shackman brought us this Friday topic for the LBC. I am glad for many reasons that shackman and I have reconnected recently, for this is a side of him that I did not know well at all. We played basketball and did computer work.
However, bring up a topic and shackman will bring up a song to express something about it and what better expression can there be than music for feeling? I think shackman has a 3-part brain rather than left hemisphere and right hemisphere alone. He really seems to have a music hemisphere.
One of the biographical things about shackman is that he grew up in a very musical place, the San Francisco Bay Area. We have produced some great music over the years and I can remember going with friends to Jazz nightclubs in Northbeach in the city. While I have nowhere near the musical acumen of shackman, I enjoyed it immensely.
Well, the Bay Area spawned one of the Jazz greats that we lost yesterday, Dave Brubeck:
Brubeck studied music at Mills College about 10 miles from here and was living in the Oakland Hills right up to his death the day before his 92nd birthday. He was composing detailed musical compositions and shows up through the age of 88 and the picture above really captures the man’s joy at life. He was a true pioneer and perhaps his best known work is …
I’m glad you walked the earth, Dave! You enriched us all.
I think I’ll take five …
Take five, takes me way back. Dave had wonderful talent.
ReplyDelete@Grannymar
DeleteHe did. He also had marvelous talent with him, like Paul Desmond on the sax who I think actually wrote "Take Five."
Fos Take Five is one of my all time favorite tunes - easily in my top 5. Back in HS I had a friend that blew his sax on a par with Paul Desmond - so said club owners who'd heard them both. He ended up being a dentist because because of his practical side and in fact he lived not far from you on Cathy Way.
ReplyDeleteAs I said in my piece, music is a large part of what has kept me sane but I suspect I really know only a small portion of what you think I know - LOL - I just have eclectic tastes, know a little about a lot of music and have friends in the music biz - including one who is the uncredited writer of several million sellers in the 60s.
If you like jazz singers give Kenny Rankin a listen - he's my fave. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzQowN2Vzk0
@shackman
DeleteSax is one of those instruments that seems to just lend itself to jazz and may most closely emulate the flexibility of the human voice. Lafawnda actually won an award at a Simi Valley Jazz festival as a soloist with her voice and I believe the song was "Ain't nobody here but us chickens!" if I remember correctly.
In any case, did your friend on the keep up his hobby? Does he still live on Cathy Way, because the Lady and I still walk it almost every evening.
And I will visit Kenny Rankin. I've listened to him before and liked him. And, I assume you like Ella.
Oh yeah - who doesn't like Ella? AndMel Torme.
DeleteSadly Brian gave up the sax - he has a hugely successful practice in Palo Alto - last we spoke about it he'd uncovered the horn and was going to give it to his youngest son. That was before I came to Texas. He said the musician lifestyle just did not appeal to him - and he has a family at a young age.
Another genre I fell in love with is Zydeco - real beer drinking, toe tapping stuff - definitely the yin to smooth jazz's yang
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYKAe60O_Ww
@shackman
DeleteI'd hate the musician's life. In my case, that is definitely no threat! LOL
Mel Torme - the Velvet Fog. Love him. And Zydeco, too. My taste, as in so many things, is a lot more eclectic than refined, I fear. :)
My father was a jazz pianist, I grew up with this music. We lost a great one.
ReplyDeleteBlessings ~ Maxi
@Maxi
DeleteA jazz pianist for a father. Wow! I bet you grew up surrounded by some great music.
It always seemed to me that a jazz musician had to have a special sense of the world. I think it is one of the most interesting and intriguing of the art forms.
He died just yesterday? Wow that is synchronicity in play for sure! I love jazz, but once again, I don't claim to be an expert. My one big flub up in our marriage was that I accidentally gave away my husband's box full of jazz albums. :S It was partly his fault too, and he didn't blame me, but it was sad.
ReplyDelete@Delirious
DeletePlaying on "Young Frankenstein" we could say, "Synchronicity, synchronicity, no escaping, not for me!"
That is a shame about your husband's jazz albums. You two seem like the type that forgive each other, though.
Dave Brubeck - Thathaasthu.
ReplyDeleteMany decades ago, Duke Ellington band had come to India and was playing in all the major cities. This was the pre USA India cold war days and we were still friendly! The particular concert that my brother Arvind and I attended had the band playing Take Five and after the full introduction of the theme, the band bar the drummer Sam Woodyard went off the stage one after the other leaving Sam on a five minute drum solo. What a magnificent performance and as the band walked back in to join in, the spectacle was spell bounding. It was one performance that neither Arvind nor I have ever forgotten.
I have been told by aficionados that it must have been one of the rarest performances.
@Rummuser
DeleteI have been to performances similar enough in their lasting impression, their spell-binding mastery, that I can appreciate the drum solo as you describe. Still, imagination never can match the experience and you have my envy on this one.
Good to mark Dave's passing - he did indeed enrich us before he left.
ReplyDelete