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Ben likes pigs. He saw this costume and wanted it before he even knew who Piglet was.
He really enjoyed his brief candy gathering sojourn. He enjoyed even more handing out candy to our gazillions of trick-or-treaters. I should have read last year's post. I would have known to stock up on more candy.
Groundtruther is Charlie Hunter on guitar and Bobby Previte on drums plus one special guest on each of a three album project. The project, like many Thirsty Ear productions, is an exercise in expanding the definition of jazz. These recordings blend a wide variety of musical elements and influences from rock, hip-hop, funk, and a range of jazz genres.
The first of the three albums in the Groundtruther project, Latitude, features Greg Osby on sax. This is a mostly ethereal and atmospheric cd with most of the few groove moments provided by Previte's drum-machine triggered samples as opposed to the more conventional approach expected from Hunter. Longitude with DJ Logic sitting in, is more groove-laden and still very much "experimental," jazz. This time, Hunter trades in the lighter, funky guitar plucking for a grinding, almost Hendrix-like sound.
The third of the set, to be called Altitude, is supposed to be released this fall. I'm looking forward to exploring the heights.
I met up Friday night with jazz buddies Seth and Greg and George and Denny to see the California Guitar Trio play at Water Street. As I've said before1, if they are ever in your area, you've got to check them out.
They played a couple of Bach pieces, a surf-guitar version of Beethoven's Fifth, a more straight-up version of LvB's Pastorale Sonata,'Classical Gas,' 'Sleepwalk' (a maddeningly familiar slide guitar tune that took me an hour or so to discover the name of), 'Bohemian Rhapsody,' a blending of 'Ghost Riders in the Sky' and 'Riders on the Storm', and several originals. One of those original tunes, 'Andromeda,' blew my socks off. It started off with a thick wash of complex texture punctuated with rock guitar-like flourishes, moved into an almost Steve-Reich-ish space with two of the guitars phasing with each other (at least that's what I think I heard), and finished off with a a more placid and melodic prog-rockish solo backed by a Fripp-like wall of sound. I sounds kind of hokey now that I've written it all down, and I don't think I've done it any kind of justice, but the effect was mesmerizing.
But you don't have to take my word for it. You can hear a brief concert recorded for Philadelphia public radio that includes many of these songs; 'Andromeda' starts at about the 24:45 minute mark.
Afterwards, Seth, Greg, and I, not willing yet to call it a night, headed over to the Strathallan to catch Bob Sneider's second set. Bob's jazz guitar was a perfect nightcap to the varied and free-ranging guitars of the california Guitar Trio.
UPDATE: Holy crap, I forgot about Freebird! The final encore and show closer was Freebird! Only one cigarette lighter was lit, as far a I could tell.
fallen leaves rustle
in the stillness, an echo:
the swinging poop bag
Check it out: I'm a Word of the Day.
To: Susan John <johns@[omitted]>
From: Ken Smoker <ksmoker@[omitted]
Subject: your picture in my mailbox
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2006 06:23:23 -0400
Dear Susan,
How much money do you spend on direct mail advertising?
It's all very shiny and attention-grabbing and all, and, I don't
know, you may be concerned about a tight race--I haven't ever really
heard of this Ferlicca guy, by the way, until I saw his name in your
ad associating him with Bush and Pataki, clever that--but seriously,
you might want to consider deleting my name from your FileMaker Pro
mailing list database, because if I get another piece of junk mail
from you, I'm voting for the other guy.
your concerned constituent,
-ken
I just returned from a brief business trip, the last leg of which was delayed three hours by mechanical (and what appeared to be) organizational problems. Here are some random quotes from the flight crew:
Flight attendant, shouting out the open doorway: "Don't leave the bags behind!"
FA, muttering to herself: "I wonder how long we'll be sitting out here."
FA, referring to the 110 lb. baggage handler (the only one handling our flight's baggage): "I hope she doesn't hurt herself!"
Gate attendant, just prior to announcing that the flight was overweight and two passengers would have to exit: "I can't believe I'm still working this flight."
Pilot, explaining the latest delay: "The computer is not cooperating in getting us the flight information from Rochester. We will be getting that information faxed to us right now."
FA, again shouting out the open doorway: "Wait, what about the pilot?!"
FA, shouting out the open doorway once more, this time at the retreating back of a passenger who had just gotten pulled from the flight: "Do you want something to drink before you leave? Some Coke? Orange juice?"
FA, sniffing the air around the rows just in front of me: "Is there something that smells here? (sniff) I think it's right here. (sniff) Smells like Ben Gay."
New York State has confirmed it: Ben is officially or son. The adoption ceremony was brief and to the point. We sat across from the Judge as she explained the papers we were about to sign and then we signed them and we then took some pictures and then we were done.
Ben was his usual exuberant self, but as we sat down to begin the ceremony, he suddenly grew apprehensive and decided he would be safer sitting in the viewing area with George and Michele. But it was over quickly and he was soon back to cracking up the deputies and clerks.
After the excitement of the initial (Chinese) adoption, this one felt a little bit anti-climatic. Next step is to apply for US citizenship, then we should be done helping make Ben "official."
Now, we get to concentrate our attention on adopting our next child, whom we plan to call Christopher.
Back when Kari was in law school, she would close her books at 11PM and we would stay up and unwind by watching Dr. Katz. Animated in Squigglevision, this series tells the story of a non-confrontational and low-key psychologist who, in addition to treating a wacky variety of patients (played by stand-up comedians such as Ray Romano, Dave Atell, and Wendy Leibman), has to also deal with his shiftless, live-at-home son and his obnoxious receptionist.
Dr. Katz's interactions with these personalities is what makes the show so funny. He is a slightly more earnest and less befuddled version of Bob Newhart, but the influence is obvious. For us, ten years later, it is now perfect late night viewing for unwinding after putting the kids to bed.