I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: BRIAN BLADE AND THE FELLOWSHIP BAND-“Landmarks” (Field Recordings, August 14, 2014).

Here’s yet another Field Recording at the Newport Jazz Festival [Chorale For Horns And iPad App, In The Pouring Rain].

The 2014 Festival must have been a rainy one, because some of the other Recordings seem wet as well.  The blurb explains

We had hoped to get the great drummer Brian Blade to give us a little private exhibition after his set at the Newport Jazz Festival this year. The weather, however, was proving much less generous than he and his band were. Early that morning, a steady all-day rain settled in over coastal Rhode Island, making it difficult to transport dry instruments anywhere. On top of that, a last-minute change to travel plans meant that Blade needed to get out of town quickly — to an airport over four hours away.

But he and the Fellowship Band — the group of guys Blade has been making music with for the better part of two decades or more — were game to figure out something for us. So we herded them into the shelter of a quiet tunnel in Fort Adams State Park.

Despite Blade being a drummer, they are unable to use drums or even bass.  So they decide to play a composition of the keyboardist.  Chris Thomas, the bassist, suggests that he could do an interpretive dance (but he does not).

As they get set up, Jon Cowherd starts tinkering on his iPad.  He gets a synth up and starts playing the opening to Van Halen;s “Jump” which gets everyone excited.  Then he starts playing a cool keyboard sound on the app and the two horns join in on the serene melody.

First Myron Walden starts playing the bass clarinet.  Then he is joined beautifully by Melvin Butler on soprano sax.  The song unfolds simply.  I love the way it just seems to grow and grow–slowly revealing more and more of itself.  But it’s over pretty quickly, with the notes fading in the tunnel.

So even though the featured performer, Brian Blades is not playing–and I still have never heard his drums, this was a nifty little piece.

[READ: April 17, 2016] “Land of the Living”

I had it in my head that Sam Shepard was a noir writer from the 1950s.

Well this story (and the surprising fact that the New Yorker published a second of his stories just a few weeks later) led to something entirely different.  This story is about a man who is going on vacation with his family.

It begins with a very funny exchange between the man and his wife,  She tells him, “It’s just amazing how friendly you become when you’re on Xanax”  And he agrees, “I feel this friendly person coming out in me and I wonder if maybe that’s my real nature.”

The family is currently waiting on a customs line in Cancun.  The heat is unbearable, especially since they have just come from Minnesota.

Their conversation is full of things that he says which she is surprised by:
“You’re glad to be alive, is that what you just said?”

“Survived an airplane trip?”

He replies that he always feels like he’s going to die on an airplane.  That’s why he takes the Xanax.

Eventually the line moves but they are very late for their car rental pick up and get a Jeep Wrangler instead of a Chevy Suburban.   As they are driving to their hotel, their teenaged kids asleep on the back seat, the wife asks”

“Have you got a girlfriend?”

Turns out she picked up his ringing phone the other day and a woman was there.

He denies it but his denial is unconvincing and they spend the rest of the car ride in silence.  Well, he talks but she doesn’t reply.

When they wake up in the morning, he goes out to look at the beach and he sees an old couple who he recognizes from the airport and customs.  The man is in a wheel chair and the woman attends to him.

While he is watching the old couple, his daughter comes over to him and asks if he wants breakfast.  He does and they talk a little bit.  He tries to assuage her about the whole girlfriend thing but she says she doesn’t care, “It’s got nothing to do with me.”  They talk about college and she describes classes she may take on Women in the Civil War.

As the story wraps up, some strange things happen, which I won’t mention as they are sort of spoilerish

The final sentence portends back to an early part of the story.  And yet it’s also really quite nebulous.  I was a little unsatisfied by the ending because it left a little too much to the imagination.  The story was elliptical enough that I didn’t feel like I had enough to fill in the pieces.  And yet at the same time, I enjoyed all of the parts of it.  I really enjoyed the writing as well.  I just wanted a tidier ending, I guess.