Hey Folks, In this year’s homage to my father, jazz master Jimmy Raney (1927-1995) I address a few issues at once. First, “Happy Birthday Dad!”(I am now waving up to him) Second, The Jimmy Raney book. (I am now looking down at the floor, sheepishly) So, those of you that know me, waited patiently as I hinted and hinted on this book and it never came to pass. AND—
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Ever Had One of Those Technology Scream Days?
Sometimes I think technology is out to get me… Seriously:) So my phone is really messed up. It’s clicking on its own, dialing people, enabling programs, and moving my little shortcuts to places unknown. After fighting with Verizon to get me a replacement phone, I’m trying to deal with getting some local files off the phone that I’m going to lose when I replace it. Problem is – like many people affected by the recent Android Marshmallow update, file transfer mode is disabled now and there is nothing that can be done to get this phone to switch to anything other than charge mode.
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The Aftermath of Doug Raney’s Passing
It’s been over 6 weeks since my brother’s passing and although there is still the unreality of Doug really being gone, I do feel acceptance setting in and life – more or less – returning to normal. All the ideas I had that I discussed with Doug: of helping turn his life around, fixing his teeth, finally getting to do a recording with him, devoting a page where he could answer to his fans and give music tips, now all of this is impossible. So what now? And now the question facing me is, what do I do with my life? And when I refer to life what is the thing that it…
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Doug Raney Memorial
It is difficult to describe my feelings of grief adequately in words. What is going through my mind evolves from minute to minute. I cry suddenly thinking about an unresolved regret or hearing Doug’s beautiful passionate guitar tone and phrasing on a recording. I laugh suddenly at something I remembered Doug saying. Or I sit in silence contemplating what I must do while I’m here in Denmark to bring Doug’s passing to a proper close for those close to him.
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Goodbye My Brother
Doug Raney (1956-2016) Doug was a very private person. My nature is (was) to protect him from public scrutiny and the airing of all the things that happened to him in his life. Obviously, this is just not realistic. News travels at the speed of light in our day and age so many of you have heard the news. It is unfortunately true.
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World’s Greatest Dad… T-Shirt? Cool new souvenir for jazz guitarist fans
Most sons think their Dads are the greatest. The tallest, the smartest, etc. I remember one kid I knew back in Louisville who used to say, “My day-yad is taller than ‘nyone. He’s six-tway-elve”. Now I remember the kid’s father. Pretty tall but he wasn’t Shaq, ok? The important thing I guess was that he felt like he was. Now of course me, I always thought my Dad was the world’s best guitarist, by a mile. Thing was though, he was and plenty of people, unrelated to me – from novice guitarists to his famous peers – believed he was. Imagine that for a kid. And they still say it. Incredible. And he is…
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Blast from the Past: Creating Jazz Lines
As a prologue (or epilogue given prior post?) I have to admit that I’m by nature more of a intuitive when it comes to thinking about solos. Plus it’s kind of in my DNA. That said, below is one thing I did work on and think about in terms of architecture. I think it may help as an organizing principle if nothing else for students receiving and not too happy with the “you’ll just hear it” advice.
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Keeping the meter running…
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Jimmy Raney Fans: Some Stuff Under the Hood
I think many of you are familiar with the Jimmy Raney Legacy site by now. However I’ve noticed that certain features of the site don’t get much traffic and perhaps on first glance seem a bit under the hood. Basically the site is constantly evolving. Here are some items that you may not know about: Everybody Digs Jimmy – Quotes by famous jazz guitarists about Jimmy Transcriptions and Fan Transcriptions – Contains downloadable PDF as well as reference tracks Jimmy Raney Forum – I expected a lot out of this feature but it seems to have fallen out of use. Feel free to post questions and topics and interact with…
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Keeping the meter running…
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Blast from the Past – So what do YOU do when you’re driving?
Many people have bad driving habits. Giving the finger, blabbing on the cellphone, fiddling for a station on the stereo, etc. Aside from the obvious vehicular dangers created, this doesn’t seem like very worthwhile behavior. Dad was very good driver but one day he became intrigued by the low pitch he always heard when passing over the bridge. It was at a definite pitch and it was created by the tires passing over those little spaced rivets found on many bridges. Given his fascination for physics he set out to figure out how far apart these rivets were in order to produce the pitch he was hearing at the speed…
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Keeping the meter running…
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Blast from the Past – The Monster Cricket
In suburban Louisville where Jimmy Raney lived, there were a lot of crickets out at night. But at some point one of them managed to find a home right outside his front door of the apartment complex (perhaps in a door frame or nearby hallway plant). In the beginning he was curious how this cricket came to be displaced but with a small hallway as a sounding board, and with the cricket showing no signs of leaving, this nightly sound became quite irritating.
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Keeping the meter running…
