I am in a bit of a rush this morning but wanted to play a bit of music. I came across this piece a number of years ago and it popped up again on my site yesterday. It was Pawky from the late jazz harpist Dorothy Ashby, who is considered one of the most unjustly under loved jazz greats of the 1950’s. Probably a little anti-harp bias. The harp just doesn’t have the built in cool factor of a sax or a trumpet.
I went to YouTube and began playing the 1959 album, Hip Harp, that it was from and went to do some little chores around the studio this morning.
I really enjoyed having it on. There was something easy in it, something where it would one moment move into the background or hold your rapt attention without losing anything in the listening.
I am not sure I am explaining this in the way I think I am but that’s going to have to suffice. The word pawky is a British word that means shrewd, tricky or slyly humorous and this piece fits the meaning. This song has a kind of 50’s jazzy, witchy feeling, like it should have been in the soundtrack of the movie Bell, Book and Candle, the 1958 film about modern day witches in Greenwich Village, starring Jimmy Stewart, Kim Novak and Jack Lemmon. But it was not in the film though I think the title theme poaches elements from this song a bit.
Give a listen. Great music to work to.
Redtree Times 