To be Home

I like the subject line. I enjoy on these late nights in the northwest the debate of what to call my current activity. Maren left today though, and now my time here will be much less enjoyable.

For having my best friend within driving distance makes a lot of things a lot better.

Now im sitting here about to sleep listening to a new discovery Dosh. A one man musical explosion, it is incredible, sample after sample building on one another into the sonic landscape, once the biggest hit with hipsters. It went over their head after a while i think, it is too much to analyze new forms of old talent. Thus i wont try. It is incredible and the video linked shows it very well.

I'm existing on an Atoll. Well i guess it is a little bigger then an atoll. However I'm on an island, big in theory small in actuality. I sometimes expect to find a Gilligan here, bumbling and desolate with his only company those fellow stranded. In my mind it seems the isolation could not have actually spawned a functioning economy with utilities. Its so isolated. The function island has to be all dream, no one actually believes this is a good idea, do they? oh wait Zac yes they do, and some of them are related very closely to you.

I'm growing out of this doubt, of whether or not i agree with the idea of this isolation. I do like the reassurance that i can drive away from any one spot to another, always able to flee. Not much to flee to here.

Take away these doubts and i remember how beautiful it is here. The picture above taken a couple months ago as the sun was setting, painting and illuminating the terraced fields that once existed. The golden paintbrush turning the world around me into a magical hue of green. I chase after that color of green in my mind. Trying to find or replicate it, a color that reminds me of home, or my nuvo-home.

Its beauty here really does make it hard to question the if ands or buts of being 3,000 miles away from anything tangible.

I've been listing too on repeat Tom Waits, "all the world is green."

Driving up and down the topography at this magic hour, the rain has socked us in. This golden paintbrush still appears, sweeping across everything glistening and moving within the constant breeze. This song it plays in a similar light in my mind, as the sun sets in a sea of color, this illuminated grass continues in till dusk sets in and it fades out to the white light of the moon.

Here is youtube clip of Tom Waits playing the song, in a sea of blue lights on David Lettermen. (I'm trying to figure it out so i don't have to use Youtube, but I'm very internet illiterate.)

I wanted to post in the same as the jazz post below about another musical love of mine. Someone i cant get enough of both in video (which there is few good videos of) and auditory.

Otis Redding. The Glorious man that he was, similar i think also to a Bison in majesty. His tone, though gravely was a change, a difference to the soft and even tones of the Motown and more pop oriented moments of soul. His voice with its incredible character. The arrangements by him and the Stax etc. Adding more spice then the world knew what to do with.

Its growing is an Otis song from 1966 about the spreading capacities of love. well my love for Otis grows as well, everyday it grow a little bit stronger. You-tube is a great resources of his television appearances from his short Carrier and one of the most hilarious ones is this from a show from england called Ready Steady Go, here is a clip of Otis singing Satisfaction, My Girl (my favorite rendition) and Respect.

So when i'm not getting my official ATV license on a sleepy Sunday mid afternoon, i sit and a listen to all sorts of music.

I think it is very obvious how much music is a force within my life. That can not be underscored enough. One of the great inventions (or worse) to my generation is you tube. Which as a matter of fact i think is full of the most obnoxious and least interesting garbage. Kids who suck at guitar and everything else in the world trying to mimic or claim to be better then the greats. For a time there as well it seemed that these were the only videos i could find, hoping to tap into the global Internet to see some videos of the true greats.

It is finally shifting for Yesterday during my hours long researching of new music i discovered Ahmad Jamal playing "Darn that Dream" over youtube:



I feel in love with the light handedness of this mid fifties trio, in a room surrounded by people admiring this young and spry piano player. I went on to listen to more of his records and proved to be a nice break to some of the more mental and grad piano jazz record. Like "Mingus Plays Piano" and "Monk Alone" two of my most favorite records.

This year i really fell into a love for the minimal jazz piano, with little acompianment the intracacy of the keys has always been one of my favorite insturments to listen and watch being played. Ahmed is no exception and he is still living! Unlike Mingus who really played bass and hated the world. Or, Thelonious whos carreer was damponed by the likes of the hot air blowers such as Davis and Coltrane.

Ahmed still plays and with the light hearted ways of the bop era coming through. A more free feeling then the later sixties and then the experimentation that erupted. Much like this song the young Ahmed Jamal twenty years before was an inspiring force for Davis and Coltrane. Pushing to more creative composition within his release from the early fifties to think he aided in the begining of the reformation of jazz leading pushing the gnere forward to about ten years later. Miles playing Wayne shorters "Footprints" with his quintet in 1968:



See Youtube is getting better, now if only there was a better filter to find things that are worth it.