Sunday, April 19, 2009

Lenny Breau, Five O'Clock Bells & Mo' Breau, Genes

I don't really tire of hearing My Funny Valentine, but it does, like any song after after a few hundred listens, become harder to rivet my attention unless you are doing something special. Breau does on this, taking it in a flamenco direction at one point, among other things. I rate it with the stunning Bobby Timmons version of MFV on This Here is Bobby Timmons. Fantasic guitar playing all over the Breau disk (which actually started life as 2 different LPs) in the bargain. I remember Hank (as in Williams) is about as nifty a recrafting as My Funny Valentine.

Friday, April 17, 2009

This is sure a CD I'm buying when it comes out

I hate reality shows and a loathe American Idol, but if you haven't looked at the clip of this gal singing in the U.K. version of AI, do yourself a favor. Unbelievable.

Puts me in mind of a favorite Harry Chapin song "Mr. Tanner" and of the story about drummer-bandleader Chick Webb, who took one look at a young Ella Fitzgerald and said there was no way he'd have an ugly girl like that fronting his band, until she opened her mouth and sang, at which point he hired her on the spot. (Chick himself was a homely fellow, and a dwarf, so he had no real business talking.)

Thursday, April 09, 2009

Resonates with me at this point in my life

"Can't we just return to the bare bones? Relaxing with the present, relaxing with the hopelessness, relaxing with death, not resisting the fact that things end, that things pass, that things have no lasting substance, that everything changes--that is the basic message."

--Pema Chodron