A little bit of everything

A hornazo of blog tidbits, to keep you busy while I travel:

I've spent three glorious days listening to every archived program currently offered on Carlos Perez's elclubdejazz.com.

For an ear to ear grin, try a search in Google Elmer Fudd. Vewy sweepy, fow exampwul. Ow twy wabbit. Cwazy wabbit.

Better yet, go straight to Google pig latin. Eelingfay Uckylay? Hmmm?

El País told me last week that during one hour in the metro station at L'Enfant Plaza in Washington DC, 1070 people rushed right by the violinist playing in his heart out. 27 people threw him a coin, nickels, the odd quarter. He made a little over 32 dollars in that hour. Rush hour. One woman, a young employee of the US Commerce Department stopped, stared and listened. For an hour.

She recognized the violinist, since she'd seen him perform 3 weeks before in the Library of Congress.

The violin was a 1713 Stradivarius, and the 40ish man playing it, in baseball cap and jeans, was Joshua Bell.

Leonard Slatkin lost a bet in the whole deal, according to El País. He was sure a crowd would form, and 50 and 100 dollar bills would hit Bell's violin case.

Made me wonder what prodigies and wonders I walk by every day, going where I have to go, without ever knowing......
Walk slowly and listen. I'll be back next Sunday.

Será Maravilloso.....a wandering woman singalong

Three cheers for Javier, who sent me a link to the song I sang for days after dancing to it at a recent wedding in Salamanca: El Puente by Los Mismos.

C'mon, now I don't ask for much. Sing out. It's an easy sing-a-long; just make sure you get your Nancy Sinatra moves going during that 60's bass vamp halfway through. Extra points if you act out the modes of transport (plane, boat, walking, bicycle, hitchhiking...) English words at the end of the post; no excuses!

Thanks Javier! You made my week, even if I'm not sure my friends thank you. Why do you think Nomadita seem lessed than pleased to hear ALL my newly learned lyrics at the bars on Friday?

http://www.dabadaba.com/dabadabamp3/mallorca/elpuente-losmismos.mp3

EL PUENTE

Tengo miedo al avion
También tengo miedo al barco
Por eso quiero saber lo que debo hacer para cruzar el charco
Por eso quiero saber lo que debo hacer para cruzar el charco

Yo sabría esperar, por el tiempo no me importa
Si construyeran un puente desde Valencia hasta Mallorca
Si construyeran un puente desde Valencia hasta Mallorca

Será maravilloso
Viajar hasta Mallorca
Sin necesidad de tomar el barco o el avion
Solo caminando, en bicicleta o autostop!!!

(repeat as necessary to fill a 60's pop arrangement....)

What's it mean, English speakers? From the top (without the catchy Spanish rhymes, sadly):
I'm afraid of planes
I'm also afraid of boats
So I want to know what I have to do to cross the puddle (the Mediterranean, between mainland Spain and Mallorca)

I'd know how to wait,
Because to me time is not important
If they'd build a bridge from Valencia to Mallorca

It would be marvellous (oh, but say it Spanish: Será maravilloso..)
To travel to Mallorca
With no need to take a boat or take a plane
just walking, riding a bicycle or hitchhiking (autostop!)

Mondomix

Check out Mondomix if you're in the mood to discover some new World music. The site's chock full of interviews, reviews, artist profiles and an MP3 store, Mondomix Music where you can download all kinds of good music.

I found them through a backward link from this review of Buika's CD, Mi Niña Lola, in which Daniel Brown quotes my comments on her concert in Salamanca. I don't think I'd yet appreciated what a still-too-rare treat I'd had hearing her live.

By the way, Buika is playing November 28 at the Palau de Música (wow! what a venue!) in Barcelona as part of the Barcelona International Jazz Festival. I'll be heading back from the States then, but if you're in Barcelona, I can't imagine a better treat than hearing Buika in the Palau de Música.

Buika

Meet Concha Buika, flamenco meets funk meet Nina Simone. Live, she's an amazing performer, hypnotic, soulful, gutteral, lost in what she's singing. Plus the playful, ecstatic musical bantering between her pianist and the cajon player in the phenomenal quartet she's currently touring with only added to my gooseflesh. I have Pato to thank for thinking of me when she bought tickets.

I will tell you neither the video nor her new CD (Mi Niña Lola, hard to find online) captures the energy and the power of Buika live, acapella, trading Ella-style licks with a bass player or belting it out with the whole quartet. See her live, if you can.

Here's a little you-tube taste of Mi Niña Lola. I linked to it from deep within another post, but decided Buika deserved a post of her own.

San Juan and Radio Tango

Last night was Saint John's eve, a celebration of the birthday of Saint John the Baptist. (Scheduled conveniently close to the summer solstice by early Christians eager to recruit all those solstice loving pagans? Why yes, it was, now that you mention it.) Last year I visited bonfires along the river, where young revelers were tossing folded paper wishes into the flames. The local paper tells me I can thank Salamanca's vigilent firemen for the scarcity of fires this year.

I spent this Saint John's evening strolling from string quartet to tango ensemble to Japanese summer festival (where I did hang a wish on a tired looking bamboo tree) to traditional music to flamenco: Last night was Salamanca's second Noche Blanca , a free way to make the most out of one of the year's shortest nights. Expositions and galleries were open til the wee hours, cafe keepers rolled up their terrazas deep in the madrugada, and Salamanca's plazas and palaces hosted nonstop live performances from about 10 pm til 4 am. Add good company, a cool evening breeze, and appropriately timed pincho, beer and sidra (Asturian hard cider) stops, and you have a delightful Salamanca evening.

My highlight? Tango Zero, I think, whose website then led me to a great online radio find: La 2x4, Radio Tango from Buenos Aires.

If you are in a mood to transform wherever you are into a milonga in Buenos Aires for a naughty little while, I highly recommend it.

Every Day I Have the Blues

I woke at 6 this morning, which yes, now that you mention it, is officially "the crack of dawn" in Spain. It's pre-dawn, in fact. I've crashed late and risen early all week, leaving til morning the finishing of the day's document for my residency. But this morning I woke to find an e-mail from John, and a fabulous musical breakfast:

Six versions and a great post on a classic, Going to Kansas City,at Tuwa's Shanty and the Roots Canal. A six version multigenerational jam, from Little Willie Littlefield to Little Richard to the Beatles, where everybody takes a chorus.

He's posted his favorite version, also mine, at the end of the post:
Joe Williams with Count Basie.

I saw Joe Williams perform a couple of times at the Regatta Bar in Boston years ago. If you don't know him and you're a fan of the blues or big band jazz or just enjoy rich, heaven sent voices ("dulcet tones", mother would say), go discover Joe Williams. The man lets out his first note and I melt; every ounce of tension just gets up and walks. And yes, he's won this morning's Kansas City contest here in Salamanca, too.

Here you can sample Williams and Basie: Scroll down to Smack Dab in the Middle, then, although the sample cuts out before the vocal, check out Every Day I Have the Blues which will be my form-filling soundtrack this morning. Last, have a quick listen to Jimmy's Blues.

Enjoy! I hope to be back here later today.
Meanwhile, thanks to John's inspiration, I am going to plug in a Joe Williams and Count Basie CD and go back to deciphering the Declaración Censal.

Groove-a-rama

Doing all the work for my trip to Ireland with my brother is well worth the trouble.

And not only because the poor boy will miss every major Irish tourist attraction as I mercilessly drag him through the rural West, in search of traditional music, spoken Irish, Grace O'Malley and WB Yeats.

What makes it a pleasure to plan a trip for my brother is the little surprise I found tucked inside the envelope in which he forwarded me the maps and B&B guides.

An autographed copy of the new CD by Duke Robillard: Guitar Groove-a-rama.

I've hardly surfaced since I popped the CD in the player Friday afternoon. It has been, quite frankly, a Groove-a-rama weekend.

If you don't know Duke Robillard, check out a few Groove-a-rama tracks here or here, and read about the man here. (May I recommend you taste: "Cooking", the tune he used to open sets with back in my Duke following days, "No Way Out", the funkiest "Danny Boy" you are likely to (ever) hear, and "Blues a Rama", an incredible 16 minute one-take tribute, guitarist by guitarist to the players and styles that influenced a young Robillard. It's an amazing cut.)

Duke is the soundtrack of my 20s. I first heard him in the early 80s at the Last Call Saloon, a fabulously small basement bar in what was then an out of the way neighborhood in downtown Providence. My cronies and I had wandered in to the Last Call, famous for closing late, just to get a few extra hours in after the dance clubs closed. Within weeks we'd given up dance clubs for the blues.

I have a few Duke CDs, but I've always felt like he lost something on them. He was just one of those musicians I'd have said you had to catch live.

Til I heard Groove-a-rama.

I feel like I just spent an evening sitting around the man's living room, listening to him pick up one guitar after another, showing me what each can do. This is an intimate, cozy CD, the work of a man celebrating a lifetime he's had a hell of a good time with.

What do I miss today? It's a repeat; I know I've said this more than once here. Today I miss swaying with a crowd, tapping my rings on a bottle of beer in a tiny blues bar.

Mingling with Mingus

Ran into this for the first time yesterday. Rated a belly laugh and a great visual in my oh so visual head:

Good jazz is when the leader jumps on the piano, waves his arms, and yells.

Fine jazz is when a tenorman lifts his foot in the air.

Great jazz is when he heaves a piercing note for 32 bars and collapses on his hands and knees.

A pure genius of jazz is manifested when he and the rest of the orchestra run around the room while the rhythm section grimaces and dances around their instruments.

Charles Mingus