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Christmas List
Dear Santa,
As you know, Christmas Day is also my birthday.
This year, I've been a very good boy and a hard working dog.
Please bring me anything from this list:
- CD: Grand River Crossings by Geri Allen
- Book: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
- DVD: Johnny Staccato
- Large black Rudy Vallee-style megaphone
- Autographed Nicholas Payton pocket square
- Medjool dates grown in Dateland AZ
- Custom personal cologne designed by David Carlos Valdez
- Working replica of the Mystic Seer
- Hat like the one Mark Gross wears on the cover of Blackside
- Property taxes windfall
- Chili and lime saladitos
Thank you!
Love,
Dmitri
Jazz Duel -Key & Peele
Keeping Score
Happy Halloween
Who wants a flugelhorn?
Gastronomic Loyalty
A Singular Patois
TWO, FIVE, WONDER WHAT'S FOR LUNCH?
INTENDED approach to improvising:
Don't think. Just listen and react. Don't play licks and patterns. Create melodies. Let the horn sing, and play from the heart.
ACTUAL thoughts while improvising:
Here comes the turnaround...classic Brownie riff goes here...nope, this tempo's all wrong. Bop scale! Cleverly ironic Daft Punk quote! Ooh, that was hip. Nobody caught it, of course. Now C-sharp diminished up the...Fail! Awww. Nick Payton wouldn't have missed that high note. Third valve is sticky...uh...where does the bridge go again? No idea. Blues lick! What the hell is happening? I wish the bass player would play the damn roots. Sloan Sabbith. Sloan Sabbith. Sloan Sabbith. Two, five, wonder what's for lunch? Hey now, that was kinda awesome. Sloan Sabbith. Oops, lost the form.
CHOOSE WISELY
I know what you're thinking.
You're asking yourself, "Who should I go see on August 16th?
Chloë is at the Cineplex, but Clairdee is at Chandler Center for the Arts!"
Well friend, it's a no-brainer.
Movie houses are a dime-a-dozen, but Chandler's celebrated multi-use theater is a one-of-a-kind, elegant marvel of acoustical engineering.
Chloë & Aaron will be fake crime-fighting together for weeks. Clairdee & Dmitri are real life artist-warriors, appearing together for one-night-only.
Their show is overpriced. Our show is free, and we do ALL our own stunts!
Most importantly, San Francisco vocal sensation Clairdee is the Original "Hit Girl," singing and swinging Broadway and Hollywood hits like nobody's business.
And is there anything more Kick-Ass than The Great American Songbook?
We don't think so.
TRUCKEE HOTEL established 1873
My kind of atmosphere. This is the kind of place Clint Eastwood might've
stayed in Pale Rider or High Plains Drifter.
REAL LOVE
“That's what real love amounts to - letting a person be what he really is. Most people love you for who you pretend to be. To keep their love, you keep pretending - performing. You get to love your pretence. It's true, we're locked in an image, an act - and the sad thing is, people get so used to their image, they grow attached to their masks. They love their chains. They forget all about who they really are. And if you try to remind them, they hate you for it, they feel like you're trying to steal their most precious possession.”
—Jim Morrison
TOP TEN IDEAS FOR ATTRACTING LARGER AUDIENCES ON THE ROAD
10. Add the suffix "Gone Wild" to all advertisements
9. "Accidentally" misspell first name as "Pat" on marquee
8. Recruit Bebop Go-Go Dancers
7. Replace jazz noir material with that one song from Dream Girls
6. Put Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Flugelman in front of each venue
5. Offer Free Crazy Bread with every ticket purchase
4. Add Wacky Neighbor character
3. Grow long curly locks and learn to circular breathe
2. Change band name to "Candy Dulfer & The Naughty Secret"
1. Replace all sidemen with adorable kittens
TIMING IS EVERYTHING
The fact that our Pacific Northwest Tour coincides PRECISELY with
Oregon Marionberry Pancakes Season is entirely coincidental.
Oregon Marionberry Pancakes Season is entirely coincidental.
ALL WORK & NO PLAY ETC.
OFFICE HOLIDAY
The offices of Matheny Music will be closed today, Wednesday, May 8, 2013,
in celebration of the Iron Man & Higley Hot Dogs Day holiday.
(It's good to be the boss.) ~DM
5/4
RELUCTANT WARRIORS THREE
"I don't want to kill anyone.
I just don't like bullies."
—Captain America
"I don't give a **** about your war
or your President!"
—Snake Plissken
“I cannot preach hate and warfare when
I am a disciple of peace and love!”
—Wonder Woman
THIS MOMENT
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free
Blackbird fly, blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night
Blackbird fly, blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
—John Lennon & Paul McCartney
ALL WILL BE WELL
THE ONLY THING TO SAY
WHAT ELSE
"What else is the whole life of mortals but a sort of comedy, in which the various actors, disguised by various costumes and masks, walk on and plays each one his part, until the manager waves them off the stage?"
—Erasmus
A BEACON TO GUIDE YOU
"A mentor is someone who sees something in you that you don't see in yourself...a beacon to guide you on your path. If you're ready, a mentor is someone whose hindsight can become your foresight."
—Dr. Billy Taylor
AT HOME IN BAR OR BALLROOM
100 Years Ago This Week
San Francisco Bulletin
What's Not In The News
By Ernest J Hopkins
April 5, 1913 — In Praise of “Jazz,” a Futurist Word Which Has Just Joined the Language.
This column is entitled “What’s not in the news,” but occasionally a few things that are in the news leak in. We have been trying for some time to keep one of these things out, but hereby acknowledge ourselves powerless and surrender.
This thing is a word. It has recently become current in the Bulletin office, through some means which we cannot discover but would stop up if we could. There should be every precaution taken to avoid the possibility of any more such words leaking in to disturb our vocabularies.
This word is “Jaz.” It is also spelt “Jazz,” and as they both sound the same and mean the same, there seems to be no way of settling the controversy.
The office staff is divided into two sharp factions, one of which upholds the single z and the other the double z. To keep them from coming to blows, much Christianity is required.
“Jazz” (we change the spelling each time so as not to offend either faction) can be defined, but it cannot be synonymized. If there were another word that exactly expressed the meaning of “jaz,” “jazz” would never have been born. A new word, like a new muscle, only comes into being when it has long been needed.
This remarkable and satisfactory-sounding word, however, means something like life, vigor, energy, effervescence of spirit, joy, pep, magnetism, verve, virility, ebulliency, courage, happiness—oh, what’s the use?—JAZZ.
Nothing else can express it.
When you smile at the office-boy (time: 7:30 a.m.) as though you thought him nice, that is “jaz.” When you hit the waiter for serving you cold waffles, that is “jaz.” When you work until midnight, then get up and work until midnight again without cursing your boss, that is “jaz.” When you look upon a girl and she loves you, that is “jazz.”
Some of the utter usefulness and power of this wonderful word now begins to appear.
You can go on flinging the new word all over the world, like a boy with a new jack-knife. It is “jazz” when you run for your train; “jazz” when you sock the umpire; “jazz” when you demand a raise; “jaz” when you hike thirty-five miles of a Sunday; “jazz” when you simply sit around and beam so that all who look beam on you. Anything that takes manliness or effort or energy or activity or strength of soul is “jaz.”
We would not have you apprehend that this new word is slang. It is merely futurist language, which as everybody knows is more than mere cartooning.
“Jazz” is a nice word, a classic word, easy on the tongue and pleasant to the ears, profoundly expressive of the idea it conveys—as when you say a home-run hitter is “full of the old jaz.” (Credit Scoop [Gleeson].) There is, and always has been, an art of genial strength; to this art we now victoriously give the splendid title of “jazz.”
The sheer musical quality of the word, that delightful sound like the crackling of a brisk electric spark, commends it. It belongs to the class of onomatopoeia. It was important that this vacancy in our language should have been filled with a word of proper sound, because “jaz” is a quality often celebrated in epic poetry, in prize-fight stories, in the tale of action of the meditative sonnet; it is a universal word, and must appear well to all society.
That is why “pep,” which tried to mean the same but never could, failed; it was roughneck from the first, and could not wear evening clothes. “Jazz” is at home in bar or ballroom; it is a true American.
To conclude, just a few examples of its use.
“Miss Eugenia Jefferson-Lord, was clad in a pink pongee creation suitable for a rainy day, and of great jaz.” (Society Notes.)
“Our Harry, sighting true for once, swung the willow against the pill with all his jazz.” (Baseball account.)
“Though fatally shot, the unfortunate captain still had sufficient jaz to murmur ‘He done it’ in the ears of the police.” (Murder story.)
“All the worl’ am done gone crazy.
Yassah, sure it has;
How mah brain am reeling dazy,
Sighin’ for the ol’, ol’ jazz!” (Plantation melody.)
“And Saturn strode athwart the cedarn grove,
Filled with the jaz that makes Creation move!” (Paradise Lost.)
IMPRESSIONABLE
When I was young and asking the big questions, I learned most of what I still believe about loyalty, bravery and morality from the Silver Age superheroes in my comic book collection.
For real.
In later years I would travel internationally, study world religions, read classic works of philosophy and ethics, and even pay attention to my father's many lectures. I went to private school, public school, boarding school and the school of hard knocks. I'm an educated cat.
But to this day, when the world tests my mettle or challenges my sense of right and wrong, it's not Spinoza but my inner Green Lantern who shows up for the fight.
I've always been impressionable in this way.
For example, I'm pretty sure I have a goatee because of the way Spock looked in "Mirror, Mirror." I know I started wearing dashikis in high school because of a picture I saw of Elvin Jones in Downbeat. I sport a beret on stage because Dizzy did.
Today, while watching Highlander for the godzillionth time, I noticed something about Christopher Lambert's home. Like so many characters in films of the 1980s and '90s, The Highlander lived in a loft.
It now occurs to me that my interior design preferences and bone-deep love of warehouse loft spaces and mid-century modern furniture are not based on anywhere I've lived or anything I've seen or studied. They don't reflect some sophisticated notion about the aesthetic requirements of an artist's life. They aren't because I need space to rehearse and create.
Nope. I learned about loft living from the movies. Dig:
William Sanderson in Blade Runner (1982). Jennifer Beals in Flashdance (83). Lambert in Highlander (86). Barbara Hershey in Hannah and Her Sisters (86). Mickey Rourke in 9-1/2 Weeks (86). Tom Hanks in Big (88). Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally (89). Rosanna Arquette in New York Stories (89). Nancy Travis in So I Married An Axe Murderer (93). James Caan in Bottle Rocket (96). Ethan Hawke in Great Expectations (98). Julianne Moore in The Big Lebowski (98). Adam Sandler in Big Daddy (99). Christian Bale in American Psycho (00). Owen Wilson in Zoolander (01). Olivier Martinez in Unfaithful (02).
I want their cribs!
Thanks, Hollywood.
(Sure hope this flugelhorn thing works out.)