What's That?

"hey man, what are you listening to?"

"what's that...you don't listen to first wave indian reggae? this is my favorite, babla and kanchan."

"oh."

"it's great, check this out."

Greatest Hits: Babla and Kanchan

side A

Kuchh Gadbad Hai
Ai Ai O
Tiney Winey
Aba Na Jaibay
Kahay Sharma

side B

Kuchh Kuchh Baby
Banie Ray Banie
Aye Bahaar
Aye Mere Dil
Bolo Bolo

produced by: rohit jagessar
composed and arranaged by: babla
sung by: kanchan

rohit international, 1989.

Hey Now

research can
be fun (esp.
over black
caramel tea,

lightly sweet-
ened, and jazz
music, "go
red!").


research

that is right, tonight, i have waded knee deep into texts on jazz / books on lester young, and am splashing about, all thanks to the nashville public library, researching for the hopeful radio documentary. in so doing it occurs to me that:

a.) there are those jazz writers, who are critics and musical theorists, who have the very mathematic ability to pick apart, note for note, the solos and compositions of musicians, seeking out the hidden patterns and formula, while also retaining the ability feel for the music itself and therefore connect these two different faces of music (the math and the emotion) into meaning.

b.) there are those other jazz writers, who do little more than what i am currently doing: seeking out every informative bit available, and then tying them up together, into a felt, but often misguided history.

while i am a little embarrassed to fall into this latter category, it does bring me a little hope to know that i must start somewhere (and that somwhere being on par with published authors!). also, in reading these breadthie histories i am coming across a great number of jazz texts that exist not in nashville, and very well may be out of print, that would bring me a large amount of satisfaction to own and read. yes there is more out there, and yes it is human to want.


tea

tonight, from my one dollar tea pot, i am drinking a fine black caramel tea rtb and i purchased on my recent trip to tx. while i am not one to linger in the black tea world, yasemin* has done her best to choose the best teas from around the world to sell, and this flavored tea is no exception. basically unsweet, these black leaves dont go bitter very quickly, slowly releasing their hidden accents and notes, which play nicely off the small cubes of caramel that are included, loosely with the tea. caramel on the aroma, and tea on the taste. quite pleasurable. this evening i lightly sweetened the end of the taste with a few brown rocks of sugar added quietly in the bottom of the white pot.

*yasemin, the mother of a beautiful and healthy point five year old child, runs a burgeoning tea empire from her home in dallas texas. not only is she the purveyor of the finest teas i have ever come across, she is a lecturer and enthusiast, always excited to share a pleasurable pot of tea along side her always welcoming hello. although she recently closed physical shop, on account of wanting to spend time with the newborn, you can find her teas online at http://www.yasemintea.com/ where i plan to do the broad majority of my tea purchasing, to death do us part.

jazz, the music

amidst all the reading and note-taking and tea i pleasured myself with a little red, that is, red garland. a jazz pianist extraordinaire, red is known mostly for his work with miles' quintets, but he truly excels in the trio format. tonight, to tickle the ear, i listened to his album "groovy" a 1957 effort that is among his finest. please consider the following:

Red Garland Trio
"Groovy"

1 C Jam Blues 8:19
2 Gone Again 6:44
3 Will You Still Be Mine? 4:42
4 Willow Weep For Me 9:34
5 What Can I Say
(After I Say I'm Sorry)? 7:13
6 Hey Now 3:41

Red Garland, piano
Paul Chambers, bass
Arthur Taylor, drums

Recorded in New York City; May 24
and August 9, 1957

Recording Engineer, Rudy Van Gelder

Prestige Records.

Chapter LX. Speculations and Conclusions

"The season being far advanced when we were in New Orleans, the roses and magnolia blossoms were falling; but here in St. Paul it was the snow. In New Orleans we had caught an occasional withering breath from over a crater, apparently; here in St. Paul we caught a frequent benumbing one from over a glacier, apparently.


"I am not trying to astonish by these statistics. No, it is only natural that there should be a sharp difference between climates which lie upon parallels of latitude which are one or two thousand miles apart. I take this position, and I will hold it and maintain it in spite of the newspapers. The newspaper thinks it is n't a natural thing; and once a year, in February, it remarks, with ill-concealed exclamation points, that while we, away up here are fighting snow and ice, folks are having new strawberries and peas down South; callas are blooming out of doors, and the people are complaining of the warm weather. The newspaper never gets done being surprised about it. It is caught regularly every February. There must be a reason for this; and this reason must be change of hands at the editorial desk. You cannot surprise an individual more than twice with the same marvel--not even with the February miracles of the Southern climate; but if you keep putting new hands at the editorial desk every year or two, and forget to vaccinate them against the annual climatic surprise, that same old thing is going to occur right along. Each year one new hand will have the disease, and be safe from its recurrence; but this does not save the newspaper. No, the newspaper is in as bad case as ever; it will forever have its new hand; and so, it will break out with the strawberry surprise every February as long as it lives. The new hand is curable; the newspaper itself is incurable. An act of Congress--no, Congress could not prohibit the strawberry surprise without questionably stretching its powers. An amendment to the Constitution might fix the thing, and that is probably the best and quickest way to get at it. Under authority of such an amendment, Congress could then pass an act inflicting imprisonment for life for the first offence, and some sort of lingering death for subsequent ones; and this, no doubt, would presently give us a rest. At the same time, the amendment and the resulting act and penalties might easily be made to cover various cognate abuses, such as the Annual-Veteran-who-has-Voted-for-Every- President-from-Washington-down,-and-Walked-to-the-Polls- Yesterday-with-as-Bright-an-Eye-and-as-Firm-a-Step-as-Ever, and ten or eleven other weary yearly marvels of that sort, and of the Oldest-Freemason, and Oldest-Printer, and Oldest-Baptist-Preacher, and Oldest-Alumnus sort, and Three-Children-Born-at-a-Birth sort, and so on, and so on. And then England would take it up and a law prohibiting the further use of Sidney Smith's jokes, and appointing a commissioner to construct some new ones. Then life would be a sweet dream of rest and peace, and the nations would cease to long for heaven.

"But I wander from my theme. St. Paul is a wonderful town. . .


-- an excerpt from "Life on the Mississippi," by Mark Twain, 1883.