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Showing posts from June, 2018

Sunday, June 24 in Nashville, TN

Day 2 here in Nashville. Tomorrow Carol and I will spend some time at the Country Music Hall of Fame.  There is a new exhibit there on the "Outlaws" of country music in the 70's including Waylon Jennings, Chris Kristopherson, Willie Nelson and others.  I will post impressions afterward.  Strangely, my first and only visit to the famous Ryman Auditorium involved politics: a road show presentation and taping of the podcast Pod Save America .  You can check it out wherever you get your podcasts!  The musical element to the performance was the theme to the show, played REALLY LOUD.  A local woman working on issues with immigrants was the featured guest; I have listened to a bunch of episodes, and the interviews with local activists and politicians have been a highlight.  Interview with Jon Lovett Doing laundry today, but also was happy to bike on the Music City Bikeway from Froggy Bottoms to the downtown area early this morning, about 15 miles round trip (I love Sunday mor

Music Magic on Frenchman Street

In the early 90's, occasionally jazz music would find it's way into my predominantly pop-music playlist.  One such was a 1995 release called Rhythm Within  by trombonist Steve Turre with Herbie Hancock on piano, Pharoah Sanders on tenor sax, and John Faddis on trumpet along with 12 other players.  I loved the mysterious vibe invoked by Mr. Turre's playing of the seashells (mostly conch shells), something he reportedly learned from Rashan Roland Kirk.  He and the other musicians on the record would play shells of various sizes (conchs have an extremely limited range so you need several), with specially modified "mouthpieces" crafted into the shells.  When I heard that he was playing at the tiny club Snug Harbor in New Orleans, I got a ticket right away.  The quartet  was billed as being co-led by Turre with local drummer and Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra member Herlin Riley. This quartet was put together just for 2 performances, and included a pianist and a bass

Blog launch

Carol and I are going to be traveling, living in our 22 foot Airstream Sport travel trailer.  We have some road experience, purchasing the Lodge, as it's dubbed, in the Tacoma area and traveling with it for about 5000 miles, taking the long way to get to New Orleans last fall.  Now, we will reverse course and head back to Tacoma, followed by a trip down thru Oregon and California, eventually turning left and  crossing Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas back to Louisiana. I am predicting adventures, and hope to be able to report on some of these thru this medium.  I am a neophyte and no doubt will learn as I go. Right now, we are deciding on what to bring along, and getting the rig ready for the road.  We'll get those tires pumped, the lug nuts tightened, and the batteries charged.  Let's see, am I forgetting something?  I do like the challenge of learning RV stuff and the setup and breakdown rituals.  On our maiden cruise down here, we kept up a fairly brisk pace and it was