#saxophonist! virgil

[brookstonalmanac]

Birthdays 11.15

Beer Birthdays

Carry Nation; temperance nut job, terrorist (1846)

Gustave Pabst (1866)

Bob Leggett (1953)

Five Favorite Birthdays

Poul Anderson; writer (1926)

Christina Applegate; actor (1971)

Paul Desmond; jazz saxophonist (1924)

P.D. Eastman; writer (1909)

Virgil Thomson; composer (1896)

Famous Birthdays

Nat Adderley; trumpet player (1931)

Alice Ambrose; philosopher and logician (1906)

Winthrop Ames; director and screenwriter (1870)

Karl Benz; German engineer, inventor (1844)

Marc Brown; author and illustrator (1946)

Alfred Capus; French journalist, author, and playwright (1858)

Andrew Carnegie; businessman (1835)

Cris Carter; Minnesota Vikings WR (1965)

Katie Cassidy; actres (1986)

Chris Claremont; English-American author (1950)

Gail Collins; journalist and author (1945)

Kathryn Crosby; actress and singer (1933)

Maurice Denis; French painter (1870)

Bucky Dent; New York Yankess SS (1951)

Lope de Vega; Spanish playwright and poet (1562)

Joe DiMaggio; New York Yankees OF (1914)

Lars Eighner; author (1948)

Takayo Fischer; actress and singer (1932)

Jill Flint; actress (1977)

Roelof Frankot; Dutch painter and photographer (1911)

Shelagh Fraser; English actress (1920)

Mark Frost; author and screenwriter (1953)

Kate Gleason; engineer (1865)

Amy Grant; pop singer (1960)

Harley Granville-Barker; British actor and director (1877)

Franz Xaver Gruber; Austrian organist and composer (1787)

Charlaine Harris; author and poet (1951)

Jill Hennessy; Canadian actor (1968)

Stephanie Hsu; actress (1990)

Jeffrey Hunter; actor (1926)

Ilja Hurník; Czech composer and playwright (1922)

Ba Jin; Chinese writer (1904)

Albert Henry Krehbiel; painter and illustrator (1873)

John Larriquette; actor (1947)

Bob Lind; singer-songwriter and guitarist (1942)

Peg Lynch; actress and screenwriter (1916)

Donovan McNabb; Philadelphia Eagles QB (1976)

Ricardo Montalban; actor (1920)

Lenny Moore; Baltimore Colts HB (1933)

Bill Morrissey; singer-songwriter (1951)

Patrick Nagel; artist, illustrator (1945)

Noel Neill; actress (1920)

Herschel Savage; porn actor (1952)

Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck; English author and activist (1778)

Ernst Schröder; German mathematician (1841)

Jean-François Séguier; French astronomer and botanist (1703)

Percy Sledge; pop singer (1941)

Laurence Stallings; writer (1894)

Ben Stein; speechwriter, actor, creationist wingnut (1944)

Edward Traisman; invented Cheez Whiz, freezing process for McDonald’s fries (1915)

Woody Woodpecker; cartoon (1940)

Alexis Wright; Australian author (1950)

Takaaki Yoshimoto; Japanese poet and philosopher(1924)

[imaginationstimulation]

Amiri Baraka’s Life-Changing Jazz Writing

By Richard Brody

January 14, 2014

I owe the late Amiri Baraka an apology, and I wish that he were here for me to tell him. A few years ago, posting about the ten books about movies that changed my life, I added a few books that aren’t about movies but that changed the way I thought about them. But I neglected to place on that list the book that, long before I had any interest in movies, definitively set for me the template for critical writing and engagement: Baraka’s book “Black Music,” a collection of his essays about modern jazz that were written between 1959 and 1967 (and that he published as LeRoi Jones).

For me, jazz started with the moderns—with “Out There,” a record by one crucial, short-lived modern, Eric Dolphy. That enthusiasm quickly engendered others. Thanks to liner notes to these records, which mentioned like-minded musicians, I started listening to John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, Archie Shepp, and the musicians in their circles—and Baraka was my Virgil, my guide into the nuances of the music that obsessed me. He wrote the greatest liner notes I knew, for the thrilling live album “The New Wave in Jazz,” which I listened to with wild veneration long before I had even heard of a New Wave in movies. (Those notes are included in the book, and Baraka organized the concert that he annotated there.)

In “Black Music,” Baraka wrote with ecstasy—highly informed and intricate—about ecstatically complex music. He also revealed literary and philosophical substance in it that gave form to my inchoate experience. I learned a lot about musical form and its affect from Baraka, as when he wrote, of John Coltrane, “Not only does one seem to hear each note and sub-tone of a chord being played, but also each one of those notes shattered into half and quarter tones,” and, also, “It is like a painter who instead of painting a simple white, paints all the elemental pigments that the white contains, at the same time as the white itself.” Baraka could discuss Coltrane’s most famous recording with sophisticated love and then add, “The frighteningly limited scale of ‘My Favorite Things’ is Ancient Musik to Coleman and Taylor.” He wrote with a wide-ranging erudition, tracing influences within the history of jazz and comparing them with the lineages of other art forms. And he tossed off phrases that distilled music into lyrical language, as when he said, of the alto saxophonist John Tchicai, that “his phrasing at times reminds one of Mondrian’s geometrical decisions,” and described his playing as a “metal poem.”

The chapters in “Black Music” are occasional pieces—magazine articles and liner notes, written under the pressure of circumstances and tied to the moment—and the immediacy of experience comes through as a central part of the music itself. Baraka spent lots of time listening to live music, in clubs uptown and downtown and in the new scene of coffeehouse and loft concerts, which began in the sixties. (In the seventies, I savored the big boom of these venues and lamented their flameout.) His report on Thelonious Monk detailed the musician’s epochal six-month run with John Coltrane at the Five Spot, in 1957, and his return to the club with a new quartet featuring Charlie Rouse. His profile of the drummer Roy Haynes (who is still performing, at the age of eighty-eight) is deep with the daily cares of music-making—earning a living, dealing with the press and the public, fighting traffic to arrive on time for a gig—and with the rise of an original musical voice within a tradition and, for that matter, a career.

The life at the core of the book, which runs like a through-line from beginning to end, is the one that’s encapsulated in the very title, and it was a life that was very different from my own. Growing up nearly color-blind in nearly all-white neighborhoods, I thought of the blackness of the musicians I loved as an interesting coincidence; Baraka taught me that the music emerged from the specific experiences of blacks in America. He opens the book with the essay “Jazz and the White Critic,” which begins, “Most jazz critics have been white Americans, but most important jazz musicians have not been.” He specifically blamed the white critic—and, I understood, the white listener, such as myself—for the

Of course, when I read Dostoyevsky, Rousseau, and Plato, I knew that I was also reading books that arose from experiences utterly alien to mine—but the czar, the king, and the jury faced in those books were equally alien to me, whereas, when it came to black American life, my own implication in the conflict was inescapable. By virtue of my birth, I was on the wrong side of that fight, and yet it seemed utterly normal to me, as a white middle-class fifteen-year-old, who felt oppressed by the very comforts for which his parents struggled and by the proprieties they taught, to identify with the struggle and with the music’s spirit of liberation. Free jazz was, for me, more rock and roll than rock and roll, the ultimate headbanger music that brought philosophy to the spirit of anarchy and deep loam to the prefab rootlessness of the postwar suburb. Yet what I sought liberation from was also an inescapable part of myself, which is why Baraka’s sublime concluding flourish in the notes to “The New Wave in Jazz” spoke deeply to me: “New Black Music is this: Find the self, then kill it.” The notion seemed a most self-assertive self-abnegation, a step toward creating another, more desirable self—which was pretty much what I had in mind.

Baraka wrote early on about the power of popular black music—of Dionne Warwick, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, and, especially, James Brown—and his vision, from 1966, of “The Rhythm and Blues mind blowing evolution of James-Ra and Sun-Brown” was utterly prescient of musical history and of my own pleasures, forecasting the plugging in and amping up of Miles Davis, most famously with “Bitches Brew.” (I listened most often to his recording “In Concert” made during a show at the Philharmonic.) Above all, Baraka—who, of course, was a poet—wrote criticism like a poet; the arm’s-length didactic authority of journalistic discourse was not for him. He was a bardic theorist who gave a musical language to music, artistic language to the experience of art.

Then came the lyric. One of the records he recommended in the brief discography at the end of his book was one of the few that featured the elusive Tchicai: an LP of the New York Art Quartet in which the saxophonist was joined by the trombonist Roswell Rudd, the bassist Lewis Worrell, and the percussionist Milford Graves, along with, on one track, Baraka himself (who, I think, was identified on the cover as Jones), reciting his poem “Black Dada Nihilismus” to accompaniment by Worrell and Graves.

His even-toned, urgent incantations got my attention as a kind of spoken-word music, but the words got my attention, too. When he referred to “the ugly silent deaths of Jews under the surgeon’s knife, to awake on Sixty-ninth Street with money and a hip nose”—well, these were my suburbs he was talking about, the nose jobs that were common coin in our realm, the money that, having not earned it, I could easily disdain. It echoed a line from “Portnoy’s Complaint”: “Ma, you want to see physical violence done to the Jews of Newark, go to the office of the plastic surgeon where the girls get their noses fixed.”

The lyrical force of his meditations was punctuated by the line “Rape the white girls, rape their fathers, cut the mothers’ throats.” The slogan of the quartet’s record label, ESP-Disk—“You Never Heard Such Sounds in Your Life”—was never more truthful. I hadn’t read (or, for that matter, looked for) discussions of these lines in the wider press. I got why they seemed unexceptionable: not for a moment did I think that Baraka was advocating such actions, not even when, toward the end, he speaks of “the murders we intend”; I was certain that he was speaking metaphorically, looking for the strongest possible image to signify the radical changes that the woeful state of American race relations demanded, the rage arising from unredressed injustice. Whether he hoped for such things was beside the point; it was enough that he could imagine them for something to silently shatter within me—the naïve belief that identities were infinitely malleable, experiences infinitely transmissible, philosophies infinitely reconcilable. There were uglinesses out there that I couldn’t fathom, not even by reading about them; in their horror I sensed, above all, a documentary element—in the lives of those who made the music I loved, there was experience that went far beyond my pleasures, my desires, my imaginings, and it wasn’t necessarily experience I wanted to have, experience of a cold and hard world out there and an agonized world within. Virgil did guide Dante, even to the last ring of Hell.

Photograph: Serge Cohen/Cosmos/Redux

[stars-and-rose]

marching/concert band! au: boys with crushes

basically,, I just went through band camp and gained inspiration for this au! also i just love it. so i wrote some cute little shippy scenes,, but it’s basically admitting they have crushs,, not a confession scene. yet. so have some band au! prinxiety and logicality minifics!! note, these take place in their junior year, so patton isn’t drum major yet- he’s drum captain,, and roman and logan aren’t heads yet!

----

Virgil adjusted the pin on his strap, glaring up at the sun as if he could prevent it from admitting heat. As much as he loved band, marching the same sets over and over in the burning sun wasn't his favorite pastime. He could practically feel his eyeshadow melting off, and his arms felt gross from the sunscreen he'd piled on. His water bottle was thankfully cool. It wasn't as cold as he would have liked, but it would do. Virgil took off the cap and chugged the water. Around him, the rest of tenors sat in the grass, enjoying the short water break before Thomas would order them all back into set zero. The band was getting the show down quicky. Sound-wise, there were some issues, but the marching was going nicely. Maybe that was because the tenor section had only gained two freshmen. Patton and Roman had complained at lunch about the ridiculous amounts of percussionists and flutists that had joined this year, but Virgil's section had gotten lucky. Speaking of the two freshmen, they were sitting next to him, talking loudly about cute guys. Virgil listened idly, deciding the girls had a decent taste in boys. Then, he heard, "You know the flute's assistant section leader? "Oh man, he's hot." "I know right? He's got really pretty eyes. I heard he plays lacrosse and is in choir too!" Alright, the girls had great taste, but that wasn't going to work. "Back off." Both girls whipped their heads around to look at him, confusion glowing in their eyes. "Huh?" "He doesn't know it yet, but Roman? He's mine." Virgil allowed himself to feel smug for a few seconds before he heard a familiar voice yell. "Yes! Virgil Tempest you amazing boy you just earned me twenty bucks!" It was Virgil's time to whip his head around. The head section leader of the tenor's, a boy named Joey, was grinning like a manic. "Cathy is going to lose her mind knowing you admitted it first!" "What? What are you talking about- did you make a bet on me? About what?" Virgil demanded. Ignoring the raging equipment manager, Joey yelled across the field, "Cat, I want my twenty!" There was silence for a few seconds before the flute's head section leader let out a groan. "Damn it Roman I had my faith in you, you shit!" ------- Logan slammed down the top of the printer, clicking the go button as he spun around. The other librarians were running around the library. It was the last game of the year- yet it seemed half of the band managed to lose their music. They had to leave for a neighboring high school in less than an hour, and Logan had arrived early to start the copying process. Even with the early start, they had only begun to make a dent. This year's head librarian, a girl named Leah, groaned from her spot at the paper cutter. "I've got an idea. We kill the entire band." The other assistant, a clarinetist named Theo, nodded their head from their position on the floor. "Perfect. You get brass, I'll get woodwinds, we'll team up to get percussion, and Logan will keep us out of jail." "Of course you make me the brains of your half-hazard homicide plots. Besides, you are afraid of blood Leah." She rolled her eyes, turning away from the paper cutter and almost knocking over the plant sitting on the edge of the table. Theo gasped. "You almost killed Roger! You'd break Patton's heart!" Speak of the devil. The drum captain entered the library, holding a bag from Lottie's. "Why are we breaking my heart?" "Leah almost knocked over the plant you bought," Logan explained with a small smile. Patton gasped. "I trusted you with Roger. Don't make me take him off you!" Theo snorted. "Is there a reason you're here, Pat? Love you, but hell is breaking loose in here." "Oh! Now I feel bad. I brought Logan some Crofter's cookies from Lottie's and some made him some coffee." As he spoke, Patton handed Logan the bag he was holding. Logan opened it, revealing wrapped jam cookies and his favorite galaxy coffee mug, warm to the touch. Leah and Theo shared a look. "Oh, it's okay, Pat." "We promise we're fine." "Oh, okay! If you say so. I gotta round up drumline." As soon as Patton was out of sight, Logan pulled a flashcard out of his pocket, cheeks burning. "I guess you would say I have a 'crush'." --------- "Oh man, I can't believe that was real." Patton smiled at the sophomore next to him. Michael still had a dreamlike look on his face, even though they had left All-State Orchestra four hours ago. In the front seat, Thomas chuckled. "You both did incredibly. I can't believe I got to take two kids to All States. Then, I get to take three to All-State Jazz, and Millie has two she's taking to All-State Choir." Patton nodded. "Virgil and Roman have been talking about it. I don't think I've seen Virgil without him humming his audition piece, and Roman's drunk before green tea in the past week than he has his entire life." Michael nodded. "I bet. How you'd like All States?" "Oh, it was so much fun! Though, my arm hurts." Thomas snorted. "That's to be expected. Your solo sounded amazing, Pat." Patton winced. "I almost missed the Director cueing me in." "It happens." Thomas turned the car onto a familiar street. "We're almost at the school. I love you guys but please make sure you have rides ready, and get your bags. We've got school tomorrow and we all need to be well-rested. "My dad told me he's already at the school," Michael replied. "What about you, Pat?" "My older sister told me I'd have a ride waiting for me." "Which Lark child will I be seeing tonight?" Thomas asked. "No idea!" After Thomas pulled into the school, Micheal giggled. "None. Look, Patton." Patton glanced out the window, and a grin formed on his face. Logan, wrapped in a blue overcoat held a sign reading, "Congratulation, Patton, ' in his beautiful cursive. His cheeks were flushed from the night, and when he met Patton's gaze, he offered a soft smile. "Boys." Patton breathed. "I think I'm in love." ------- "Huh. All of your notes are right." Evelyn practically chucked her flute into her lap. "This is hopeless! It's the end of me. I'm buying a plane ticket and flying to Idaho and becoming a potato farmer." Roman rolled his eyes. "Hey, I'm the drama queen of this section. You'll get it, Eve. Thomas wouldn't have given you the solo if he didn't think you could." "Can you play it again?" She asked, glaring at the sheet music. Roman raised his flute to his lips, closing his eyes. He'd played these measures multiple times with Evelyn, and playing was easier if he wasn't staring at his music. The soft melody filled the air. Then, Evelyn groaned. "You play it much better." Roman lower his instrument. "Maybe you're not putting enough feeling into it?" "What?" "Well, it's a ballad. A love story. A song about lovers who have finally reunited after a long war and are falling into each other's arms." "Yeah, Mr. Sanders told us that when he passed out the piece." "Pretend you're playing it for your girlfriend," Roman suggested. "Put all the passion into the piece, as if you were the soldier returning to their love." "Huh." Evelyn nodded. "Is that what you do?" "Yeah." "You're single though, right? Then who are you playing it for?" "Mmm. I imagine I'm seeing Virgil after he's been gone for years. I play it for him." "So, you finally admit you have the hots for Virgil? Took you long enough! Cathy is going to rage that she wasn't around to hear it." "Wait, huh? Eve you bitch! Get back here!"

[bobrosenbaum]

Billy Harper, The Jazz Center, New York, 1982.

Billy Harper has the only tenor voice that, for me, attains the intensity of John Coltrane while retaining complete independence of thought and execution.

His appearance on the New York scene from the early 1970s felt like a natural extension of Coltrane's own musical statements, as well as those of McCoy Tyner's groups around that time. Billy was also boosted by memorable early partnerships with Gil Evans, Art Blakey, Max Roach and Randy Weston, to name just a few.

A seminal composer as well as a virtuoso saxophonist, Billy's music is infused with a powerful rhythmic swing, bone-level energy, and an ability to draw from the ancient sources for Black American music.

The first time I heard Billy, I was devastated, uplifted, astonished, unhinged, overjoyed, destroyed, recreated. His playing still reminds me today that even as a committed and devoted listener of this music and a veteran wordsmith, I'm incapable of composing words that describe it.

What Billy plays is so far beyond words, and all that. It's prayer.

In performance, one senses that his bands are pushing the edge of this art form right alongside him. To really hear where Billy is coming from, you need to experience one of his early milestones, Call of the Wild and Peaceful Heart from Black Saint, his 1975 breakthrough album. Together with pianist Joe Bonner, trumpeter Virgil Jones, bassist David Friesen on drummer Malcolm Pinson, he created a sound that merged all of the Black musical streams that were happening into a rich, pulsing wonder.

And there's Priestess, from Love on the Sudan in 1977, which has since become a classic tenor showpiece.

With time of course, Billy's playing has mellowed. But his projects remain huge -- like this full orchestra and choir performance of The Light Within, shot in a church in from Poland in 2004.

In strong contrast with the fierceness of his playing, Billy possesses a quiet cordiality on stage, and in person, that perhaps is the real reason he succeeds time and again in bringing all sorts of players together, spiritually as well as artistically.

We're fortunate that Billy is as hard working as he is gifted, and that he remains an influential, innovative leader and teacher. In recent years, Billy has been a key partner in The Cookers, a supergroup of jazz veterans that is constantly traveling, recording, and bringing this music to a broader listening.

And Billy was born on this day in 1943!

[stroccospoetry]

Broadcast for July 4

Today’s broadcast features Cat Tyc from her reading at People's Park in Albany on September 19, 2020. The second half features a group of poems selected for July 4th with Amiri Baraka, Allen Ginsberg, Michael Ruby, and Walt Whitman.

Tune-in on WCAA-LP in Albany, Sundays at 11am and Thursdays (Wednesday night) at 2am. Also available to Pacifica affiliates around the world via Audioport.

Here is our Independence Day playlist, with links to recordings and more information.

Michael Ruby, O America

Walt Whitman, I hear America Singing

Allen Ginsberg, America

Allen Ginsberg, HUM BOM

Amiri Baraka, Somebody Blew Up America

Michael Ruby, America's Overseas Military Bases

Michael Ruby's The Star-Spangled Banner is a collection of poems that spans the 15-year arc from 9/11/2001 to 11/9/2016. Ruby began the book in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, when he saw people freely using U.S. national symbols for their own political purposes, and he decided to do the same thing for poetic purposes. Every poem in the book uses the 81 words of the national anthem and inserts words into the spaces between them. Recordings of Michael Ruby reading from the book are available on Penn Sound. This set begins with O America and ends with America's Overseas Military Bases read by Michael Ruby.

The second recording comes from the Whitman Archive: a 36-second wax cylinder recording thought to be Walt Whitman's voice reading four lines from the poem "America".

Allen Ginsberg's America is Beat canon, written in Berkeley in 1956 and published in Ginsberg's collection, Howl and Other Poems. This recording is from the "Big Table Chicago Reading" which was a benefit for a newly-established magazine called Big Table, born as a result of the flagrant censorship of the student magazine, the Chicago Review.

Ginsberg's Hum Bom is a poem that grew and evolved over time, revised in response to new imperial misadventures. Ginsberg wrote the first section in May 1971, and it was published in his 1972 City Light's collection, The Fall Of America. This extended version was published in Cosmopolitan Greetings 1994 and was recorded by Chris Funkhouser on 22 April 1994, at Columbia-Greene Community College in Hudson, New York.

The legendary Amiri Baraka visited Troy in 2009 to read his poem "Somebody Blew Up America". The poem briefly quotes Hum Bom within its 243 anti-imperial lines.  Saxophonist Rob Brown accompanied Mr. Baraka for this reading, part of the the "Free Jazz at the Sanctuary" series, recorded live on February 21, 2009 at The Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy, New York. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUEu-pG1HWw

As Michael Leong has written,

Written in response to the 9/11 attacks, Baraka’s poem is an anti-epic—a text not about the formation of a nation, as Virgil’s Aeneid, but about the destruction of one; it is a scathing and sarcastic jeremiad that denounces the abuse of power against the oppressed, both domestic and abroad.

[logicalyfun]

May we play

Musician au

Characters: Patton, Logan, Roman, Virgil

This is the first LAMP ive ever made, have mercy on me :)

Sorry for bad grammar :)))

Thanks to @stop-it-anxiety for beta reading

This is a concept and idea ive had in mind for sometime now. Wanted to do this and see how it would turn out, hope you enjoy it :)

_________

'C,D,A,F,'

Logan chanted on him mind as he played the violin piece infront of him. So lost in the music, the feeling of the strings under his finger tips. It was a slow piece he was playin, obviously classical although he sometimes didn't like classical that much. But his mom made him play classical music from Paganini to Mozart to Chopin and so much more.He smiles as he played the last note of the paper. He had to practice more if he really wanted to be a good musician. A yes being in an orchestra, in the violin section, now that-.His thought were interrupted by one of his roommates, Patton. That bubbly saxophonist didn't even play classical, he just played whatever they gave him but most likely jazz, which in a way made his curious of that music style."Hey Logan what you up to""Just practicing some classical pieces, the usual".

"Boring, come on you know theres more to play, how about un poco de salsa o plena" said his other roommate called Roman. He was hispanic which you dont see around these areas sometimes. Hes pretty dramatic, is in a drama club and also plays the trumpet. They match, they are both pretty loud and both together pretty amazing.

Logan titled his head in confusion. "What is all that, some classical music I've never heard of" Logan said still confused

Patton and Roman eyes widen, "wait you dont know what those genre is" Roman said with a surprise voice. Logan shrugged and said no.

"Well you only know classical, how about we show you the rest" Patton said.

"I can't I need to practice, i dont have time for silly games"

"But you have time for word association game don't you" Patton said.

"Dont you dare mess with my favorite game"

Roman meanwhile had an idea. "Say Logan how about we take you to the music room and there we can show you what do yo-"" Roman i told you i dont have tim-""But you can practice there too" Logan stopped and thought about it. He did want to learn more about music and he had to admit that it was getting kinda boring just playing classical so..

"Alright ill go, just lets do this quick" Logan said grabbing the violin suitcase and following to Patton and Roman who was talking to someone via phone call.

As they opened the music room, Logan saw some big and small cases, some drums and percussion around and a piano. He had been here but only for a short amount of time.

"Roman took you long enough to get here" and there appeared Logan third roommate, Virgil. Virgil was pretty dark and had his ways but also very dedicated to his instruments. He played guitar, drums and some wind instruments.

"Virge, its an emergency! Specs here doesn't know any other genre other than classical, and we are here to show him some songs" Roman said taking his trumpet out.

"Well i have some suggestion, may i go first" Patton said with his alto saxophone in his hands. Roman and Virgil nod and sit down on some chairs.

"Okay Logan im gonna play a song, if you want you can join or any of you can join" and there he started, going slowly and having a bit of a sway to it. Play every dinamic and note making it sound beautiful. Logan got his violin out and listen closely to Patton and he started playing with him

"Oh i love this song,

"Fly me to the moon

Let me play among the stars

Let me see what spring is like on

Jupiter and Mars

In other words, hold my hand

In other words, baby, kiss me"

Patton and Logan playing together with Roman singing and Virgil adding a bit of percussion. They were magnificent, Logan couldn't believe what he heard, he actually enjoyed playing it.

"In other words, please be true

In other words

I love you"

"I must say that was... good, pretty average" Logan said "and Pat i didn't know you played Jazz so good"

"Well yea, Jazz music is one of the biggest reasons I play the saxophone, it my favorite genre" he said smiling at Logan.

"I see that what Jazz music sounds like, I like it"

"Oh and we are just starting, te tocare una bolero, it one of my favorite, Virgil.."

Strumming, slow and gentle playing just before the trumpet started playing play. A slow melody not to loud or low just perfect. He swayed with the rhythm of the song.

"Besame,

besame mucho

Como si fuera esta noche

la ultima vez,"

Romans voice, so soft and slow made Logan start swaying at the rhythm of the music.

"Wanna dance" Patton extended his hand which Logan accepted.

Swaying together with the trumpet and guitar in the background. He was starting to enjoy more and more all that he was doing.

"Besame, besame mucho

Que tengo miedo a perderte

Perderte después"

"So what ya think, still prefer common classical" Patton said still dancing with him.

"I mean classical is what i live for, but this is something new in a way, but I won't let classical go that fast" he said smiling and giving Patton a spin. Patton giggled and continued dancing.

And as they stopped dancing, Roman played the last note that concluded the song.

"I am very impressed Roman"Logan said. "Well it nothin-"" I cant believe you dont always play forte, I mean i am impressed" Logan said smiling at a annoyed Roman.

"Okay okay my turn, im gonna play more of a latin pop as you could say song" Virgil said connecting his guitar.

Latin pop? Logan though, now that was something he had barely heard of. And it was starting with a rapid pace, moving his fingers so quickly and yet made an astonish rhythm.

"Para bailar La Bamba

Para bailar La Bamba

Se necessita una poca de gracia

Una poca de gracia"

Virgil and Patton sang in unison.

Such genre, was so different and made you body just fill with adrenalin, an amazing feeling he had never felt before.

"I see someone is enjoy""well actually yes, this is turning out better than i expected, Roman i wasnt sure what type of music i was gonna hear today, i wasnt even that exited" Logan said looking at Roman.

"Well, I can't blame ya, i used to only play the same stuff over and over again, it was nice i guess but I didnt feel like i enjoyed it as much. When u found out about this genre, sin mentirte me encanto, i love it and decide from now on to keep discovering new music" Roman said.

"Remember Lo, don't stay in the same place forever, embrace yourself, open youre wing and find new thing that are awaiting you" Virgil said. Logan never notice when they stopped playin but he still had the rhythm of the song in repeat.

"But I don't have wings. I dont know where to start" Logan said.

"Hey Logie, remember one step at a time and everything will be okay. Plus will be here with you if you need us" Patton said smiling and hugging him.

"Say i do have one last song called Conga, would be pretty cool to play" Roman said looking at Virgil and Patton.

For Logan it seemed like they had talk telepathically because they all just grabbed their instrument and some papers.

"A one, two and one two.."

"PA DA DAM" was the first thing Logan heard coming from his rommates. Blasting like rhythm that was sure to make you move and dance. He wondered what this genre was called. He wanted to join the rhythm so bad but didnt known it on vio-

And thats when he saw it, the piano and there he had an idea. It was worth trying but he wanted to. He sat down in the piano and listen to the rhythm and notes they were playing. Breath in and breath out...

He began playing matching the speed and the song. His finger going fast, feeling the keys under his finger trying not to play them that hard.

"Well ill say.." Patton said looking in awe at Logan as he played.

"Well why stop, come on" Logan said as he kept playing, hearing Roman, Patton and Virgil join.

Logan was enjoy the moment, he never thought he would enjoy doing this and not actually practicing. He loved it actually, the rhythm, the velocity and everything from every song. Logan smiled as he looked at his roommate, who finally open his eyes to new music.

And Logan finally understood what the others meant.

"So Logan we were talking and we wanted to ask, would you like to koin are little band as we call it" Virgil said.

"Why not, I'd love too" Logan said being attacked by hugs from his .. friends, being attacked by his new friends.

[tcm]

Doris Day’s Accidental First Film Role by Jessica Pickens

While some actors have to muddle through bit parts and uncredited roles before they reach stardom, others get lucky enough to land a starring role in their first film. One of those fortunate performers was Doris Day. This may sound like a dream come true, but Day was initially a reluctant movie star. Day started her career in 1939 as a singer for big band leaders such as Les Brown and Bob Crosby, brother of Bing Crosby. 

By 1945, she had her first hit song with “Sentimental Journey,” a tune that resonated during World War II with servicemen and women far away from home. “In a sense, ‘Sentimental Journey’ became the serviceman’s theme song,” Day wrote in her autobiography, Doris Day: Her Own Story.

Before heading back east after a visit to Los Angeles, Day was convinced to attend a party at the home of American songwriter Jule Styne. When everyone started performing songs at the party, Day began to get uneasy. “These people loved singing for each other but I am painfully shy at parties, and particularly shy about performing impromptu,” she wrote. She was convinced to sing the chorus of “Embraceable You.” Styne and his partner Sammy Cahn were so impressed by Day’s rendition of the Gershwin tune, that they helped her land her first film role, as the star of the Warner Bros. musical comedy, ROMANCE ON THE HIGH SEAS (‘48). 

“Acting in films had never so much crossed my mind. I was a singer…” she wrote. “They kept telling me how lucky I was to be testing for the lead in a major musical and how many girls would die to be in my shoes, but I was sitting glumly looking out the window, only half listening.” Day’s attitude was partially due to the fact that she was going through a divorce with George Weidler, a saxophonist and brother of actress Virginia Weidler.

Day wasn’t the first pick for the role. Judy Garland was initially slated to play Georgia Garrett and then Betty Hutton was announced as the lead, but she had to drop out due to pregnancy, according to Day’s autobiography. The plot follows newly married Elvira Kent (Janis Paige) and Michael Kent (Don DeFore), who both suspect each other of infidelity. Georgia Garrett, played by Day, is a nightclub singer and frequents a travel agency planning imaginary trips. Elvira meets Georgia while booking a cruise to South America. She hatches a plan for Georgia to go to South America in her place so she can stay home and spy on her husband. In turn, Michael sends private detective Peter Virgil (Jack Carson) on the cruise to spy on his wife. Georgia, while posing as Elvira, falls for Peter, and Peter thinks he is going to lose his job as he believes he’s falling in love with the boss’s wife. Day was made to resemble Betty Hutton and she was encouraged to sing in Hutton’s signature energetic style during the test.

“But when we shot the scene, I did it my own way,” she wrote. “I instinctively understood something then that was to sustain with me through all the years that followed: to thine own self be true. Don’t imitate.”

After the film became a hit, Day signed a contract with Warner Bros. The film also introduced another hit song for Day, “It’s Magic.” However, it was an adjustment seeing herself on screen as a star. Her personal style was casual and she didn’t like the ultra-glamorous look she had in the film. The character of Georgia Garrett is a fast talking, cigarette smoking, flirtatious nightclub singer. The role is fairly different than Day later played, so it’s delightful to see her with a bit more sass.

Along with the main cast, the movie has top notch character actors, such as S.Z. “Cuddles” Sakall, Oscar Levant and Eric Blore. Paige and Day would later co-star again in PLEASE DON’T EAT THE DAISIES (‘60). Carson starred with Day in her next two films IT’S A GREAT FEELING (‘49) and MY DREAM IS YOURS (‘49).

[projazznet]

Johnny ‘Hammond’ Smith ‎– Love Potion #9 (Full Album)

Love Potion #9 is an album by jazz organist Johnny “Hammond” Smith recorded for the Prestige label in 1966.

“A fairly typical mid-’60s soul-jazz effort by Johnny “Hammond” Smith. This LP (not yet reissued on CD) features Smith performing several current pop tunes – including “A Taste of Honey,” “The Impossible Dream,” “Sunny,” and “The Shadow of Your Smile” – while letting his quintet (which also includes trumpeter Virgil Jones, tenor saxophonist Gene Walker, guitarist Eddie Diehl, and drummer John Harris) stretch out on “Blues on Sunday” and “Up Comes Monday.” Since there is less than half-an-hour of music here and nothing unexpected occurs, this is just an average outing, although it should please jazz organ fans.” – Scott Yanow/AllMusic.

[anisanews]

The power of the people – How Liverpool players and fans forced Henry into Super League U-turn

Thirty-three words, but so much significance. And, to put it bluntly, the kind of strong, forthright leadership that Liverpool’s owners can only dream of right now.

It started a little after 9pm on Tuesday night. One post, then another, then another. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. Jordan Henderson, James Milner, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Andy Robertson, Virgil van Dijk, Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane.

All of them.

Each post was the same, its blood red background accentuating the words which carried such weight, such importance.

“We don’t like it and we don’t want it to happen,” they read. “This is our collective position. Our commitment to this football club and its supporters is absolute and unconditional.

“You’ll Never Walk Alone.”

A few hours later, their club finally spoke. Shortly before 11pm, a statement landed on Liverpool’s official website, confirming that they had “discontinued” their involvement in proposed plans to form a European Super League (ESL).

At the same time, Arsenal, Manchester United and Tottenham followed suit. Manchester City had withdrawn earlier in the day, after Chelsea had confirmed they were preparing to exit.

And with that, the most controversial idea in European football’s recent history was squashed, dead in the water.

Well, for now at least, anyway.

It brings to an end a frenzied 48 hours of talks and briefings, of statements and suggestions, protests and concern. We’ll remember April 2021 alright; a time when football was at war, when the ‘Dirty Dozen’ threatened to tip the domestic, European and international game upside down.

But we’ll also remember the heroes of the piece, those who acted with integrity and courage, who spoke up when it would have been easy to sit in silence and who helped force these clubs, these behemoths, into this most public, most embarrassing of climbdowns.

What is it they say; the power of the people is greater than the people in power?

We have witnessed the power of football’s people this week alright. Its players and its supporters have stood tall. At Liverpool, the backlash was both impressive and immediate.

The club announced its intention to join the Super League just before midnight on Sunday, and within hours its supporters had begun to mobilise. Spion Kop 1906, a prominent Reds fan group, announced they would be removing their iconic flags and banners from inside Anfield.

“We feel we can no longer give our support to a club which puts financial greed above the integrity of the game,” they posted.

Spirit of Shankly, the Liverpool supporters’ union, said they were “appalled” by their club’s involvement, labelling the plans “embarrassing”, “shocking” and “shameless”. At Anfield, some fans hung banners on the gates of the Kop, protesting against the proposed Super League.

On Monday afternoon, Liverpool’s players left their hotel in Leeds city centre and headed out for a short walk, part of their pre-match routine for all away games.

During it, they were confronted by a handful of supporters, who hurled insults. They were called “greedy b*stards” and told to “f*ck off to the Super League”.

Getty Images https://ift.tt/3n8Ggua

This continued when the squad arrived at Elland Road for that evening’s Premier League clash, the team coach greeted by a group of more than 100 fans, some of whom unfurled a banner which read ‘RIP Liverpool – Thanks for the memories’.

In the dressing room, staff found T-shirts bearing the slogan ‘Football is for the fans’ on the back and ‘Earn it’ on the front, together with the UEFA Champions League logo. Leeds’ players wore them while warming up, while outside the ground a saxophonist played the Abba song ‘Money, Money, Money’ on loop as the game got underway.

Afterwards came the first signs that Klopp and his players were prepared to push back against the club’s plans. Klopp told Sky Sports his opinion on a Super League, first stated back in 2019, had not changed, that he was against the idea and that he had not been consulted prior to the story emerging the previous day.

In his post-match press conference, he sought to protect his players, whom he felt had been unfairly targeted, and insisted he would not resign as manager despite his reservations. FSG, he said, were “serious people, reasonable people, who care”, though he did say, pointedly, that “there will be a moment for sure when our owners say what they have to say”.

Then came the players. Milner, unsurprisingly, was the one selected for post-match media duties at Elland Road. “The only one who could be trusted to speak properly,” said one source, and he most certainly did.

“I don’t like it and I don’t want it to happen,” the 35-year-old said, a precursor to the social media posts which would follow on Tuesday.

Tuesday was a day of recovery at Liverpool, but the mood at the club’s Kirkby training ground was tense, and not just because of the points dropped in Yorkshire the previous evening.

The senior players, led by Henderson and Milner, but also Gini Wijnaldum and the influential Van Dijk, spoke regularly throughout the day.

Henderson also contacted the captains of the 19 other Premier League clubs, including those at Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham, to organise a Zoom call for Wednesday, in which players could discuss their feelings on the matter and, more pertinently, formulate their response.

Henderson has taken on that role before. It was he, along with others such as Mark Noble of West Ham, Watford’s Troy Deeney and Manchester United’s Harry Maguire, who took the lead in organising the #PlayersTogether charitable fund last April, which ensured vital funds were distributed to NHS charities during the coronavirus pandemic.

Getty/Goal https://ift.tt/3tMHM84

Henderson’s role in that initiative, one source says, was “immense” and certainly won’t be forgotten. “He was brilliant,” said Wolves skipper Conor Coady.

The same goes for his work here. Liverpool’s players were pretty much unanimous in their opposition to the Super League, and it was their captain, who is currently recovering from a groin operation, who led the way with the co-ordinated statements on Tuesday – although the wording certainly felt like a nod to Milner’s comments the previous night.

And sure enough, the house of cards soon came falling down.

Football clubs, and football club owners, may be hard-nosed, but they know when a battle is beyond them. And when you have the fans against you and the players against you, you’re fighting a losing one.

Manchester City went first, then Arsenal, Tottenham, Manchester United and Liverpool late in the day. The rest of the Super League followers have now started to give in. They all will, eventually. They have no other choice.

John W. Henry, Liverpool’s principal owner, finally apologised on Wednesday morning. “I’ve let you down,” he said, in a two-and-a-half minute video message from Boston. It was the first time the club’s ownership had spoken out. 

In fact, we had heard more from Joel Glazer than Henry on the Reds’ official website up to that point. Work that one out.

We know what the players and the supporters think. They told us, loud and clear.

So here’s to you, Jordan Henderson, James Milner, Jurgen Klopp, Spirit of Shankly, Spion Kop 1906.

Here’s to you Jamie Carragher, Gary Neville, Sir Kenny Dalglish, Everton Football Club, Fulham Football Club, Robbie Fowler, Ander Herrera, Marcus Rashford, Patrick Bamford, Pep Guardiola, Joao Cancelo, Bruno Fernandes, Luke Shaw and all those who spoke out against this.

Without them, the Super League 12 may very well have gotten away with it. It doesn’t bear thinking about, does it?

from Anisa News https://ift.tt/3xdMLkb

[brookstonalmanac]

Birthdays 11.25

Beer Birthdays

Carry Nation; temperance nut job, terrorist (1846)

Gustave Pabst (1866)

Bob Leggett (1953)

Five Favorite Birthdays

Poul Anderson; writer (1926)

Christina Applegate; actor (1971)

Paul Desmond; jazz saxophonist (1924)

P.D. Eastman; writer (1909)

Virgil Thomson; composer (1896)

Famous Birthdays

Karl Benz; German engineer, inventor (1844)

Andrew Carnegie; businessman (1835)

Cris Carter; Minnesota Vikings WR (1965)

Bucky Dent; New York Yankess SS (1951)

Joe DiMaggio; New York Yankees OF (1914)

Amy Grant; pop singer (1960)

Jill Hennessy; Canadian actor (1968)

Ba Jin; Chinese writer (1904)

John Larriquette; actor (1947)

Donovan McNabb; Philadelphia Eagles QB (1976)

Ricardo Montalban; actor (1920)

Lenny Moore; Baltimore Colts HB (1933)

Patrick Nagel; artist, illustrator (1945)

Herschel Savage; porn actor (1952)

Percy Sledge; pop singer (1941)

Laurence Stallings; writer (1894)

Ben Stein; speechwriter, actor, creationist wingnut (1944)

Edward Traisman; invented Cheez Whiz, freezing process for McDonald’s fries (1915)

Woody Woodpecker; cartoon (1940)

[sn0wytheguineapig]

I am not a rad lad 🤣 but thanks for the tag @thevillagerat

Nicknames: cal, band geek, idiot, cow, Virgil

Zodiac: Leo baby!

Height: 5”4

Hogwarts: hufflepuff

Last thing I googled: Sir Duke alto saxophone

Song stuck in my head: BUILD ME UP BUTTERCUP by the foundations

Number of followers: 42

Amount of sleep: 8-10 hours

Lucky number: 25

Dream job: professional Saxophonist

Wearing: virgil sweatshirt and some sweatpants

Favourite song: Build me Up Buttercup by The Foundations

Favourite instrument: S A X O P H O N E or the hurdy gurdy

Favourite author: Clare C. Marshall

Favourite animal noise: wolf or horse. I can do a great impression for both

Aesthetic: black and purple or beautiful blues

Random: I’m the middle child. I got one older brother and a younger brother

I’ll tag these wonderful people @5falsehoods @robinwritesshitposts @enragedbees @metaphysical-human-being @kei2mystic and anyone who wants to do it

thanks for the tag @joyfultimetravelbanana 💜,, I started a new thread bc the other was super long

17 QUESTIONS TO GET TO KNOW ME

Nickname: Cal, Jewboy (I’m Ashkenazi), Leb, Rough pudding

Zodiac: Pisces

Height: 5'6"

Hogwarts: honestly don’t know

Last thing I googled: silverfish

Song Stuck in my head: Cemetary- AViVA

Number of followers: 570

Amount of sleep: usually between 7 and 10 hours

Lucky number: 13

Dream job: teacher but also actor or some kind of entertainer

Wearing: shorts and my bright orange tee that I got to replace the orange tee from camp which got blood on it ://

Favourite Song: maybe little red riding hood? possibly something from the black album or a classic BÖC song. Idk

Favourite instrument: BASS GUITAR BABEY

Favourite Author: My boy Neil

Favourite Animal Noise: the purr that chickens do when u pet them. or that Google parrot that yells TICKLE TICKLE (please search animal noises on Google and find the parrot. you won’t be dissapointed)

Aesthetic: Eboy but slightly more punk

Random: found another spider in my hair

imma tag u guys but feel free to not do it if u don’t wanna- @duskodair @scared-ghosthunter @solicitous-lyo @elvenella @lavender-mochi @justtrashperson @stargazing-squidd @nb-queer

ur meant to tag 17 but I’m gonna tag u 8 and pass out

[stars-and-rose]

Sanders Sides Marching/Concert Band! AU

So about two weeks ago I made a shit post about me procrastinating writing Cursed Kingdom and making a band AU instead.

Well it happened. And I'm highkey living for it.

As for Cursed Kingdom, I'm halfway through writing the next chart! I also have my notes all ready for the next part of Heart Point.

With all that said, enjoy!

Marching/Concert band AU!

Flutist/Head Section Leader! Roman

* The rest of his section are all girls

* And they all (platonically) love Ro

* Freshman year, someone made a bitchy comment about Ro being the only guy and the section leader fucking decked them

* Roman became a section leader junior year and aspires to be as badass as the section leader his freshman year

* Loves marching, but is better at concert

* Like, Ro impressed Thomas with his marching pieces, but damn ask Ro to play fast dramatic or slow passionate concert pieces and he'll steal your heart

* Can also play guitar

* Has been trying to convince Thomas to let him join strings on guitar and Thomas patiently reminds him strings doesn't work like that

* Romans also a choir kid

* Once the band was at a game and the person who was supposed to sing the National anthem got sick and Thomas made Ro do it

* Ro paints his nails before concerts; he loves how the color looks against his flute when he's playing

* The flutes have a tradition where they put glitter on their faces (cheekbones) for football games

* Ro is the best at doing the glitter and all the girls make it do it for them

* Buys his section lunch on the last day of band camp

* Bitches about the tan lines he gets from his flip-folder

* Screamed for a solid ten minutes when he learned they were doing a Disney teamed show sophomore year

* Has made it for regional sand was first alternate for all-states Junior year (he was livid)

* Wears his varsity jacket all the time: he got it freshman year for lacrosse and got band added Junior year and he loves it

* Wants to go for music education and be a high school band/choir director

* Now as a senior, Ro is head section leader and has his hands on the school's singular piccolo (everyone is doomed)

Saxophonist/Equipment Manager! Virgil

* Virgil can play alto, tenor and barry sax with the same ease, but prefers tenor

* He has a little storm cloud pin on his saxophone strap

* His section is relatively small and he likes it that way

* Virgil helped so much with getting people's instruments on the truck and lugging cases around, Thomas gave him to the position of equipment manager halfway though sophomore marching season

* Once, some left their trombone on the truck and it was ten o'clock at night and Vee wanted to go home so he stormed into the band room and screamed "WHOEVER'S TROMBONE IS ON THE TRUCK THEY BETTER COME FUCKING GET IN BEFORE I SHOVE THEIR SLIDE UP THEIR ASS!"

* Safe to say that everyone was very careful about getting their instruments off the truck afterwards

* Virgil's speciality is Jazz

* Improv? Virgil can blow your mind. All his anxieties seem to vanish when he plays

* Expect for during auditions

* His first audition, he had a panic attack in the room and had to leave

* Thomas fought tooth and nail for Virgil to be able to audition again and stayed in the room with Vee during the audition to prevent another attack

* Made all-State jazz Junior year

* Also plays piano

* Once told everyone he wrote a song and proceeded to go up to the piano and angrily smash buttons and then bowed and said thank you

* Everyone thought he was for real and it was an actual, extremely Improvised, song

* Virgil wears his Letterman once in a blue moon, he prefers his hoodies. His Letterman only has band because physical activity? G r o s s

* Always has sunscreen/bug spray during band Camp because he burns so easily and bug bites eww

* Learned a bunch of meme songs and can play them by heart

* Wants to go for Music Therapy

* Senior year, Virgil head Equipment manager and has two sophomore helpers

Trumpeter/Head Librarian! Logan

* Logan has a fucking gift he's always in tune like h o w

* He's always loud you, can always hear him play

* Thomas- "Whoa guys who hit that A?"/"Who missed that note a fumbled for a measure?"

* The whole ass trumpet section- "LOGAN"

* Logan became assistant librarian as a sophomore

* He convinced the head librarian and Thomas to let him redo the library and he went wild

* Gets pissy went people keep losing music "God damn it Rebecca I got you a copy of this yesterday."

* The freshman make Virgil/Roman or (usually) Patton go get music for them because Logan scares them shitless

* His flip folder is so organized, he always can get to the right song within ten seconds flat

* Always on step. A l w a y s.

* Like everyone checks his feet to see if they're on step; the band has a conspiracy that Logan is a robot- because its impossible to be that onstep 24/7

* Plays French horn for concert

* He would play trumpet for concert but there's a single French horn and Thomas needs a section

* For districts, he dual auditions on both instruments

* He's better at trumpet but since there's like five French horns he makes it on French horn every year, made regions Junior year

* Spends most of band camp in the library because 1) lets get all the music we'll ever need copied and 2) air conditioning

* The best at Music Theory

* Only wears his Letterman at festivals, he claims its so the others can find him but it's really because he's smug. Also has track on it because Lo’s a firm believer that exercise is good for your brain

* Wants to study the effects of music on the human brain

* As senior, he runs the library and has a junior and sophomore helper

Percussionist/ Drum major! Patton

* Everyone loves Patton; he's the nicest drum major they've ever had

* The freshman all flock to him

* Walks around to all the sections, offering any help he can

* Always carries water around in case someone needs it, especially during parades

* Once, someone passed out during Band Camp due to dehydration. Patton angrily lectured the entire band about the importance if drinking water. There was a PowerPoint involved.

* Patton pep talks the band before every performance

* Before becoming drum major, Patton played snare drum for marching

* You bet your bottom dollar that he had light-up drumsticks (they exist I promise)

* He wrote a cadence sophomore year, the percussion section performs it all the time

* Has a journal filled with music-related puns

* Sometimes lets Roman glitter his face, the flute section has highkey adopted Patton as an honorary member

* For concert, Patron plays Mallets

* He also plays violin

* He also dual auditions for districts on violin and mallets

* Makes regional band on mallets, and all-state orchestra on violin

* His violin case has stickers all over it. Right near the handle is a crown, a lightning bolt, a book and a heart sticker- it reminds him of his friends all eases his nerves before auditions

* Has a scrapbook of all is band memories, he started it in freshman year

* Wears his Letterman at games- it's a size to big (he ordered it that way on purpose), because it's really warm

* Wants to become a composer

* Currently as a senior, head drum major with an assistant who's a junior. I really just love drum major Patton let me have this

Band Director! Thomas

* 10/10 stressed

* It's his fifth year directing the school's band

* Honestly he loves the boys

* They're probably his most talented players

* HE JUST WISHES THEY STOPPED GIVING HIM HEART ATTACKS ON A DAILY BASIS

[isthisjazz]

Fall Is Upon Us

With plenty of music to come: As we enter into the final stretch of our 2017, we'd like to reiterate our thanks for everyone who has been coming out to support this series and the fantastic musicians we've been proud to host. It has been a great year of new faces and sounds, and we look forward to seeing you all over the next couple months to close out the year in style!

On October 6th we’ll be headed back to AS220 for the next installment of our bimonthly Friday concert series. Headlining the night we have Boston based ensemble NoMad Stories. Band leader Kelly Shepherd is a creative and experienced saxophonist who has shared the stage with jazz luminaries such as Curtis Fuller, Cecil McBee, Richard Wyands, Leroy Williams, Larry Willis, Virgil Jones, Grady Tate, Charles Davis and many more. He has also studied with legendary saxophonists Gary Bartz and Junior Cook. When asked about NoMad Stories, Shepherd says “Longing for a world with no genres, we travel the musical spheres with no boundary, touching and reflecting the ancient, aboriginal stories of the earth, and simultaneously reaching the outermost expanse of the modern spheres, acoustic and electric”. NoMad Stories has been performing at festivals and venues for 10+ years having played at the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival in Washington DC, The Black Swamp Festival in Bowling Green Ohio, and the Burlington Jazz Festival in Vermont, as well as opened for or performed with Gladys Knight, The Temptations, Ray Charles, Buckwheat Zydeco, Bela Fleck, George Coleman, and many more. Closing the night will be a trio with local musicians Ben Shaw, Steve Johnson, and Ben Dicke. These three have played the series separately on several occasions, but this will be the first time they will join forces in one ensemble. They will be playing a few of Shaw’s originals, a couple of which will be premiers. The music kicks at 10pm with admission being a mere $10 that goes to support these exceptional musicians. That is all for now. See you all at AS220, and be sure to watch your inbox for more news and updates!

[newstechreviews]

When the National Football League kicks off its season on Sept. 10, it will do so with a song that is unknown to some Americans and essential to others. “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” otherwise known as the Black national anthem, was introduced to many by Beyoncé when she sang it at Coachella two years ago. But the song has long been a pillar of Black culture and life, sung at church ceremonies, political protests, school graduations and family gatherings. “Four generations of my family, at least, have lived with this anthem,” Imani Perry wrote in May Forever We Stand, her book about the song. “It is our common thread.”

During the NFL’s opening week, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” will be performed before each game, ahead of “The Star Spangled Banner,” as an effort to reinforce the league’s professed newfound alignment with Black Lives Matter. But this decision—which has been met with skepticism across the ideological spectrum—is just the latest example of the song’s reinvigoration in American public life. It’s been performed at protests across the country following the police killing of George Floyd, slipped into national anthems at NASCAR races and even co-opted by Joe Biden for one of his campaign proposals, “Lift Every Voice: The Biden Plan For Black America.”

Here’s a history of the song, and an examination of how its influence has persisted over 120 years.

“A universal signifier of Black identity”

“Lift Every Voice and Sing” was written during a fraught moment in African-American history. At the dawn of the 20th century, post-Civil War reconstruction efforts were being dismantled; segregation had been codified through Plessy v Ferguson; and a Jim Crow reign of terror and exploitation was taking hold across the country.

In this hostile climate, many Black communities turned inward, forming their own schools, newspapers, musical groups, religious and social organizations. James Weldon Johnson and John Rosamond Johnson, two brothers from Jacksonville, Fla., were steeped in these institutions: James was a poet, lawyer and the principal of a segregated school, while John Rosamond taught music there.

In 1899, James set out to write a poem commemorating the birthday of Abraham Lincoln. “My thoughts began buzzing round a central idea of writing a poem about Lincoln but I couldn’t net them,” he wrote in his autobiography, Along This Way. Instead, he wrote a poem about Black struggle and perseverance and asked his brother to set his words to music. The result, which moved James himself to tears, captured a painful history of oppression (“Stony the road we trod/ Bitter the chastening rod”) while ending on a note of resilience: “May we forever stand/ True to our God/ True to our native land.”

The song was first performed the following year at Johnson’s school by a group of 500 children. The Johnsons would soon move out of Jacksonville following a deadly fire that ripped through the city. They brought the song to a Harlem arts scene that was quickly becoming a hotbed of creativity. Meanwhile, the song would also independently spread outward from its original city. “The school children of Jacksonville kept singing it; they went off to other schools and sang it; they became teachers and taught it to other children,” James said in 1935.

As the song was passed along communally, it was also boosted by powerful Black leaders and organizations, including the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs and Booker T. Washington. In 1919, the NAACP named it its official song; James Weldon Johnson would be appointed the organization’s first African American executive secretary a year later.

Before long, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” would become, in Perry’s words, “a universal signifier of Black identity.” It was sung at church services, civic organization meetings, pageants and graduations; it anchored Emancipation Day and Negro History Week celebrations and daily school rituals.

“I sang the Negro National Anthem when I was hungry,” Congresswoman Maxine Waters wrote in Lift Every Voice and Sing: A Celebration of the Negro National Anthem, edited by Julian Bond and Sondra Kathryn Wilson. “I sang the Negro National Anthem when my tooth was hurting because of an exposed cavity—I sang the Negro National Anthem when I did not know there was a future for a little black girl with twelve sisters and brothers.”

A symbol of resistance

As Black activists continued to mobilize in their fight against discrimination and segregation, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” took on an increasingly political bent, symbolizing defiance in the face of white oppression. In 1929, it was sung in support of the unionization of Black porters; In 1936, it opened the first conference of the National Negro Congress, an anti-fascist organization fighting for Black liberation. Maya Angelou, in her autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, recalled singing the song with her Black classmates in Oakland as a rejoinder to a visiting racist white politician.

When the Civil Rights Era began in the 1950s, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” was sung during organizational meetings for the Montgomery Bus Boycott and quoted in speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. But as folk music rose to the fore, the song was soon supplanted by a new wave of freedom songs like “We Shall Overcome” and “We Shall Not Be Moved,” whose simple and direct choruses were sung with fervor at marches from Selma to Washington.

“Lift Every Voice and Sing,” however, would soon regain its urgency, as harrowing police violence and unwavering systems of segregation would mar the early pacifist optimism of the Civil Rights Movement. In Forever We Stand, Perry writes that by the late ’60s, “We Shall Overcome” “seemed naive and even insipid in comparison to the reach for soul and the deliberate invocation of the African continent and diaspora.”

As a new generation of Black activists, artists and politicians rose to the fore in the ’70s, they adopted “Lift Every Voice and Sing” as a symbol of resistance. Following King’s assassination, a crowd in Roxbury, Mass., sang the song, with Reverend Virgil Wood declaring, “We will not sing the anthem that has dishonored us, but we will sing the one that has honored us.”

The song was played regularly at Black nationalist meetings, and in 1972 became the anthem for Black students in Newark who staged walkouts demanding Black teachers and Black curriculum. Three years later, James Brown slipped a line from the song into the national anthem before Muhammad Ali’s bout against Chuck Wepner, pleading, “we wanna be free.”

Renewed relevance

“Lift Every Voice and Sing” would remain an essential part of the fabric of Black culture in the coming decades, with Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Kim Weston, Stevie Wonder and many more performing covers. Spike Lee placed a snippet of the song in his seminal film Do the Right Thing; In 2009, Rev. Joseph Lowery quoted the song during President Barack Obama’s inauguration.

The musician Jon Batiste has played his part in keeping the song relevant: as the bandleader of Stay Human, which anchors The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, he’s often worked the song into broadcasts, particularly when a Black guest is on the program. “There are so many appropriate moments to bring it out,” he says. “Sometimes when I play it it’s almost equivalent to saying, ‘look y’all, we made it!’”

But Batiste also recognizes the more somber aspects of the song, especially given that his grandfather, who was the president of a New Orleans postal workers union, often marched to the song at Civil Rights protests. “It connects us to the history of all the people who we stand on the shoulders of—who have marched and fought and died for the freedoms we enjoy and that we’re trying to improve upon,” he says.

When George Floyd was killed by Minnesota police earlier this year, Batiste organized a musical protest in New York, marching from Union Square to Washington Square Park. He and his band opened the procession with the song, and then played it four to five times along the way, with marchers singing along. “When you play that song, people rise up and stand together and remember all that we have gone through,” he says. “It’s like saying, ‘If we can get through all of that, we can transcend even this moment of atrocity.”

Batiste is one of many who are turning to “Lift Every Voice and Sing” in this current moment. The song has been sung at protests from Seattle to Delaware; Stanford alumni recorded a socially distanced choral version, while the oboist Titus Underwood led a symphonic version featuring an all-Black orchestra. At a NASCAR race, saxophonist Mike Phillips and pianist West Byrd slipped it into the national anthem, just as Brown had decades before.

That was incredible. Legendary saxophonist @m_dot_philly performs our national anthem.

🇺🇸 #NASCARonFS1 pic.twitter.com/bGdVAWUs7t

— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) June 28, 2020

  That performance, perhaps unsurprisingly, drew ire from some on the right, who felt it unpatriotic to tweak the national anthem. Meanwhile, when the NFL announced it would feature the song on opening week, some members of the Black community felt that the decision ignored the song’s history and original intent. “For it to be co-opted by an organization like the NFL is very troubling to me,” Shana Redmond, a professor of musicology and African American studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, says. “I’m thinking about the ways in which symbols are manipulated for profiteering, for easy concessions in moments of violence, and become an opportunity to elide accountability for the structural damage the NFL in particular continues to wreak out.”

Regardless of the song’s usage this September, its influence on Black culture over more than a century has been immeasurable—and musicians like Batiste hope that it will continue to represent solidarity and defiance for years to come. “There’s so much that can be done in a musical context to tie people to the past while moving them to the future,” he says. “That’s what the song will continue to do—and I’ll be playing it as long as I’m out here.”

[technouk]

The Comet Is Coming: The Afterlife

The Comet Is Coming: The Afterlife

Since their debut was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize in 2016, the Comet is Coming’s saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings has become a formidable presence in the international jazz scene in his own right, making fans of Beyoncé and Virgil Abloh along the way. Hutchings landed not just one but three different bands on the Impulse label in the process. From the Afro-Caribbean stomp of his Sons of Kemet

[eildotcom]

New Clarence Clemons documentary on the way this year

New Clarence Clemons documentary on the way this year

Legendary saxophonist for Bruce Springsteen and E Street Band, Clarence Clemons, is the subject of a new documentary due out later this year.

Clarence Clemons: Who Do I Think I Am? will be released in select US theatres in July, with a wider digital release due on August 17 via Virgil Films & Entertainment. It will chronicle the musical history and spiritual journey of Clemons, who sadly passed…