Danielle Ate the Sandwich, Two Bedroom Apartment

I have Danielle Ate the Sandwich’s Two Bedroom Apartment going around in my head this morning and if I try to switch it out I get Danielle Ate the Sandwich’s El Paso and that is about what I want to say about Danielle (real last name Anderson). Her songs, her singing and her ukulele and guitar playing are catchy and, I might even say, captivating.

Two Bedroom Apartment is the title song of her first professionally done CD, which I got two weeks ago and have listened to about every day since. First time through, I thought, well, that’s pretty good ukulele but I was doing other things and not really paying attention to the lyrics.

Now, having listened to the words and connected them to the music numerous times, I am struck by how a lot of these songs are fun and upbeat (or at least not somnolent), poignant and pointed at the same time (Two Bedroom Apartment and American Dream come to mind). In any event, the lyrics and instrumentals are so good you will probably want to listen to this a lot, which makes for a great value.

Danielle is all over YouTube and she maintains a nice blog that’s as smile-inducing as her music. I would like to see her in concert, which has to be a real hoot.

Oh, the holidays

Performed the holiday gift-wrappping duties while while listening to, in order, Beverly Sills (The Great Recordings, Deutsche Grammophon, CD 1), Joan Sutherland (The Greatest Hits, London/Decca), Renata Tebaldi (Arias and Scenes, ODP), Beverly Sills (CD 2) and Mariza (Fado Tradicional, EMI). Each a big winner.

We're trying to get all of them for ICP (Insane Callas Posse).

The gegalowz would be so down with that.

Mariza, Fado Tradicional, EMI

In the edition I own of a wonderful book Fado Português: Songs from the Soul of Portugal the picture facing the index is a picture of the legendary fadista Amália Rodrigues performing at a traditional fado bar accompanied by a Portuguese guitarist. Place Mariza in this picture instead and that is what you get with Fado Tradicional. I could witness such a performance, never see another and be satisfied.

Her previous CDs have included cuts like this, the voice that soars, implores and makes one think of Maria Callas here and Ella Fitzgerald there in concert with only the traditional fado accompaniment of Portuguese and Spanish, or classical, guitars (plus, sometimes, a bass guitar). As often, however, we have heard her accompanied as well by a symphony, African drums, a blusey, jazzy trumpet and her singing has reflected all of this (and more), although always fado as its core.

On this CD, fado is the main dish, spiced by her range of influences, but fado as Amália, and many others, as fervently if not as fabulously or famously, have served it up in the little tavernas of Mouraria or Alfalma. You feel them, the bars and the singers, in traditional tunes, traditionally rendered, like Promete, Jura (Promise, Swear), Rosa Da Madragoa (Rose of Madragoa) and Desalma (Soullless). Still, perhaps even more so, amidst the simplicity of the rendering and of the array of instruments surrounding her, I marvel at the command she has of that voice (check out Mais Uma Lua, Another Moon, or Dona Rosa) and gain in the process a new appreciation of her skill as a fadista. Essential Mariza. Essential fado.

Insane Callas Posse

Maria Callas, 100 Best Classics, EMI

So right now you can buy this 6-CD set on Amazon for $9.94 and I cannot conceive of anyone who is financially able not being tempted to do so. I don't care whether you like rock, rap, country, folk, reggae, salsa, tejano, fado, the blues, jazz, whatever. I don't care if you don't know a thing about opera or think you hate it.

You will spin these discs and you will sit there and you will think, or even say out loud, the gods surely designated this woman as a singer because there is no other explanation for it. And there isn't one track less than "wow" in the whole collection--100 cuts, never anything below stellar. That's unnatural.

Earlier today, I was listening to a Thelonious Monk CD titled The Transformer in which we get to hear Monk teaching himself the tune I'm Getting Sentimental Over You and then remaking it as his song, still something like the original and, yet, so much more. This is what Maria Callas does in all 100 songs in the collection here cited. Makes you glad to have ears and to be alive to use them.

Henry doodles, and I love it

2010 holiday email card from the great Henry Grimes. I look forward to these every year and to whatever music Henry produces in the year following.

Like my old dad used to say...

How do you know you know what you know? The answer, as dad knew, was sometimes you don't--if you take an honest look at that position you're so stridently sure of (and yeah, I'm talking to you Tea Party wingnuts). This, for instance:

"History records that President George W. Bush, who inherited a $236 billion government surplus from the Clinton administration in 2001, handed President Obama a stacked deck eight years later. The Congressional Budget Office's projected budget deficit for FY2009, beginning four months before Obama took office, was already in excess of $1.3 trillion. Indeed, the 2011 budget deficit is projected to be ever-so-slightly lower than the one Bush left on the White House doorstep. Despite the one-time $787 billion economic stimulus (spread over three years), no huge growth in government spending has taken place on Obama's watch. Three proximate causes of the rising national debt remain: the Bush tax cuts of 2001, his unfunded Medicare drug benefit, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."

More in this succinct, informative commentary.

Robbie Hummel gone, Purdue barely Top 25

Reality: 2 potential NBA players still on team, 5 guys 6-5 to 6-10 to fill the gap, 1 junior point guard who's started 3 years. Let's say Robbie was going to average 20 and 15 this year, which is high. You're telling me Matt Painter can't get 4 points and 3 rebounds out of 5 replacements (realizing some will do more than others)? Defensively, 25 fouls to spend, which should allow them to be aggressive; smart, hopefully, but aggressive. Moreover, a diverse group, which could allow Purdue to really take advantage of favorable matchups.

None of that takes into account improvements by the other 2 potential All-Americans on the team (likely), two highly rated freshman guards, and a couple experienced juniors on the bench.

And people are saying they're barely still worthy of a Top 25 ranking? You just keep thinking, Butch, that's what you're good at. --The Sundance Kid

I kind of like it, though, because it may piss them off and motivate them further.

Ana Sofia Varela, Fados De Amor E Pecado, iPlay

So I was listening to my man John Prine today and, let's face it, John Prine is not the world's greatest singer. Mostly, he more or less talks through his songs in a sing-songy way and the point isn't his pristine or rangy voice but the words and the feeling with which he delivers them. True, as well, of the late (and lamented, in my house) Harry Chapin or Mr. Tom Waits. True also of my favorite male fadista Alfredo Marceneiro, whom I hear in Ana Sofia Varela singing Quase Um Anjo (Almost An Angel), Estranha Vontade (Strange Will), O Corvo (The Crow) and a lot of other places.

She does not sing in the precious tones of Amalia or generate the aural and emotional roller coaster that is the singing of Mariza. She does not make me think of a powerful blues shouter like Jimmy Rushing, as Carminho does. But she sings captivating, expressive, emotive fado as appealing to me as John Prine doing Sweet Revenge, Harry Chapin doing A Better Place To Be or Tom Waits doing Closing Time.

Her voice is prettier than those dudes, but the end result is the same: good tunes, and better stories, well told. The album title means fados, essentially fates, of love and sin.

Ralph Towner, Paolo Fresu, Chiaroscuro, ECM

Chiaroscuro is art characterized by contrast between light and dark and here, I would have to say, Towner's guitar is the dark and Paolo's trumpet and flugelhorn are the light, which is maybe not what I might expect, although in point of fact neither is all that dark nor overly bright. Mostly, this is very peaceful music, bordering on classical, Sacred Place for instance, particularly where Towner's playing is concerned.

Paolo, as always, makes me think of Miles, not in an imitative sense, also as usual, but as a logical extension by a man with a horn who comes from the European tradition. Their rendition of Blue in Green is a perfect example and simply marvelous. Likewise the rest of this duo session, a format that gives them both plenty of room to work. Doubled Up makes me think of a two-man Jazz Messengers piece, or Miles and the second great quintet at the Plugged Nickel.

This is what it means...

... to "own" an audience.

What he said

Now this is the guy I voted for and would dearly like to see more of.

WASHINGTON (AP) - After skirting the controversy for weeks, President Barack Obama is weighing in forcefully on the mosque near ground zero, saying a nation built on religious freedom must allow it.

"As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country," Obama told an intently listening crowd gathered at the White House Friday evening to observe the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

"That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances," he said. "This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable."

Miles Davis, Agharta, Columbia

So I figure you like Miles in his electric period or you don't (and I do, as well as liking him during any other of his decisions to change music), but I think, if I were trying to turn someone onto it, I might suggest this.

Pete Cosey on guitar, bassist Michael Henderson, Al Foster on drums and Mtume generating percussion created a near-perfect soundscape for Miles' trumpet to interact with, recorded live, no less, in 1975 at what may be the last juncture that you can say he was at a height of his powers. Oh, he was very good later, but he kills here, as does the rest of the band, which you only have to listen to the fantastically diverse Interlude to get. Sonny Fortune on saxes and flute reinforces my belief that he's grossly underappreciated.

Blind Gary Davis, Harlem Street Singer, Prestige

Samson and Delilah, which has meaning far beyond the face value of the words, its marvelous singing and mesmerizing guitar playing justifies the purchase even if the 11 other tracks were mediocre, as they're not.

Take, I Belong to the Band, which is about as impressive as Samson with more than a minute less to work everything out, or Pure Religion, essentially a 2-minute, 57-second avant-garde gospel and blues piece. I mean to say, Albert Ayler would get it from one end to the other. The song, the concept, the whole damn thing. Death Don't Have No Mercy in particular.

Alejandro Escovedo, Real Animal, various

Back Porch, Manhattan Records EMI, but also Blue Note, if you notice on the back of the CD, which I notice because Alejandro makes me think of jazz as I have listened to him now through five CDs since developing a jones with his latest, Street Songs of Love. Nah, he's not a jazz musician. Except maybe he is at heart.

He assimilates stuff. I think of Springsteen and the E Street Band, the Sex Pistols, neither necessarily surprisingly, Muddy Waters and, for gods' sake, John Prine and even Randy Newman (Nuns Song) listening to this. Golden Bear, I'm thinking of Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators. Not that he is really like any of them.

He bends forms to his own purposes. He does things you wouldn't expect. He slips in odd instrumentation (like the frigging hot violin--yeah, I said hot violin--that colors hard-rocker Smoke) and makes it work. He's frequently discordant and adept at manipulating tension and release, a la Monk and Miles, in his lyrics (Chelsea Hotel '78) as well as his musical structure. He knows how to work in a good sax solo, like on Sensitive Boys.

Rockin' for sure, but thoughtful, as well, the classical strings opening Hollywood Hills, for instance. Tom Waits would be down with the whole program, I expect.

Plays a damn fine guitar, I might add.

P!nk, Missundaztood, Arista

This has to do, what, with avant-garde jazz and the blues and reggae and fado, my purview? Well, it has this not exactly what you would expect thing going (take Respect), and it is generally discordant, lyrically as in My Vietnam if not always, but sometimes, musically in a Monkian sense. Likewise, the words are generally ironic, in, more or less, a Robert Johnson, Bob Marley or Albert Ayler (in Albert's case ironic sounds not words) sense (see 18 Wheeler). What I perceive is that she is laying herself bare in her music, which when you think about is precisely what Miles and Coltrane did, or any good fadista does, and, hence, I respect it. Oh, and Misery, Aretha would R-E-S-P-E-C-T it. She could certainly sing soul well and kind of does here, like on Eventually, and I think she would be a fine fado singer, too. Gone to California is a blues. Which is to say, this isn't typical pop bullshit, but something I might, actually, listen to in 2111 and beyond.

Eddie Harris & Ellis Marsalis, Homecoming, ELM

This is as excellent a saxophone and piano duo pairing as People Time with Stan Getz and Kenny Barron, one of my all-time favorite jazz sessions (and People Time: The Complete Recordings, Sunnyside, 2009, which includes all seven sets from which the original was derived, is even better).

Here we have Harris, who really should be considered a tenor giant, and Marsalis, patriarch of one jazzy family and a stunning musician in his own right, on an out-of-print session from 1985 and reissued on the Marsalis family label with his son the stellar drummer Jason Marsalis in charge. Ethereal Moments, 1&2 is a track that really strikes me as revelatory because it could be taken as excellent 1) Third Stream music incorporating European classical forms and jazz or 2) advanced avant-garde jazz, neither of which you would necessarily associate with Harris, whose reputation suffers (unjustly in my my mind) from some of his more commercial efforts and Marsalis, at heart a New Orleans traditionalist. This is not, however, an out session (although some of the Harris licks on Zee Blues make the think: Archie Shepp). Ethereal, for example, is followed by an inside, but creatively Latinized, version of the Harold Arden-Johnny Mercer tune Out of This World, which is followed by a post-bop rendition of Darn That Dream, which would have struck a chord, so to speak, with the second great Miles Davis quintet, or Stan Getz and Kenny Barron for that matter.

The original clocked in at 42 minutes, so Jason Marsalis added four tracks with his father dueting with the young New Orleans pianist Jonathan Batiste in December 2009, a tasty bonus, and a final track, Blues at the End of the Session, with Ellis on piano, Batiste on melodica and Jason drumming that is a boffo blues and as good as anything else on what is a track-after-track gem.

You can have my book when you pry it ...

I am reading the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot in the Kindle app on my iPad as I ride my exercise bike in the morning and it has me worried. More or less on a lark, I opened it in the Kindle app on my iPhone over lunch downtown today. The book came up in the exact place, the beginning of Chapter 36, where I left off on my iPad at the end of this morning’s ride at home.

That ability to keep track of my place through the ether is certainly a nifty trick. But think, I also carried the book with me without having to carry the book, or anything else other than what I normally carry--my cell phone.

Then there is the way I have bumped up the type size of the book on my iPad to make it easy on my not-as-young-as-they-used-to-be eyes, and the ease of turning the pages simply by swiping my index finger across the screen. Likewise, the iPad sits flat on the book holder that’s a feature of my bike and the pages don’t have to be clipped down to keep the e-book open, or unclipped to turn them. I don’t even have to turn on the reading lamp connected to the book holder; iPad backlight. Moreover, the Kindle book is hyperlinked in many places, for example to more information about DNA or historical incidents like the Tuskegee experiment.

So what worries me? I love books. When I moved into my condominium pretty much the second piece of furniture I bought, after a bed , was a set of bookshelves. I don’t think books are going anywhere soon, certainly not my books. But I also love bookstores, I love spending hours perusing them, even when I don’t buy anything (which isn’t often). I now have to think--given online sellers like Amazon, et al, and buy them, carry them, read them anywhere e-books--that brick and mortar bookstores will soon go the way of film cameras, record shops and video rental stores. You may be able to find one (I hold out hope for the kind of wonderfully overstuffed used bookstores I adore), but it won’t be easy, convenient or in every community of decent size. Technologist though I am, I dislike the thought nonetheless.

The other thing that bothers me about reading Immortal Henrietta in Kindle form is this: it’s a stunningly good book I would love to loan, or give, to someone else; great science journalism, great journalism period, excellent reportage and marvelous writing. But I have no easy (or legal) way to pass on my e-copy.

I’ll just have to go to the bookstore and buy copies for people.

Oops...

Now I am really sorry I stayed up too late, got too lit and passed out on Alejandro Escovedo in Austin, Texas, that time because his new CD Street Songs of Love is better every listen I keep giving to it. Tender in places, tough in others, which is appropriate to the topic, great guitar play throughout (Street Songs rocks). Favorite track: maybe Fall Apart With You, kind of of doo-wop with an edge. But I dig it all.

Harpin' on it

I was hanging out around Fisherman's Wharf one time and ran across Dave Earl playing there and I have to say that on his CD S.F. Blues he plays some mean harp. I mean Little Walter mean, if you know what I mean.