I heard a version of Duke Ellington‘s signature tune, Take the “A” Train, the other day that caught me off guard. The music was playing in the background and I caught the notes of a tune that made me stop and listen. It was so familiar but it was so different. Then I recognized it and realized it was someone other than the Duke and his orchestra. It didn’t have the urbane and upbeat swing, that joyful feeling of breezing carefree along that marked the original.
No, it was a slow jaunt, a meandering and elegantly peaceful ride. No horns. Just a thumping upright bass and gorgeous piano work over some light drum work. It was still the same tune but it was oh so different in feel. It was from jazz great Ray Brown and his trio– Gene Harris on the piano. Beautiful stuff.
It reminded me of the times when I had taken the color from my work and work in tones of gray or sepia just to change things up a bit, to cleanse the palette so to speak. The piece shown here on the left is an example.
I described it as being like hearing a song that you’ve heard a thousand times before then hearing a completely different take on it. It’s the same tune, same notes and chords, but it just feels different, opens up something new inside. This version by the Ray Brown Trio is exactly what I was describing.
It is the same but different. Plus soaking in that bass thump is just a great way to kick off a quiet Sunday morning. Have a great day…
Veteran’s Day is coming up and I thought I might have an image that somewhat represents the experience of some vets on their return home. In the 1946 movie, The Best Years of Our Lives, Dana Andrews‘ character, Fred, struggles on his return to his hometown and comes across a local airfield where they are junking old war planes from the recently ended World War II. He crawls into an old B-17 bomber and takes his former seat in the front turret of the plane where he was a nose gunner. He vividly relives for a brief moment the terror that was still haunting him, tainting every moment of his life. The haunting image of Andrews appearing ghost-like in the nose of that B-17 is a powerful one in a movie filled with powerful scenes, one that doesn’t sugarcoat the experiences and hardships of the returning vets. It remains relevant to this very day.
I thought for this Sunday’s musical interlude, I would play something in the spirit of this upcoming holiday. It would be easy enough to play something patriotic but this isn’t really a holiday of nationalism and a call to arms. No, this is a holiday that celebrates an end to war , namely World War I when the holiday was originated as Armistice Day, and honors the service of all soldiers with the hope that they will soon return home and resume their lives there. This holiday honors those who have served and sacrificed so much, not the wars to which they are sent.
The song is Johnny I Hardly Knew Ya which is the original tune on which the Civil War era song When Johnny Comes Marching Home is based. While When Johnny Comes Marching Home is more celebratory and martial in tone, Johnny I Hardly Knew Ya is pointedly anti-war and mournful. It was supposedly written in the 1790′s as a protest to the British imperialist invasion of Ceylon, present day Sri Lanka. It tells of a young woman seeing her lover , who left her after their illegitimate child was born to join the army, returning from war. He is much changed in appearance and she mourns for his loss.
This is a very emotional version of the song from British opera and folk singer Benjamin Luxon accompanied by American Bill Crofut on banjo. Have a great Sunday and gives some thought to the men and women who have given their time and their selves to serving their countries. Let’s vow to treat them better.
I normally wouldn’t repeat an earlier post on a Sunday morning, the time I usually reserve for a little music. But I wanted to replay this song from a few years back and liked the post that went with it. Plus, it gives me a chance to update it a bit as well. So, here it goes:
One of the benefits of having my studio located in the woods is the opportunity to watch the wildlife from a fairly close perspective. I have known all manner of animals over the years, from the mother raccoon and her kits that took up residence for a short time in the roof of my first, more rustic studio further up in the woods, and the everpresent deer that often nap in the shady lawn outside my studio windows to the coyotes and bobcats that I have captured on my trail cam and have ran across in person, as well.
I get to see how the animals interact, how they break down into family units and establish order. How they survive the elements and their habitation among us humans. Their survival instinct is powerful, a hard thing to see at times but powerful, nonetheless.
Over the years I have witnessed many deer with legs that have been broken, most likely from a misstep or an encounter with a woodchuck hole. I am always amazed at their ability to persevere and prosper. There was a doe several years ago who came around with a front hoof dangling, completely broken away from the leg above. Eventually she lost the hoof completely, leaving a stump. But it didn’t stop her. She actually had 3 or 4 fawns over the next few years and it was only when she walked slowly to feed that you recognize that she was missing a hoof. In full flight, she moved as fast as the other deer and managed to evade predators and hunters for years.
I currently have a black crow that haunts the pines in front of my studio. He came to my attention early in the winter. I saw crow tracks in the snow that went from the studio all the way down the long driveway, about 1/5 of a mile. I couldn’t understand why a crow would walk throught he snow when he could fly. This went on for several days until I finally caught a glimpse of him, ambling up the drive. It was a badly damaged wing that hung off of his back to one side. He would walk and hop with real determination and was seldom alone. There was normally a group of crows that accompanied him, cawing to him from the trees above and sometimes coming down to walk with him. I got the idea that they sometimes let him know what was ahead or behind, acting as his eyes in the sky.
I thought about trying to capture him and get him to an animal rehabilatation specialist such as the unit at Cornell University but he was always quick to spot me and would disappear into the woods with surprising speed. He was even aware and suspicious of me when I watched him from my front windows.
His mobility has improved over the past six months. He hops quickly and to my surprise has developed the ability to take flight for moments at a time. Not for very long distances but enough to carry him to low branches of the trees from where he can hop to higher branches. Once he reaches the top he will glide, without flapping his wings, to a point quite a ways down the drive from where he will commence his walk/hop.
I really admire his grit and evident intelligence. I have gotten into the habit of putting out for him the poor small rodents that my studio cat, Hobie, captures and kills in the woods around the place, laying them at my feet proudly as gifts on a daily basis. I have watched him and his kin find these small gifts a number of times and I think he understands the gesture. Doesn’t make him any less wary of me but that’s okay. He gets an easy meal and I get to see that the mice and moles go back into the big circle quickly. Win/win.
Update: The crow continued his rehabilitation to the point that he was nearly indistinguishable from the others. He was able to fly with immediate lift and his wing only drooped a bit more than the rest. This return to normal function allowed him to range further away so that I eventually lost track of him. Whether he is still alive, I can’t say. But his ability to survive and prosper through what could have easily been a deadly injury was really inspiring. I have a tremendous amount of respect for crows.
Here’s a really nice rendition of Joni Mitchell’s song Black Crow from Diana Krall. Just right for a Sunday morning.
I love this little GIF of Wednesday Addams busting out some James Brown-like moves as Lurch looks on. As we’re approaching Halloween in a few days, it seemed like a fitting accompaniment to this week’s Sunday music. It also fits the music as well. I found myself watching her feet intently as the song played and it just seemed to mesh perfectly with the click-clack of the percussion. You be the judge.
This week’s song is from the Rolling Stones‘ classic 1972 album, Exile on Main Street. The song is their enhanced cover of the song, Shake Your Hips, from bluesman Slim Harpo. This was not the first time the Stones (along with many other rock bands) had covered a Slim Harpo song. They did a great version of his I’m a King Bee on their debut LP in 1964. But in 1972 the Stones were at their peak and this song just became part of who they were, feeling like it was their own work and not a cover.
Anyway, give a listen and keep your eyes on Wednesday’s feet. Hope this gets your Sunday rocking. After all, it is, as every rock radio station in the world will remind us, still Rocktober.
Quiet and I don’t have a lot on my mind. Just thinking about some work that is on the easel that needs a bit of work, soemthing to bring it to a close. It’s there waiting and I ready myself to jump in.
Some days you need a kick to wake up and get into it but this morning I just want a quiet vibe as I slide into the work. So I settle on on some music from the late and great Lou Reed when he was with the Velvet Underground. Pale Blue Eyes.
It’s John Lennon‘s birthday today and while I was trying to think of one of his solo songs that would I like to feature here, one kept popping up in my mind. It was Power to the People from 1971.
For me , this song brings back a flurry of personal memories of that time and of certain places. I remember listening to this song as it came from the little speaker on a small portable radio that was my pride and joy in those days that predated the Walkman, the iPod and the smartphones that were to come.
It was square in shape and had a padded leather case and a leather handle and I had chosen it out of a Century catalog. Century was regional chain of catalog showrooms, places where you would go in and enter the product number from a catalog and put it in a tray for a clerk to pick up and send to the warehouse space at the rear of the showroom. You would then wait until your chosen product would come up on a small conveyor and would be whisked off by a clerk who would call you to the counter via the PA. It seems like such a strange and antiquated system now but it was one of those places that you grew up with, so it seemed natural at the time.
So there I was, a twelve year old kid with a little square radio listening to my local AM station– there were no FM stations in our area yet although they would pop up rapidly in the next few years. There was something about this song for me at that time playing from that radio that imprinted on my memory. Maybe it was that the idea of the people banding together in order to be heard resonated with those feelings of powerlessness that many twelve year olds have felt through the ages. Maybe it was an omen of my populist views to come or maybe it just sounded great coming out of that tinny little speaker.
Whatever the case, I still hear that song today in the context of that memory and get the same feeling that I got those forty-some years ago. Lennon would have been 74 today. Thanks for the memory, John. PS: the phot at the top is a Jurgen Vollmer photo of Lennon taken during the early Hamburg days. Itwas used on Lennon’s Rock and Roll LP.
First frost of the season. As I got out of bed and looked out the window, there was thin layer of silvery shine on the grass beyond the wood’s edge. There is a real bite in the air as I walk to the studio understanding that autumn is truly upon us now. A bit later, as I look out of the studio window, this realization is reinforced as the sunlight filters through the oranges and yellows of the turning leaves, indicating with certainty that the summer is gone and the harsh beauty of winter will soon be here. This filtered light and thoughts of summer gone and winter ahead create a wistful feeling in the air.
It’s one of the rewards of the changing seasons here, a built-in reminder of time passing that serves as a metaphor for our own lives, our own mortality and the ephemeral gift which we are given. And while simply watching a golden leaf lazily fall through the low angle of the sun to the frosted grass below might not seem like much of a gift, there are times when it feels priceless.
And that is how it feels this morning.
In that vein, the music I have selected for this Sunday morning is a wistful song from the late Warren Zevon. It’s a song, Keep Me in Your Heart, that he wrote while in the throes of the terminal cancer that took his life. Zevon led an interesting, if sometimes crazy, life. His father, a Jewish Russian immigrant, was a bookie and close friend of mobster Mickey Cohen. When Warren was 13 he studied with Igor Stravinsky before quitting high school in the early 60’s to go to NYC to be a folksinger. He knocked around for years before finding success both as a songwriter and performer. This success came and went several times, often as result of his own self-destructive behavior. He died in 2003 at age 56. I’ve always thought it was shame that so many people only know him for Werewolves of London when he wrote so many other beautiful songs such as this.
It’s Sunday morning here in the studio and I am a little charged up, eager to get at some work on my painting table and on the easel that are near that point where they take off on their own. So I am going to be brief with my music selection for this Sunday morning. It’s Lazaretto from Jack White. It has the kind of fiery energy that I want to carry with me this morning.
FYI, the word lazaretto refers to quarantine stations of all sorts– ships, islands, even leper colonies. It derives from the name of of the biblical Lazarus and has been used around the globe as denoting those places where travelers– if in the case of slaves and refugees they can be described as travelers– are isolated until they are determined to be free of disease. This song is White’s imagining of what might be going through the mind of such a traveler. Not sure if the imagery in the video has anything to do with this but it keeps you interested for the most part.
Anyway, time for me to charge onward. Give a listen if you need a little boost this morning and have a great Sunday.
I’m feeling quiet this morning with little to say. But it is Sunday morning and time for a bit of music so I thought I’d fill with something quiet, in its own way. Something I haven’t heard for some time. I dug around a bit and came across such a track from guitarist Jeff Beck and his 1976 LP Wired. I always loved this album cover.This was a pretty big album at the time, letting Beck take his massive rock-based guitar on a journey into the electronic jazz world of the 1970’s. It’s an album that I listened to quite often but one that eventually dropped off my playlist for some reason. Not really sure why but I am always happy to hear something from it again.
Here’s his treatment of the Charles Mingus classic Goodbye Pork Pie Hat. Quiet enough for this Sunday morning.
I’ve often write about change, lately in the form of fighting against my own selfishness through acts of generosity, somehow hoping that this reinvention of the self makes me a better person and affects change in others. I spent a few hours yesterday with John and Ron, a couple currently from Iowa and Illinois, each side of the Mississippi, who ad come to the West End Gallery specifically to see my work. I had a great time getting to know them a little better and learning more about their lives. Listening to them over lunch, I found that their own lives were stories of reinvention, of finding new identities.
It really struck a chord with me, making me appreciate how creative and adaptive we are as people. Sometimes it’s a practical matter, out of the need to meet the demands of our basic needs, and sometimes it is a matter of changing behaviors that we realize are negatively affecting our lives. Either way, the result is a new self of some sort, hopefully one that brings us more happiness and satisfaction with ourselves.
It reminded me of a post from several years ago, in 2009, where I wrote a short bit about reinvention, using Loretta Lynn as my subject.
Thanks to John and Ron for the inspiration for this morning. It was great meeting you and I hope the rest your trip goes smoothly.
Here’s what I wrote back in 2009:
Reinvention.
What I was is not what I am and what I am is not necessarily what I will be.
We’re fortunate to have such an opportunity, to be able to change and evolve over our lives. To be able to show the world other and new facets in our prisms. The only question is why do some people take this opportunity to reinvent themselves and other do not?
I thought about this the other day when I was in the studio, prepping work for my next show. I was listening to Van Lear Rose, an album from a couple of years back from Loretta Lynn, the Queen of Country Music. It’s a great album with Jack White of White Stripes fame producing and playing. The songs have Loretta’s unmistakeable signature voice and songwriting but have a new feel. A little more edge and a little less twang. A new side to Loretta. She took the opportunity, when it presented itself, to step forward and change.
But what about those who don’t? Why don’t they continue to evolve? Are they simply satisfied with where they are? In music this is pretty common, guys playing the Oldies circuit, performing the same songs that they made popular when they were 18 years old. Perhaps the opportunity to change never showed up. Maybe they felt safe in staying in their tried and true routine of rehashing the past. No risk there.
Who know? I surely don’t but I do know that this chance to change our skin, chameleon-like, is an opportunity that the truly creative should not simply push aside because for them to remain static is death. Take the risk.
I heard a version of Duke Ellington‘s signature tune, Take the “A” Train, the other day that caught me off guard. The music was playing in the background and I caught the notes of a tune that made me stop and listen. It was so familiar but it was so different. Then I recognized it and realized it was someone other than the Duke and his orchestra. It didn’t have the urbane and upbeat swing, that joyful feeling of breezing carefree along that marked the original.
It reminded me of the times when I had taken the color from my work and work in tones of gray or sepia just to change things up a bit, to cleanse the palette so to speak. The piece shown here on the left is an example.
Redtree Times 