"Where once jazz singers strove to stretch the boundaries of music, embarking on improvised flights of fancy, as did Ella Fitzgerald, or turning a tune inside-out à la Betty Carter, today's young crooners are principally blessed with an ability to smooth things over, to massage a melody into an easily digestible dollop of sound."

Reference to like comments by Wynton are promised, which doesn't surprise me, so we'll have to check with Ethel later.
11:57:44 PM    comment []  Google It!  

Out across the endless sea
I would die in ecstasy
But I'll be a bag of bones
Driving down the road alone

Tonight's Soundtrack is culled from the Norah Jones Music page. It's a feast to just click the links and hear such nice tunes. Thanks NJ and Crew. Some RealAudio, some MP3, and some video. I obsessively found multiple versions of "DKW", including a 45 minute or so WDUV radio show interview (Real) opening with "DKW", and a House of Blues show (MP3 or Real). A nice soundtrack for the evening's postings. Which looks like may only be this. Time well spent.

I wonder if Norah would like to come on the Live show some time and pick some tunes from her list of favorite artists in this L.A. Times story (among them Holiday, Vaughn, Washington, James) and talk a little about Jazz. Or Norah as ear candy. Or the Business of Norah. Or talk a little about the INSANE year or so she's had. Maybe just talk about music. Must be strange to have all that stuff written about you...hehe.

Since I'm on the bandwagon, good luck tomorrow Norah and Crew. A few trinkets tomorrow would be a fun capper on the year. In a post on her message board, she layed down the truth and a dandy reason for performing that killer tune one more time,

"we're gonna play on the grammys I think. Of course we'll be playing don't know why. I've gotten kind of sick of playin it so much, but I'm very proud to play it for the grammys because my friend who wrote it, Jesse Harris, was nominated for best song. Jesse will also be playing with us for that performance. It should be fun!"

Have fun while the ride lasts. Then put another quarter in and start all over again.
11:35:58 PM    comment []  Google It!  

Howard Mandel's post on this forum, along with my initial curiosity in anything Jazz related, took some doing and it inspired me to write my blog piece. It was the only original writing I could find about Mr. Maher's passing.I quote from the AP Article (I guess) that seems to be the only one written about Jack that Google News can find (try this search: http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=jack+maher&sa=N&tab=wn). Strange to see the same paragraph over and over and over. Where's the original writing? At least something the size of a weblog post? A weblog.

I guess I'm interested in seeing if there's a business out there for someone like myself who can help a journalist set up a weblog. Most have websites that don't get updated as often as they wish (should). Adding a weblog to an exisiting website is pretty simple. With help, it can be made even easier. Most writers I believe would have something to say about things in the world, from a jazzy, improvise-atory (hehe) life standpoint.

The Saturday Morning Post is really a place to brain dump before the activities of the weekend block most blog posting hopes not of the late night / early morning nature (next phase: mobbloging). And time is running away. I get taught to Coach San Carlos Little League Baseball today...don't tell anyone that it might just be fun. An all day thing, that I may have to shorten, but outdoors. Neil's wild-man 40th Birthday bash tonight, although we're still sitter-less at the moment. And nothing currently planned for Sunday. Wow. That's some time that will be filled by other things I've conveniently blocked from frontal memory, but always there, you know those things.

OK. Done. Have fun.

Much Love...VO
7:43:00 AM    comment []  Google It!