“I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance.”
― Beryl Markham, West with the Night
Spent some time listening to music from the late Chet Baker this morning. There’s always an abundance of raw emotion in his playing and one selection felt right this morning as I watch the leaves falling outside my studio window. Something quite sad and wistful in seeing the leaves drop on this gray morning, much like the feel of much of Baker’s music.
The song is Leaving from a relatively little known album with the same title from 1980. The photo of Baker that accompanies the track below shows him at a late stage of his life when he was showing the ravages of his drug addiction and a few violent episodes. It’s quite a face.
So, settle back in, sip your coffee, let your mind go and give a listen. Then have a good Sunday.
“Song of Silence”- at Principle Gallery, Alexandria
All your silver, all your gold Won’t shine brighter than your soul
—Rhiannon Giddens, He Will See You Through
Just want to play some music this Sunday morning and not make commentary on anything. Just let it be for the moment.
These are two songs from one of my favorites, Rhiannon Giddens, who never fails to deliver incredible performances.
The first is a new version of her powerful song Cry No More, which was written in response to the massacre at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC in 2015. This new version and video reflects the distancing of current days and is as emotionally charged in its messaging as the first.
The second song is He Will See You Through from a collaboration last year with multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi. that resulted in a wonderful album, There Is No Other. I love the spare beauty of this song. If you get a chance, give a listen to the rest of the album. Great stuff.
And I don’t fear missiles raining down from the sky.
And I don’t fear foreign nations invading this country.
And I sure as hell don’t fear any child or mother or father who flees to this nation to escape war and death.
But what I do fear is your fear.
I fear your cowardice and indifference.
I fear your apathy and distraction.
I fear your tiny attention span and your short-sightedness.
I fear your willingness to accept an evil done in your name.
I fear your preference for dividing people into us and them.
I fear your lack of empathy and compassion.
I fear how you mask your prejudices.
I fear the cruelty of your greed.
I fear your ignorance of your civic responsibilities.
I fear your sense of entitlement.
I fear your indifference to education, history or knowledge.
I fear the blatant stupidity and gullibility you proudly display like a new tattoo.
Don’t mistake this as attack on others– I am as much the you in this as anyone else.
And that is to my great shame.
Our great shame.
Enough is Enough.
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When I came into the studio early this morning and flipped on my phone, the first notification on it that jumped out at me was one from Pinterest that said:
Darkness started following you.
That was not the first thing I wanted to see this morning.
After a day spent on a death vigil for my dad and a night spent watching a pathetic creature who resembles someone midway through their transition to orangutan squeal and fling their poo on the debate stage, I wasn’t feeling too upbeat this morning as it was.
Pinterest, in its infinite wisdom, just confirmed what I thought might be the case.
Of course, I am kidding. Not about the Pinterest part. Yes, Darkness is, indeed, following me, whoever this Darkness person is.
But I don’t believe in being trapped under a cloud of bad luck, don’t believe in curses or spells. I don’t believe in anything or anyone that discounts my ability to overcome it.
I believe in my own determination and that of others like me. People who will not live under the darkness cast by a cloud of fear and stupidity any longer.
Now, the cartoon at the top and the words below it are from a post that first ran here back in January of 2017, just as the would-be-king took the reins of power and started his division of America. The cartoon is from Dr. Seuss in 1941 when he took on the America First crowd of that era, a group of American isolationists and Hitler appeasers who would feel right at home in the MAGA world that cheers as the ghoul-in-chief gleefully breaks our bonds with longtime allies and kisses Putin’s Russian ass.
I felt that nothing in the message of both the cartoon and the accompanying words had changed in the nearly four years. In fact, it has become worst, as has almost every aspect of our nation and its culture. I can’t think of one solitary thing, one metric of any quality of life, that has improved in this nation over the past four years. People are still cowed by fears and division stoked by their ingrained prejudices, their own ignorance of the facts, and in believing the constant stream of misinformation and outright lies that fuel alternative media sources.
These people seek the darkness.
And I see that darkness but I also see the light shining through it. And I will march through the darkness until I reach that light.
Okay, enough for such a morning. In the original post four years ago, I ran the terrific Johnny Cash version of the song I See a Darkness from Bonnie “Prince” Billy aka Will Oldham with the following as part of its chorus:
Oh, no, I see a darkness. Did you know how much I love you? Is a hope that somehow you, Can save me from this darkness.
Here’s Bonnie “Prince’ Billy’s original version.
Have a day. And if you run into Darkness, tell him that I am looking for him.
One of the very few surviving drawings from the Warsaw Ghetto
“Zog Nit Keynmol (Song of the Warsaw Ghetto)”
Never say that you have reached the very end, When leaden skies a bitter future may portend; For sure the hour for which we yearn will yet arrive, And our marching step will thunder: we survive!
From green palm trees to the land of distant snow, We are here with our sorrow, our woe, And wherever our blood was shed in pain, Our fighting spirits now will resurrect again.
The golden rays of morning sun will dry our tears, Dispelling bitter agony of yesteryears, But if the sun and dawn with us will be delayed, Then let this song ring out to you the call, instead.
Not lead, but blood inscribed this bitter song we sing, It’s not a caroling of birds upon the wing, But ’twas a people midst the crashing fires of hell That sang this song and fought courageous till it fell.
So never say that you have reached the very end Though leaden skies a bitter future may portend Because the hour which we yearn for will arrive And our marching step will thunder: We survive!
I like history and am a fan of World War II movies. Now when I say that, I don’t mean the combat films, though there are many fine examples. My favorites are those that focus on the people who fought as Partisans against the fascist forces of that time. Movies like Hangmen Also Die!, The Seventh Cross and Watch on the Rhine are such examples and favorites of mine. Casablanca, at its core, is also such a film.
There is something in these films that goes beyond the horror and stupidity of war and brings a very human element into the conversation. For me, it is the portrayal of common people fighting for their freedom and dignity in any way they can against brutal and overwhelmingly oppressive forces that I find so appealing. They often band together in covert underground organizations to form a network that attempts to stymie their oppressors expansive desires.
Many of these groups of partisans had rallying songs that they used to unite themselves and to shore up their strength and courage. In Watch on the Rhine, one of my favorite characters in all filmdom, a Resistance leader played to perfection by Paul Lukas, sings a song that he sang as a German soldier returning from WW I that had been adapted as a song of resistance to the Nazis. Very powerful stuff.
The song below (with lyrics above) is such a song. It is Zog Nit Keynmol which is sometimes called The Song of the Partisans or The Song of the Warsaw Ghetto. It was sung during the siege of the Warsaw Ghetto and is still sung today as an anthem of defiance and perseverance.
And survival.
Most versions of this song are in Yiddish or Hebrew but I am sharing the version of this song from the great Paul Robeson that integrates both an English translation along with the original Yiddish lyrics.
If you need to shore up your own courage and strength in the iffy days ahead, give a listen. Powerful stuff, indeed. Have a good day and stay aware.
The pessimist resembles a man who observes with fear and sadness that his wall calendar, from which he daily tears a sheet, grows thinner with each passing day. On the other hand, the person who attacks the problems of life actively is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors, after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back. He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness set down in these notes, on all the life he has already lived to the fullest. What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old? Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees, or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future which is in store for him?
‘No, thank you,’ he will think. ‘Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, although these are things which cannot inspire envy.’
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
Thought I’d kick off the first day of autumn by sharing a painting, And the Glimmer Comes, which I look at from my chair now, a few words from the always inspiring Viktor Frankl on finding meaning in one’s life and a piece of music that brings it all together for me, as someone just in the autumn of his life. Well, I say just but I guess that would be based on a lifespan of 120 years.
High hopes, I suppose.
The music is an atmospheric piece, Good Night, Day, from the late Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson (1969-2018) who was best known for his scores for films such as Arrival, Blade Runner 2049 and The Theory of Everything.
I am going to leave it at that. Have a good first day of fall.
Busy this morning and this week with some much needed projects around the studio and the home. But I thought that this morning I would feature the piano of the great Bill Evans (1929-1980) and the song My Foolish Heart. It’s a song that I featured here about four years back
As I said then, I chose this song because it’s a fairly good live recording and I like watching the hands of musicians, especially guitarists and pianists, when they play. I don’t know much about music in technical terms but the differences in the way musicians play is striking to me, adding a whole new dimension to the work. For example, when I watch legendary jazz pianist Oscar Peterson play I am struck by the fluidity and nimbleness of his hands. They have an extremely delicate and graceful bounce, especially for a large man.
But watching Evans perform this song is, to me, more about those unplayed parts of the music– the pauses and silences that fill the air of the piece. Couple this with his body movements and positions and it makes for a mesmerizing performance.
So take a look and give listen. Hope you have a great day…
Kurt Weill. Who Wrote “September Song” with Maxwell Anderson
“The summer ended. Day by day, and taking its time, the summer ended. The noises in the street began to change, diminish, voices became fewer, the music sparse. Daily, blocks and blocks of children were spirited away. Grownups retreated from the streets, into the houses. Adolescents moved from the sidewalk to the stoop to the hallway to the stairs, and rooftops were abandoned. Such trees as there were allowed their leaves to fall – they fell unnoticed – seeming to promise, not without bitterness, to endure another year. At night, from a distance, the parks and playgrounds seemed inhabited by fireflies, and the night came sooner, inched in closer, fell with a greater weight. The sound of the alarm clock conquered the sound of the tambourine, the houses put on their winter faces. The houses stared down a bitter landscape, seeming, not without bitterness, to have resolved to endure another year.”
― James Baldwin, Just Above My Head
In this strangest of years, September has crept in without barely any notice for me. Much in the way August departed. I barely noticed the comings and goings, even though time seems to drag in these days of waiting for what might come next.
In doing so, I have neglected playing what might be my favorite song as I do every year at this time. The son is September Song, written by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson for the 1938 Broadway show Knickerbocker Holiday. It was written in just a few hours after the show’s star, Walter Huston, requested that he have a solo song in the show.
Of course, in doing so, the composers had to account for Huston’s limited vocal range. The result though is a song that has become one of the great standards, covered by an incredibly wide range of artists. I have played versions from Willie Nelson, Bryan Ferry and Lou Reed along with the more well known jazz vocalists.
The song is just lovely in a most wistful way and these days we can all use something lovely and even wistful. Here’s such a version from the great Sarah Vaughan.
The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.
― H.L. Mencken
I have been trying to stay away from current events but seeing this morning that the Department of Justice is looking to take over the defense of the president in a defamation lawsuit brought against the president*** by a private citizen over an alleged rape that took place twenty years ago just raises my blood. The fact that we, the people, are now paying for his legal defense and any subsequent settlement for is beyond the pale.
It is just another mile marker on the road to authoritarianism.
Factor in what is happening under the rulers this thing in our white house so much admires and refuses to criticize, often even as they imperil our citizen soldiers. You have the kidnappings of opposition leaders in Belarus. The poisoning of opposition leader and Putin critic Alexei Navalny in Russia, which was, by the way, not the first such occasion under the Putin regime. And then there is the crazy number of Putin critics and journalists who “accidentally” fall from high rise windows or mysteriously get shot with sight of the Kremlin.
Not to mention the brutal killing and dismemberment of a US based journalist by the Saudi regime that he often coos about, an atrocity that is now barely a blip in a radar screen filled with atrocities.
That’s the world to which our creature in charge aspires. And 40% or so of our population thinks, or in the absence of thought, believes that this is just fine and dandy.
I can’t accept that.
I will not succumb to the dark world being forced upon us. Will not keep my mouth shut. Will not close my eyes to the wrongs being perpetrated. Will not turn my head away from the rampant corruption or the many injustices of this regime.
I won’t do it.
And the 40% of us that are his true believers view this as being unpatriotic.
Well, we obviously have different views on patriotism.
I am going to defer to Aristotle on this: “It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.
If being a good citizen requires me to be less than a good man, then I will cease being a good citizen.
Sorry for the spew this morning. Here’s a song that says this much better than my angry words. It’s from way back in 1984 from Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul and his album Voice of America. You might know him better as Miami Steve Van Zandt from Springsteen’s E Street Band or as Silvio, Tony’s lieutenant and the owner of the Bada Bing Club on The Sopranos. Or from his Sirius radio channel Little Steven’s Underground Garage or from his Netflix series, Lilyhammer. He’s a busy, multifaceted guy.
And a patriot by my and Mencken’s definitions. Here’s his I Am a Patriot.
The painting at the top, The Way of the Brave, is from quite a few years back. It’s a longtime favorite of mine and one that I used when I last played this song here back in 2009. It still fits the song.
I usually go on and on about the real meaning of Labor Day but I am tired today. Here’s a post from a couple of years ago about a favorite song concerning work, fittingly titled Work Song, of all things. Great tune. Have a good Labor Day and just try to at least give a little thought to what the holiday represents.
I call this painting Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, a title I used for a few paintings from my early Exiles series, in which this piece is included. I seldom show this piece and am not sure if it has ever appeared here. While I like this piece for a variety of reasons– for instance, I love the sky and hill colors– I never felt it was up to the same level as the other work in the Exiles series. I felt that it was more flawed than the others and too forced, not as organically formed as much of the other Exiles.
But every time I pull this piece out I feel a small sense of satisfaction in it and maybe that it needed to be aired out. I want to play a song today and thought this would be a good opportunity to let this little guy get out a bit. We’ll see.
The song is Work Song. It was written by the brother of jazz great Cannonball Adderley, who originally performed the song as an upbeat jazz piece. But it has been interpreted by a number of artists over the years, some to great effect. Others, not so much to my taste. But one of my favorites is from one of my guilty pleasures, Tennessee Ernie Ford.
He certainly doesn’t seem like a “cool” choice if you remember his public persona in the 50’s and 60’s as the goofily naive but affable hick from Bristol, Tennessee. I enjoyed that caricature as kid but it was his music that hooked me. He had a deep and mellow voice and a knack for choosing songs and arrangements that fit him perfectly. His series of country boogies were great and his 16 Tons is a classic. His version of this song is a great interpretation, spare and deep felt.
I couldn’t find a decent video of this song so here is the track alone:
Here’s another version that is a different interpretation from a band called The Big Beats with vocalist Arlin Harmon. I don’t have a lot of info on either though from what I can glean Harmon was a highly esteemed singer out in the Northwest. It’s a solid rocking performance with a different flavor than Tennessee Ernie’s. Give a listen.
I don’t need to be forgiven For something I haven’t done Nor for wanting my family To find their place in the sun If you keep this pressure on Just don’t be surprised If I can’t summon up my dignity While you’re roughing up my pride
There will be a reckoning For the peddlers of hate Who spread their poison all across this estate And a reckoning, too, for the politicians who Left us to this fate There will be a reckoning
—Billy Bragg, There Will Be a Reckoning
Since we’re in the midst of another Labor Day weekend, albeit one certainly not in normal times, I was listening to some Billy Bragg, the British singer who has picked up the mantle of Woody Guthrie to become the voice for workers and the downtrodden. In fact, his Guthrie connection includes the fact that he provided most of the vocals for one of my favorites albums, Mermaid Avenue. It was a collaboration between Bragg and the group Wilco to set to music and record a group of unreleased Woody Guthrie songs that were just lyrics on paper.
The result was what I consider a brilliant album. But that’s one guy’s opinion.
I came across this song from Bragg that has been bouncing around for a while but seems to have relevance for these times. It’s called There Will Be a Reckoning. In different performances Bragg has talked about how since WWII and the defeat of the fascist forces that were threatening to overtake the planet, generations of politicians have neglected to honestly address the big issues that affect the majority of the population on this planet– financial inequality, social injustice and racism, food insecurity and adequate healthcare.
They usually just kick these concerns down the road in acts of expediency.
Expediency is often just another name for cowardice.
As a result, it has created a vacuum in which those with fascist tendencies and objectives can once again begin the rise to power through the division of the population through campaigns of fear and hatred. They see the neglected problems and, though they have no plan on ever correcting the deficits, use it as a prybar to separate the masses and set one group against the other.
And quite often they succeed. And fascism gains a strong toehold and takes power. And this leaves another generation to have someday fight to stop its spread.
Yeah, if it’s not stopped, there will definitely be a reckoning.
Here’s a live version of the song from several years ago. I am playing it to let you hear Bragg’s cockney accent and a few words on the song as he introduces it. The painting at the top is my A Time For Reckoning which is still at the West End Gallery and was part of my recent show there. I think it pairs well with this song and these times.
Redtree Times 