pt at large

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

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/11/01/arts/introducing-pair-14-year-old-harvard-square-buskers-with-sound-beyond-their-years/

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