Charlie Parker at 100

Charlie Parker died at 34, and the 66 years since he has died have only increased his reputation.

The sad thing that happened after a car accident was that he was given heroin and sought it out after recovered. The other sad thing is that his greatness paired with drug use, caused a lot of people to try drugs in an effort to be like him. He was great in spite of the drug use, not because of it.

My journey with jazz started with Richard Davis. I took his class at UW, and when I moved to NYC, I lived with my aunt and uncle, and my uncle had a good jazz CD collection. He favored Miles Davis, but had some great stuff. Zoot Simms, Oliver Nelson were some CDs I loved.

I've seen a lot of Saxophone leaders and they were all influenced by Parker. I lived in the East Village, a few blocks from Parker's house. My first wife thought my interest in jazz was weird. I liked it all, wanted to hear it all. Tompkins Square had a Bird Festival every Labor Day weekend. I've gone a few times in the 30 years I've lived in NYC.

Phil Schaap has a radio show on WKCR, Bird Flight, and I've not listened to that show enough. I gave money to WBGO when I had some money, and they hounded me for years.

I don't listen to as much jazz since I started meditating, and since I've been poor the past few years haven't seen any live jazz. But I love to catch free broadcasts of Smalls.

Links:

NY Times Article by Alan Scherstuhl.

Comments

Manet and Degas

Brilliant video explaining the exhibit. Go to the Met and see the exhibit! It's really quite special. In the last gallery the painting this sketch is based off of, of the execution of a Mexican president. The painting has been cut into sections, and the surviving Degas has reassembled them. NY Times review

The case for Harris

Motley Kamuka Blog endorses Kamala Harris. In general, Trump just wants to lower taxes on the rich, and do nothing, sell whatever influence he can to line his pockets. Apparently the emoluments clause in the constitution has no teeth. Harris has a set of ideas about policy that are fairly middle of the road. In most countries she's would be seen as a centrist. Spin about her radical agendas are exaggerated. I'm not sure how he got past " grab them by the pussy ", but he did and here we are. Women: Obviously the idea of giving women pregnancy tests at the borders of the state, and then if they come back and don't have a baby, they go to jail, isn't really what most women want. Pick Harris. I understand if you think abortion is murder, maybe you've been told that by the Catholic church, which has the same ideal of Buddhism that you don't kill--so follow your religion for yourself. Not everyone is Christian or Buddhist or even has a religion. Women are ...

AOC

Dark Brandon meet Dark Alex. I see her advising the republicans to stick to their guns and never compromise. They don’t want to do anything, only obstruct. So they don’t actually need to be unified. Chaos isn’t organized. This is fine. Read all about it from Heather Cox Richardson , a historian who covers current events. "As their policies threatened to lose voters by concentrating wealth upward and hollowing out the middle class, Republicans increasingly warned that minority voters wanted socialism and were destroying the nation to get it. Trump rode that narrative to power, and now tearing down the current government is the idea that drives the Republican base." While we're at it, here's another funny photo from the Onion: And then: I listened to the Times podcast about George Santos . He basically lied about, I don't know, 80% of his resume, and has a mysterious $700k in his "corporation" which has no clients. So he's a Russian or Chinese plant, o...

Motley Kamuka

Search This Blog