Really need to leave this tune now. At least for a while :-)

20150221 GiantSteps SlickJ

While going through Uncle Hassell's archives, I found a 7-inch reel of Scotch 207 tape (with its distinctive bouquet reminiscent of a mixture of rubber and day-old skunk spray--a scent that always fills me with nostalgia for my own beginnings as a recording engineer back in the 80s) marked "January".  Threading the reel onto my dad's old Sony tape deck with anticipation, I discovered several explorations of harmonics centered around the notes "C" and "F" which I found quite interesting.  Most of these pieces started and ended abruptly, as though Uncle Hassell intended the tape to be a sonic notebook of ideas for later use.  I took the liberty to clean up the tapes (some sections had a good bit of hiss and dropouts) and made this collage.

The sketches are numbered and dated, without any accompanying notes except for one, referring to an excerpt appearing around 14 minutes into my collage, which states: "#6. 1/27.  Sounds like MoPac freight passing through Mer Rouge at 10 PM."  Going back to my own childhood memories of late nights in that little Delta town, recalling my own shiver of excitement at the deep thrum of a three-engine train a mile distant and the engineer's brief horn taps reverberating through the flat plains, I'd have to say the old boy caught a pretty good impression of it.  Little did I know he was still awake in the house next door, listening just like me.

January Collage

It was right about midnight, and I'd spent the evening catching up with this, that and the other.  Before bidding farewell to the day, I picked up the baritone uke and thumped on it a while.  Then I got in bed and read about two paragraphs of "Flow" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (whose name itself takes up about two paragraphs) and fell asleep.

I usually don't fall asleep that easily.  I think the ukulele helps.

Image: "Trees at Twilight", watercolor, 2004.

And Then He Said "Goodnight"

My wonderful Gail passed away on Sunday January 10th after battling stage 4 pancreatic cancer for almost six years. During that time she endured over 60 chemotherapy treatments, 30 radiation treatments and myriad procedures that were both painful and humiliating.  In all that time, Gail never complained once.
I miss her profoundly in my life, and I am grateful for the time we had together.
I am truly, thinking of Gail and in that spirit I have repurposed this song that she really loved...

Thoughts of Gail - (on the loss of my best friend, lover and wife)

You Are My Sun - Sun Kil Moon - Cover

A wee collaboration between  players. I stuck the guitar down and martin done all the rest. Easy shift for me

Improvisation on a lydian scale

pjotr-p