What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare? No time to stand beneath the boughs And stare as long as sheep or cows: No time to see, when woods we pass, Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass: No time to see, in broad daylight, Streams full of stars, like skies at night: No time to turn at Beauty’s glance, And watch her feet, how they can dance: No time to wait till her mouth can Enrich that smile her eyes began? A poor life this if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare.
I was made aware of both poet and poem by a guest public gardener, and their garden, on BBC TV’s terrific Gardener’s World.
I’m trying out a tiny little MP3 player, as part of my ongoing participation in the Amazon Vine product review program. It’s an X16, and at present I’m struggling to learn how best to import music such that I can browse it easily.
The tiny X16 MP3 player.
I had one before, and couldn’t get the thing to work at all! So they – the supplier/manufacturer – sent me another. Both are now working. But at present I can only dump MP3s on the SD card, meaning they’re not grouped by album, or artist, or anything.
I’m trying out a tiny little MP3 player, as part of my ongoing participation in the Amazon Vine product review program. It’s an X16, and at present I’m struggling to learn how best to import music such that I can browse it easily.
I had one before, and couldn’t get the thing to work at all! So they – the supplier/manufacturer – sent me another. Both are now working. But at present I can only dump MP3s on the SD card, meaning they’re not grouped by album, or artist, or anything.
I’m trying out a tiny little MP3 player, as part of my ongoing participation in the Amazon Vine product review program. It’s an X16, and at present I’m struggling to learn how best to import music such that I can browse it easily.
I had one before, and couldn’t get the thing to work at all! So they – the supplier/manufacturer – sent me another. Both are now working. But at present I can only dump MP3s on the SD card, meaning they’re not grouped by album, or artist, or anything.
Amongst other stuff – largely Jap’ jazz-fusion – I’ve been really digging Gabor Szabo recently. Perhaps especially his Magical Connection album, of 1970. I’ve known and loved a lot of his stuff for many years. But some recent re-releases have re-kindled the flame.
Searching for more stuff by him, I stumbled upon this concert (see the YouTube vid’, above). And, with wonderfully serendipitous synchronicity, he kicks off this performance with that very same John Sebastian number.
What a totally groovy album cover!
One real downer, however, is that all the music I’m currently loving, turns out to be pricey. And I’m stone cold broke! The Szabo albums I’m after are all circa £15 a pop (not inc shipping), and the Casiopea albums (and other Jap J-Fusion stuff) are more like £30 each. Aaargh!!!
I’m currently agonising over the temptation to shell out £30+for the two Ebalunga Szabo reissues, Dreams and Bacchanal…
At the time of writing this part of this post I’m returning to this concert footage for a second time (and it certainly won’t be the last!), and I’m even more blown away than first time around.
Searching around the internet for the credits, it was Doug Payne to the rescue! I also found out that someone put the audio out on CD (limited edition). I’d love to have that! But for now, here’s track listing, and personnel:
Magical Connection (John Sebastian) My Foolish Heart (V. Young/N. Washington) Fly Me To The Moon (Bart Howard) As Eso Ed En (The Rain & Me) (T. Somló/A. Adamis), w. Kati Kovács, voc. Sombrero Sam (Charles Lloyd) Django (John Lewis) Thirteen (Szabo) My Love (Paul & Linda McCartney), w. Kati Kovács, voc. Reinhardt (Wolfgang Melz)
Guitar - Gabor Szabo Electric piano - János Másik Acoustic/electric bass - Aladár Pege Drums/percussion - Imre Köszegi Congas/percussion - István Dely
The material Szabo chooses is perfect, and the musicians he picked – and he was free to choose whomever he pleased! – are astonishingly good. Bassist Aladár Pege, a new name to me (but apparently Hungary’s premier bassist at the time), is pretty astonishing!
The only slight dip for me comes with Kovács’ vocals on the McCartney’s number, My Love, which are just a bit too ABBA for my tastes. But the music, probably more how the band interpret it than the original piece, is still great.
Intriguingly Szabo plays two numbers, Django and Reinhardt, respectively, in the set, kind of tipping his tile to the great Gypsy jazz pioneer.
I feel obliged to include a link to Doug Payne’s excellent and informative entry on this stuff, so here it is. This includes a translation of the interview Szabo gives (which is in Hungarian, naturally!), which is an interesting read.
I normally tend to find out about such things as this forthcoming release on Far Out long after the event. So it’s nice to be ahead of things, for once!
Rather strangely it was my search for Casiopea on CD at a reasonable price in the UK that lead me to the discovery. That quest is ongoing (and as yet unsuccessful!), but it took me, around the houses, via Minnie Riperton – and her astonishing ‘whistle register’ singing – to Honest Jon’s Records’ website, where I first learned of this latest archival Joyce release.
As I’m typing this I’m just starting to listen to the stuff that’s already our online. There’s an epic eleven minute version of her famous Feminina track, and – what I’m listening to right now – a piece called Descompassadamente.
I’d describe this latternumber as pastoral prog samba; it’s in 7/8, and seems to be a cyclic groove, with Buster William’s rich double bass very prominent in the mix, and layers of acoustic guitar, percussion and Joyce’s (and other) harmonised vocals. Lovely!
Now I’m on to the epic Feminina. This song, so joyful, and familiar to fans like myself, starts off sounding just like the versions I know, with Joyce’s dextrously nimble guitar work. But once again the lush low register timbre of Buster Williams’ upright bass adds a new dimension to proceedings.
These two teasers are mastered by Al Schmidt. And they sound great, albeit it I’m currently listening over my iPhone! But I read on the bandcamp link above that the remainder of the album has been ‘restored’ from a cassette mix Joyce had. Sounds a bit ominous! Audio cleaning and restoration software these days is amazing. Let’s hope it does the remainder of the material justice!
Hardcore devotee of such music as I am, I’ve simply got to have this! So I’ll be putting in my pre-order as soon as I can. as I’m typing this Feminina is passing the 7:30 mark, and electric keys and what sounds like vibes have entered the otherwise cyclic vamp mix.
If you love groove music, as I most certainly do, and the terrific artistry of Joyce, and that delightful hinterland where ‘70s jazz and Brazilian music converge, this is definitely one to check out.
This post isn’t so much a review of George Lawrence Stone’s evergreen classic, which is rapidly nearing its centenary. I’ve reviewed this before, elsewhere.
Instead this post marks a historic achievement for me: I finished my summer holiday Stick Cobtrol challenge – play through the entire book, every exercise twenty times (as prescribed!) – start finish.
It’s just after midday, on Friday, 19th June. And I’m very, very chuffed! It’s amazing how enjoyable these exercises become. They’re hypnotic and meditative. Some are easy, some harder. And I guess what some find easy, others may find hard?
The funny thing is, of course – and anyone who knows Stick Control will know this – that you’ll never truly ‘finish’ this stuff. I’ve gone through it all one now. And in doing so I learned a lot. Some of it was how to interpret the notation, some of it was about the mechanics of stick control.
But I can come back to it, all of it, and mine it for so much more: try it with my feet! Try more focus on individual exercises at differing tempi. One thing I already found myself doing occasionally was adding in obvious variant iterations of ideas that suggested themselves but weren’t actually in the book.
The possibilities for continuing study with this book are, literally, endless. On the one hand that’s daunting. Maybe even a little off-putting? But in the other, it’s a call to continued study.
I think instead of going straight back to aspects of Stick Control – the flam section, for example, is one I could do with studying much more – I’ll focus on working through the next book, Accents & Rebounds. And then there are the two volumes of Joe Morello’s Master Studies.!
What’s great about finishing this book is that I first of all feel a sense of accomplishment. And secondly I now feel more confident teaching from the whole thing. but thirdly, and importantly, it reminds me that having all the drum books I own is all well and good. But only when I work through them do I get their benefits.
I mean, it’s so obvious, it sounds idiotic to even say that. But the truth is that oft-times I e allowed myself to purchase educational drum books, and left it at that! Daft as that sounds. This is a wake up call to start working through my drum score library.
Robin Williams’ character, Adrian Cronauer, was indeed a DJ in Viet Nam. He’s portrayed here as an eccentric extrovert comedian, who upsets some of the stiff-necked ‘brass’.
It’s a kind of odd film, inasmuch as most American films about Viet Nam dive right in to the very obvious struggle with issues around American guilt. In comparison, this starts out seeming more like a feel-good movie. The rugged individualist sticking it to the man. As American as apple pie, and, er… napalm!?
Cronauer in DJ mode.
It’s not until an hour into the film that the ugliness of war momentarily intrudes. And quite soon after that, the movie gets back to romance. Even if it’s a stilted or unrequited one.
Rather bizarrely, whilst the cast keep the film interesting enough, it’s not until three quarters of the way through the film that it notches up a gear or two, with the sequence where Cronauer is made to realise what he has come to mean to the troops. He then plays Satchmo’s ‘Wonderful World’ whilst the movie shows some of the horrors of the war!
The core radio team cast.
So now we’re back into more familiar territory. The ugly and dirty complexity of war. Williams still manages to get both emotional nuance and laughs out of it. Impressive. And it’s impossible not to think on Williams’ fate. Life, eh!? And death? It’s in this film, and it’s in Robin Williams’ long celluloid shadow.
Unsurprisingly the movie and the reality of Cronauer‘s stint on air in The ‘Nam are galaxies apart. That’s Hollywood for ya’! And maybe this points to a fundamental issue with the American psyche? Is it any wonder they continually blunder into appalling geopolitical messes, when they live on a diet of dreams?
You hear on the TiVvy that times are tough. But it’s usually only when it comes home to roost, when you feel the burn, that you really get hipped to the pain of poverty.
I’ve never ever been a bread-head. Indeed, I’m actually quite proud of my anti-capitalist anti-monetarist stance in life. Ok, I may not have set the world aflame, or even achieved very much on any level. But for the most part my time has been my own. To ‘spend’ or ‘waste’ – such dumb-ass hooman ideas – as I choose.
So shiny!
But sometimes these ‘lifestyle choices’ can hurt a bit. Today is such a day. Some money went out of my account today to pay for a holiday. The first and only real holiday we’d have had – excepting only Abbie’s glorious wedding! – in about three years. Indeed, we hardly leave the house, except to work, or buy stuff.
That last observation makes me realise I haven’t escaped the rat race treadmill half as much as I’d like to! The money leaving my account to pay for the AirB&B accommodation would take (indeed, may have already taken) me over my overdraft limit. Like Louis Cole… ‘I don’t want to, check my…’
Anyway, to meet the costs of other regular commitments, I’ve been trying to get some casual cash in hand work, and I’ve signed up with Amazon Flex, to do deliveries. But so far, nada. So in the meantime I’ve been flogging stuff.
And now we get to the rub, the pain, the hurt… Today I sold a resonator guitar that I only bought, I dunno, maybe six months back? I’ve hardly even played the damn thing! And whenever I have I’ve really enjoyed it.
In mint condition.
It’s a cheap Chinese jobby. I only paid £60-70 for it (and I just sold it for £75). But I didn’t want to sell it! It was worth a lot more to me as a thing; a thing of beauty capable of the magic that is music. Indeed, checking it over prior to selling it I got ‘in the zone’ for a bit, which only makes parting with it all the harder!
My FODMAP diet is suffering from our total lack of any money. I can’t be buying expensive sourdough loaves, and non-dairy alternatives to milk (Oatly is prob’ my favourite, thus far), when the bank is bereft.
As a consequence, my diet has gotten rather patchy. I’m still avoiding wheat stuff and milk as much as poss. But I am having it with cereal at breakfast most days. Ironically it was seeking to wean myself off that routine that was where FODMAP started for me!
Anyroad, my lunch today – ‘free from’ macaroni, with two fried eggs, omelette style, grated cheese, ‘free from’ pesto, sat’n’pepper – has prompted this post. The pesto at least has a little flavour. Sure,8ts shite compared to the real McCoy. But the macaroni? What that’s free from is texture flavours, or any ability to promote joie de vivre.
It’s the food equivalent of sackcloth and ashes. Why? Surely those of us seeking alternatives to the things that upset our digestion still want food to fulfil that fundamental role, not just fueling our bodies, but bringing us pleasure!
This macaroni, as utterly bland as it is, is at least not totally revolting. Several free-from pastas I’ve tried were, frankly, inedible. Inedible food? Deliberately manufactured as a ‘healthy alternative’!!! That’s got to rank as one of modern humanity’s greatest follies!?
Just stepped outside the front door. Inside I’m sweating buckets. It’s unbearably close and hooomid! Chester is still AWOL. I’ve been out looking and calling for him. When I stepped out front just now, the weather looks and feels like it’s changing. Rain was forecast for today. But has slipped over to tomorrow. At least on my iPhone weather app.
Got the fan on full, and I’m more or less naked! My naturist side is very much in the ascendant these days. Leastways within the four walls that are our home. It’s because I’m always sooo g’damn hot! I associate this with my current meds…
