Electric Guitars

Tags

Covid, Guitars, music

I haven’t played mine in about a year. The band stopped rehearsing and besides there’s no place to play anyway.

Somehow through this dark mess of months stretching now into a year and for who knows how long I have picked it again because why not?

I have been playing and practicing a lot over the last year and I can hear my guitar voice building and starting to develop. I’ve been playing for 50 years so maybe it’s about time.

During the summer when I could sense my ears were getting better I was stopped dead in this thought and it makes sense given all that we’ve endured.

Here goes…

Ok, so I’m getting better, I can hear the improvement. But for who, for what? There’s no place to play anyway. Zoom doesn’t cut it and the cats don’t care.

I’ve been dragging this feeling around for months. It’s a hopeless state of mind which might only be the tip of my iceberg. Maybe these days it’s normal to feel like crap.

But I keep on playing even mindlessly strumming a chord until it connects to a neuron somewhere in my brain with music and soon a sogng appears. I’ve been listening to music since I don’t know when so there’s a lot stored up there.

Maybe mindlessly is an unfair characterization since that chord, those notes found a home somewhere in my head. How can this be?

Usually, when I post something I state an issue or a problem and by the end of the page I’ve worked out some sort of resolution. But not tonight.

This is going to be a continuing effort I think.

More Paris

Tags

jazz, music, Paris, WWll

More on my week long Parisian vacation with some musical notations added.

Before I get too far down the page I have to admit my two biggest regrets after I returned home from Paris.

One – I didn’t stay longer and two – I didn’t spend more money.

Ok, got that out of the way and before I lose my train of thoughts I have a few more recollections from The City of Light.

I was stunned to see how how any current and live references there are to the Second World War in Paris.

Correct me if I’m incorrect but I seem to recall a metro station named for D-Day, The Sixth of June and there is an FDR stop. Maybe one for the Battle of Stalingrad too.

I remember walking down the Rue du Winston Churchill which was near a street named for FDR. It was on this street corner that my daughter and I ran into a local with whom we had a very lively and enlightening conversation.

Maybe we looked like Americans, I don’t really think so as we were both dressed rather smartly. Americans stand out in a Paris crowd and we tried to blend in with the locals and the surroundings.

Somehow we struck up a conversation with a Frenchman from Morocco and the talk turned to great world leaders, remember while we were there we were on the cusp of the anniversary of the 70th of the liberation of Paris.

I remember how this fellow said DeGaulle’s nickname was “Deux Metres” since he was much taller than the average Frenchman in those days. He stood 6’5″ which meant he towered over almost everyone he met. He used his height to his advantage as one should I suppose.

By the way, the current occupant of the White House is nowhere near the purported 6’3″ he claims. He wears lifts in his shoes and is probably closer to 6’1″. The lifts make him lean forward all the time.

The Moroccan man was a real joy speak with and seems to be genuinely happy to be conversing with his two new found American amis although we never got his name.

Earlier in the day we visited Napoleon’s Tomb and spent time at the adjoining French military museum.

The history of warfare in Europe goes back to just about forever as the locals always seemed to be either carving each other up, bludgeoning each other, blowing up, shooting and mangling soldiers and non-combatants alike from the air, the sea and at ground level too.

It feels good to recall those memories especially these days. We rented a rowboat at Versailles, rode the train to Caen and visited the Canadian D Day beach.

When I saw the statue of Charlemagne at Notre Dame Cathedral all I could think of was the Steely Dan song” Kid Charlemagne.” That’s on me.

Our days were full, we walked almost everywhere and by evening we were bushed so there was no nightlife for us. Another regret – No Paris jazz.

” The Last Time I Saw Paris” was written by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein soon after the Nazis occupied Paris.

“April in Paris” written in 1932 by Vernon Duke ( Autumn in New York, I Can’t Get Started) and E Y Yip Harburg ( Somewhere Over The Rainbow).

Possibly the best big band song ever is Count Basie’s version of the tune replete with the “One More Time” coda.

Finally, ” I Love Paris” from the show “Can Can’ and Mr. Cole Porter.

And still more finally, ” Midnight in Paris” the Woody Allen film.

Maybe the sense of history doesn’t hang on as much in the air these days for Parisians as it did for me. Time marches on as they say. Perhaps there is too much to occupy the local’s time and minds in the present environment.

I felt the weight of history like I was wearing a jacket with all the pockets stuffed with the years 1940 – 45.

The oldest structure in my neck of the woods is probably a log cabin from around 1600 something or so.

And since adding a new follower who recently added a post about visiting Philadelphia I distinctly remember looking at buildings in Paris and saying – “Gee, these look just like the Philadelphia City Hall.” And they do.

It was built in the Second Empire Style or as it is also known Napoleon III style.

To the Colorful Sisters – in your post about visiting Philadelphia you left out 30th Street Station, one of my favorite places to be ever.

I wrote a post once titled ” The Birds of 30th Street.” It’s somewhere out there in the mist and fog of the internet and WordPress.

As Casey Stengel said ,” You could look it up.”

On Guitars OR In The Pocket

Tags

Guitars, In The Pocket, Karma, Lessons, music

I thought I’d follow up on my guitar and music comment to Jackie B who lives in Northumberland across the pond. Is that a dated expression?

In any case I mentioned how I used to give guitar lessons for free to friends in exchange for coffee so I guess the lessons really weren’t free.

I figured people have been kind and open and sharing of their musical knowledge, hints, tips and tricks over the years so it’s only right that I continue the payback.

I told these friends/students that one day their guitar might be the only friend they had. Some days it really does feel like that.

Before we began lessons I told my friends who were new to the instrument to hold the guitar in their laps while watching tv or reading a book.

Get to know the contours I said, become familiar with it I said and when you play it don’t hug it too tight. Let it breathe, feel the wood and sounds resonate through your ribs.

There are days when I shouldn’t play. I’m tense, in a bad mood and generally unhappy. My guitar can tell how I’m feeling and the sounds we produce aren’t smooth and pleasing.

They are are awkward and angry and out of sorts. Your guitar knows you better than you know yourself sometimes.

And then there are days when I’ll be playing and so lost in the pocket that I find myself thinking – Gee this music sounds great, where is it coming from and then I’ll realized it’s me. In the Pocket.

They call that being in the zone or as the old jazz guys called it ” In the Pocket.” Freddie Green who played guitar for Count Basie wrote a tune called “In The Pocket.” It’s also called “Till I Met You.” I play in an 18 piece big band and when we have the chart.

Being in the Pocket means the rhythm section, piano, guitar, bass and drums are so in sync that they are beating as with one heart. There is no daylight between the notes that shouldn’t be there.

The old songs tell a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. They are welcoming. They don’t get all puffed up and say ” Listen to me, ain’t I great?”

Nope. They invite you in – case in point the Kern/Hammerstein composition ” All The Things You Are.”

Where was I?

When the mood and the time is right I play my guitar from my heels to the top of my head along with all that interior real estate along for the ride.

There are guitars cooped up all winter just yearning to sit on a back porch on a warm July afternoon.

Summer guitars absorb heat and humidity and produce sounds softer than an angel’s sigh. That sounds like a line from somewhere but I can’t recall the origin. Help me Rhonda!

And if you really love your guitar you give it a name. BB King had Lucille and I have my Louise.

I think I feel a number of guitar and music posts percolating. Stay tuned.

Music Theory

Tags

music, play by ear, sight read, theory

My problem with music theory is that I always thought that a theory was something that might or might not be true so In music’s case I took theory with a grains salt.

That was my first mistake.

Now that I have time I’m studying music and music theory and comets find out that music theory is not full off optional avenues as in you can believe this or not.

No, music theory should be called music law as in this is the law and you can break it but you need to know what you are doing when you do it.

There seems be no end to music and theory. Nobody knows all of it. Nobody knows everything, at least I don’t think so.

I have been thinking of a way to describe my music studies. Do I play play ear, do I sight read, can I read at all?

I pretty much play by guessing. If it sounds good I play it. Even dissonance came be welcoming.

Passing the Time

Tags

England, music, Nazis, spies, The Wrecking Crew, WWll

Monday, Monday, can’t trust that day.

I watched a documentary film last evening.  When it’s a documentary it’s called a film, not a movie.

It’s call “The Wrecking Crew” and it’s about the group of LA studio musicians who cranked out all the most beloved music of my teenage years.

In one scene, Barry ( Eve of Destruction) McGuire showed up with a tune he had written called ” California Dreamin” and in tow were his backup singers, Cass Elliott, Michelle Phillips, John Philips and Denny Doherty.

The producer gets one listen to those four and says we better let them record this one.

In other news that’s barely fit to print I watched a movie last night called ” Night Train To Munich.”  It’s a 1940 spy thriller.  This is how I’m spending my evenings.

Rex Harrison stars in the movie as some kind of undercover spy agent guy who speaks perfect German although all of the Germans in the movie speak perfect English too even while everyone is in Germany.  Paul Henreid who would later play Victor Laslo in Casablanca was cast as an SS officer.  He spoke perfect German/English/German too.

I can’t imagine what the national stress level was in England in 1940.  The movie filled a need for people desperate for any shred of good news.

I get it.

 

It Don’t Matter, Part Deux

Tags

music, observations, The Monkees, virus

Following up on the previous post of almost the same name.

That replayed football game’s 4th quarter happens to coincide with a local station’s broadcast on their point 2 as in, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3 etc…that I like.

Eight point two shows two episodes of The Monkees starting at 5pm on Sundays.  The fourth quarter of the replay games shares airtime with Los Monkees.

Watching the show again after 50 something years is hard to describe.  The boys were so young, who wasn’t?  The music was pretty good and it turns out they were talented performers in their own rights.

Mike Nesmith  already had written a hit or two, Peter Tork was in a couple of working bands, Davy Jones had performed in the West End and on Broadway and Mickey Dolenz had tv chops.

Some of the music holds up pretty well even after 50 years. Some of it doesn’t.

It’s the smirking asides from Nesmith and the boys that I see now for the first time.  I suspect they all knew how ridiculous the whole scene was and so they decided to be as ridiculous as they could be.

They were fine with management as long as they towed the line but once they realized they had power since they were the stars and  wanted to make their own music they were done, cooked, kaput.

I would toss in a Monkee tune here but you all know which ones are your favs and besides I’m tired of fighting “Skip Ads” on You Tube so you can “Skip Ads” yourself.

I’ve also had it it with ” You’re not signed in,” Start a free trial account” and ads right in the middle of whatever movie I’m watching.  Ads are your problem, not mine.

As far as going bed early, or late or even to at all it don’t matter as it’s always Groundhog Day but without Bill Murray or And McDowell or Ned Ryerson.

Honestly, we have it pretty good overall.

So you better get ready, they maybe coming your town.

 

 

 

Those Crazy, Lazy, Hazy Days of Summer

Tags

music, songs, summer, teenagers

Since we’re only a couple of days away from the first day of the summer of 2019 It’s time to nominate your choice for summer tune that we’ll all be singing ad nauseum even though we probably don’t know all the words.

Which brings me to this – When did the song of the summer become a thing?  I know it is now but when did we hold a referendum and decide we actually need an anthem for June, July and August?  I must have missed it on the news.

In my tadpole brain I remember songs that came out in the summer but no one song ever claimed the crown as ” Song of the Summer.”

Here are some titles in no particular order of importance but that still remind me of those hazy, lazy crazy days of summer.  Hint – There’s one for ya right now.

Somewhere in my early teens there was ” So in Love,” By The Tymes, ” California Girls” by The Beach Boys, ” A Summer Place” by Percy Faith.  I think The Letterman jumped on the tune after it was a hit and scored with a vocal version of the tune.  Either one works for me.

” Summer in the City” of course.  Was ” Up On The Roof” a summer tune?  Sure feels like it along with” Under The Boardwalk.”  I know that ” Groovin”  was.

How about ” Hot Fun in the Summertime” and that tune by Mungo Eddie, or Jerry or whatever his name was?

And then summer ceased to be three months with nothing to do as we all got summer jobs, went maybe to summer school and then stopped coming home from college for the summer and grew up.

Summer songs – Whaddya think?

 

 

That Rhythm Thing

Tags

Catch- 22, Ella, movies, music, observations, Oz

The proper title of  the blog is, as you know, Reading, Writing, Running and Rhythm with Rhythm as a nod toward my music career such as it is.

And as such Rhythm or music if you will has been neglected lately because as previously noted elsewhere that nothing seems to be funny anymore because everything that pours out of your devices at all hours of the day and night seems to be absurd to the point of ” It can’t get much stupider than this” but by golly somehow the bar continues to drop lower than a certain knucklehead’s approval rating and so here we are saying one thing today and cleaning it up tomorrow by saying we really didn’t mean to say what we said yesterday, what we meant to was this and this stands only until someone says something even more stupid than they did yesterday.  Got all that?

An exercise in one of the finer points of the all knowing, all seeing, all powerful Catch -22.  Even more powerful than that Wizard guy who really wasn’t a wizard after all but managed to bamboozle the townsfolk by spouting whatever it was he was spouting and the locals bought it hook, line and Horsefeathers which is a great movie by the Marx Brothers and comes highly recommended by your humble savant.

So the wizard is not really a wizard and just as the good citizens of Oz get wise he skips town as non-wizards pretending to be wizards are apt to do once their non- wizardness has been discovered.

If only…Which leads me for no particular reason other than I need some relief from the Sea of Madness ( Thanx Neil) and this song while not exactly a stairway to you know where is an oasis at midnight along the watchtower.  Before I twist myself into knots trying to be too cute for my own good here is the tune that gets me through.  Through what?

When I ask YT for a version of the tune this is the first one that pops up and with good reason.  Written by Messers Kern and Hammerstein.  It is the perfect song melodically and every other kind of lodically I can think of.  Ella is the best.  Maybe I should titled this piece simply as ” Ella is the Best.

The First of December…

Tags

James Taylor, Kenny Loggins, kids, music

I suppose it might be covered with snow this year and then again maybe not.  Perhaps it was in 1968 when James Taylor wrote ” Sweet Baby James.”  It turns out there really was a baby James Taylor born to James’ brother Alex and his wife.

I was perusing the Pandora channel this morning when I came upon James Taylor telling the story of how he came to write ” Sweet Baby James” for his nephew James.

The bottom line is that there is another James Taylor and if he was born circa 1968 he would be, let’s see, 6 plus 7 carry the one around 49 years old.  I wonder how it feels to have a song written about you.

Further on down the road, also on Pandora, ” Danny’s Song” popped up.  You know           ” Even though we ain’t got money…”  And that song is also written about a baby which I think Kenny Loggins wrote for his brother and his wife who were also about to have a son. So where’s that kid and how does it feel to also have a song written about you.

And thanks to a dear friend who introduced me to Loggins & Messina in the wilds of Connecticut once upon a time.

Maybe James Taylor, James Taylor, and the Loggins kid should get together with Kenny and write another song or at least record a medley of their hit birth announcement songs.

Clearly, I have too much time on my hands and too much space left in my brain.

 

This is a True Story

Tags

Frank Sinatra, humor, knees, MRI, music, pumpkin spice

During my prolonged summer and early fall absence from these pages I’ve been awarded customer of the month twice at the local orthopedic surgeon store.  The details are unimportant.

I highly recommend the nerve block for any surgery.  It’s got a delightful aroma of hickory with a hint of whimsy.  Plus, your arm, leg, shoulder or knee feels like a 2 x 4 for a day and a half after the surgery so there’s that.  I have no idea what it costs but I’m telling you it’s a bargain at twice the price.  Which bring us to our most recent MRI.

I get suited up or dressed down as the case may be and as I’m lying (laying?) on the table that’s about to slide me into the magnetic tunnel the MRI tech asks if I would like to listen to music instead of bricks rolling around in a dryer.  I say yes – what do you have?

He hands me the play list and I say channel 788 which is the Frank Sinatra station.  The quality of the audio in the headphones is terrible but I don’t care.  I’m just hoping I haven’t forgotten if I have a pacemaker or a stent or any other piece of metal in my body which I guess would get zoomed out of me at hypersonic magnetic speed once the machine starts.  Clearly there would be blood everywhere, all of it mine along with an internal organ or two draped over the MRI machine.  And so much paperwork – Oy.

In I go, the music begins, it’s old Blue Eyes, the Chairman of the Board and the first sounds I hear are… BANG BANG BANG BANG AND NOW THE END IS NEAR AND SO I FACE THE FINAL CURTAIN …BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG…

It’s ” My Way” one of Frankie’s biggest hits not exactly appropriate but I laugh it off without moving cause you can’t move once the magnets start taking pictures.  That tune is followed by Dean Martin’s ” Ain’t that a Kick in the Head?” and soon the hammering stops, I’m back on my feet and on the way home.

I don”t know if Frank was trying to reach me from the great beyond or if I was a victim of a simple twist of fated black humor.  But Frank, if you’re listening keep those hits coming.  I’ll take the pumpkin spice nerve block next time.