Soul/jazz vocalist Rhonda Thomas incorporates jazz, soul, gospel, house, and funk in her music. From 1997-2008, Ms. Thomas was a background singer and soloist for soul music legend, the late Isaac Hayes. She has also performed with Roy Ayers, Roberta Flack, Eric Roberson, Avery Sunshine, Frank McComb, Stephanie Mills, The String Cheese Incident, and others. She performs internationally, in her own right.
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Rhonda Thomas with Isaac Hayes: Do Your Thing.
Montreau Jazz Festival, 2005
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American composer and pianist, born on 10 October 1917; he died on 17 February 1982.
Monk's performance, here, of Pannonica — a tune he composed and named for Kathleen Annie Pannonica de Koenigswarter, an English-born patron of late 1940s and 1950s American bebop jazz ('Nica' to her friends) — displays a compositional ethos and keyboard virtuosity distilled to its essence. Utilizing null time, rhythmic surprise, dissonant harmonies, 'wrong notes,' and tones seemingly coaxed from 'between' the piano's keys, he transforms a deceptively simple melody into a miniature gem of severe beauty.
Pic(k) of the Week: one in a
weekly series
of images posted on Saturdays.
Photo 41 of 52, for year 2024. See a larger, hi-res version on
Flickr: here.
Commercial reproduction requires explicit permission, as per
Creative Commons.
Something Cool is a 'minor' jazz standard written mid 20th-century by composer/lyricist Billy Barnes and performed —and made famous— by the 'cool-jazz' vocalist, June Christy (1925-1990). It's an elaborate and sad fantasy concocted over the offer of a cool drink on a warm day.
Unlike the song's protagonist, the woman in the photo appears blissfully content.
Here: Keeping clave time with Orquesta MaCuba, at the Inman Park Festival in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
I shot this image on 23 April 2022...but International Jazz Day is celebrated today and, in fact, every year on the 30th of April. Jazz lives!
International Jazz Day is an International Day declared by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 2011 "to highlight jazz and its diplomatic role of uniting people in all corners of the globe." It is celebrated annually on April 30. The idea came from jazz pianist and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Herbie Hancock. Jazz Day is chaired by Hancock and the UNESCO Director-General [Audrey Azoulay]. The celebration is recognized on the calendars of both UNESCO and the United Nations.
Helmut Karl Wimmer (1925-2006) was the Art Supervisor of the American Museum of Natural History's Hayden Planetarium. His works appeared in many planetariums, museums, and scores of publications. Wimmer was born in Munich, Germany, in 1925, and was apprenticed at the age of fourteen to train as a sculptor and architectural model maker. At eighteen he was in the army and served with the Alpine troops. At the end of World War II, Wimmer was captured by Czech partisans and turned over to the Russians as a prisoner of war. In 1949, Wimmer was released and returned to Munich where he found work as a sculptor. In 1954, he decided to emigrate to the United States. Once in New York, a chance recommendation led him to an opening in the Art Department of the Hayden Planetarium.
In 1974, the jazz-fusion group, Weather Report, used the artwork (with permission) as the cover for its fourth album, Mysterious Traveller.
In 1974, three years after the band's inception, Weather Report became one of the world's most popular jazz groups due to their uncompromising originality and musicianship. This was the year that founding member Miroslav Vitous was replaced by Alphonso Johnson, who became a critical asset as both a fluid, creative bassist and a composer. Drummer Ishmael Wilburn and Brazilian percussionist Dom Um Romao, with a shifting cast of supporting players, laid the foundation for the band's most exciting incarnation yet. The overdue reissue of Mysterious Traveller is a welcome acknowledgement of this mid-period lineup's importance in the evolution of fusion. [...]
Zawinul's motto for the group was "We always solo, we never solo." The special combination of freedom and composition that Weather Report consistently achieved on record amply testifies to that philosophy, and Mysterious Traveller is a quintessential piece of evidence.
To me, 1974's Mysterious Traveller marked Weather Report's transition from the improvisational sound of Miles Davis' Bitches Brew, in its first albums, to the more composed-through funk/rock vamping of its later efforts. It's also my personal favorite of Weather Report's pre-Jaco Pastorius oeuvre, and, in particular, these cuts: Blackthorn Rose, a beautiful soprano sax/piano duet between Wayne Shorter and Joe Zawinul, respectively; the miniature electronica of American Tango; the ethereal (and mysterious) title track, Mysterious Traveller; and the funky workout on Cucumber Slumber.
The disc was a wonderful find in an Avondale Estates, Georgia, USA, thrift shop —in good condition— on 13 August 2020. The bad news was that it was there because a local used-record shop —just across the street— had shut down due to the pandemic, disposing of its unsold stock.
Time was, preserving a leaf under a flyleaf was a life memento. Nowadays, there are e-variants thereof. Here: colors of autumn, from October 2019, seen in and around Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
And another: when spring's joy-green, its purchase failing, could yet be seen.
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Pam Bricker & Autumn Leaves
The song Les Feuilles mortes was composed for the 1946 French movie, Les Portes de la Nuit (Gates of the Night) by Hungarian émigré Joseph Kosma with lyrics by French poet Jacques Prevert. The song soon became a popular music standard (Edith Piaf's version, well-known) and a jazz standard. The American lyricist Johnny Mercer penned the English translation, Autumn Leaves.
Autumn Leaves, below, is from Washington, D.C.-vocalist Pam Bricker's 2001 album, U-Topia, named after a D.C. club in which she held a regular gig. Performing with her are her longtime accompanist, Wayne Wilentz, on keyboards, and Jim West on drums. It's a crystalline performance.
Ms. Bricker began her career singing folk music but, after moving to Washington, D.C., transitioned to jazz (and cabaret). In the 1980s, she performed with the vocalese group Mad Romance, then going solo in the 1990s. In the early aughts, she recorded with the acid-jazz Thievery Corporation.
I was fortunate enough to hear Ms. Bricker perform in person, on several occasions, in the early 1990s, at hotel lounges in Washington, D.C. Like any bar and lounge, there was a lot of inattentive audience chatter, an experience she compared to performing like "a living jukebox." Me, I paid rapt attention.
Bricker is blessed with perfect pitch, clear diction, more than average range, and a knowledgeable sense of the lyrics and feel for the beat, all packaged in a clear, cool set of vocal pipes.
In January 2008, I was in a wine & beer bar in Greenville, South Carolina, flogging the beers of my employer.
A vintage record shop shared an entrance with the restaurant.
These days, I avoid such places; they do great damage to my wallet. But that day, finished with the sales call, I walked in. Fortunately for my wallet, my working schedule was nearly filled for the day, so my browsing was limited. I purchased only one CD.
That compact disc was The Main Ingredient, a jazz album that Washington, D.C.'s own Shirley Horn —the late great jazz vocalist and pianist. The session was recorded in 1996 in Ms. Horn's D.C. home...but the quality doesn't betray that. It's an exquisite session of intimate jazz chamber-music
Steve Williams and Charles Ables, on drums and bass, respectively, back up Ms. Horn on piano. They comprise her regular trio. But, then, there's the who's-who remainder of the lineup: a young Roy Hargrove on trumpet; bassist Steve Novosel and tenor saxman Buck Hill, Washington D.C. stalwarts; and drummers Elvin Jones and Billy Hart, and tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, stars of the first order in the jazz firmament.
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But wait! There's more.
Printed on the back page of the liner notes is an astounding recipe for...Beef & Beer (and Wild Irish Rose).
Look at the ingredient list. Scroll down to the final two ingredients: a bottle of beer — Heineken — and a lot of wine — Wild Irish Rose.
In case you've forgotten your days of reaching for a quick, cheap buzz, the latter is a sweet fortified 'wine' of a mere 18% alcohol. The recipe calls for a full half pint of it! It suggests you "open a beer or drink & chill"; and, maybe to regain a healthy veneer, the recipe concludes with an underscored admonition: "Remember no salt."
Although the recipe looks like winter comfort food, I've never cooked it (and probably won't *). But, since that day in Greenville, I have replayed the disc many times.
Ms. Horn died in 2005. I am fortunate to have heard and seen her perform live on several occasions. Her music —quiet and sensitive yet insinuatingly powerful— is the main ingredient. It lives on.
A trumpeter performs during Oakhurst Porchfest, in the Oakhurst neighborhood of Decatur, Georgia, on 14 October 2017. He played for tips.
Eleven years ago [2006] in Ithaca, New York, Lesley Greene and Gretchen Hildreth had an idea: What if we had an afternoon when porches all over the neighborhood became stages and everyone just meandered from yard to yard, listening, hanging out, and connecting/reconnecting with their neighbors?
Porchfest, the ultimate grassroots music festival, was born. 100% resident owned and operated, it’s been going and growing every year since. And in that time, other neighborhoods all around the country have taken the model and run with it. Including Oakhurst, which launched its own Porchfest in October 2015.
This year, over one hundred eighty homes opened their porches, driveways, and yards to musicians of every kind, making Porchfest the biggest and most diverse —free— music festival in Georgia.
And now the purple dusk of twilight time
Steals across the meadows of my heart.
High up in the sky, the little stars climb,
Always reminding me that we're apart.
You wander down the lane and far away,
Leaving me a song that will not die.
Love is now the stardust of yesterday,
The music of the years gone by.
Sometimes I wonder why I spend
The lonely night dreaming of a song.
The melody haunts my reverie,
And I am once again with you,
When our love was new,
And each kiss an inspiration.
But that was long ago.
Now my consolation
Is in the stardust of a song.
Beside a garden wall,
When stars are bright,
You are in my arms.
The nightingale tells his fairy tale,
A paradise where roses bloom.
Though I dream in vain,
In my heart, it will remain,
My stardust melody,
The memory of love's refrain.
When he's not playing the organ at home games of the Atlanta Braves baseball team, Matthew Kaminski leads his own jazz group. Here he is, performing with vocalist Kimberly Gordon, at 5 Seasons Brewing, in Sandy Springs, Georgia, on 23 September 2016.
Yes, the beer and CD were posed to be in the photo.
But the beer —the brewpub's HopGasm, a 6.5% alcohol-by-volume IPA— it was tasty and the Hammond SK2 organ, hot. And how about that 'cool' purple-blue phone-camera lens flare?
A few weeks later, the Braves played their final game ever in Turner Field. In 2017, the team moves twenty miles from downtown Atlanta, Georgia, to a new stadium. Kaminski moves with them.
Today, today: Happy Session Beer Day! Beer writer Lew Bryson's campaign to bring back 'session' beer, because a beer doesn't have to be big to be bold.
Today, in history: Happy National Beer Day! And, no! Prohibition did not end on this day in 1933.
Today, in greatness: Happy birthday, Lady Day! Musical genius, the beautiful, incomparable Billie Holiday (April 7, 1915 - July 17, 1959) would have been 101 today.
Billie Holiday (”Lady Day”) is considered by many to be the greatest of all jazz singers. In a tragically abbreviated singing career that lasted less than three decades, her evocative phrasing and poignant delivery profoundly influenced vocalists who followed her. Although her warm, feathery voice inhabited a limited range, she used it like an accomplished jazz instrumentalist, stretching and condensing phrases in an ever-shifting dialogue with accompanying musicians. Famous for delivering lyrics a bit behind the beat, she alternately endowed them with sadness, sensuality, languor, and irony.
Thelonious Sphere Monk, the great American composer and jazz pianist, would have been 97 years old today. He was born on 10 October 1917. He died on 17 February 1982.
I would like to play a beautiful tune I composed not so long ago, entitled Pannonica. It was named after this beautiful lady here. I think her father gave her that name, after a butterfly that he tried to catch. I don't think he caught the butterfly.
Monk's performance, here, of Pannonica —named for Kathleen Annie Pannonica de Koenigswarter (Rothschild), an English-born patron of late 1940s and 1950s American bebop jazz ('Nica' for her friends)— displays his compositional ethos and keyboard virtuosity distilled to its essence. Utilizing null time, rhythmic surprise, dissonant harmonies, 'wrong notes,' and then seemingly coaxing tones from between a piano's keys, he transformed his deceptively simple melodies into miniature gems of severe beauty.
Along with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and a handful of other players, he developed the style of jazz that came to be known as bebop. Monk's compositions, among them "Round Midnight," were the canvasses upon which these legendary soloists expressed their musical ideas.
In 1947, Monk made his first recordings as a leader for Blue Note. These albums are some of the earliest documents of his unique compositional and improvisational style, both of which employed unusual repetition of phrases, an offbeat use of space, and joyfully dissonant sounds.
At its 1884 national convention in Chicago, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (which later became the American Federation of Labor), proclaimed that "eight hours shall constitute a legal day's labor from and after May 1, 1886." On 1 May 1886, a massive rally was held in Chicago in support of workers striking for the eight-hour day. An unknown person threw an explosive at police as they acted to disperse the public meeting. The bomb blast and ensuing gunfire resulted in the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians; scores of others were wounded. 2
International Workers' Day began thereafter as a commemoration of that day, of what would become known as the Haymarket Massacre. Now, this day, May Day, is honored as a worker holiday in many areas of the world. In the U.S., Labor Day is celebrated on the first Monday in September.
Going further back in history,
May Day is related to the Celtic festival of Beltane and the Germanic festival of Walpurgis Night. May Day falls half a year from November 1 – another cross-quarter day which is also associated with various northern European paganisms and the year in the Northern Hemisphere – and it has traditionally been an occasion for popular and often raucous celebrations. 3
As May Day can be one totem of spring, so are the arrivals of artichokes, asparagus, beets, fava beans, morels, nettles, radishes — the first in the yearly mid-Atlantic vegetable parade to come. 4 Here are three more.
Fiddleheads, Ramps, & Pea Soup
Fiddleheads are the tightly coiled tips of ferns. The fiddleheads in North America we eat are usually from the ostrich fern. They are available only in early spring, when ferns grow their new shoots. The young fern fronds are mainly available by foraging. Fiddleheads have a grassy, spring-like flavor with a hint of nuttiness. Many people agree that they taste like a cross between asparagus and young spinach. Some detect an artichoke flavor as well, and even a bit of mushroom.
Warning: Other ferns can be toxic, so never forage without an experienced guide. Fiddleheads should be at least lightly cooked (some authorities recommend they be completely cooked). Raw fiddleheads can carry food-borne illness and/or cause stomach upset if eaten in large quantities. 5
Fiddleheads have become a popular menu item in Washington, D.C.-area restaurants. Via DC Eater.
Ramps (allium tricoccum) are an early spring vegetable with a pungent garlic-like odor and onion flavor, found across much of the eastern United States. Recipes via Huffington Post Taste.
The city of Chicago took its name from a dense growth of ramps near Lake Michigan in Illinois in the 17th century, after the area was described by 17th-century explorer Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle, and explained by his comrade, the naturalist and diarist Henri Joutel. The plant was called shikaakwa (chicagou) in the language of native tribes. The ramp has strong associations with the folklore of the central Appalachian Mountains [whose inhabitants] have long celebrated spring with the arrival of the ramp, believing it to have great power as a tonic to ward off many ailments of winter. Indeed, ramp's vitamin and mineral content did bolster the health of people who went without many green vegetables during the winter. 6
Peas: snow, snap, and sweet
Fresh green peas, just shucked, can be sweet and delicious. And, of course, when cooked. How about a bowl of Chilled 'English' Pea Soup?
Hey, hey, the blues was alright at the Tinner Hill Blues Festival last Saturday, in the City of Falls Church, Virginia.
The festival was the centerpiece of a week-long town-wide celebration of the blues, organized by the Tinner Hill Heritage Foundation, which was founded in 1997 to preserve the early civil rights history of Falls Church and vicinity, home of the first established rural branch of the NAACP.
Cathy Ponton King —a well-established blues singer/composer/guitarist— was one of the headliners. She and her band didn't disappoint, rocking the normally staid little city.
Throughout the week, the Foundation made a point of involving local businesses. In fact, the beer served at the concert was uber-local. Mad Fox Brewing Company —nationally regarded and award-winning— is located only a block and half from the Cherry Hill grounds.
The annual festival again fell short on its support of local wine.
How difficult would it have been for Tinner Hill to reach out to Virginia wineries? Not very. There are several wineries within 25 miles of the festival. These would not have been able to directly donate wine (per state alcohol laws) but could have written (tax-deductible) donation checks to the festival for the amount of the wine.
Tinner Hill did not do that. Rather, it purchased, not local wine, but nondescript plonk, and, adding insult to injury, ignored locally-owned business by purchasing the wine at a chain store. Contrast that with this blues festival, a weekend later, in Arlington, Virginia.
a coalition of businesses, civic associations, property owners, and the Arlington County Government. CPRO’s mission is to inspire, support and provide direction for a wide variety of initiatives that aim to improve and revitalize Columbia Pike and its adjacent neighborhoods.
Columbia Pike Blues Festival enlisted the help of a local wine shop/bistro to select and pour good wines: Steininger Young and El Cortijillo Tempranillo. These are not local: far from it! The former is a blend of Gruner Veltliner, Sauvingon Blanc, and Muskateller, from Austria; the latter is from La Mancha in Spain. But, the wines were unique, well-thought-out choices, and the provider, Twisted Vines Bottleshop & Bistro, is an independent, locally-owned business.
Hey, hey, the blues is alright ... and the wine could be too.
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Grammarians: I deliberately used B.B. King's "alright" spelling. Who am I to disagree with Mr. King?
I'm not sure of local beer choices at the Columbia Blues Fest, so a point, for this, might have reverted to Tinner Hill.
Caveat lector: As a representative for Select Wines, Inc. —a wine and beer wholesaler in northern Virgina— I sell the wines of Weingut Steininger.
A 'rainbow' appears above the moon, Monday evening, 10 October 2011.
That night, Thelonious Monk —jazz pianist and composer, now playing for the angels— would have been 94 years young.
As it was, that night, Sonny Rollins —octogenarian jazz composer and tenor saxophonist who is still playing for us terrestrials— performed at The Kennedy Center, in Washington, D.C.
A reviewer from the Washington Post utterly failed to comprehend the excitement, the vital energy, and the musical brilliance of Mr. Rollins' performance that evening.
Regardless, I considered the evening a "Sonnymoon for Two", which also happens to be the title of one of Mr. Rollins' several brilliant composition/improvisations: in this case, a distinctive 12-bar blues.
******************** Pic(k) of the Week: one in a weekly series of personal photos, often posted on Saturdays, and often, but not always, with a good fermentable as a subject.Commercial use requires explicit permission, as per Creative Commons.
Jazz is greatest when it tells a story. On Thursday, the world of jazz lost one of its story tellers, Gene Lees. Mr. Lees didn't play jazz, but he wrote about it. Here's a portion of an appreciation from the Washington Post:
He wrote biographies of bandleader Woody Herman, Mercer and the composing team of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe and was the co-author of Henry Mancini's autobiography. At the time of his death, Mr. Lees had almost completed a biography of Shaw.
Lees wrote about jazz as it was in the world in which it found itself (and does to some extent today):
Mr. Lees also wrote a biography of pianist Oscar Peterson, a fellow Canadian. After making headlines in the 1950s with an article detailing how a white barber refused to cut Peterson's hair, Mr. Lees often wrote about matters of race, sometimes in unexpected and challenging ways. His 2001 book, "You Can't Steal a Gift," assessed the racial burden faced by black musicians Nat "King" Cole, Gillespie, Milt Hinton and Clark Terry.
"These guys all had reason to be bitter and were not," Mr. Lees wrote. "That is a triumph of the human spirit."
Lees wrote lyrics to jazz melodies, as well, some of which have become standards. Here's Matt Shreudle of the Washington Post:
Lees wrote some memorable lyrics of his own, most notably with Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim. Here are the haunting opening lines [to Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars, or Corcavado]:
Quiet nights of quiet stars,
Quiet chords from my guitar,
Floating on the silence
That surrounds us.
Lees wrote the lyrics to one of my favorite jazz melodies, pianist Bill Evans' wistful Waltz For Debby. I was fortunate to hear Mr. Evans in person at the Village Vanguard a few months before his death in 1980.
Someday all too soon
She'll grow up and she'll leave her dolls
and her prince and that silly old bear.
When she goes they will cry
As she whispers, "Good-bye."
They will miss her, I fear,
But then so will I.
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Gene Lees' books currently available at Amazon: here.
Baseball's Opening Day is a sure sign of warm weather to come, days getting longer.
So it was, 5 April, 2010, in Washington, D.C.: bright sunshine and the temperature, unseasonably warm, at 85 °F.
This gentleman was playing his sax, positioned alongside of the half-block of Half Street leading from the Navy Yard Metro Station to the centerfield ballpark entrance of Nationals Park.
President Obama would throw out the first pitch, high and outside to the left. The Washington Nationals would lose to the Philadelphia Phillies, 11-1. But the beer was cold, and the jazz, hot.
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Nationals Park is easy to get to via Metrorail. Blue, Orange lines to L'Enfant Plaza. OR Red, Yellow lines to Gallery Place. Either, transfer to Green Line toward Branch Avenue. Exit at Navy Yard Station. Turn left on Half Street.
JDLand is an informative blog of the Near Southeast/Ballpark district. Look for the photos and stories of the stadium's construction.
Fun with Corel Paint Shop Pro: see the original full color version of the photo: here.
Pic(k) of the Week: one in a weekly series of personal photos, often posted on Saturdays.
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