This might be the best thing ever...

Oatmeal stout and Heath Bar ice cream, I am drooling just thinking about it.

And what if you took a scoop of this ice cream and placed it in an actual pint of oatmeal stout? Screw root beer floats.

I bet a bowl of it would go good with Scotch, too.

The Art of Portuguese Fado, Celeste Rodrigues, Collectables

I know this is probably heresy, but I feel like I'm closer to real fado, at least its essense as a folk music, than with Amalia Rodrigues, her older sister and inarguably the most famous of fadistas. Celeste's singing is haunting to me rather than bringing to my mind the opera, as Amalia often does. Not to say Celeste can't make her voice soar. She can. I suspect this is more like what I will hear when I find that little hole-in-the-wall fado club of my dreams.

An informative review of the CD can be found at the wonderful All This Is Fado, a Web log about Portuguese Fado in English.

Enrico Rava, New York Days, ECM

Another noir sound track from ECM great for a rainy day or a dark mood, although I wouldn't suggest it for the prone to depression. Better something more lively, like Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. Still, musically the guys on this rate with anybody in the Messengers pantheon, from Clifford Brown to Terence Blanchard, not to mention Wynton Marsalis, and Jackie McLean to Javon Jackson, not to mention Branford Marsalis. I mention trumpeters and saxophonists, because Enrico Rava (it's his date) and Mark Turner are the front line here. I always dig Enrico, but I bought this primarily to hear Turner, a tenor who doesn't get enough attention beyond the realm of New York clubs, it seems to me. He's every bit of Joshua Redman, who has a higher profile and a lot more CDs to his credit as the leader.

The interplay between Turner and Rava is like listening to an aural puzzle being put together. The pieces fit and make a nice picture. The solos and the seamless ensemble working wrapped around them on Outsider and Certi Angoli Segreti are typical. Not much fire (Thank You, Come Again is about as warm as it gets), but it's like having ice water douse you on a hot day. Sends a chill or three down your spine. Stefano Bollani on piano, Larry Grenadier on bass and Paul Motian on drums stick mostly to the background but are important pieces of the puzzle nonetheless.

Dawn Clement, Break, Origin

I thought it was cool when Dawn Clement ended her first CD by playing AND singing Tom Waits Midnight Lullaby, her only vocal. On piano, she has a fluidity and tone akin to Vince Guaraldi but more percussive (on Break, check out Distant Oasis) and with flashes of the approaching things from odd angles you get with a Herbie Nichols or Monk (on a breakneck Sweet and Lovely).

The roots in Monk on Break aren't as evident at the keyboard, however, as in her singing, which she does on more than one number in this outing, including positively Monkian versions of All of Me and Dream a Little Dream of Me. She may not be a great singer in the Ella Fitzgerald sense, but then neither was Billie Holiday nor is Jolie Holland (whom I like a lot) today. Nonetheless, they sure can use what they've got effectively to get the point across. Ditto Dawn Clement, with the added attraction of being able to play jazz piano on the level of just about anybody on the scene now. Matt Wilson on drums and Dean Johnson on bass are great teammates for her. That Wilson's sticks never overwhelm points to the power in Clement's playing.

Sonia Tavares, Reformacao, Sonia Tavares

From the first time I put this on, I thought of Jimmy Rushing and as I sit through a fourth listen I come up with a couple reasons. First, when she sings, you have no doubt what she's singing, her voice is powerful and you can apply the same word to her enunciation (check out Los Piconeros). Jimmy Rushing gets characterized as a "blues shouter" for similar qualities in his singing. But I always thought that was an inaccurate description because Jimmy Rushing had in reality a very classy voice.

And that's the second reason Sonia Taveres brings him to mind. Her singing on this disc is just classy, near operatic in places (Demora, Ai Mouraria and Nada P'ra Frazer, for instance), a quality in the best fado tradition of Amalia Rodrigues, which Jimmy Rushing had in a bluesy and jazzy sense as well.

The set offers lively tunes, too, like Tirana Mito. I think of Licao de Fado as being mysterious. She's a Canadian and I ordered the CD from her Web site. Sonia mailed it herself and then sent me a nice e-mail to let me know it was on the way. Like I said, classy.

Thoughts on the river

Pretty boat.

You can park yourself on an island in the stream, get on that river and let the current carry you where it will, or take a paddle in your hands, bend your back and choose your own destination.

On bad beer

I have to admit that sometimes after I drink a certain number of good beers, I switch to Miller or even, sorry, Miller Lite because once you're well lubricated why waste the prime stuff?

Then I usually pay for it the next morning by feeling like somebody has beaten me with a baseball bat.

Mass market American beer also is nice on a hot day, for example after mowing the lawn, I guess because it's like drinking ice cold water with taste, albeit not much taste. Then again, I don't mow my lawn.

Pass the Dogfish Head.

Three reasons big brand American beers suck, which the corporations that make them have the audacity to tell you is good for you.

Of course, there is no such thing as bad free beer.

Jackson's send off

As I've stated, I think the level of coverage (and its almost complete lack of context and perspective) of this whole thing has been criminal.

And not, evidently, a victimless crime either:

"Meanwhile, the city of Los Angeles said that Jackson's memorial service cost $1.4 million.

"Spokeswoman Sarah Hamilton said the costs included extra police on the streets, trash pickup, other sanitation and traffic control for the Tuesday event.

"Three thousand police officers, almost one-third of the force, were on hand to ensure that the Jackson events proceeded smoothly, Los Angeles Assistant Police Chief Jim McDonnell said.

"The city, which is $530 million in debt, set up a Web page asking Jackson fans for donations to help with the expenses.

"Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich does not want taxpayers to pay a penny for the service, his spokesman said Wednesday.

"The city attorney does not want something like this happening again, the city paying for a private event," spokesman John Franklin said. "That's especially in a cash-strapped city, where people have been furloughed or even lost jobs."

I'm with the city attorney.

Here is a little measured perspective:

"You'd have to make a desperate effort not to know that Michael Jackson (until recently excoriated by the media) had died, and you'd have to make a similarly desperate effort to know that we've knocked off one wedding party after another these last years in Afghanistan. One of these deaths -- Jackson's -- really has little to do with us; the others are, or should be, our responsibility, part of an endless war the American people have either supported or not stopped from continuing. And yet one is a screaming global headline; the others go unnoticed."

And here is a Brit view with the subtlety of a blow from a cricket bat (a tad too heavy-handed, I think, and I especially don't like the Hitler analogy, but you have to say it gets its point across):

"The parallels between Graceland and Neverland are expected and wholly unsurprising: it is what happens when incredible fame, fortune and near-limitless power are bestowed on young men with no real education and no intellectual interests. The pleasures of the inhabitants of the two mansions are near-identical: lying in bed, attended by lackeys, while you indulge your sensory pleasures: food, small boys, whatever."

Please let it all be over soon.

Tania, Fado Inspirado, Alexcia Records

I notice more zippy fado tunes, like Alamares, Fadinho de Ti Maria Benta and Rapsodia Lisboeta (which reminds me of Brazil, the song not the country) on this disk than some others I own. Sometimes I think of it as being at "cantina" pace (Mexican or Star Wars ) and other times it brings to mind, say, Emmylou Harris' Rollin' and Ramblin' or Wheels of Love.

I may be thinking of Emmylou, too, because that's the kind of voice Tania has, higher than a Mariza or a Lizz Wright and somewhat thinner, which isn't to say they aren't fine voices. In baseball terms, they're breaking ball as opposed to power pitchers, relying on subtlety, not that they can't both throw heat in selected spots. Tania, a first generation Portuguese-American, tends to pound it more on slower, melancholy fados (and there are several, despite my earlier comment about this being noticeably zippy) like Abandono, Amor de Mel, Amor de Fel and Mar Portugues. The accompaniment is generally the traditional guitarras and bass with a drum and bowed strings slipping in at least once. Consistently captivating.