin more elastic. Forget ibuprofen. Break out the Viagra.

"Sexual satisfaction is a major contributor to quality of life, ranking at least as high as spiritual or religious commitment …” he added. That finally answers the question of why people experiencing orgasms so often shout, “Oh, god!”

“….more positive attitudes towards mature sex should be vigorously promoted," he said.  I guess that means I’d been having immature sex until I was eligible for my AARP card. I wonder how mature sex is different. Well, I haven’t used the trapeze lately, maybe that’s a sign I’m having mature sex.

Here’s the interactive part of this post. We should be able to create a top ten list of signs of mature sex. Here’s a starter list.  Feel free to weigh in.

•You can wait till you get to the bedroom before you start.
•You haven’t had sex in a car in a few years.
•You have sex with your socks on.
•You wonder whether you DVRd your favorite TV show while you’re having sex.

OK, readers, your turn to add to the list. You don’t necessarily have to be of AARP age to add your comment…

George Floyd: Watertown Vigil In Solidarity for Justice

June 2, 2020

Today’s Watertown, MA, vigil wasn’t heralded on CNN or Fox News but it happened where it needs it most, to wake up white citizens in  every day places like Watertown, MA, all over the  country. It was sparked by what we saw on the gut wrenching video of George Floyd being murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis last week.

35,954 people, not counting children, live in the 4.2 square miles of the city  eight miles from Boston.

This message showed up on my neighborhood list serv.

The vigil tonight will be held on "The Delta," the green space in the middle of Watertown Square. If many people come, we may spread out to the street corners.

Word spread. So did the crowd.

An inter-generational swath of them showed up at 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM to fill "The Delta," the grassy area in the middle of Watertown Square, the nexus of the city, and spill onto every adjacent sidewalks and street corner. I wouldn’t describe Watertown as a hotbed of activism. Tonight it was a city with a conscience. We held hands with small towns across the land.

The video showing George Floyd's murder was a defibrillator. It shocked us into taking a step to address racial bias and institutional injustice against people of color. What began as a visceral reaction to gross inhumanity has to continue with pressure to change culture across the board.

For me, I confronted my own conscience.I have always voted for justice. This was a moment to stand up for it. We joined hands with everyday people in Paris, London, Amsterdam, Syria, New Zealand and hundreds other places around the globe, revulsed from watching the video of a black man murdered in broad daylight by a white police officer.

The white people here might fear that the police might ticket us for speeding. Black men and women fear that police might ticket them because of their color. White privilege is hard to acknowledge. I haven't thought much about it because I don't have to. I understand it better today.

The Watertown Police Department  just issued this document describing guidelines for "use of force."

And this: "On behalf of the WPD Chief Lawn would like to thank all who attended the peaceful vigil last night. Chief Lawn attended & was impressed by the over 500 people . We are proud of Watertown and our community’s commitment to advocate for social justice. Thank You!!!" @watertowngov

Watertown's citizens read the tweet. A thank you from the Chief is good. I have had no personal experience to the contrary but Watertown's adherence to live up to the "use of force" guidelines will be essential. They will certainly be held to the guidelines they stand for.

The governor of Minnesota said, "We have only one chance to get it right."

The hard work has begun.

This story in the Huffington Post helps me figure out ways to keep it going.

People walked into Watertown Square from every quarter in the city. From 5:30 PM until 6:30 PM, the area swelled with people who needed to stand up for justice...

Three generations...

SAY THEIR NAMES...every sidewalk and median strips was occupied by protesters bearing homemade messages with messages they wanted to express

 
At every traffic light change, drivers of passenger cars, UPS and Postal Service trucks and 18-wheelers leaned in their car horns.


High school kids made very specific signs...

 
.

Everyone wearing masks. Social distancing observed better in some groups than others.

 
Critical: We need to take action with votes and voices.

Protesters raise signs, drivers lean on horns to demonstrate support

 

What will this boy remember about this? How has his mom explained it? The governor of Minnesota said, "We only have one chance to get this right."

Scores of home made signs...

to send a message to the political system and to each other.

At 6:20 PM, the entire square suddenly became quiet. I look around. Everyone is kneeling.

Everyone is kneeling. I had no idea this was in the plan. No one utters a word. Everyone is processing why they are here, what the moment calls for.

We are aware of the momentous disquiet across the land, that we are part of a movement for change. It's up to us to do more than kneel.

 

The hard work begins now. How will parents talk to their kids about this? What kind of conversations will begin between the teenagers present? What steps do I take?

This story in the Huffington Post helped me figure out where to start. This post is a start.

6:35 PM...heading home. It is up to me and everyone in this crowd to put our shoulders to the wheels of justice.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G8j2TxTXEA

Watertown Square, all ages vigil gathers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TJ0qNXp0s8&list=TLPQMDYwNjIwMjC1VjDgTqGOrg&index=1

Crowd stand in solidarity, most holding home made signs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDHvnayUwkQ

Every corner filling up with over 500 people standing for justice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpNj-iiHKBI

6:21 PM

One minute later, a powerful 8 minutes and 46 seconds of silence, the time frame a Minneapolis policeman kept his knee on the throat of George Floyd, killing him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liQPu_oSSI8

Kneeling at 6:22 PM

 

 

Midnight Ramble Series - May 21, 2020

May 21, 2020

2:00 AM

These midnight rambles have evolved from a substitute for exercise at my health club into a walking form of contemplation, meditation, and sheer wonder at the contrasts all around me, light and shadow, emptiness and density, deep silence spliced with the rustling of the wind through tree branches overhead.

I can feel it. Every night, like coming upon an old friend, it wraps around me in the first moments I pull the front door closed and walk into the zen like territory of sound/no sound. 

The smell of budding trees, lilacs and primrose, the earth coming to life in the spring unmitigated by pollution of any sort, awaits me. I have been sucked into this eddy of silence and fragrance, addicted to and embraced by the sum of all of it.

In the nine weeks since I began rambling in the middle of March, the earthly shutdown has acted like a massive physic for the cosmos. Reminded me of a science experiment my sixth grade teacher demonstrated. She poured dirt into a large beaker of water and stirred it up. You know what happened in the next hour. 

The canopy overhead looks like a blue/purple blanket onto which a mighty force has arranged the cosmos. Like me, it takes a ramble every night. Each of us has  our own neighborhood. Mine varies according to my whim. The constellations plot their well worn paths every night.

"Look for Venus tonight!" a friend texted me. What I saw blew me away.

I downloaded a couple of apps. Rambling at about 2 AM last night (this morning) I see a brilliant star, high overhead. Open the "Sky Guide app", point my iPhone overhead. JUPITER!  I first spotted the planet low in the southern sky around midnight two weeks ago, outwattaging every other body around it. Tonight two hours later, it looks like a beacon in a sea of lesser stars and planets.

https://history.nasa.gov/SP-349/ch1.htm

Ursa Major and Ursa Minor are a celestial halo, giggling and pointing fingers at grain-of-sand-me staring at them through my phone as I slow march past Victory Field along the yellow traffic lane in the middle of Orchard Street.

The Greeks,Romans, Hindus have told Ursa Major, Ursa  Minor creation stories for eons. Runaway slaves used the Little Dipper's handle, aka the North Star, to guide them to freedom. Little did their owners realize "Follow The Drinking Gourd" was a celestial road map from sun down to sunset.

 

 

 

Below...Jupiter rising in the southwestern sky

The smaller 'star' to the left of Jupiter...SATURN! It turns out that May is the best month to get this view of the  duo.

 

The smaller 'star' to the left of Jupiter...Saturn!

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.... 2 AM...rambling

 

 

A Visit to the Dentist, Mitigation Reigns

May 20, 2020

I'm nervous when I shop at my local Stop & Shop. Imagine how I feel when I had to visit my dentist. On March 20, my two upper incisors needed to be capped. Custom ceramic replacements were scheduled for March 5. The pandemic changed that.

My dentist opened for business last week. In full mitigation mode. One patient at a time. I begin to feel relaxed when I see the plexiglass barrier at the receptionist's window. And her mask. And the gloves, mask, hair covering on his assistant who ushers me into the room with all the paraphernalia of the trade.

The doc enters ten minutes later, sits down, we talk. He's relaxed. And reads my mind. "I shower and change scrubs between every patient. I'm taking care of both of us." His assistant, wearing a plexiglass shield over her masked face, stands behind me in a corner.

I'm relaxed. He examines the temporary caps on the incisors.

"Your gums are a little soft. I want the gums to be firm when I install your new ceramic crowns to get the best fit. But take a look. I think the color matches your own enamel,"  showing me my new pearly whites.

Five minutes later, I've purchased an Oral-B Genius Professional Exclusive Rechargeable Toothbrush made by Braun. "I add $10 to my cost," he says, "I offer them so you have the best chance to keep your gums healthy. Reschedule for two weeks. Call us if you have any questions about using the toothbrush."

Back to the receptionist's alcove. Slide my credit card under the plexiglass. She wipes down the pen I'm about to use with a sanitary wipe. Same to my credit card when she returns it. His assistant brings me a clean new fabric bag with the new toothbrush.

I'm coming back in two weeks. Hopefully with firm pink gums. And a dose of confidence that I'm being cared for by a very highly motivated team of professionals aggressively managing and mitigating.

The one thing that overrides everything?

Trust.

The Miles Davis Tadd Dameron Quintet in Paris Festival International de Jazz May 1949

May 19, 2020 P.E.

"I haven’t played this in years. In perfect condition. Ecstasy!"...

says my dear friend. I've been swapping stories and adventures with him since he moved across the street from me as we entered our first year at South Junior High School.  We've been on the same wave length since Elvis, Mickey Mantle, Duke Snider, Little Richard,the  Boys Club Friday night dances, the list goes on...

 

Friendship matters. Thick and thin. We're in the thick part. Past, present, future swirl around like the disco ball at the Boys Club dances, casting bright beams, illuminating memories long forgotten but ready to comfort with the power of shared recollection. Where would my psyche be without these connections during isolation? When I listen, cascades of memories from a less complicated time flood in surges, an inchoate tumble of laughter and melancholy roll over well worn milestones. Opportunities taken, opportunities lost are matters of fact. Recalibrating and reimagining are in order. My timeline is limited. Not so my imagination.

 

So here I am with Miles...

 

Listening now, music only, no video but who cares. I can smell the smoke filled room, see the band through the haze as I squeeze into a wrought iron chair at a tiny deuce crammed in with a bunch of people who appreciate what they’re hearing. Bebop must have just been bolting from the gate. Incandescent energy of a live concert…the riffs at the 29 minute mark start with the known then plunge into spontaneous reverie, sort of a stepping stone from tradition to new territory that the French, god bless them, really understood for what it was.

 

Check the credits at the end.

This brought me back, way back.

Later

Swallowed whole into the belly of youtube, I hear Miles Davis - February 1955 at the Hi-Hat Club, Boston, on the corner of Columbus and Mass Ave.

And a treasure trove of Bill Evans

 

Isolating with giants of jazz...

 

Mother’s Day with Irma Thomas, WWOZ, May 10, 2020

May 10, 2020

Mother’s Day with Irma Thomas, WWOZ, 12 PM - 2 PM

Today would have been Irma's 37th (yes, 37th) annual Mother's Day performance at the Audubon Zoo.  New Orleans does not give up its sense of tradition for anything, a pandemic included.

The two-hour program that Thomas usually performs is being broadcast on flagship radio station WWOZ....a virtual feat that uses a fabulously curated collection of her songs over the years. 

Just as WWOZ did with Jazz Festing in Place, the radio station today is one giant PSA sending love to moms and thousands of listeners sheltering in place. I have watched Irma light a place on fire.

Sadly, my internet is down until 1:15 PM… then

...finally Thomas's still poignant “Cold Cold Rain” (Katrina) pours down from the ionosphere and here’s the Mother’s Day Salute by Irma Thomas, The Soul Queen of New Orleans. If New Orleans has an earth mother, it has to be Miss Irma.

 "You Can Have My Husband but Please Don’t Mess With My Man” 2011 continues the set that spans from resilience to rejoicing. “Can’t Break Away From You,” 2011, “Time On My Side,” a proclamation of female resilience charged with comeuppance for an inattentive lover, I am listening to one in-charge woman. #metoo, meet Ms. Irma Thomas.

Listen to that cackle at the end of “I Wish Someone Would Care About Me.” Right about now I am throwing bouquets to the engineers and producers who integrated pace and style of this salute as mightily as the Mississippi River threads its way around the city.

Here comes “I Done Got Over It.” When the Queen says, “This is the audience participation part, we’re gonna have an indoor second line. We celebrate everything in New Orleans with a second line, births, deaths, weddings, funerals, when a pregnancy test comes back negative! Get out your hankies, shake your tail feathers (cackles)” the audience needs no encouragement.

“Iko Iko,” another New Orleans anthem.

I can’t stand it. I’m bounding down the stairs, JBL Flip speaker blaring in hand. Out the front door to dance in the sunlight on my front porch. Someone in the audience shouts, “We love you, Irma!”

“So do I! Happy Mother’s Day Miss Irma!”

Photo top PT, bottom courtesy of WWOZ

Irma Thomas at the Regatta Bar, Cambridge, MA April 9, 2009

Midnight Ramble Series - May 7, 2020 - Photos

May 7, 2020 Midnight Ramble

Walking from residential neighborhoods to the middle of a ghost town to post a letter.

The Flower Moon , the last supermoon of 2020, begins to bloom...

A sign of the times...

Mount Auburn Street 100 yards from Watertown Square heading east...would get arrested if tried this BP (before Pandemic)

Walking the line...

Empty bus on midnight run...

A verified midnight ramble!

Amazing colors at midnight...

Luminous golden glows pour like rivers from mute homes that stare at me as I walk past in the silence.

Photos by  Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Midnight Ramble Series - May 7, 2020

May 7, 2020

In response to Governor Baker's updated public gathering ban, my health club closed on March 16. A gym rat for decades, I needed to feel the burn. Or at least a simmer.  On March 20, I began walking. Which heretofore I have hated. Pound out a steady rhythm on an elliptical machine till I break a sweat. Love it.

Walk around the quarter mile track a quarter mile from my home? No way. Until March 20. The state is in a shelter in place mandate. If you're not an essential worker, stay home. Markets, pharmacies, liquor stores are open. Everything else closed. No cars moving on the streets. The skies hushed with no air traffic.

Around midnight March 20, my will to exercise told my ideas about walking to...well, take a walk. I donned a parka, headed out for parts unknown. That first midnight ramble has become a habit as steady as my commitment to show up at my health club.

Mitigation at that date: wash hands, do not congregate in groups of more than 10. No mention of masks yet.

The idea to walk at midnight wasn't a plan, a strategy to keep away from contact with others. I was wide awake. I  really wanted to stay in shape.  I actually thought that there was a possibility that I could resume dancing before too long (a delusion no doubt, we all have ways of dealing with a crisis) and I was going to be up for it physically.

What happened stunned me. I could not hear a thing. Anywhere. Not a single car. Not a single person on the streets. Nothing moved. Lights glowed from living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms. I stopped in my tracks several times trying to arrange this in my head. Many homes were dark, inhabitants asleep. Clearly there was activity in others but not even muffled sounds from the TVs flickering inside. I was walking through the set of a science fiction movie.

The total silence, sounds of human activity, of any kind, totally inaudible. The deep silence unnerved me.

After six weeks now, I still choose to ramble at midnight. In a way I haven't yet grasped, the silence comforts me.

The part of the ramble I like most - I walk straight down the middle of the street right on the yellow line not a car to impede me. Sort of a heady disregard for normal rule of law in a time so much has changed. Walk in the middle of the road? Every step I take reminds me I'm living in a global moment in history in which the outcome is unknown. For me, too.

Luminous golden glows pour like rivers from mute homes that stare at me as I walk past in the silence. In an hour, I'll be back in my own living room, the warm glow one of many pouring onto my steely silent street.

PHOTO ESSAY NEXT PAGE

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Jazz Festing in Place...the home stretch

May 2, 2020 6 PM EST

To WWOZ...

After listening to Detroit Brooks sing (more or less) a favorite song E La Bas and then the Bruce (as in Springstein, 2006, 7 months after the storm) inspired set..I’m blessing the 'hood with music of New Orleans. The now amplified speakers will probably levitate when the Neville Brothers take off right now. I bow to your people who created these six days of music with an alchemy of intentional solace, grace, and joy…an accomplishment that in my mind equals the miracle of the five loaves and two fishes.

Guarding the groove in the ‘hood.

Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

PS. Those speakers did virtually levitate. The Neville Brothers had the honor of closing Jazz and Heritage Festival in 1980. That honor had been lovingly given to Professor Longhair from 1971 till 1979. "Fess," born in 1918, died on January 1980 before the next Jazz Fest. Henry Roeland "Roy" Byrd to this day is revered for his impact on New Orleans music. The Neville Brothers are equal to the honor.