Music, books, good works, and other reasons for living.
Speaking of photos, I just got a photo from the retirement party in Atlanta (read about it here and here). Dave is the retiree ( on the right holding the framed congratulations letter from Nancy Wilson) and his buddy, Stan, who wrote to me requesting the letter is wearing a tie.
I am still waiting to receive pix from my surprise birthday party — both “photographers” had to go out of town, but they have returned home now and I hope to see the shots soon. If I’m not too embarassed, I’ll share.
I’d really like nothing better than to stay in bed today — the weather is perfect for it (overcast and damp) and I am catching a cold (the first one in a very long time, years, I think) — but it is not to be. Today I must pack up the kitchen in preparation for renovation. Demolition is supposed to start on Monday. Demolition is really too strong a word, we’re not gutting and rebuilding; in fact the floor plan will barely change…well, maybe just a little. The refrigerator will shift position opening up a space to extend a secondary counter just a tad. The cabinets will get a facelift, and a few will be reconfigured on the inside so that the deeper recesses will have pull-out shelves for easier access. But the real deal is the kitchen counter, which is huge (12′ x 4′), central to the house and opens to the family room. This will become the design focal point of the space with bold new tiles. (Can you tell I’ve been watching too much HGTV?) I don’t like small tiles or lots of grout, so the tiles are 13″ X 13″ Galaxy Red — the name is deceptive as the color is not red at all; really more reddish-brown with golden tones.
You learn a lot when you do these projects (No, I’m not doing the work, just the planning). Tiles are much less costly than slabs of granite or marble, but they get you on the trim pieces. Whatever the tile might cost per square foot, the V-cap (that’s the counter edging) might cost eight to ten times as much for a 6-inch piece. Same goes for the corners and beaks. I got around this by abandoning the Galaxy in lieu of complimentary but less expensive trim pieces from a different company.
As for the rest of the plans, the linoleum floor will also be replaced with ceramic tile — Bengali Beige — which has a few veins of golden brown in it that match the counter (hard to tell in these pix), and the long-past-its-prime wall-to-wall carpet in the family room will give way to bamboo flooring, economical and ecologically friendly as bamboo is what they call a renewable resource.
So that’s the overview of what’s to come. Maybe I’ll post before and after pix…we’ll see.
In the end, nothing we do or say in this lifetime will matter as much as the way we have loved one another.
— Daphne Rose Kingma, therapist, bestselling author, and frequent Oprah guest
I’m not big on promoting self-help authors and talk-show guests; in fact, I’d never heard of Kingma before, but she’s the one to whom this words are attributed and I like the quotation. This line seems particularly fitting not just as one in the series of thoughts related to contemplating one’s life at age fifty, but also in light of the recent deaths of people I know.
Shirley Horn was much loved by fans and friends as well as family. And it was, in fact, Shirley’s love of her own family that was responsible for the long delay in her career — some obituaries might imply that jazz audiences were lacking, but in the 1960s, Shirley was on the verge of “making it big” when she opted to stay home with her husband to raise their daughter.
The wife of a long-time friend of my parents also died recently. I have known this couple for as long as I can remember, but I have not been in touch with them for several years. Time has a way of slipping by…if you let it. Who haven’t you spoken to lately?
Another recent death is closer to home — my uncle died a few days ago and I am on my way to San Diego for the funeral. Despite the sad occasion, I am looking forward to seeing my cousins and meeting their children. I am taking the train and travelling light — no computer — so you won’t hear from me again until Wednesday.
Shirley Horn died last night; her daughter called us this morning. We hadn’t seen Shirley since she appeared in Las Vegas at the Johnny Pate 80th Birthday concert and celebration, playing in public for the first time with her then new prosthesis, but earlier this year she called several times, more often than in years past. I wonder now if she knew then how ill she was, but just didn’t say.
I have posted an excerpt from chapter thirteen of “Men, Women, and Girl Singers“ ; John was Shirley’s manager way back when and they remained close friends throughout her life.
When I first heard her, I did not know the full extent of her musical genius. But I did know that she was special. Actually I didn’t even know whose voice I was listening to on the radio in my office. And I was even more intrigued by the sound of the piano accompaniment.
Here is the complete excerpt.
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
—Annie Dillard
In this post, Rifftides directed readers to some nifty info on the NEA web site. One of his links takes you to the Jazz Masters for 2006 (of which my husband is one), and another link to the Jazz Masters Features page where you will find links to a photo gallery (Images), a couple of interviews (Conversations), as well as the great group picture that was shot at the luncheon at the Hilton Hotel in NYC in January 2004. Only 23 of the 73 Jazz Masters at that time are in that photo. If you’d like to see the complete list of all the Jazz Masters with links to bios and various other goodies for each person (sometimes video clips, discographies, interview clips…), visit the IAJE web site, here for the first 73, here for the seven awarded in 2005.
P.S. For those of you in the Los Angeles area, soon-to-be Jazz Master John Levy will be the guest Friday evening (October 21th – 8 PM) at the World Stage for the second of this Fall’s World Stage Stories events in Leimert Park (4344 Degnan Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90008 | one block east of Crenshaw, north of Vernon between 43rd Place and 43rd Street |
FREE AND AMPLE PARKING!).
P.P.S. New Yorkers, save the date Thursday, November 10th, 6:30 pm-8:00 pm — John will be he guest of the Jazz Museum in Harlem for one of their Harlem Speaks events (104 E. 126th Street
New York, N.Y. 10035 | admission is free, for reservations call the museum at 212.348.8300).
Thank you to Doug Ramsey a/k/a Rifftides, for introducing me (here) to An Overgrown Path . I may be late to the party, but no less appreciative of the fine sensibilities displayed there. I particularly enjoy the way many of the postings end:
If you enjoyed this post take an overgrown path to ____
The Monday October 10th post, Journey with Jack Reilly , led me to Michel Petrucciani. I knew Michel fairly well, wrote his press bio for Blue Note many years ago, hung out with him and his lady at the Grammy Awards one year, and still enjoy listening to his recordings, including a trio album that was not mentioned along the path – Power of Three features Michel, Jim Hall and Wayne Shorter live at the 1986 Montreux Jazz Festival. If memory serves, it made it to #2 on Billboard’s chart of Top Jazz Albums. The CD appears to be out of print (I saw some used ones at amazon.com), but the DVD is available at Tower, still my store of choice (if you do not know why, read this).
And speaking of Wayne Shorter, I really really need to make time to read Footprints, the Shorter biography by Michelle Mercer. It got lots of rave reviews from critics as well as from friends of Wayne. Deep In A Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker by colleague James Gavin is also newly added to my reading pile as it was a birthday gift from drummer Michael Stephans.
Did you ever notice that along the left side, in the fourth box down, there are category links that allow you to filter my blog posts. I’ve just added a new category called Quotables, so you can jump to my own DevraDoWrite mini-collection of sayings and quotations. Here’s the second one from Enjoy the Journey (the first one was here):
Know the value of time;
snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it.
— Lord Chesterfield
At noon today I will be renewing my acquaintance with Ken Page, a wonderful actor who won a Theatre World Award for his role as Nicely-Nicely Johnson in an all-black revival of Guys and Dolls — and that was his Broadway debut.
Ken’s credits include his role in the original cast of Ain’t Misbehavin (garnering a Drama Desk award), and the role of “Old Deuteronomy” in both New York and London productions of Cats.
I’ve read that he auditioned for Ain’t Misbehavin because a friend of his told him that he looked a lot like Fats Waller; today I’ll find out if that’s true. But mostly, we’ll be talking about Luther Henderson, and how Luther, with choreographer Arthur Faria and the five cast members, envisioned that show.
‘Style’ Gets New Elements is the headline from an article in today’s The New York Times. Just a few years short of its fiftieth birthday, Strunk and White’s enduring rule book, Elements of Style, a thin little paperback packed with text, has become a book of visual art with accompanying music.
In the new clothbound edition, Ms. Kalman’s whimsical paintings are sprinkled through the text, often responding to the wry or quirky examples the authors chose to enliven what might otherwise have been a dry discussion of grammatical rules.
Maira Kalman also envisioned music, so she turned to a young Julliard graduate, Nico Muhly, who has written an “Elements of Style” song cycle which will premiere tonight at 8 PM in the Rose Main Reading Room of the New York Public Library (Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street).
The vocal writing is cast in a distinctly early-music style, the textures as pure and pared down as Strunk and White liked their sentences.
If I were in New York City tonight, that’s where I’d be.