As a seldom blogger, I have to sometimes question my tendency to attempt to create an opus each time I want to write. Of course, it’s understandable when sharing something public, to feel the weight of the higher standard. Editing, spell and grammar checking, researching etc. You should. But the problem is, setting such a high bar can make it impossible to post frequently enough to meet the general blogging practice standard. You need time to do this (which I don’t have a lot of) and the end result is to not doing anything at all. Which is sort of a shame. Because you tune out and so does everyone…
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Happy Birthday, Doug Raney & Recollections from a Special Night in ’93
I was reminded of Doug by good ol’ Google recently (I have a notification set up to inform me when Doug or Dad comes up in the news). There was this nice review of a recent posthumous release, There Will Never Be Another You of a live duo outing of Doug and Nicolai Gromin (who also died recently) from cafe Sabine in 1993. Here is a link to the article. This got me reflecting on Doug a bit during that time. As I mentioned in a previous blog, my brother and I led largely separate lives. When I was in high school, Doug was already out the door starting his…
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Happy Birthday, Jimmy Raney 2019
I hate to be a broken record but…drop the needle back again… I still find it astounding how profoundly Jimmy Raney is underestimated historically. Save a few critics, notably Ira Gitler and Whitney Balliett, it seems like he’s largely expunged from jazz history. The other day I watched a jazz guitar history video by the noted guitar video blogger, Rick Beato. He has a ton of fun videos on rock and jazz fusion guitar with transcriptions and insightful commentary. So I was a bit stunned at his omission of my father from the list in his video, THE GUITAR 1929-1969 | THE PLAYERS YOU NEED TO KNOW which featured a…
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Faux Pas and Past Lives
In my previous post about Tinnitus, it is likely I mistook my fair use rights of (what I thought was) a royalty free image of a gentleman’s hand on his ear. Facebook appears to have blocked the previous post url on Facebook Community Standards grounds. I have since cartoonized the image (below left) and added a few doohickeys to make it mine. Creative license I guess is not the same thing as … license to create (?) (Funny I can’t do ellipsis anymore without hearing Stephen Colbert in my head, “Dot, dot, DOT...”) Anyway, This quick follow-up story is essentially an elaborate way of making lemonade out of lemons, so to speak.
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Tinnitus Anyone? (part 2)
Following up on my previous post, Tinnitus: The Silent Killer…Condition. A week after publishing the article, I visited an ENT about my tinnitus problem. He basically confirmed almost everything I said about it: There is no cure for it. Most natural remedies are nonsense or perform no better than a placebo. The only decent prospects for cure are in the cognitive psychology realm. The doctor even gave me a referral brochure of the same clinic, the Center of Hearing and Communications mentioned in my previous article. So far, I have no recurrences in the nightmare tinnitus syndrome that woke me in the middle of the night. I do notice the pitches…
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Tinnitus: The Non-Silent Killer… Condition
In recent weeks, I have begun to encounter something in the background of my life that I long ignored, tinnitus. And no, it is not because I recently saw the remake of “A Star is Born”. The British tend to pronounce it, “TIN-i-tis “. Like an incidental comment over a cup of tea. “I have this vexing TIN-i-tis while reading. Like a car alarm vibrating in my skullll… Frightfully annoying, my old chap” Americans (or perhaps New Yorkers, since we don’t know anything about anybody else) tend to pronounce it, tin-AYY-tis. (Think Fred Stoller) “So I’ve got this ringing in the ears thing? You know I think it’s called tin-AYY-tis? Yeah, I think I want to…
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The Print job that won’t die (aka Stop spoolin’ & cancelin’ & poundin’)
Not sure what is possessing me to write about this particular topic and solve but …what the hell. I’m sure many of you have just accepted this Windows printing quirk and threw your hands up the air.
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Good Morning Heartache – Doug Raney’s Birthday
This morning I woke up at 430. It’s as if Doug was waking me up to write something. Death is a weird thing. It’s something you push to the back of your mind – because the reality of it is overwhelming. I think about Doug a lot, replaying his solos and the things he said to me in our short time together in my mind. Over and over. And his death, bringing his body to a hearse in front of Montmartre Club in Denmark and having it drive off. An unbelievable aching sorrow that doesn’t go away unless I just put it out of my mind. It just doesn’t get…
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Happy Birthday Jimmy Raney 2018!
Hi Folks, As is becoming customary for me, I’m taking this week off to just chill on the beaches of Florida. So as quick as I can put this one together, just dropping a note to pay homage to the master, Jimmy Raney on his birthday.
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The price of not being vigilant
Recently I’ve been thinking about the past. All the experiences I’ve had, people I’ve met, music I’ve made and things I’ve written about. When the years pile up, it can be staggering all the things that can be created over time.