Garden Of Blog

Guess again. Bobby Hebb could sing and play.

Jake sent me this awesome vid:

… which is a cover of this Hall and Oates song.

As we say goodbye to winter…

While Keith Jarrett Karaoke may have been my first reaction to encountering this music, I am starting to feel it on a deeper level.

Listening to Jarrett, I’m amazed at what must possess him to emit such odd vocalizations. They are certainly some sort of dialect that has a direct relationship to the music. After awhile, I suspect an otherworldly force at play, so powerful as to produce pentacostal tongue speaking and inspired jazz pianistry at once, and from the same man. It inspires wonder.

That’s entertainment.

I rate stuff in my current music player, iTunes, to spruce up the DJ function. iTunes really oughta support 6 star ratings, mostly for Antonio Carlos Jobim.

As some may know I have been a budding jazz fan for years. So this post is kind of ‘jazz fans only’.

Every once in awhile, I have a million dollar idea. The idea is simply: Keith Jarrett Karaoke. Off-nights at jazz clubs, you put some snappy Keith Jarrett on the karaoke machine and entice the most diehard fans to lip sync his vocalizations.

The degree of difficulty on this is at least one order of magnitude higher than any other karaoke attempted by mankind. Which is what would make it all the more impressive.

Thanks to Kirk for sharing this with me; always one of my favorites to play. I like this version.

What is it with the Beatles, anyway? I still love them. It almost seems like music on steroids. Too good to be true. The White Album? You’ve got to be kidding me.

Here’s a song sequence for you: The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill -> While My Guitar Gently Weeps -> Happiness Is A Warm Gun -> Martha My Dear -> I’m So Tired -> Blackbird.

Are you kidding me?

Only the Beatles make me wish iTunes had more the 5 stars. Only the Beatles have made me suspect that the material was re-recorded or overdubbed 30 years later to be as good as it was in the ’60s. Crazy fucking good.

I can’t believe they’re half gone from us.

I have noticed a phenomenon. Sometimes, when in motion, my ear catches the air it is moving past in such a way as to produce a soft, brief whistling, as in the blowing of air across a bottle’s narrow mouth. Except, if my ear is the bottle, this would be more like the case where such a sound is produced due to the bottle’s quick-ish motion.

That is not so odd. The opening of my ear and the speed I was traveling were just so. This is not unlike your technique having to be just so to make a traditional wind instrument hum (my daughter, Abby, is kicking butt on the flute, by the way).

What’s really odd is that this phenomenon always occurs at the same time and in the same place: when I am working at home, in my basement office. I often pace when I am trying to put together an idea. The whistle always occurs when I break out of my rhythmic pacing, making for my computer chair once more with a clear purpose in mind. Apparently I always do this at about the same speed, and naturally at the same angle, as my path back to the chair always takes me to the left, and it’s always the left ear that catches the whistle.

I guess that’s the speed of thought. Or something. Strangely though I’ve come to associate the momentary whistle with shit getting done. Because it always comes as I am diving for my computer again, hot on an idea.

Had a lovely time with Kaye and Craig seeing Richard Thompson tonight at the Stone Mountain Arts Center in Brownfield, Maine. What a great guitarist and performer.

I’d also like to mention that SMAC makes an awesome kielbasa chowder. Yes, kielbasa chowder. Don’t knock it ’till you’ve tried it! Also a great venue.

The commercials on Pandora seem to be getting more frequent… is it me?

I logged into LinkedIn for the first time in awhile. They’ve really added a lot to that site.

In other news, I’m dying for a Celtics game. I’ve abandoned a couple of my “mind off” activities this summer, and I really miss the pure escape of watching a game or, let’s say, playing a little World of Warcraft. The latter, however, is forever behind me, I officially quit a couple months ago, never to return to the land of Azeroth.

Lastly, I don’t think shopping cart software should be used to collect town and state vehicle registration dollars. After payment, one has the distinct feeling that the cart is still quite empty, and that one may have been robbed.