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LÉGENDES DU JAZZ

HOWARD RUMSEY, PIONNIER DU JAZZ DE LA COTE OUEST

“When you have great jazz improvisationalists working together, it’s like the aperitif of life. There’s nothing more elegant and beautiful.”

- Howard Rumsey

Né le 7 novembre 1917 à Bradley, en Californie, Howard Rumsey avait commencé à apprendre le piano à l’âge de quatre ans, avant de passer à la batterie puis à la contrebasse. Rumsey avait été initié à la musique par sa mère, qui jouait de la mandoline. Il expliquait: ‘’She had no intention of making me a professional musician. She just thought music would be good for me.’’ Rumsey avait étudié le piano durant huit ans avant d’apprendre à jouer d’autres instruments avec un musicien anglais nommé Horace Williams. Rumsey précisait: ‘’While I was in high school, an Englishman named Horace Williams, a conservatory musician, was sent to the Imperial Valley to cure his asthma. When he arrived, he came to the high school and offered lessons on all the instruments. So I went to him and started taking drum lessons.’’

Rumsey avait commencé à étudier la contrebasse un peu par hasard. Il poursuivait:

‘’One day I was at a root beer stand a block from my house. Those soda stands were popular out West back then, especially in the summer when it was red hot. When I heard the sound of a big bass coming out of the jukebox there, I fell in love with the instrument instantly. At high school, I noticed there was a bass in the auditorium. It was on a stand. No one had ever played it. It was just here. I told myself I should learn to play it. I already had piano and drums as a foundation, so it wasn’t too difficult picking up the bass, too.’’

DÉBUTS DE CARRIÈRE

Rumsey avait amorcé sa carrière professionnelle à l’âge de dix-huit ans en jouant du piano dans les clubs. Rumsey avait adopté à la contrebasse après qu’un de ses amis musiciens lui ait fait remarquer qu’il y avait une pénurie de spécialistes de cet instrument.

Après avoir étudié durant un an au Los Angeles City College, Rumsey s’était joint au groupe de Vido Musso. Des années plus tard, Rumsey avait expliqué comment il était entré dans le groupe de Musso à la fin des années 1930. Il avait déclaré:

‘’I got that job through alto saxophonist Jack Ordean, who was a close friend. When Vido hired him, Jack made Vido hire me. Vido's band played at Redondo Beach just south of Los Angeles. The place seated 235 people. Stan Kenton played piano in Vido's band. One day the band played at the black Elks Club in L.A. We were playing transcribed Jimmie Lunceford charts. On one of the songs, For Dancers Only, the groove was so good that when the song ended I kept playing the four-bar phrase over and over. Stan’s mouth fell open, and the band was quiet. Nobody said anything. Just me vamping, possessed, in this big hall. After about 12 bars, Stan started playing again, and Vido brought the band back in. That was a blast. That’s what set me up to play with Stan.’’

Par la suite, Rumsey avait fait un long séjour dans le groupe de Johnny "Scat" Davis. Lorsque Stan Kenton, un ancien membre de l’orchestre de Musso, avait décidé de former son propre groupe en 1941 (l’orchestre se produisait au Rendezvous Ballroom de Balboa Beach), Rumsey s’était joint à la formation comme contrebassiste. Rumsey étant encore mineur, Kenton avait dû demander la permission de sa mère qui exploitait une pâtisserie à San Diego. Décrivant son passage dans l’orchestre de Kenton, Rumsey avait commenté: ‘’Yes, I’m the sole surviving member of the original band. For what it was at that time, Stan’s band was very good. It was formed around the sax section. Stan originally had five saxes and only two trombones and three trumpets. Basically, the band was built on a sax section accompanied by five brass and a three-man rhythm section—guitar, bass and drums—because Stan rarely played piano then.’’

Rumsey avait fait peu de tournées avec l’orchestre de Kenton, même s’il avait participé à quelques concerts locaux. Il poursuivait: ‘’Eventually we did some one-nighters locally. We did club dates in Glendale [CA]. And we played the ballrooms in all the beach towns along the coast. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday there would be four or five bands at each place. We also played all the theaters in the Los Angeles area in 1941.’’

D’une certaine façon, Rumsey avait même été une sorte de pionnier de la basse électrique. À l’époque, Rumsey ne jouait pas vraiment de la contrebasse acoustique, mais plutôt une basse électrique conçue par la compagnie Rickenbacker. Il expliquait: ‘’Yes, it wasn’t an acoustic bass. It was an electric stand up bass with a very narrow body. It used tubes with the amplifier and speaker in a cabinet. The Rickenbacker guitar people made two prototypes. They gave one to me and another to Moses Allen, the bass player in Jimmie Lunceford's band. They gave it to us for free and asked us to play it for a year.’’ Quand on avait demandé à Rumsey quelle avait été la réaction de Kenton face à cet instrument, il avait simplement répondu en riant: ‘’Stan didn’t mind. He didn’t like the sound of the instrument, but he put up with it. He had a sharp new band, and I was playing a sharp modern-looking bass.’’

Décrivant le groupe de Kenton comme très innovateur, Rumsey avait ajouté:

‘’That band completely broke the mold of the past. Soon after we returned, Stan came to the realization that it was time to voice the saxophones and brass differently. The new sound was a beautiful change for the dancers and listeners. Our music was easy to dance to in places like the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa Beach because it was well known by the people who came and followed the band {...}. When we went out on tour again in 1942 and arrived in New York, the band was hotter than hell and grooving like mad. Marvin George, our drummer, was working the bass-drum pedal so hard that that he went right through the head. He never had time to change it, so we opened at the Roseland Ballroom without a head on the bass drum [rires].’’

Finalement, le Roseland Ballrom avait refusé de renouveler le contrat du groupe. Rumsey expliquait: ‘’Stan was frustrated, and so were the people who owned the ballroom. They also cut his engagement down to a month. Stan was angry and started telling guys in the band not to play extra notes, just the ones in the charts. He aimed most of that warning at trumpeter Earl Collier, who played the jazz solos, and me. He fingered us, and it broke my heart. He just wanted me to play time.’’

Rumsey avait finalement quitté le groupe au bout de deux ans après avoir eu un désaccord avec Kenton. Revenant sur les événements, Rumsey avait précisé:

‘’When we moved on to the Summit Ballroom in Baltimore, I foolishly got loaded and wasn’t playing the parts as written. I had a solo to play on Concerto for Doghouse. I had to play my solo maybe two times each night. I wanted to mix it up. I was young. Looking back, I’d say I was taking advantage of Stan by getting a swell head and playing what I wanted to. Then two strings snapped off my bass, and I didn’t have extra strings. It was a mess. Stan grew enraged and took my music stand off the stage right in the middle of a performance and fired me. It kind of broke my heart.’’

Très reconnaissant envers Kenton de lui avoir donné sa chance, Rumsey avait déclaré dans le documentaire “Jazz on the West Coast: The Lighthouse” publié plusieurs années plus tard: “He made a professional musician out of me — which was rather hard to do.” Même si sa collaboration avec Kenton s’était plutôt mal terminée, Rumsey avait adoré son expérience. Il expliquait: ‘’I loved the sound. Everyone else in the band was 100% sold on it, too. The sound was responsible for giving Stan his early success. He kept revising Artistry in Rhythm {la chanson thème de l’orchestre} and had a completely new overture each time. It was remarkable for that alone. I got chills every time I played that son of a gun.’’

Après avoir quitté l’orchestre de Kenton, Rumsey était retourné en Californie. Très déprimé, Rumsey s’était finalement joint au groupe de Freddie Slack dont faisait également partie la chanteuse Margaret Whiting à l’époque. Mais Slack était alcoolique, ce qui avait rendu le séjour de Rumsey avec le groupe plutôt pénible. Rumsey poursuivait: ‘’He had a band boy that brought along a valise for him with two fifths of gin inside. As a result of his drinking, Freddie wasn’t a very nice guy.’’ Au printemps 1944, Rumsey s’était finalement joint au groupe de Charlie Barnet avec qui il avait enregistré le grand succès ‘’Skyliner.’’

Après avoir quitté le groupe de Barnet, Rumsey avait fait partie de l’orchestre de Barney Bigard avant de se retirer de la musique temporairement. Au début de 1948, Rumsey se cherchait un endroit où jouer lorsqu’il était tombé sur le Lighthouse Club. Situé sur l’avenue Pier à Hermosa Beach, le club semblait l’endroit idéal pour jouer de la musique. Rumsey connaissait bien Hermosa Beach pour y avoir joué dix ans  plus tôt dans une salle de danse appelée le Hut Ballroom.

Construit en 1934, le Lighthouse avait d’abord été le site du restaurant Verpilates, nommé d’après le propriétaire de l’époque. Le restaurant servait des mets italiens et des rafraîchissements. Lorsque l’établissement avait changé de mains en 1940, le nouveau propriétaire, qui vivait à San Pedro, avait transformé le restaurant en café ouvert 24 heures par jour. Un plus de desservir les matelots de la marine marchande, d’où son nom de ‘’Lighthouse’’ (phare), le club attirait également un certains nombre de riverains et de travailleurs de l’industrie aéronautique. À l’époque, on retrouvait dans la localité voisine de El Segundo une usine qui fabriquait des chasseurs P-51 Mustang ainsi que des bombardiers B-25 Mitchell.

En 1948, le club avait finalement été vendu à John Levine, un tenancier qui avait possédé une quinzaine de bars avec son associé pendant la guerre. Levine opérait aussi une salle de billard. Après la guerre, Hermosa Beach était devenue une station balnéaire qui attirait surtout des touristes et dont la population augmentait d’environ 50% pendant l’été. À l’époque, Levine faisait face à une impasse, car il ignorait comment rejoindre cette nouvelle clientèle. Grand parieur, Levine désirait demeurer à Hermosa Beach, car il espérait pouvoir continuer de se rendre au club Gardena situé à proximité pour aller jouer aux cartes.

À l’èpoque, Levine avait un beau-frère appelé Art Kahn, qui s’était rendu célèbre comme musicien en dirigeant son propre groupe dans un hôtel de Chicago durant dix ans. Levine avait fait venir Kahn à Hermosa Beach dans l’espoir qu’il pourrait obtenir des contrats avec des studios d’enregistrement. Mais Kahn n’étant pas un très bon musicien, il était devenu gérant pour des actrices qu’il avait formé à chanter dans des films. Kahn avait également formé un groupe avec des musiciens du L.A. Police Department. Le groupe s’était même produit en concert au Lighthouse. À l’époque, il existait aussi un autre club appelé les High Seas. Également situé sur Pier Avenue, le club employait des musiciens de couleur assez âgés qui avaient abandonné la vie de tournée après avoir joué avec des big bands. Même si Levine avait recruté certains de ces musiciens, il n’avait pas fait beaucoup d’argent avec le groupe. Il avait donc dû laisser partir les musiciens.

C’est à ce moment que Rumsey était arrivé dans le portrait. Après avoir convaincu Levine de tenir des jam sessions tous les dimanches après-midi, Rumsey avait présenté un premier concert le dimanche 29 mai 1949. Rumsey expliquait comment il avait eu l’idée de jouer les dimanches après-midi:

‘’I had the idea from something I had seen with Stan [Kenton] back in the early 1940s. There were several clubs on Central Avenue and around town where black musicians played. In these clubs, I had seen people just sitting and listening to a small jazz group rather than dancing. This was a new concept out here in the early 1940s. Everything was about dancing here then. The image of people listening to the music stuck in my head. I thought the concept might work at the Lighthouse.’’

Après s’être fait d’abord tirer l’oreille, Levine, qui n’avait plus rien à perdre, avait finalement accepté. Le groupe avait remporté un succès immédiat. Comme Rumsey l’avait déclaré au cours d’une entrevue accordée au Los Angeles Times en 1999: “The next week we propped open the two front doors and blasted music out onto the street, and in a couple of hours there were more people in there than he’d seen in six weeks.” 

Rumsey poursuivait: ‘’He was up for anything. He just shrugged and said, “Sure why not.” But he warned me that the place was dead Sunday afternoons. He figured he didn’t really have anything to lose. So I became the Lighthouse’s music contractor. I was responsible for putting together groups. Levine paid me a salary and an occasional bonus if we were doing great business.’’ Levine, qui ne s’intéresserait qu’aux paris, avait donné carte blanche à Rumsey. Comme la salle était plutôt petite, le club ne pouvait accueillir que de petites formations. Rumsey avait donc engagé les meilleurs musiciens disponibles.

Si Rumsey avait pu recruter de si bons musiciens, c’est que la plupart d’entre eux n’avaient pas encore obtenu leur carte de l’Union. Dans les années 1940 et 1950, il y avait tellement de travail dans les studios de Los Angeles que l’Union des musiciens avait adopté une nouvelle règle qui prévoyait que ses membres devaient résider à Los Angeles durant six mois avant de pouvoir obtenir leur carte.

Si beaucoup des musiciens recrutés par Rumsey avaient immigré dans l’Ouest, la plupart avaient joué dans des big bands comme ceux de Woody Herman, Les Brown, Stan Kenton et Charlie Barnet durant l’hiver. Le groupe comprenait aussi des musiciens de Los Angeles qui avaient joué sur Central Avenue dans les années 1940. Parmi ces musiciens, on remarquait de grands noms du jazz comme Teddy Edwards, Sonny Criss, Hampton Hawes, Frank Patchen, Bobby White et Keith Williams. 

Les jam sessions avaient remporté un tel succès qu’elles s’étaient bientôt transformées en sessions marathon qui se prolongeaient parfois sur une durée de douze heures. Éventuellement, le groupe avait commencé à jouer durant la semaine et en soirée. Rumsey décrivait ainsi le type de clientèle que le club avait attiré au début: ‘’When I first walked into the Lighthouse in 1948, the only people who were coming in were the people who worked the docks or made their living in the aircraft industry. They were kind of swingers. They loved to drink and have a good time. They also were a bit older. I made friends with them by playing old standards, which made them feel the music was meant for them. This kept my core audience coming back.’’

Avec le temps, même des sommités du jazz comme Miles Davis, Lee Morgan, Cannonball Adderley, Art Blakey, Wes Montgomery, le Modern Jazz Quartet, Grant Green, les Jazz Crusaders, Elvin Jones et Thelonious Monk étaient venus jouer ou enregistrer avec le groupe. Décrivant l’arrivée de Monk, Rumsey avait expliqué: “He was trying to be very incognito, sitting quietly at the end of the bar. Then his name was announced. He walked to the piano, played ‘Round Midnight,’ got up, took a bow and walked right out the front door. I never saw him again.”

Éventuellement, le groupe avait lancé un nouveau style musical qui s’était fait connaître sous le nom de jazz de la Côte ouest. Rumsey expliquait:

‘’The musicians who played there were playing a new sound. All those lines and harmonies. Within a couple of  years, the record companies started calling it West Coast jazz. They wanted to record the groups that I assembled at the Lighthouse. So I put together a formal group and called us the Lighthouse All Stars. None of my bass parts were written out. I comped, and it made me better over time, though I’m not sure everyone would think that [laughs]. Sometimes I thought I wasn’t playing as well as I should have.’’

Mais contrairement à ce qu’on croit souvent, le jazz de la Côte ouest n’avait rien à voir avec le ‘’Cool jazz.’’ Rumsey expliquait: ‘’It had a different sound. It wasn’t cool, like most people think. It was between cool and bop. As Shelly Manne said, the only difference was we were at the Lighthouse and other guys were in Chicago and New York [...]. It’s the music of happy—in a hurry.’’ Décrivant le jazz de la Côte ouest, Rumsey avait ajouté:

‘’It was a combination of Gerry Mulligan and Shorty Rogers. They changed the whole scene. They get the big medals. Mulligan was a friend of Gil Evans. Gil was originally from Newport Beach and had a band at the Rendezvous Ballroom. Then he started writing arrangements for Claude Thornhill. Mulligan had a whole new cool sound, and when he came out to L.A., he brought cool with him. He and Chet capitalized on that and sold it. Shorty was a monster arranger, constantly inventing. And tireless. And everywhere back then.’’

Très populaire, le nouveau style musical avait attiré une clientèle de plus en plus jeune. Rumsey poursuivait: ‘’And the sound of the jazz was changing. The Sunday concerts became so popular that I had them running from 2 pm to 2 am, with different guys coming and going. It was wild.’’

Sidéré du succès remporté par le groupe, Levine, qui était éventuellement devenu comme un second père pour Rumsey, ne pouvait en croire ses yeux. Rumsey avait ajouté: ‘’He was beside himself. Because he was making money. Starting in World War II, there was a 15% state tax in California on entertainment that featured singing or was for dancing. Customers saw the extra hit in their bills, and clubs passed it along to the state. But instrumental music was not taxed. That tax remained in force until the 1980s.’’ Le groupe avait même engagé une chanteuse pour jouer dans le cadre de certaines pièces.

Le groupe attirant surtout une clientèle de jeunes, Rumsey avait commencé à faire des tournées dans les collèges du sud de la Californie. C’est d’ailleurs dans le cadre de ces tournées que Rumsey avait rencontré sa future épouse, Joyce. Le couple avait été marié durant quarante-sept ans jusqu’à la mort de Joyce en 1998.

Pour combler les départs, Rumsey avait recruté de nouveaux éléments comme le saxophoniste Jimmy Giuffre, le trompettistes Shorty Rogers, le tromboniste Frank Rosolino et les batteurs Stan Levey et Shelly Manne. Le succès remporté par le groupe avait éventuellement attiré l’attention du propriétaire des disques Contemporary, Lester Koenig, qui l’avait fait participer à diverses sessions d’enregistrement. Devenu une véritable institution, le groupe avait enregistré douze albums de 1951 à 1957, avec un personnel souvent différent. Parmi ces enregistrement, on remarquait une série d’albums live comme “Music for Lighthousekeeping” et “Lighthouse at Laguna.” Les membres du groupe avaient également dirigé leurs propres sessions avec les disques Contemporary.

Après que Rogers, Giuffre et Manne aient quitté le groupe en 1953 pour aller jouer au club The Haig, Rumsey avait formé une seconde version du groupe autour de Bud Shank, Bob Cooper, Rolf Ericsson et Max Roach.

Le 13 septembre 1953, le jour où Roach avait participé à son premier concert avec le groupe, la formation avait participé à un enregistrement historique mettant en vedette Chet Baker, Miles Davis, Russ Freeman et Lorraine Geller. Lorsque Shank, Cooper, Ericsson et Max Roach avaient quitté le groupe à leur tour, d’autres musiciens avaient pris la relève au cours des années suivantes. Dans son ouvrage West Coast Jazz publié en 1998, Ted Gioia prétendait avoir retracé les noms de plus de soixante-quinze musiciens qui avaient été membres du groupe à un moment ou un autre. Devenu un important membre de la communauté, Rumsey était même devenu membre de la Chambre de commerce locale sous les pressions de Levine. Il avait aussi tenu une chronique de musique dans le journal local. De son côté, le Lighthouse avait commandité un concours de beauté annuel et participé à des parades.

DERNIÈRES ANNÉES

Durant leurs années d’activité, les Lighthouse All-Stars étaient devenus une véritable institution sur la Côte ouest, et avaient donné du travail à de nombreux musiciens de Los Angeles. Mais selon le critique et historien du jazz, Ted Gioia, les Lighthouse All Stars n’avaient pas été tellement affectés par le développement du jazz cool qui avait pris naissance en Californie à cette époque. Gioia avait déclaré: "The All-Stars had always been somewhat unaffected by the cool jazz ethos prevalent on the coast. This was hard bop plain and simple . . ."

Malheureusement, la veine avait éventuellement fini par se tarir. Au début des années 1960, l’intérêt pour le jazz à Los Angeles avait grandement diminué, et le groupe avait été contraint de suspendre ses activités, ce qui n’avait pas empêché Rumsey d’engager d’autres groupes pour se produire au club durant le reste de la décennie. Afin de soutenir le développement du jazz dans le sud de la Californie, Rumsey avait également fondé au milieu des années 1950 l’Intercollegiate Jazz Festival.

De 1971 à 1985, Rumsey avait été propriétaire de Concerts by the Sea, un club de deux cents sièges situé à Redondo Beach, en Californie, qui présentait le meilleur jazz de la région de Los Angeles. Décrivant les débuts de Concerts by the Sea, Rumsey avait commenté: ‘’Yes, after John Levine died in 1970, I stayed at the Lighthouse for a year. But by then, John’s son wanted to turn the Lighthouse into a blues club, and I wanted to try something new. An opportunity came up down in Redondo Beach. Stan Kenton’s brother-in-law was the city manager, and the town had just put in a new horseshoe-shaped pier. My club was on one end, and a restaurant was on the other.’’

Se sentant de plus en plus dépassé par l’évolution du marché de la musique, Rumsey avait finalement décidé de prendre sa retraite en 1985. Il expliquait: ‘’I no longer understood the music. Musicians showed up with tons of equipment and wires—so much that in the end we had to put in heavy lumber just to get the stuff in. And then getting it out was even harder. The music was changing, and I was worn out.’’

Malgré tout, Rumsey avait eu beaucoup de plaisir avec les Lighthouse All Stars. Toujours passionné par l’improvisation, Rumsey avait déclaré en 1999: “When you have great jazz improvisationalists working together, it’s like the aperitif of life. There’s nothing more elegant and beautiful.”

Décrivant sa recette pour opérer avec succès un club de jazz, Rumsey avait ajouté: ‘’Have the musicians start on time [rires]. If a guy drives 20 miles to be there and wants to hear music at 9 o'clock, you owe it to him to start on time. If you do that, the guy will be back. With friends’’.

Howard Rumsey est mort à Newport Beach, en Californie, le 15 juillet 2015, à la suite d’une pneumonie. Il était âgé de quatre-vingt-dix sept ans. Mort dans la solitude (son épouse Joyce était décédée en 1998), Rumsey n’avait pas laissé de survivants immédiats. Rumsey avait fait une de ses dernière apparitions publiques dans le cadre d’un hommage au guitariste Kenny Burrell à UCLA.

LES MEMBRES DU GROUPE

Plusieurs musiciens s’étaient distingués avec les Lighthouse All Stars.

Considéré comme un vétéran, le saxophoniste Bob Cooper était originaire de Pittsburgh et était demeuré durant quatre ans avec le groupe. Surnommé ‘’Coop’’, Cooper avait non seulement écrit plusieurs compositions et arrangements, mais il était devenu un multi-instrumentiste de grand talent, se produisant à la fois au cor anglais, au hautbois et au saxophone ténor.

Le tromboniste Frank Rosolino avait fait partie du groupe durant deux ans. Surnommé ‘’Funny Frank’’, Rosolino était originaire de Detroit et était issu d’une famille de musiciens. Même si le trombone était son principal instrument, Rosolino pouvait également jouer de la contrebasse, du piano, de la batterie et de plusieurs autres instruments.

Originaire de Mishawaka, en Indiana, Conte Candoli jouait de la trompette comme aucun autre. Doté d’une vaste expérience, Candoli avait joué avec d’excellents groupes depuis ses études au high school. Il pouvait aussi jouer de remarquables solos.

Le batteur Stan Levey s’était joint au groupe en même temps que Max Roach en 1953. Originaire de Philadelphie, Levey avait commencé à jouer sur la Côte ouest avec Dizzy Gillespie et Charlie Parker en 1945. Levey était demeuré avec le groupe plus longtemps que n’importe quel autre batteur (trois ans), ce qui lui avait mérité le surnom de "Mr. Consistency".

Plus jeune membre du groupe, le pianiste Sonny Clark était originaire de Pittsburgh. Agé de vingt-quatre ans, Clark avait déjà joué en Europe avec le clarinettiste Buddy DeFranco. Très talentueux, Clark avait également démontré un grand potentiel comme compositeur et arrangeur.

Au cours des années, de nombreux autres musiciens de jazz s’étaient produits avec les Lighthouse All Stars, dont Shorty Rogers, Max Roach, Bud Shank, Milt Bernhart, Art Pepper, Bob Cooper, Hampton Hawes, Jimmy Giuffre, Teddy Edwards, Sonny Criss, Frank Patchen, Shelly Manne et plusieurs autres.

Pionnier jazz Cote ouest, les Lighthouse All Stars avaient pavé la voie à des musiciens comme Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, Miles Davis, Stan Getz et Lee Konitz.

©-2024, tous droits réservés, Les Productions de l’Imaginaire historique

#jazz

[ausetkmt]

Background information

Birth name Leslie Coleman McCann

Born September 23, 1935 Lexington, Kentucky, U.S.

Died December 29, 2023 (aged 88) Los Angeles, California,

U.S.Genres

Jazz, soul jazz

Occupation(s)Musician Instrument(s) Piano,vocals

Years active 1959–2018

Leslie Coleman McCann (September 23, 1935 – December 29, 2023) was an American jazz pianist and vocalist.[1] He is known for his innovations in soul jazz and his 1969 recording of the protest song "Compared to What". His music has been widely sampled in hip hop.

Early life

Leslie Coleman McCann was born in Lexington, Kentucky, on September 23, 1935.[2] He grew up in a musical family with three sisters, most of whom sang in church choirs.[3][4] His father was a fan of jazz music and his mother was known to hum opera tunes around the house.[4]

As a youth, McCann played the tuba and drums and performed in his school's marching band.[3][4] As a pianist, he was largely self-taught.[5] He explained that he only received piano lessons for a few weeks as a six-year-old before his teacher died.[3]

McCann attended Los Angeles City College, which was highly influential to his musical career.[6] At the age of 17, he joined the U.S. Navy in San Diego.[6]

Career

During his service in the Navy, McCann won a singing contest, which led to an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.[1] After leaving the Navy, McCann moved to California and played in his own trio.[5] He declined an offer to work in Cannonball Adderley's band so that he could dedicate himself to his own music.[5] The trio's first job was at the Purple Onion club in 1959 accompanying Gene McDaniels.[3]

McCann (left) with the Les McCann Trio (Herbie Lewis and Ron Jefferson), 1962

The main part of McCann's career began in the early 1960s, when he recorded as a pianist with his trio for Pacific Jazz.[7] In 1969, Atlantic released Swiss Movement, an album recorded with saxophonist Eddie Harris and trumpeter Benny Bailey earlier at that year's Montreux Jazz Festival.[8] The album contained the song "Compared to What"; both reached the Billboard pop charts. The song, which criticized the Vietnam War, was written by Eugene McDaniels years earlier and recorded and released as a ballad by McCann in 1966 on his album, Les McCann Plays the Hits. Roberta Flack's version appeared as the opening track on her debut album First Take (1969).[9][10]

After the success of Swiss Movement, McCann, primarily a piano player, emphasized his vocals. He became an innovator in soul jazz, merging jazz with funk, soul and world rhythms. His music was influential for its use of electric piano, clavinet and synthesizer.[11]

In 1971, McCann and Harris were part of a group of soul, R&B and rock performers–including Wilson Pickett, the Staple Singers, Santana and Ike & Tina Turner–who flew to Accra, Ghana, to perform a 14-hour concert for more than 100,000 Ghanaians. The March 6 concert was recorded for the documentary film Soul to Soul.[12] In 2004, the movie was released on DVD with an accompanying soundtrack album.[13]

McCann had a stroke in the mid-1990s,[7] but he returned to music in 2002, when Pump it Up was released, and continued to release music until 2018.[11] He also exhibited his work as a painter and photographer.[1]

Death

McCann died from pneumonia in a Los Angeles hospital on December 29, 2023, at the age of 88.[6]

Legacy

McCann's recordings have been widely sampled in hip hop music, mostly in the 1990s and 2000s, by nearly 300 acts.[11][14] These include A Tribe Called Quest, Cypress Hill, De La Soul, the Notorious B.I.G., Sean Combs, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Nas, Mary J. Blige, the Pharcyde, Eric B. & Rakim, Mobb Deep, Gang Starr and Raekwon.[11][15]

Discography

Source:[16][better source needed]

As leader

Les McCann Ltd. Plays the Truth (Pacific Jazz, 1960)

Les McCann Ltd. Plays the Shout (Pacific Jazz, 1960; Sunset, 1970)

Les McCann Ltd. in San Francisco (Pacific Jazz, 1961)

Pretty Lady (Pacific Jazz, 1961)

Les McCann Sings (Pacific Jazz, 1961)

Somethin' Special with Richard "Groove" Holmes (Pacific Jazz, 1962)

Les McCann Ltd. in New York (Pacific Jazz, 1962)

On Time (Pacific Jazz, 1962)

The Gospel Truth (Pacific Jazz, 1963)

Les McCann Ltd. Plays the Shampoo (Pacific Jazz, 1963)

McCanna (Pacific Jazz, 1963)

Jazz Waltz with the Jazz Crusaders (Pacific Jazz, 1963)

Spanish Onions (Pacific Jazz, 1964)

McCann/Wilson with Gerald Wilson (Pacific Jazz, 1964)

Soul Hits (Pacific Jazz, 1964)

Beaux J. Pooboo (Limelight, 1965)

But Not Really (Limelight, 1965)

Les McCann Plays the Hits (Limelight, 1966)

A Bag of Gold (Pacific Jazz, 1966)

Live at Shelly's Manne-Hole (Limelight, 1966)

Live at Bohemian Caverns–Washington, D.C. (Limelight, 1967)

Bucket o' Grease (Limelight, 1967)

From the Top of the Barrel (Pacific Jazz, 1967)

More or Les McCann (World Pacific, 1969)

Much Les (Atlantic, 1969)

Swiss Movement with Eddie Harris (Atlantic, 1969)

New from the Big City (World Pacific, 1970)

Comment (Atlantic, 1970)

Second Movement with Eddie Harris (Atlantic, 1971)

Invitation to Openness (Atlantic, 1972)

Talk to the People (Atlantic, 1972)

Live at Montreux (Atlantic, 1973)

Layers (Atlantic, 1973)

Another Beginning (Atlantic, 1974)

Doldinger Jubilee '75 (Atlantic, 1975)

Hustle to Survive (Atlantic, 1975)

River High, River Low (Atlantic, 1976)

Music Lets Me Be (ABC/Impulse!, 1977)

Change, Change, Change (ABC/Impulse!, 1977)

The Man (A&M, 1978)

Tall, Dark & Handsome (A&M, 1979)

The Longer You Wait (Jam, 1983)

Music Box (Jam, 1984)

Road Warriors with Houston Person (Greene Street, 1984)

Butterfly (Stone, 1988)

Les Is More (Night, 1990)

On the Soul Side (MusicMasters, 1994)

Listen Up! (MusicMasters, 1996)

Pacifique with Joja Wendt (MusicMasters, 1998)

How's Your Mother? (32 Jazz, 1998)

Pump It Up (ESC, 2002)

Vibrations: Funkin' Around Something Old Something New (Jazz Legend Project) (Leafage Jazz/Pony Canyon, 2003)

The Shout (American Jazz Classics, 2011)

28 Juillet (Fremeaux, 2018)[citation needed]

#Les McCann #Jazz #Pianist #Composer #Les McCann Trio #compared to what #Swiss Movement

[dustedmagazine]

Anthony Davis / Kyle Motl / Kjell Nordeson — Vertical Motion (Astral Spirits)

One lesson to be derived from this album is that there may be some gold forgotten in your closet. Given the time gap between the recording of this album in 2018 and its release in 2023, plus the Bandcamp page confession by one of the participating musician that it spent some years on a shelf before it made the transition from raw recordings to finished album, one suspects that this album is a product of that moment when COVID confinement compelled people to finally give the storage closet a good cleaning. The vinyl supply-chain disaster can’t have helped. But while no one should be naïve enough to believe that you can’t keep a good album down — c’mon, what do you think this is, a just world? Neither should you ignore the fact that this is a superb recording by an unlikely ensemble.

Between his teaching and his opera composing, Anthony Davis has not made improvisational piano playing a top priority for eons. But it would appear that he’s open to playing with his students. Bassist Kyle studied composition with Davis at University of California-San Diego, and while he was there, he also played in some bands with Kjell Nordeson. Folks with long memories and big free jazz CD collections might recall the Swedish-born percussionist’s work with Mats Gustafsson and Ken Vandermark. But more recently, he’s settled in California and gotten a PhD from UC-San Diego. Davis was part of his doctoral committee.

The three musicians played together several times, but it was Motl who organized the session and selected the material, which includes two of his compositions, one by Davis, and a couple of free pieces. The resulting music doesn’t slot easily into any genre. There’s a precision of pitch that one might associate with classical music, a flowing lyricism that derives from jazz, and a readiness to create with complete spontaneity that is usually the province of free improvisation. Davis’ contributions are thoughtful and lucid, but also confidently spontaneous. Motl reconciles virtuoso bowing with a rough, physical attack that exploits the fact that he’s playing a big, resonant box of wood. And Nordeson, who sticks to the drum kit, is as adept at close shadowing as he is at channeling energy. Their interactions have so much grace and mystery that they sails right over stylistic boundaries while evoking the otherness that art provides as a tool for tolerating the world we live in.

Bill Meyer

#bill meyer #dusted magazine #albumreview #anthony davis #kyle motl #kjell nordeson #vertical motion #astral spirits #piano trio

[1999babiesclassof2k17]

📅 | June 23, 2020

📝 | Em for USCD Tritons Newsletter: Choose Your Weapon: Épée, Piano, or Guitar: Meet UC San Diego's Multi-Talented Emily Beihold

Growing up just a few miles outside Los Angeles, there's a good chance one will become attracted to the arts. Whether it's music, film, television, architecture, dance, painting, or literature, the City of Angels offers up unlimited exposure to outlets of creativity.

Emily Beihold, a 2020 University of California San Diego graduate and Triton scholar-athlete, discovered her passions in Los Angeles County. All are a product of her environment, but not all are affiliated with the Hollywood Bowl, the Sunset Strip, the studios, or the museums.

A native of Glendale, located a mere 10 miles from downtown LA, Beihold's parents are involved in the entertainment industry, movies and television to be exact. Mom is a producer and dad is a storyboard artist. He is also a competitive fencer. Their influences run deep.

Beihold's weapons of choice in creative expression include the piano, the guitar, the ukulele, her voice, and the épée. The largest and heaviest of the three weapons utilized in fencing, the épée is a major player in the combat sport that has been part of the Olympic Games since 1896.

Beihold is in her element when performing on stage, writing and playing original music, and taking to the fencing strips to compete.

THE MUSIC

Em Beihold, as she goes by in her music career, finds inspiration in the talents of Billie Holiday, Brandi Carlile, Ella Fitzgerald, Feist, Florence and the Machine, Lorde, and Regina Spektor. Her work spans several genres including folk, pop, and rock, all with indie and alternative leanings.

Things are going well for Beihold as she recently saw her music surpass 1,000,000 streams by fans.

Where did it all start?

“I remember when I was six I saw a piano in the window of a store and I asked my parents if I could have one,” said Beihold. “They said yes, but only if I committed to taking lessons. It was an easy, albeit a bit rash, decision to start playing.”

Beihold began taking lessons. She learned scales, sight reading, song writing, improvisation, and music theory. Her teacher, who she considers one of her biggest idols to this day, encouraged her to create her own music. 

“I wrote my first song when I was seven,” recalled Beihold. "It was called "America Home" and it was accompanied by piano and a drum track. It was the cheesiest thing you've ever heard. I listened to it last year and I was repulsed. But it's cute, I had a tiny voice then."

It wasn't long until that tiny voice began to grow.

"At summer camp in fourth grade I saw a girl performing ‘The Call’ by Regina Spektor on stage," remembered Beihold. “I was just so moved and immediately I started thinking 'I want to be able to write like that, I want to be able to sing songs like that.'

"I wanted to sound like her (Spektor) and I love how she breaks the typical rules of song writing. When you listen to her, you don't always know what's going to happen next.”

Along with the influences of living in Los Angeles and having creative parents, Beihold's schooling also played a big part in her love for music.

“I went to private and public schools and both were very arts-oriented,” explained Beihold. “I had the support system in place there to be able to do my craft.”

Beihold performs her original song “Shoot Her Down” in the video below.

After years of piano, voice, and writing practice, Beihold got a break in 2017.

At a live performance at Republic of Pie in North Hollywood, the crowd included the director, writer, and co-producer of a soon to be released movie. A fan of Beihold's set, she asked if she would be interested in writing a song for the film.

“She sent me the script and I wrote something based off of what I read,” said Beihold. “I remember there was something in the script about droplets of water in a sink, and that's what I based the sound of the song off of. I sent it back and she said it fit perfectly.

“It was one of the best experiences ever. It just flowed, and that doesn't happen all of the time.”

Beihold's creation, “Not Who We Were," is featured in the 2017 movie “I'm Not Here,” which stars J.K. Simmons, Mandy Moore, Sebastian Stan, Max Greenfield, and David Koechner.

You can listen to the song below.

Always wanting to progress, Beihold added guitar and ukulele to her repertoire.

“I know a good amount on the piano, but I feel a bit limited because I like a lot of songs on guitar and I wanted to write in that way,” said Beihold. “It's a different process chord-wise when you write for guitar versus piano, so I bought a guitar and took lessons online.”

And the uke?

“The ukulele was a gift from my parents,” revealed Beihold. “It's a lot easier than the guitar with only four strings and a tiny fret board. Just about anyone can play the uke.”

Beihold has taken to the streets with her ukulele, busking at farmer's markets along with a friend that sings harmonies. She also continues to play open mic nights, primarily in the Los Angeles area.

“I still get nervous, thinking that people won't like my music,” said Beihold. “I played the 626 Night Market, a huge festival that draws 100,000 people over the weekend. It was so dark that I couldn't see anyone, so I wasn't nervous at all. It's more nerve-racking for me in coffee shops, where I can see everyone's faces.

What does her musical future look like?

“I'd like to continue to give it all that I have to be an artist," she said.    

THE FENCING Beihold has been involved in fencing since her childhood years, following in the lunging footsteps of her father.

A 2017 graduate of John Burroughs High School in Burbank, she won two state championships and placed third at the 2015 Division II National Championships.

She carried her athletic passion into college, becoming a competitive fencer for UC San Diego. The Tritons annually go up against powerhouse programs such as Columbia, Harvard, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Princeton, and Yale, to name a few.

Over her three years as an épéeist in La Jolla, Beihold twice qualified for the NCAA National Collegiate Championships, the pinnacle of fencing at the college level.

As a freshman in 2018, she placed 20th in épée during the two-day event at Penn State University. Beihold picked up a huge victory over Notre Dame's Amanda Sirico, who went on to win the U.S. Fencing Association National Championship a month later.

As a sophomore in 2019, she went deeper, finishing 12th to earn All-America honors in Cleveland. During her run, she defeated three of the four eventual finalists, including Sirico.

“When the event was over, I thought I had placed 13th and I was disappointed," revealed Beihold. “But then, my teammate Miya showed me the updated standings and I was 12th! I was shocked. Becoming an All-American was always a secret goal of mine, but it seemed so out of reach that I never vocalized it.”

Beihold is a two-time All-Western Fencing Conference performer (2018 and 2019) and helped UC San Diego win league titles in 2018 and 2020. She served as the Tritons' épée squad captain this year.

“Fencing at UC San Diego taught me how to be a friend, a teammate, and a leader,” said Beihold. "I also learned how to better manage my time by being a scholar-athlete while balancing school, jobs, and other extracurriculars all at once.

"The best thing were the people! I made lifelong friends not just with my teammates, but my coaches as well. Coach Juan Ignacio was an incredible mentor to me and I feel extremely fortunate to have been able to work with him for the past three years."

How long will Beihold continue fencing?

“Well, my dad's in his 60's and he's still killing it,” she said.

THE CROSSOVER So is there any artistic connection between writing and performing music and fencing?

“Actually, yes,” says Beihold. “As I do it over and over, the way that the blade hits another blade or someone's body, I hear a rhythm to it.

“In fencing, there's a practice called ‘breaking tempo' in which you want to break that rhythm and change the timing, and that’s my biggest weakness in the sport. Because of music, I think my brain is so used to having the rhythm keep going and I'm not wired to break it.

“Sometimes when I fence, I keep attacking, attacking, attacking and I just mow them down without really stopping to have a moment or get a reaction. Melodically, it just makes more sense to keep going.”

Music and fencing are both tools to placate the soul as well.

“It's literally therapy once you get into the flow of it,” said Beihold. "Over the past few quarters, I haven't really written much because I've been so busy with school. I was getting very emotional with no release. Fencing certainly helped to an extent, but it's not the same as translating your feelings into words and notes.

"Fencing is definitely creative, but it's more of a physical release as opposed to an emotional release. It brightens my mood, but it's not necessarily fixing anything. Music fixes more."

Is listening to music prior to competing a major part of her routine?

“I listen to music before fencing sometimes, but I'm not dependent on it,” she said. “Sometimes I like silence, I guess that's when I think best.” 

THE FUTURE A communication major with a business minor, the multi-talented Beihold graduated from UC San Diego on June 13 of this year. The kicker? She was just a junior, earning her degree in just three years as a result of taking many high school AP courses that allowed her to enter UC San Diego with a slew of credits already earned.

As a collegiate scholar-athlete, Beihold collected academic awards to go along with her athletic accolades, earning CoSIDA Academic All-District honors as a sophomore before being named a Chancellor's Scholar-Athlete Award winner as a junior.

“In college, I wanted to learn more about marketing, and more specifically, how to market myself,” said Beihold. “I was also interested in learning about media and film and how music and film go together. If music doesn't work out, I'll probably go into film in some capacity."

Currently, Beihold is working on putting an album together, her first commercial endeavor since releasing a six-song EP in 2017. Staying home due to the COVID-19 pandemic has afforded her plenty of time to write new songs and revisit unfinished ones.

Her short term goal is to release something next year.

Looking long term, she hopes to get to a point in her career in which she can tour and perform at music festivals.

“I know my future is in music,” she said. “I just don't know if it's in performing or writing.”

Wherever her talents take her, the show must go on.

#Em Beihold #EBeihold #Articles #2020 #** #this was such a great read

[rosettast0ned420]

matt camerons time line bc I'm a encyclopedia

born in 1962

started professionally playing the drums at age 14

took professional drum lessons from ages 17-19 with the San Diego symphony

moved to Seattle WA at age 20 (1983)

started playing with bam bam in 1984-85

started playing with soundgarden in 1986 !!

kept playing with soundgarden until they broke up in 1997

he worked on personal work, hater, and well water conspiracy until he then joined pearl jam in 1998

he still worked with that stuff after he joined pearl jam but pearl jam was his main point of focus after 98

soundgarden got back together in 2010, he worked with them and pearl jam up until chris died in 2017.

in 2020 him and Taylor hawkins made a band called night time boogie association, releasing 2 singles.

and in late 2021 he started working with 3rd secret and still does too this day. (he still works with pj too)

don't ever try to 1 up me on being a matt stan again honey 😒😒 this is all from memory.

#correct me if I'm wrong lmao #matt stan #ring leader of the cock fandom

[epacer]

Classmates

Doug Robinson, Class of 1973

   “Nobody can tell the story of Synanon because chronology is bullshit. It just doesn’t mean anything. We started here we became this, and it ended this way. That’s not the important thing about Synanon. What is important is what happened to you and what happened to me, and Frank Rehak, what happened to Sal the newcomer from Puerto Rico, what happened to Wilbur and Brooks. That’s what Synanon is.”

   Doug Robinson

Sarah & Doug

On October 13th in 1969, my best friend Brian Laurence brought me down to Synanon to play my first ever Synanon Game. I was 14. I was alternately fascinated and bored–believe it or not, the Game had bogged down with four teenage siblings copping out to having sex with each other! You’d think I would have been interested but I went downstairs to play the grand piano in the San Diego house. Eileen Gates came up, asked my name and what I was doing there. When I told her I’d left the Game, she said “If you don’t go back, you can’t come down here anymore. We’re strict about staying in the Game till it ends.” I went back upstairs and dove in.

Four years later, after hundreds of Games, a Trip, a couple of Stews, and having lived in various facilities only for the summers, I had to choose between going to Cal State Northridge, an excellent jazz college to which I had a few scholarships, and moving into Synanon full time. It wasn’t that music wasn’t important to me–it was almost everything…but only almost. My music geek friends were kind of boring to me, as their entire life revolved around this one thing. Yet here I had Synanon, an entirely different world of experiences and personalities at my fingertips. Music was a part of my experience there, but not the only part.

I discussed it with my mentor, Frank Rehak, who encouraged me to follow my heart. He said wonderful things to me about my talent and where he thought I’d end up regardless of my choice, and but he did promise that if I chose Synanon, he’d make sure I never regretted not getting a college-level music education.

SO on October 13, 1973, at 18 years old, I moved into the SF house a few months later, and Frank and Al Bauman started working with me–I had a 40 hour a week music curriculum in addition to working out as a sandwich maker in SF AND living in community! I never slept. I studied theory and harmony, tape editing, sight-reading as well as cleaning the bandstand, practicing piano, bass, drums, and trombone. I played Games, got in jackpots, got out of jackpots, and had a ball.

Over the years, I lived in most of our facilities for a little while. Musicians came and went, and sometimes the Sounds of Synanon was a source of great pride for the level at which we played, while other times it was an uphill slog, but I never lost interest because if Frank could enthusiastically jump up on stage with a 15-year-old me, I could certainly pass that inspiring attitude on.

I fell in love more than once–Sarah, Sally, Robin, Anna, Dian, Andrea and Glenda–these wonderful women taught me more than anyone how to be a man. And yes, I absolutely failed a lesson now and then, but looking back I can see that they kept me on the right path and I will always be grateful to them.

There were unrequited crushes along the way, and while it’s fine to leave them undefined that doesn’t mean that they didn’t make my life even more interesting.

I seemed to be following Brian Laurence for a while–he had played his first Game 6 months before me, and had moved into Synanon 6 months before I’d be able to. And now, six months after he’d done so, at 19 I signed up for a sales training course along with Wendy Raineri, Joslin, Larry Sutton and a few other fine folks. Freddy Sale was our teacher.

Off we went to the streets of Oakland and L.A. with our farbuses (sample cases) in hand, walking into random businesses and walking out with orders for promotional items. As it turned out, I was good at thinking on my feet and practically unafraid to ask for an order and thus became somewhat valuable–a curse because I didn’t enjoy it all that much. I wanted to be living in Tomales, riding horses, making love to my girlfriend, listening to Thickened Light and playing music, not convincing some poodle-groomer that our pens were superior to our competitors’. Alas, Synanon needed money and I was viewed as a provider. I spent time in our little Chicago house where my lifetime friendship with Wendy solidified and many outstanding memories were made.

One of the things about being a good salesman–I learned how to make my case, so from time to time, I got management to look the other way while I slipped out of what was to become ADGAP and took jobs at The Wire (again, 6 months after Brian had done the same thing), driving the catering truck, teaching music in our school alongside my soul brothers Bruce Gilbert and David Scott.

Partners changed, weight came and went, the products that ADAGP sold evolved and the job became a far more sophisticated playground. I also learned how to take control of my life–it wasn’t that I didn’t usually join in when we zigged and zagged between social issues and experiments, because I did. But participation was always a conscious decision on my part. I always knew that I had a choice. I recognize today that many didn’t feel so centered, but I can’t apologize for my own experiences–and some of what made them so powerful was that they weren’t always following my own nature, but instead forcing me to grow in a way I might not have.

Bruce, David, Frank, Ken Elias and I produced lots of concerts and musical events. One of them was Betty’s Suite, a 30 minute piece that combined a choir, a large band, dancers and pre-recorded material. We only performed it once, but it was a thrill. I got the hang of producing and still use some of the same methodology today.

The sales work got super interesting. Off Andrea and I went to Houston for the longest and sweatiest 18 months in history. Matt Rand was my new boss and he suggested I focus on selling our promotional expertise to health care companies, then a revolutionary and untried strategy. For 90 days, I wrote literally zero business–kind of unheard of with someone with a few years experience. Matt never once made me feel like I was failing, just that I was getting started. And eventually, he proved himself right. it all came together and I became a Health Care Marketing Specialist, creating entertaining promotional campaigns for national hospital chains. I could live with that–just like Synanon had enabled me to see things in a new light, I found I could provide a similar perspective shift with clients, about their own challenges, their employees, or whatever was in front of them. Clients started becoming friends, and some of them still are today.

Was Synanon starting to unravel? I suppose so–the dichotomy of in and out of the Game had become less sacrosanct, as the founder had begun taking action based on what was said in the circle. My solution was to either play the public Games like they were merely entertainment, and stick to private Games to get my serious Gaming on. I loved the Game–not that I wasn’t resistant and terrified at times, but it was often such a thrilling ride for me that I pushed past my fears.

Back in CA, my talented friend Jon Kaufman had been appointed the role of manager of the Health Care Marketing Team, and together I think we helped to raise the bar of what was possible in ADGAP. There were other innovators, of course, but I felt good about brainstorming with Jon and the team and then presenting our crazy idea to Macyl and Dennis Speert, who almost always said “Try it out!”

I was proud that I went through most of the ’80s, which seemed to be more conspicuously materialistic than other decades outside of Synanon, without owning ANYTHING. I loved living in community, even with all the challenges. Chuck had done damage to the fabric of the place but was being moved to the sidelines and lots of us were committed to trying to keep the best parts alive and functioning. Still, every other day we’d hear that another friend was leaving.

Glenda and I had fallen for each other–the possible end of an unrequited infatuation from 8 years earlier loomed. We got together at a great cost to our partners which I will always regret, and that changed everything. She had already joined the healthcare marketing team and suddenly we were sitting in offices persuading pharmaceutical clients to spend their advertising agency dollars with us, a whole different level of sophistication and risk-taking which we loved.

To hang onto our best sales people, ADGAP started offering salaries–and the money was both comforting and terrifying to people. I had never seen someone like Bill Lundberg or Phil Applebaum as merely a blue collar grunt–you don’t need a brain surgeon when the pipes freeze, you need a guy who knows how to deal with that. We all played our roles. But the money divided people and created the perception of a typical, stratified non-Synanon community. And the perception eventually become reality for most of us.

Back to work, we also convinced clients to use my personal music CDs, which I’d been producing since the late ’80s, as branded giveaways which helped to validate my decision to do music my way as opposed to what had been expected of me as a kid. We sold over a million CDs of my music and the music of top artists in the jazz genre from around the world.

Glenda and I had the last official Synanon Love Match, officiated by the amazingly funny Russ Mumford. We tried to keep some piece of the community functioning, along with a few other diehards, but with only another month to go before the IRS was going to close us down, Glenda and I moved to Exeter and helped to reform ADGAP as an employee-owned company, along with about 100 other folks who moved to various parts of the country.

I attended Synanon reunions pretty regularly. I was still so disappointed that I had my own car, my own mortgage, my own laundry machine and so on. It was never what I’d aspired to and to this day I still believe that there are alternative lifestyles that are better for the ecosystem and for the emotional ecosystem as well. But hey, life is short and you do the best you can with what you’ve got in front of you.

Today, I am 65 years old and living in Central Mexico. The town I live in is actually an intentional community–you don’t move here unless you are interested in some level of community, IMO. After producing concerts and fundraisers for the last 13 years, I came out of retirement and began selling real estate part-time. I love that I know how to sell without actually selling anything–I’ll often do a little Unicept or T bar with clients and help them figure out what they really want for themselves, and then the town sells itself.

I am still very connected to many of my Synanon relationships. And my important newer relationships all know about my history–how could I not tell someone about a place, a way I’d spent my life from 14 to 35 years old?

My music is still at the top of my list. Over the years, I’ve had young musicians under my wing in a way that I hope would make Frank and Al and Ed Scott proud. Today, I have longtime musical associations and brand new partners…and the younger set is pushing me to keep growing. I’m pretty sure I’m a better player and composer than I was 10 years ago, and I hope there’s time to reach yet another level or two before I’m done.

There is far too much to say–there were single days of my Synanon life that could be the basis for an entire novella. But I wanted to touch on some highlights on this, the anniversary of both my first Synanon Game and later the date on which I became a full-time resident.

Thanks for reading along. I have love and respect for all of you, even if we might disagree about the details. *Reposted article from synanon.com, May 18, 2021

[womansunsky]

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#Singing success 360 church unlimited

[ryderxmms]

folks ... it is i, chelly, once again to introduce you to another one of my children !! ryder is a goof. a musical goof. who’s definitely been Through It, but he’s a lovable guy and i hope you’ll feel the same way after reading all about him !! if you’d like to plot please like this so i can hit you up and shower you in love !!

tw: alcoholism, abuse, angst

                * : ･ﾟ･✧･ RYDER STELLAN SIMMS ･✧･ﾟ･ : *

— && guests may mistake me as ( chase stokes ), but really i am ( ryder simms + cis male + he/him ) and my DOB is ( 3/3/1995 ). i am applying for the ( bartender ) position as part of the EHP and would like to live in suite ( 207 ). i should be hired because i am ( relaxed & creative ), but i can also be ( despondent & temperamental ) at times. personally, i like to ( write music, play the drums & guitar, go skateboarding ) when off the clock, but that won’t interfere with work.

this is another ... long read .... and for that i am so sorry listen the muse just be pouring out sometimes but like

TL:DR - ryder’s childhood was confusing and rough for the boy; his parents weren’t good together, in fact they probably brought out the worst in each other. his mother was a depressed woman for much of his childhood and his father was an alcoholic that could be abusive one night and a party the next. music was his solace through out all of it and ryder latched onto his drum kit and guitar for support. it’s just been he and his mom since they moved from seattle to chicago years ago and his sole focus has been on music and doing whatever he can to make it work. he’s got a band called one night stand and he’s really passionate about it & hope to get a record deal one of these days. really he’s just a theater kid, a goof, this loveable guy who will fight for his friends as the loyal guy he is, but otherwise isn’t rough or tough. he’s incredibly passionate and appreciative, like will literally give you the shirt off his back if you need it. he’s been through a lot over the years and he’s felt lost and empty at plenty of points in his life, but there’s a lightness to this boy/

connections: you can find ryder’s connection page right over here and would be open to any of them !! but i’d especially love to see a bandmate, flirtationship, gym buddy, or ride or die for this boyyo

*:･ﾟ･✧･ where it all began: in life, ryder’s always been pretty honest about how fucked up his life is, or at least has been, he grew up in a broken home, truth be told. his parents were far from perfect - just two blue-collared adults struggling to make ends meet. sure, they were married, but that decision got made after his mother found out she was pregnant and there was nothing overtly romantic about any of it. they signed the courthouse paperwork and got a couple of inexpensive bands from the pawnshop and called it a day. from there on, there didn’t have a whole lot of love in their marriage, let alone household, and truly a lot of undeserving resentment had fallen onto ryder’s shoulders once he had been born. it was painfully obvious that neither of his parents were too eager to have a child, especially not with each other and while still only in their twenties, but nothing about that was ryder’s fault; obviously. while his parents tried to show him that they loved him, that they cared unconditionally, there were so many conditions that came with being a member of the simms household.

*:･ﾟ･✧･ about to set fire: ryder’s mother was miserable, clinically depressed and attempting to self-treat herself for the majority of her life, but at the least she was still far more present and caring towards ryder than his father was. he was miserable too, but his father’s version of self-medicating came in the form of alcohol after a long day’s work at the factory. he would slump down in the recliner in their living room and flip on the television, barely making it through an evening without getting drunk. for the longest time, the concept of drinking and getting drunk confused the shit out of ryder. his father was an alcoholic, there was no denying that, but his drunken stupors weren’t always the same. there were occasions where his father was what he later found to be considered a happy drunk - playing on the floor with ryder and laughing so loudly it rumbled against the walls and dancing with his mother to the radio in their kitchen. but then there were nights where his father was a mean drunk - shoving ryder to the floor, yelling so loudly that it shook the pictures on the wall, slapping his mother in their kitchen. whatever version of his father he or his mother was going to get was a mystery, and when things were good they seemed great, but when things were bad they seemed dangerous. ryder never questioned his mom when she’d take him out for a long ride and make him stay at grandma’s for a week. never questioned when she would shoo him upstairs to his room so that he didn’t have to deal with whatever was going on. never questioned why she stayed, either. why they were subjected to any of this. that was ryder’s world, it was his life, and it wasn’t until he grew up a little that he began to realize just how wrong everything was about his household.

*:･ﾟ･✧･ change of pace: it was a shocking mid-fall afternoon, rain pattering down against the windows and into the bucket that was collecting the rainwater from the leak in their roof, that everything seemed to change. ryder’s father came home in one of those happy drunken moments and announced to he and his mother that he was in love with another woman and was going to move in with her, was going to petition for a divorce and that it was going to be the best thing that had ever happened to him … ryder was thirteen at the time and he understand what it meant to be in love, what a divorce meant, what his father was: a cheating, alcoholic, sick man. to be quite honest, ryder wasn’t even that upset about the news - he quite figured that it might be the best thing for he and his mother. there was nothing picture perfect about their family, but maybe, just maybe, they’d at least all be better away from each other. but of course, as with the happy drunken nights came the angry drunken nights, and while ryder’s father stayed firm on wanting to get out of the house and leave his mother, there were a whole lot more fights and a lot more shoving and punching and kicking and bruises. then there were afternoons where they’d meet with an official to sign paperwork, shaking each other’s hands at the end of it all … the relationship confused ryder, it made him question what was to be considered ‘normal’ in his own life. what he wanted for himself in the future. he needed something to cope with the insanity of it all, and that was where music really came into play for the seattle boy.

*:･ﾟ･✧･ crash bang boom: ryder had always found himself to be obsessed with music - specifically the seattle born grunge era and all things rock and roll. he found that the loud sort of aggressive music was the best at drowning out whatever argument was going on down stairs. he dove into the era of 1980’s white snake or 1990’s nirvanna, everything that came before and in between and after, becoming quite the officianto. his favorite thing in the world was getting to pound on the drum kit in the band department at school before his mother came to pick him up from school. he was usually unable to take the bus back home considering he was in detention, often, and had to be picked up later in the afternoon, but ryder had an incentive to be kept late. it was an instrument that allowed him to expression his raging frustration in a constructive way, and the music teacher at his school wasn’t one to limit ryder’s , uh, creativity. he started checking out books from the library to teach himself how to play, stealing drum sticks from school and bringing them back home so he could bang on some pans just to get an idea of rhythms. every single semester he took music as an elective just so he was able to spend more time banging on drums. he started to learn some of the greatest drummer’s solos - john bonham’s good times bad times, keith moon’s who’s next, neil pearl’s the threes - anything that inspired him and was performed by the best. it certainly wasn’t easy, and he had begged his mother every year to help him pay for a drumset, but that wasn’t really a possibility for the family. his mother was essentially on her own after the divorce; despite the court-ordered child support being in place, she very rarely got sent a single check. so ryder had to work with what he had and what he had access to, but that passion for music never went away.

*:･ﾟ･✧･ sweet sixteen: when ryder had turned sixteen, he and his mother had moved down to chicago as she had gotten a job transfer there. she was being promoted to manage the new hair salon mastercuts was opening in the city and the opportunity was too good to pass up. being the angsty little shit that he was, ryder only agreed to move without kicking and screaming if she agreed to help get him into either music lessons with a drumming teacher, or get him his own kit. and considering his mother didn’t want to have to listen to the banging of drums in her own shoebox of a modest home they were able to afford in san diego, she agreed to sign him up for lessons. every summer since he was twelve, ryder had been mowing lawns and had saved up a pretty good chunk of change that helped sweeten the pot so his mother would help get him the rest of the money he’d need. and they just figured out how to make it work, and finally ryder was able to be mentored and taught by someone who actually knew what the fuck he was doing. he started to hang around all of the band and theater kids that he was going to school with since he finally felt that his talent was being fostered and he belonged now. he was a real musician. that interest carried onto social media, as it did for mostly everyone his age, and he started scrolling through his instagram feed and every cover of his favorite artists on youtube. it led ryder to following a lot of kids his own age who were just as obsessed with music as he was, even befriending a few here and there. as soon as he was able to afford his own drum kit, after working endless hours dishwashing and bar-backing at any place in california that would hire his scruffy ass, ryder started petitioning to some local bands and groups to take him on. he was ambitious in only one thing in his life - playing music.

*:･ﾟ･✧･ one night stand: while ryder was pretty lax and even awkward in any other setting, playing in a stuffy bar even in front of three people was his comfort zone. he was lucky enough to be invited to play with a few bands over the years, always lying to say that he was older than he really was just to be let into whatever bar or club the band had booked. even when he was seventeen, he was lying to his bandmates saying that he was twenty one just so that they’d actually consider him. he drove around the most beat up 1999 pick-up truck that carried his kit and his ass to and from school, gigs, work, and for a long time ryder felt like he was living the dream. a kid like him, who grew up in the household that he did, didn’t deserve to be playing at house parties for rich fucks in chicago or dive bars in illinois. he rode with three bands before he found his ‘forever home’, and each one felt just as much like a family as the last, but sometimes even the good shit can’t last forever. bands would break up over the dumbest shit, like whos song was getting performed or wasn’t at a gig, over bigger shit, like someone having to move away or taking on a better opportunity with someone else. and for ryder, he just hated the inconsistency after awhile.

he knew that college was never going to be an option for him, and if he was going to do anything with his life, it was going to be music. it is all he has ever wanted to do with his life, but it hasn’t been easy and no one makes it overnight, even with the internet fame that one night stand was starting to get. instead of getting discouraged, as soon as ryder discovered an advertisement for the employee housing program at the malnati, and he knew what he was going to be off doing. if there was even a chance that he could serve a drink to some music producer, a tech, maybe even a recording artist … a talent manager or agency director … he needed to take the chance. he believe in his talent so very much and he knew that just going from bars to parties wasn’t going to be enough to get signed and actually on a real label that could get his music out to the rest of the world. besides, getting out of mom’s house and a place on his own sounded right, even if he was going to be living in a hotel. it wouldn’t have been the first time he did, and it wasn’t going to be the worst living situation of his life.

*:･ﾟ･✧･ when we started: ryder is insanely passionate about music, his music, and most importantly their band. while he’s a chill dude and understands that playing is as much a hobby for everyone in the group, it’s also something that he hopes to make a full-time career out of some day. ever since ryder was a little kid holling up in his room, trying to ignore the stinging bruises around his jaw, he dreamed of playing sold-out area tours in front of thousands of people and being able to stand there and the crowd in front of him sing back the songs that he had written, performed. he really believes in his band and their potential, encouraging them to write EPs and play whatever shows they could get hired for and to make the album that they’d been talking about for awhile. ryder gets very excitable about music, and it’s what he’s most confident in. while he may be a seemingly awkward or goofy kid otherwise, he’s an intense and confident drummer and that’s where his place of tranquility is despite all of the noise and chaos of playing. he’s constantly studying up on techniques and new drumlines and if there’s ever a time he gets to catch another band’s show, he liked to go see what everyone else is up to just out of curiosity. he’s a huge concert-goer and has been to as many warped tours as possible since he was a young teen. he’s crazy passionate, but he definitely understands that he may not be on the same wavelength as some of his bandmates, and that’s okay. their time will come when it comes, and since having moved out to chicago to be around everyone, he’s come to be really happy with that. they aren’t chasing radio hits and trying to figure out what the market wants - they’re making music that they like, that speaks to them, and they’re all having a really great time together just doing it. his mother is still close enough that he can go see her or give her a shout whenever he can, and he couldn’t care less about what happened to his father. ‘good riddance’ is all ryder would have to say about the man.

*:･ﾟ･✧･ don’t need nothing but a good time: by day, ryder bartends at the malnati making as many tips as possible, and by night, he’s out playing gigs with his band and most affectionately people who have become his best friends. he’s not afraid to throw a punch for any one of them, would also begrudgingly take one for them, too. he’s got a keen eye for which shots they should post to their instagram to gain the most traction, which definitely helps them out. he’s recently quit the nasty smoking habit that he formed looong ago, and now he fills that urge for a headrush with salty chips; it’s been a pretty effective cold turkey quit method, and ryder’s been proud of himself because of it. he’s enjoying himself as he is now, just another angsty kid trying to make it in the music industry, but it’s been something that he’s been able to transition into with the help of the people around him. he likes to have a good time, might take a little while to warm up to someone but once he does, it’s nothing but good vibes from there on out. he’s one of those selfless dudes who’d give you the shirt off his back and wouldn’t even expect a thank you. he’s a really appreciative person and passionate in almost everything that he does. he’s got so much soul inside his bones, and it shows in his music and how he interacts with those he cares for. there’s been a lot of times in ryder’s life where he’s felt shallow, empty, lost. but he’s rather found himself over the years as he’s grown into adulthood and has been able to provide for himself, and while he’s still chasing his dreams, he’s also riding the wave he’s on now and it’s been pretty great. there’s a lightness about him that might not be expected, but at his core that’s who he is.

#malnatiooc #+ ( introduction * . ) #for the new fc :~)

[usmusiclessons]

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#san diego music lessons #music lessons san diego #us music lessons near me

[tw-koreanhistory]

A decade later, a San Diego neighborhood is still reeling from a tragic plane crash

By Peter Rowe      

Dec 08, 2018  |  9:50 AM    | San Diego        

10 year anniversary of the FA-18 crash in University City  

The postman had just delivered a Korean-language newspaper to 4416 Cather Ave. when he saw a plane plunging toward him.

“Everything was in slow motion,” said Bill Dusting, a veteran letter-carrier. “My first thought was, ‘Well, this is going to be quick and painless.’ ”

It was neither. On that morning, 10 years ago today, Dusting ran to safety, but the Marine Corps F/A-18D Hornet crashed, killing four people inside the home on Cather Avenue. Flaming wreckage shredded the house and ripped through the house next door, burning both structures to the ground.

The crash wiped out a South Korean immigrant’s family — the dead were Don Yoon’s wife, their two daughters, and his mother-in-law — and left a scar on this corner of San Diego’s University City.

“Residents are still upset, still mourning, still traumatized,” Pia Mantovani-Sud, who lives across the street from the crash site, said this week.

The Marine Corps notes that in the ensuing decade, safety procedures have been tightened and that this tragedy’s grim lessons are drummed into aviators.

“This particular incident is taught at the Naval flight school in Pensacola,” said Capt. Matthew Gregory, director of communication for Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. “This event is widely studied.”

Yet a neighborhood group known as CASA, Citizens Advocating Safe Aviation, argues that the danger still exists.

“We’ve been contacting everybody, mayors, Sup. Kristin Gaspar, Rep. Scott Peters,” said Ron Belanger, a retired naval aviator and CASA member. “We’re very concerned that there’s going to be another accident unless they straighten up and fly right.”

On Saturday at 11:30 a.m., a gathering will be held at University Village Park, a green space bordered by Cather Avenue, Florey Street and Gullstrand Street. Four jacaranda trees will be dedicated as a living memorial to the four victims. Local officials are expected, but they’ve been warned this is not an opportunity for speeches or proclamations.

Instead, neighbors will informally share memories and thoughts. Mantovani-Sud, a local mainstay since 1997, plans to read a poem:

There’s mercy in the sky

And healing in the earth.

And for all of us in between

May peace come at last.

Read more: https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-sd-plane-crash-20181208-story.html

#korean american #US military #san diego

[secretradiobrooklyn]

SECRET RADIO | 9.26.20

Secret Radio | 9.26.20 |  Hear it here.

“We don’t know where you are but we’re glad you’re here”

Liner notes by Evan, except * means Paige

1. Ayalew Mesfin - “Hasabe (My Worries)”

This track comes to us via Marc Hawthorne in San Francisco and is some hot Ethiopian stomp. Marc has been turning me on to crucial music for years, but I feel like both of our palates have expanded in unexpected directions lately. I love how foreign and how relatable this song sounds at once — “hasabe” really does sound like a guy singing about his worries, which makes it feel like he’s speaking the same language. 

2. Witch - “Introduction”

Such a commandingly hip voice announcing the band and getting us all in the groove. Witch is Zambian rock in a pretty unhinged style — apparently WITCH stands for “We Intend To Create Havoc,” which if true is basically the greatest band name ever. 

3. Erkin Koray - “Cemelim”

Every time I hear this track I think of Jefferson Airplane’s foreboding sense of dark anticipation. The added frills of shifting into Turkish bent-note vocals takes it up another level. This track is from 1974 but carries the whole psychedelic ‘60s wave forward in an unbroken wave. As we mentioned, the video is worth checking out not just because the singer/guitarist is mesmerizing or because the bassist is inherently hilarious but because their outfits are legendary. Our thanks to Brian and Mona for the heads up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-k_Fr67bPQ

4. The Velvet Underground - “Coney Island Steeplechase”

“Lies and betrayals / fruit-covered nails” — naw, just kiddin, this song happens long before Pavement, or the Strokes for that matter. I never really understood what people meant when they said that the Strokes sound like VU, but listening to this song in headphones it kinda feels like the Julian Casablancas built an entire career off Lou’s vocal delivery on this song. And who could blame him? Lou wasn’t usin it anymore.

Hailu Mergia - “Sintayehu”

We got this record during the pandemic and it has been like a stress dissolver. There’s a tape that we got in Manhattan Kansas at a house show we played, a band called Casino Gardens, that I think of every time we hear this album. Not the same in particulars, but very much the same in spirit.

5. Divino Niño - “Melty Caramelo”

One of Sleepy Kitty’s first tours was with Divino Niño (thanks, Brandon!) just as they were assembling, and they have always been a band of fellows we enjoy as much as the music that they write. I did this set of dates with a broken bone in my swole-up, purple right hand, which I wouldn’t recommend to any drummers out there. I will say though that every single drummer in the bar that night told me that they had broken the same exact bone the same way. Not by drumming but by punching an inanimate object. 

6. Moodoïd - “Je suis la montagne”

I think this song is a benefit of Paige learning French for the last couple of years. Found it on a 3.5 hour French mix on Spotify.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCuthCn8zxs

7. Sleepy Kitty - “Dreaming of Waterfalls” demo *

There are like, 7 people who have heard this song until now. This song came pretty mysteriously to me after a completely transformative trip to Kauaʻi for the wedding of ace folks and dear friends Stewart and Trenton. People who have gone to Hawaiʻi have always told me how amazing Hawaiʻi is and how it’ll change your life and it’s the best place in the entire world, and I was always like, “ok, sure whatever” until we went and now I am forever changed. I won’t get too into it here, but it’s all totally true and as amazing as they say. I can’t remember if this song was literally in the dream I had in San Diego the night we returned to the contiguous 48, or if it somehow emerged out of thinking of that dream, but it basically just appeared and I thought about it and thought about it and kept it in my head the whole plane ride back to St. Louis and recorded it pretty much immediately when we got back. I played 2 songs at our friends’ wedding on uke (where I was relieved to get approval from the Hawaiian family, ha ha) and it’s still a very unfamiliar instrument to me but it was the only answer for this song.

This is also one of a few recordings I made shortly before the first of 2 vocal surgeries around that time. It was kind of a stressful time musically; I was still figuring out what was going on, knowing something was wrong, getting hoarse all the time but not knowing what was going on yet.  Learning the songs for the wedding, and this song and this recording are positive memories in what was a very uncertain period in Sleepy Kitty life. I can definitely remember the challenges and limitations of that time, but it’s great to have this beautiful little moment that came out of that time too. When I hear this now, I like it and I’m glad to have it. It transports me back to that magical place and I’m thankful to Stewart and Trenton for having us there to celebrate with them.

8. The Fall - “Arms Control Poseur” (Bonus Version) (whatever that means)

“What do you fear?”

“Being found out.”

“The why do you always give yourself away?”

After initially being repulsed by The Fall, I eventually had what felt like essentially a religious experience after falling asleep listening to them on repeat in the tour bus — somehow their perverse aesthetic had become grafted into my DNA. I became an avid proselytizer for the band, with few takers, for years. Eventually I kind of gave up, baffled both by how intensely I felt their music and how immune everyone else apparently was to it. 

Cut to years later in an apartment on North Ave in Chicago, watching Paige bike up the street towards the window where I stood. She apologized as she walked her bike up the stairs. Sorry I’m late, she said, I just got caught up in the Fall. I don’t know how to explain it. You don’t understand, The Fall is not like other bands.

I literally thought that she was teasing me, and that I must have talked her ear off about the band at some point. But NO — she’d had the exact sort of conversion experience as me. In her case it was to “Extricate,” which was one of my very favorite albums, being the second one I personally owned. 

Still, this record’s aesthetic is completely dominant in my life. I couldn’t even guess how many times I’ve listened to it, and it still fascinates me every time.

“I quite very very much enjoyed 

his jovial lies

lying”

9. T.P. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo - “Wodeka Kpoe”

The day I found this track I was completely distracted by it. It’s so muscular and lean and intense. I love everything about the almost metallic drum sound, the dry vocals, the guitar telling its own narrative, the sharp little shaker going the whole time. It’s the closest thing to punk in Beninese music that I’ve heard. I read recently that this was on a 1983 Albarika Records comp LP (the person referred to the as “legendary,” but I don’t know to whom, or when), and when I looked it up a lot of other tracks that we love from the Soundway comp were there. But as far as I know, it’s not on any of those 21st century collections. So good!

10. Orchestre Abass - “Haka Dunia”

The cover of this 6-song burner shows a guy with a guitar behind a keyboard called TIGER 61, with his foot up on… what? the keys bench? There’s a single pedal on the floor that leads up into the keyboard. The sounds that come from that board though! This is a tone I think of as completely desirable. I guess this is also punk, this one from Togo. I mean, I have no idea what he/they think they’re doing, but to me it feels like it has all the stuff that I love in punk music.

Hailu Mergia

11. T.P. Orchestre de Cotonou Benin - “Moulon Devia”

I just realized this track can be found elsewhere, but I found it on a record credited to T.P. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou Benin, with a great photo of Yehouessi Leopold and Zoundegnon Papillon Bernard on the cover looking like the coolest dudes in the world cos they are. There are some great stereo panning effects, no doubt done live, on the horns at the beginning and the keys solo in the middle, which really enriches the headphone experience. This keys solo uses a suite of sounds that I absolutely love from them — and which are apparently the work of Papillon himself! I knew he was the guitarist who builds sand castles in the air of T.P. songs, but I only just realized that he’s also the guy throwing down those supper trippy Farfisa sounds! Holy smokes, that’s just ridiculous. He and Yehouessi are probably my favorite rhythm combo ever. PLUS they’ve got Bentho Gustave on bass, whose T.P. album was the first one we bought abroad. I mean, this track is so epic.

12. Patrick Juvet - “Où sont les femmes”*

I have a new awesome French teacher, who sends me cabaret songs to check out and says things like “I’m an old queen! What am I to do!” He played this song over Zoom for some live hold music while I was printing something for a recent lesson. I’m excited to hopefully hear more French music from him and also to hear more of his stories of discotheques in the 80s.

Evan adds: The video is well worth your attention as well, especially if you like red sequins glinting disco diamonds beneath deeply feathered hair. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqc7mVZQNFo

13. Le Tigre - “Deceptacon”

This is one of the all-time top art school party songs as far as I know. And why the hell not? It’s pure Olympia, and all the hooks line up all the way down.

I video that someone made for school has essentially become the official video of the song because it’s totally awesome and fits like a pure expression of the song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SyBR-M2YvU

14. Themne Song Track 1  

I don’t know who performed this track or what it’s called — it’s just identified as “Themne Song Track 1,” Themne being the name of a tribe in Sierra Leone. I think it might be a “comedian story teller” called Miranda T Denkenneh, but can’t tell.

I’ve been into Janka Nabay and the Bubu Gang for a couple of years now. Nabay is a Sierra Leonan musician who came to NYC and put together a band of hip NY musicians who make this rhythmically complex yet somehow austere dance music that I find totally fascinating. Reading up on them, he was described as translating the music he came from into a more electric style. Well, it turns out that is indeed the case, based on this track from Sierra Leone. This sounds like Janka Nabay but warm and large where his music is focused and tight. I totally see both how damn danceable this Themne 

One of my favorite things about discovering this song is: the notes on the YouTube track are exclusively from ex-pats loving music from home and the old days, calling out their tribe and checking in from wherever they are. One guy, Ibrahim Noah Koroma, writes from Senegal:

tears fall down in my eyes when I listing dis song missing u SL 🇸🇱🇸🇱💪💪💪 I'm proud of my tribe temne 💯💪💪💪

15. The Sugarcubes - “Regina”

The setup of this song is such an angular, proggy spiky comic thing, definitely cool in its own way, but man, when it hits the chorus, it’s absolutely the most gorgeous thing. The lyrics are truly bizarre, and they’re making me appreciate how this band impacted Bjork’s later work. One thing I don’t understand: does she pronounce “Regina” with a hard G because that’s how that word is pronounced in Icelandic? Or is that just something she does?

16. Gétatchèw Mèkurya - “Ambassèl”

The more we learn about Ethiopian jazz and popular music before and after their political strife, the more there is to learn. In fact, one thing I learned about Mèkurya is that he played with Dutch socialist punks The Ex, a band I have admired for a couple of decades now, though mostly because I’m stuck on their album “Scrabbling at the Lock.” They apparently toured together in the aughties… and all of a sudden I can hear how their very different sounds actually relate very aptly. Man. That’s enough to fall in love with music all over again.

Also, one fact that must be acknowledged: Gétatchèw is maybe the best first name ever.

17. Jacques Dutronc - “Et moi, et moi, et moi”

I just dropped these lyrics into Google translate and it turns out he’s got a very identifiable brand of humor — wry, confident, diffident. He always makes me think of Dylan with his delivery.

18. Meas Samon - “Jol Dondeung Kone Key (Going to Get Engaged)”

So much feel! Those key dives just to open the song, man, I don’t even know. And the vocals are spilling over with character — it’s like watching a movie unfold. This is Cambodian, from the late sixties or early seventies. Every time it gets to the keys solos I think about how much I want Dave Grelle to hear this track, like, right now. It’s between this and Abass for sickest keys distortion to be found.

19. T.P. Orchestre - “Senamin” *

What is up with this song? We came across it and kind of set it aside, and then it was just in my head all. the. time. At first I wasn’t sure about the 1996 movie version “I’d Be Surprisingly Good For You” style sax (my LEAST favorite song in Evita) But, even so this song is so...majestic! And mysterious! The haunting melodies dancing around together at the end really got me.  

20. Hallelujah Chicken Run Band - “Alikilula”

The constant interaction of 3s and 4s in Chicken Run songs never fails to delight me. The shapes of the songs are almost like Guided By Voices tracks — one good idea perfectly expressed, and then they’re outta there. 

21. Antoine Dougbé - “Nou Akuenon Hwlin Me Sin Koussio”

If I could pick one album for all of my friends to spin a few times in a row… that would not be easy. But lately, that record would be “Legends of Benin,” the totally headspinning comp put out by Analog Africa. Every track is a deep insight into what rock music can be. In the liner notes, Samy Ben Redjeb takes the listener on a whole record-buying expedition through the southern coast of west Africa, describing where he picked up particular LPs, falling into conversations with some of the musicians, and generally providing insights both romantic and invaluable. (His notes on Dougbé are worth the price of admission.) In one note he mentions talking to a friend about how Africa doesn’t seem to deal well in reggae, and he considers “Nou Akuenon” one of the best attempts on the continent. It hadn’t occurred to me to think of this as reggae… and I still don’t hear it that way. But I like thinking of the band reaching for reggae and making this instead. 

22. Francoise Hardy - “Les temps de l’amour”

23. Ros Sereysothea - Chnam oun Dop-Pram Muy “I’m 16”

I love how fully developed these Cambodian songs are. They’re not aping a particular song or building replicas of songs in English or French: they’re working in pop music just like anyone else. The arrangements are so tight and well structured, and everybody is adding in more than their share on their instruments. Though Ros’s voice steals the show, the backing vocals on this song are especially good as well.

24. Aerovons - “Say Georgia”

Man, one of the pleasures of living in St. Louis was learning the story of The Aerovons, a group of high school kids who got flown across the Atlantic to record at Abbey Road with all of the same gear and technicians who were busy putting together records for The Beatles… only to have the album go unreleased for decades. It’s truly a reminder to appreciate the experience itself and not just the results. These guys experienced the absolute pinnacle of the studio recording dream — there is none higher — but that’s it. None of the fame or the attendant glory, just the knowledge of what they’d been able to do together.

“Texas Thunder Soul 1968-1974”

25. Ravi Shankar - Jazzmine - “Mishrank (Finale)”

The whole “Jazzmine” album is a mindblower, and it’s almost a shame to cut right to the finale of an album that builds its case song by song, illustrating the paths that Shankar’s raga and jazz take toward each other, from “Melodic Moods” to the amazing tabla solos of “Taalank” to “Deshank (Folk Patterns)” to crest with “Mishrank,” where Zep meets jazz club meets Somalian backroom in an Indian realm. Every solo brings a ton of new information about whose voices are adding to this total experience. And more than anything, it sounds like fun.

One thing I dig about this recording is that, as far as I can tell, more than one performance of this song is spliced together into this single track. That seems like a big no-no among jazz folks, but I really don’t mind it one bit — if anything, that helps me hear the song relative to more jarring experimental tape manipulation bands. 

[blackkudos]

Lionel Hampton

Lionel Leo Hampton (April 20, 1908 – August 31, 2002) was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, and bandleader. Hampton worked with jazz musicians from Teddy Wilson, Benny Goodman, and Buddy Rich to Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, and Quincy Jones. In 1992, he was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, and was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1996.

Biography

Early life

Lionel Hampton was born in 1908 in Louisville, Kentucky, and was raised by his mother. Shortly after he was born, he and his mother moved to her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. He spent his early childhood in Kenosha, Wisconsin, before he and his family moved to Chicago, Illinois, in 1916. As a youth, Hampton was a member of the Bud Billiken Club, an alternative to the Boy Scouts of America, which was off-limits because of racial segregation. During the 1920s, while still a teenager, Hampton took xylophone lessons from Jimmy Bertrand and began to play drums. Hampton was raised Roman Catholic, and started out playing fife and drum at the Holy Rosary Academy near Chicago.

Early career

Lionel Hampton began his career playing drums for the Chicago Defender Newsboys' Band (led by Major N. Clark Smith) while still a teenager in Chicago. He moved to California in 1927 or 1928, playing drums for the Dixieland Blues-Blowers. He made his recording debut with The Quality Serenaders led by Paul Howard, then left for Culver City and drummed for the Les Hite band at Sebastian's Cotton Club. One of his trademarks as a drummer was his ability to do stunts with multiple pairs of sticks such as twirling and juggling without missing a beat. During this period he began practicing on the vibraphone. In 1930 Louis Armstrong came to California and hired the Les Hite band, asking Hampton if he would play vibes on two songs. So began his career as a vibraphonist, popularizing the use of the instrument in the process. Invented ten years earlier, the vibraphone is essentially a xylophone with metal bars, a sustain pedal, and resonators equipped with electric-powered fans that add tremolo.

While working with the Les Hite band, Hampton also occasionally did some performing with Nat Shilkret and his orchestra. During the early 1930s, he studied music at the University of Southern California. In 1934 he led his own orchestra, and then appeared in the Bing Crosby film Pennies From Heaven (1936) alongside Louis Armstrong (wearing a mask in a scene while playing drums).

With Benny Goodman

Also in November 1936, the Benny Goodman Orchestra came to Los Angeles to play the Palomar Ballroom. When John Hammond brought Goodman to see Hampton perform, Goodman invited him to join his trio, which soon became the Benny Goodman Quartet with Teddy Wilson and Gene Krupa completing the lineup. The Trio and Quartet were among the first racially integrated jazz groups to perform before audiences, and were a leading small-group of the day.

Lionel Hampton Orchestra

While Hampton worked for Goodman in New York, he recorded with several different small groups known as the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, as well as assorted small groups within the Goodman band. In 1940 Hampton left the Goodman organization under amicable circumstances to form his own big band.

Hampton's orchestra developed a high-profile during the 1940s and early 1950s. His third recording with them in 1942 produced the version of "Flying Home", featuring a solo by Illinois Jacquet that anticipated rhythm & blues. Although Hampton first recorded "Flying Home" under his own name with a small group in 1940 for Victor, the best known version is the big band version recorded for Decca on May 26, 1942, in a new arrangement by Hampton's pianist Milt Buckner. The 78pm disc became successful enough for Hampton to record "Flyin' Home #2" in 1944, this time a feature for Arnett Cobb. The song went on to become the theme song for all three men. Guitarist Billy Mackel first joined Hampton in 1944, and would perform and record with him almost continuously through to the late 1970s. In 1947, Hamp performed "Stardust" at a "Just Jazz" concert for producer Gene Norman, also featuring Charlie Shavers and Slam Stewart; the recording was issued by Decca. Later, Norman's GNP Crescendo label issued the remaining tracks from the concert.

Hampton was a featured artist at numerous Cavalcade of Jazz concerts held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles and produced by Leon Hefflin Sr. His first performance was at the second Cavalcade of Jazz concert held on October 12, 1946 and also featured Jack McVea, Slim Gaillard, T-Bone Walker, the Honeydrippers and Louis Armstrong. The fifth Cavalcade of Jazz concert was held in two locations, Wrigley Field in Los Angeles and Lane Field in San Diego, July 10, 1949 and September 3, 1949 respectively. Betty Carter, Jimmy Witherspoon, Buddy Banks, Smiley Turner and Big Jay McNeely also played with Hampton. It was at the sixth Cavalcade of Jazz, June 25, 1950 that precipitated the closest thing to a riot in the show’s eventful history. Lionel and his band paraded around the ball park’s infield playing ‘Flying High’.  The huge crowd, around 14,000 went berserk, tossed cushions, coats, hats, programs, and just about anything else they could lay hands on and swarmed on the field. Dinah Washington, Roy Milton, PeeWee Crayton, Lillie Greenwood, Tiny Davis an Her Hell Divers were also featured. His final Cavalcade of Jazz concert held on July 24, 1955 (Eleventh) also featured Big Jay McNeely, The Medallions, The Penguins and James Moody and his Orchestra.

From the mid-1940s until the early 1950s, Hampton led a lively rhythm & blues band whose Decca Records recordings included numerous young performers who later had significant careers. They included bassist Charles Mingus, saxophonist Johnny Griffin, guitarist Wes Montgomery, and vocalist Dinah Washington. Other noteworthy band members were trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie, Cat Anderson, Kenny Dorham, and Snooky Young; trombonist Jimmy Cleveland, and saxophonists Jerome Richardson and Curtis Lowe.

The Hampton orchestra that toured Europe in 1953 included Clifford Brown, Gigi Gryce, Anthony Ortega, Monk Montgomery, George Wallington, Art Farmer, Quincy Jones, and singer Annie Ross. Hampton continued to record with small groups and jam sessions during the 1940s and 1950s, with Oscar Peterson, Buddy DeFranco, and others. In 1955, while in California working on The Benny Goodman Story he recorded with Stan Getz and made two albums with Art Tatum for Norman Granz as well as with his own big band.

Hampton performed with Louis Armstrong and Italian singer Lara Saint Paul at the 1968 Sanremo Music Festival in Italy. The performance created a sensation with Italian audiences, as it broke into a real jazz session. That same year, Hampton received a Papal Medal from Pope Paul VI.

Later career

During the 1960s, Hampton's groups were in decline; he was still performing what had succeeded for him earlier in his career. He did not fare much better in the 1970s, though he recorded actively for his Who's Who in Jazz record label, which he founded in 1977/1978.

Beginning in February 1984, Hampton and his band played at the University of Idaho's annual jazz festival, which was renamed the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival the following year. In 1987 the UI's school of music was renamed for Hampton, the first university music school named for a jazz musician.

Hampton remained active until a stroke in Paris in 1991 led to a collapse on stage. That incident, combined with years of chronic arthritis, forced him to cut back drastically on performances. However, he did play at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in 2001 shortly before his death.

Hampton died from congestive heart failure at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York City, on August 31, 2002. He was interred at the Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, New York. His funeral was held on September 7, 2002, and featured a performance by Wynton Marsalis and David Ostwald's Gully Low Jazz Band at Riverside Church in Manhattan; the procession began at The Cotton Club in Harlem.

Personal life

On November 11, 1936, in Yuma, Arizona, Lionel Hampton married Gladys Riddle (1913–1971). Gladys was Lionel's business manager throughout much of his career. Many musicians recall that Lionel ran the music and Gladys ran the business.

During the 1950s he had a strong interest in Judaism and raised money for Israel. In 1953 he composed a King David suite and performed it in Israel with the Boston Pops Orchestra. Later in life Hampton became a Christian Scientist. Hampton was also a Thirty-third degree Prince Hall freemason. In January 1997, his apartment caught fire and destroyed his awards and belongings; Hampton escaped uninjured.

On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Lionel Hampton among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.

Charity

Hampton was deeply involved in the construction of various public housing projects, and founded the Lionel Hampton Development Corporation. Construction began with the Lionel Hampton Houses in Harlem, New York in the 1960s, with the help of then Republican governor Nelson Rockefeller. Hampton's wife, Gladys Hampton, also was involved in construction of a housing project in her name, the Gladys Hampton Houses. Gladys died in 1971. In the 1980s, Hampton built another housing project called Hampton Hills in Newark, New Jersey.

Hampton was a staunch Republican and served as a delegate to several Republican National Conventions. He served as Vice-Chairman of the New York Republican County Committee for some years and also was a member of the New York City Human Rights Commission. Hampton donated almost $300,000 to Republican campaigns and committees throughout his lifetime.

Awards

2001 – Harlem Jazz and Music Festival's Legend Award

1996 – International Jazz Hall of Fame Induction and Award (performed "Flying Home" with Illinois Jacquet and the Count Basie Orchestra)

1996 – National Medal of Arts presented by President Bill Clinton

1995 – Honorary Commissioner of Civil Rights by George Pataki

1995 – Honorary Doctorate from the New England Conservatory of Music

1993 – Honorary Doctorate from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore

1992 – Inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame

1992 - "Contributions To The Cultural Life of the Nation" award from John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

1988 – The National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Fellowship

1988 – The National Association of Jazz Educators Hall of Fame Award

1987 – Honorary Doctorate of Humanities from the University of Idaho – UI's School of Music renamed "Lionel Hampton School of Music."

1987 – The Roy Wilkins Memorial Award from the NAACP

1986 – The "One of a Kind" Award from Broadcast Music, Inc.

1984 – Jazz Hall of Fame Award from the Institute of Jazz Studies

1984 – Honorary Doctorate of Music from USC

1983 – The International Film and Television Festival of New York City Award

1983 – Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the State University of New York

1982 – Hollywood Walk of Fame Star

1981 – Honorary Doctorate of Humanities from Glassboro State College

1979 – Honorary Doctorate of Music from Howard University

1978 – Bronze Medallion from New York City

1976 – Honorary Doctorate of Humanities from Daniel Hale Williams University

1975 – Honorary Doctorate of Music from Xavier University of Louisiana

1974 – Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Pepperdine University

1968 – Papal Medal from Pope Paul VI

1966 – Handel Medallion

1957 – American Goodwill Ambassador by President Dwight D. Eisenhower

1954 – Israel's Statehood Award

Discography

Compilations of noteThe Chronological ... Classics series

note: every recording by Lionel Hampton & His Orchestra is included in this 12 volume series from the CLASSICS reissue label ...

The Chronological Lionel Hampton & His Orchestra 1937–1938 (#524) - RCA Victor recordings

The Chronological Lionel Hampton & His Orchestra 1938–1939 (#534) - RCA Victor recordings

The Chronological Lionel Hampton & His Orchestra 1939–1940 (#562) - RCA Victor recordings

The Chronological Lionel Hampton & His Orchestra 1940–1941 (#624) - RCA Victor recordings; first Decca session

The Chronological Lionel Hampton & His Orchestra 1942–1944 (#803) - Decca recordings

The Chronological Lionel Hampton & His Orchestra 1945–1946 (#922) - Decca recordings

The Chronological Lionel Hampton & His Orchestra 1946 (#946) - Decca recordings

The Chronological Lionel Hampton & His Orchestra 1947 (#994) - Decca recordings

The Chronological Lionel Hampton & His Orchestra 1949–1950 (#1161) - Decca recordings

The Chronological Lionel Hampton & His Orchestra 1950 (#1193) - Decca recordings

The Chronological Lionel Hampton & His Orchestra 1950–1951 (#1262) - last two Decca sessions; MGM recordings

The Chronological Lionel Hampton & His Orchestra 1951–1953 (#1429) - includes Hamp's first Norman Granz-produced quartet session (September 2, 1953) with Oscar Peterson, Ray Brown, and Buddy Rich.

Glad-Hamp Records

GHLP-1001 (1961) The Many Sides Of Hamp

GHLP-3050 (1962) All That Twist'n Jazz

GHLP-1003 (1962) The Exciting Hamp In Europe

GHLP-1004 (1963) Bossa Nova Jazz

GHLP-1005 (1963) Recorded Live On Tour

GHLP-1006 (1964) Hamp In Japan/Live

GHLP-1007 (1965) East Meets West (Introducing Miyoko Hoshino)

GHLP-1009 (1965) A Taste Of Hamp

GHS-1011 (1967) Hamp Stamps [includes "Greasy Greens"]

GHS-1012 (1966) Hamp's Portrait Of A Woman

GHS-1020 (1979) Hamp's Big Band Live!

GHS-1021 (1980) Chameleon

GHS-1022 (1982) Outrageous

GHS-1023 (1983) Live In Japan

GHS-1024 (1984) Ambassador At Large

GHS-1025 (1985) Sentimental Journey (Featuring Sylvia Bennett)

GHS-1026 (1988) One Of A Kind

GHS-1027 (1987) Midnight Blues - with Dexter Gordon

GHCD-1028 (1990) Cookin' In The Kitchen

As sidemanWith Frank Sinatra

L.A. Is My Lady (Qwest/Warner Bros., 1984)

Filmography

Hampton appeared as himself in the films listed below.

#04/20 #08/31

[notesonnotes]

Rosedale. Herkimer 2009. Some friends and I had followed Honor Bright; The Doppler Effect and Lacerda to a show in Herkimer, NY. We'd never seen Rosedale, or heard of them. We didn't know what to expect when we saw them setting up. I was in awe of the sheer height of their front-man, Mike. (I am a over a foot shorter than he is, and at that point he was the tallest person I'd ever met.)When they started playing, I was in awe of their drummer, Emerson Tavares (he played faster than most drummer I'd seen). After the show, we saw a big purple bus, and we had the chance to hang out with Mike and Emmo. A week later, we'd get to meet Mitch and Zan in Watertown, NY. We were hooked. Soon after, we got them to our college in Northern New York.Since then, I've watched Mike progress from the 4 man band to the last solo act in Toronto in 2018. He is multi-talented, and probably one of the most down to earth people I've met. He takes time before, during, and after shows to talk with as many people/fans as he can, and has been an inspiration to many that have followed his journey.Today, we're going to take a look at where he came from, and where he plans to go. Take a few and read through. It's the anniversary feature for Notes on Notes! What better way to celebrate that with the one who inspired it all?!

NON: Rosedale was an early project of yours as a teenager in Brampton, ON. What brought you and your then band mates together?

ML: Pretty much skateboarding sparked it all. The skate scene was really booming in Brampton (and everywhere) as I was becoming an adolescent. Tony Hawk Pro Skater was huge, all the skate magazines were doing well, all the local skate parks were packed and hosting contests, pro skaters were celebrities- it was wild! I've always been pretty awkward on a skateboard and could never really improve past the basics, but I was definitely making progress on the piano so my parents finally granted my wishes to switch to classical guitar, as I'd been begging for years and the skate culture was surrounded by a lot of guitar music. After about a year of struggling to figure out how to play "cool guitar" I started convincing my friends to learn drums and bass and would try to jam with them. That led me to connecting with a friend I hadn't really seen since kindergarten; Nick, who was a pretty solid drummer. So I started showing him songs I'd written and we'd jam at his place on weekends. I think it started lighting a fire for a few of my school and skater friends as they started getting more serious about learning instruments and starting bands. We'd eventually teamed up with Mitch and Jon's band, as their drummer, Emerson, was still figuring out how to drum. Fun fact, there was about a month or two where I was kicked out of the band because my squeaky voice, cheesy lyrics, shrill guitar tone, awkward stage presence, and thick wavy blond mushroom cut were all just too unbearable. (They were very blunt and honest with me on that phone call...) So Jon started singing and they eventually called me back into the new band to play guitar, piano, and sing super high emo backup vocals. From there; we replaced Nick with Sam, named the band Rosedale (because when our gear was stuck at Nick's house we'd walk up Rosedale ave to the local music store to practice and write). Then we eventually replaced Sam with Emerson. Me and Jon started taking vocal lessons from our friend Steve, who was a drummer and backup singer in one of our favourite local bands, By Permit Only. Eventually we just asked him to be our lead singer and after recording our first EP with him, he quit the band and I took over lead vocals again. I met Zan in our high school, Mayfield. He was a bassist in the music program so I'd jam with him from time to time during lunch in our school's practice rooms. He eventually replaced Jon... I guess I could have just summed it up with "Skateboarding and school" but we all have a little more time these days so why not take a trip down nostalgia lane!

 NON: You've had 5 EP's and albums over the years; could you describe the progression of your creative process through the years? 

ML: It's pretty crazy for me to look back on. We recorded Past Times With Old Friends in Sean Andrew's little bedroom on a Line 6 bean-shaped Pod with Cue-base on his laptop. We'd tried to record about 3 demos with 3 different producers prior to that EP but nothing ever got finished. Each time we'd record I'd learn a few more things about how to engineer. Back when we had Sam in the band, one of his dad's friends "Stereo Mario" (one of the 3 producers that we'd demo with) would teach me the basics of Pro Tools and I was very eager to learn more. Before ever using any real recording equipment/DAW I'd multi-track covers of my favorite songs onto three-and-a-half inch floppy discs with my Yamaha Clavinova (a multi-patch midi amplified keyboard from the mid 90s), drums and all! So I kinda came full circle back to being a solo, multi tracker, multi-instrumentalist after having several different band mates and methods. The big turning point in my progression as an artist and producer, though, came when I started an internship at Drive Studios in my senior year of high school. I believe everyone needs a roll model and mentor to really progress and the owner of that studio, Steve Rizun, took me under his wing and pulled me in the right direction. Not only did he train me to be a sound engineer and let me work with some world class punk/prog/metal/emo bands, but he also would show me how to make additional production for Rosedale's sound and how to bring it to our live show. I became obsessed with songwriting and production and as soon as I graduated I worked to save up for a Macbook and an audio interface...and a lot of other gear! Had it not been for Steve, I probably would have wasted a lot of money going to a college to learn a fraction of what he was teaching me for free; hands on in the most punk rock environment! Since that internship he's mixed and mastered all the Rosedale records, mixed a handful of my live shows, he even showed me the ropes of being a live sound engineer, and continues to be a great ear to for mixing and advice! I've had a lot of other great friends show me how to edit video, hold a drumstick, where to book shows, gear advice etc. Even though I'm kind of a "Lone Wolf" I guess my process has always been to keep creating and ask for help and advice along the way from those who are more experienced (and YouTube tutorials, of course). Now that I'm in a new market playing with a new band (Mainsail in San Diego) I feel like I'm teaching and working more often than I'm learning. And that's been really healthy too! 

 NON: How has the journey from "Past Times" to your most recent projects helped you grow/learn as a musician/artist?

ML: What a journey it has been! As I'm sure any artist or even entrepreneur could relate, The Faces sang it best; "I wish that I knew what I know now when I was younger!" I think the biggest difference is the decision making ability. I used to take so damn long to make such bad decisions! Debating who, what, where why- it's important to think things through but sometimes you gotta just leap and learn from it. If you keep questioning things you'll never know. Also, the more I learn the more I realize how much more I still don't know! And that's part of the climb. Even now, being in the beginning stages of getting my 10,000 hours on the drums, I look back to how I used to play, say, 100 hours ago- and shake my head. That can sometimes be humiliating and demotivating while knowing you're still at the bottom of the mountain- or even just dealing with the ongoing yin and yang of confidence/hope vs. doubt. But what usually gets me to keep on going is to remind myself to just be better than I was yesterday. For a long time I was holding myself to the standards of my heroes which usually just creates inauthenticity, bad technique, bad decisions, clutter, and setbacks. Sometimes I'm worse than I was yesterday so I need a little push and that's okay, too! The journey from Past Times to Again was a big balancing lesson of letting things go while learning you can always do more to improve. And it's no surprise; but the newer the album, the more proud and less embarrassed of it I am! 

 NON: You've played bass in Mainsail for roughly a year, maybe a bit more; how did you meet up with them? What spurred you joining?

ML: Yeah since February 2019 I've been in Mainsail. I've been friends with them since 2017 and they really helped me get my show in front of a lot of people in San Diego. When I finally moved out there Nick was really cool about bringing me out to shows and jamming together. They needed a new bass player so I figured I'd offer and it just all escalated really fast. Since finally accepting that it was time to move on from the name Rosedale I've had a lot of luck with being a sort of "yes man". I'm usually very strict with staying on the path to my vision, as it requires a lot of time, but since moving and letting go of the past I've been finding that sometimes letting the wind take you where you're needed can be really beneficial. And a lot of great things are starting to happen for Mainsail so it has been fun. It has also kind of kept a stream of new listeners seeing what Rosedale is all about too so that is a nice bonus. 

 NON: You've performed at the House of Blues in San Diego; how was the experience for you?

ML: It was one of the best moments of my life playing that stage in front of so many great SoCal people, some who have been supporting Rosedale over the years. That has always been one of my favorite venues and since moving to San Diego I've seen a lot of amazing shows there. House of Blues is always great in Boston and Anaheim too. I'm really grateful that they give independent acts like myself not only a chance to play there, but they really give you the same professionalism and respect as they do to the giant national acts, it's pretty remarkable. I really hope they're doing okay during this pandemic and I hope all venues find a way to pull through this. I can't imagine how tough it's getting for some. 

NON: You've toured the U.S. and parts of Canada multiple times; played on a stage at Warped Tour, and toured Europe: What would you say is your most memorable moment?

ML: That is a great but very tough question. Playing in Vienna Austria in 2016 to a bunch of kids that knew my songs is definitely up there. But 2012 Warped Tour was probably the most fun and rewarding summer of my life. It was a grind and very uncomfortable at times, but there were so many epic moments packed into that summer that I look back on in disbelief. The biggest turning point was about two weeks into the tour in Minnesota (I think it was Minnesota...) I got called into the Warped production office and was told to check in with Kevin every morning for any open stage time, given a wristband, and some tasks to help out with in production. I played my DIY one-man-show in the parking lot that same night as kids were leaving the festival (as I would every night) and while I was standing at my merch table selling stuff and taking photos, I noticed that Ryan Dawson (from All Time Low) and Anthony Raneri (from Bayside) were hanging out watching. Once things slowed down they came over and bought 10 CDs each! It was so cool of them to even give me the time of day, let alone buy CDs to (probably) give out to people on the tour. I had a similar experience with Caleb Shomo (from Attack Attack/Beartooth) the year before outside of Cuyahoga Falls Warped tour. I had a drummer and bass player with me at the time and Caleb stood front & center to watch our whole set while kids kept coming up to him for autographs and I could see him pointing at us saying good things to all the kids. After our set he handed me all the cash he had in his pocked and apologized for not having more, I gave him some merch and we chatted for a good 15 minutes about how being an artist is a roller coaster and good things come and go, encouraging me to hang in there. He kept emphasizing how he just considered himself and everyone on the main stages lucky. All of those memories are enough motivation to last a lifetime and they're also reminders to pay it forward.

 NON: Touring as much as you have, there must have been some odd things that have happened. What has been the strangest thing to happen to you while you were on the road?

ML: Lots of strange tour stories for sure. The little ghost girl I caught on camera in the former German concentration camp was pretty crazy. (You can find it in the RosedaleMike Europe Tour Blogs via Tumblr if you don't believe!) It always freaks people out when I show them. And I remember everyone's reaction in the van right after I caught the footage. But the craziest thing that happened to me...there's been so many hard luck slaps in the face, as so many touring bands have also experienced, I'm sure. One time I had this great opportunity to be the opener/direct support for Everlast in Colorado Springs. I had just released self-titled, the tour was going well, and this Everlast show was sold out at Black Sheep (a great venue!) I had a day off so I got to town a day early to be extra prepared. While at the gym I received an email from the venue that Everlast had to postpone due to weather conditions. So now the show was cancelled and I offered to find local bands to fill the night for the venue so that I can still play for my small crowd. I went straight to a library for wi-fi and started plugging away on my laptop, emailing bands asking if they wanna do me a solid and play a last minute show at Black Sheep tomorrow night. I had two confirmed, told the venue, and they announced on the Facebook event page that there will still be a show but Everlast will be rescheduled, and they made me a host so I could update the event as I confirmed new acts. Some kids in Montana saw this and started saying that Rosedale cancelled the Everlast show! It turns out that they just randomly decided to troll me. They were even sending pictures of these little ridiculous hand written notes they made that read something like "I am cancelling the show - Rosedale". They were leaving random comments claiming that they were Everlast and bashing my fans as they tried to help clear the confusion. People were messaging me asking "Why'd you cancel the show?!" I had to explain to them and the venue what was really going on. The venue was in shock watching it all happen too and they said they have never seen anything like that, ever. I went to a local show that same night and convinced a couple of the bands to play Black Sheep tomorrow. All four locals were really awesome and the show ended up turning out to be pretty well attended. Even some people that had Everlast tickets came out and had a great time. The venue was really impressed that I pulled an event together so last minute and I was stoked to have built another great venue relationship. I got in my van and started to drive to my next show in Flagstaff, AZ. As I was climbing a rocky mountain pass, some slick snow started coming down. I was pulling my trailer and sliding pretty bad until eventually I couldn't move anymore and was stuck on the side of the road. As the sun was coming up an emergency truck pulled up and started laying sand down in front of my van so I followed him until my wheels started spinning again and one wheel gripped to the sand while the other spun and blew my transmission and rear differential. I didn't make it to Flagstaff or the next five shows. $4600 repair bill. And the next show back in Encinitas was an afternoon show at a biker bar where I was told after my first set (of three) to pack up and only received one sixth of my guarantee as my fans started showing up for the second set. There ended up being some good intertwined in all of all of that but it was just such a frustrating and confusing week. Sometimes I swear I'm in a movie like The Truman Show. 

 NON: You draw a lot of inspiration from The Used; Blink-182 and Angels and Airwaves: Who else has inspired you along the way?

ML: I definitely have a lot of heroes. Death Cab For Cutie and The Postal Service, The Ataris, The Starting Line, Metro Station, Dashboard Confessional, Boys Like Girls, The Matches, Underoath, The Almost, Motion City Soundtrack, Red Hot Chili Peppers, All Time Low, The Band Camino, Owl City, Radiohead, John Mayer, Coldplay, Paramore, Yellowcard, Moneen, Boxcar Racer...That's probably 10% of them. I've been to a lot of great concerts and being six foot nine gives me a good view and very memorable experiences. 

 NON: Do you see yourself continuing making music or helping others in music in the future?

ML :Both!

 NON: What song that you've written do you connect with the most?

ML: That's always changing to be honest. Depending on where I'm at, what I'm doing/going through. It's usually the most recent song or idea I've written which doesn't get released for sometimes a year or two after. Of the songs I've release, that would be Sustain. That is the most recent Rosedale song I've written. I wrote it right before we started tracking Self Titled and Again and its kind of about being in both shoes of that Warped Tour situation I just mentioned. People sometimes ask if I'm referring to myself as the Star or the Kid in that song and the answer is both! I'm still that star struck kid who can't wait to ask my favorite artists a thousand questions but I also get a lot of questions from fans who are trying to start their own thing or make their passion their career.

SHOUT OUTS

Mainsail, Palapalooza Podcast, Time & Distance, I Set My Friends on Fire, Alex Baker, Plans, The Home Team, OCML, FXav, Adam Sisco, my parents and family, everyone at Gnarlywood, Abby Lyn Records, Jonny Cooper, my old band mates and everyone who's ever come on tour with me- Thank you all. And all the bands, artists, venues, studios, street performers, restaurants that are trying to make it through this lock down. Hopefully all this is over soon and there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Believe things will get better eventually and use this alone time to improve yourself. Keep supporting live music even if you're stuck at home. And if you need help reach out and ask. Let's all stay safe and help one another

 LINKS

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[costaxserena]

Introducing Dashiel “Dash” Parr. He is a Barista at Neverland Juice Bar that belongs to the Summer District. He’s 20 years old and strongly resembles Brandon Flynn. He’s open.

Get to know him...

Dash is an outgoing boy who will try to talk to and joke around with whomever is in his vicinity at the moment. Some people may consider him a little loud or even obnoxious at times, but the young man does mean well and is just trying to have a good time, and make sure everyone else is too. Dash is the one to call if you wanna run around town, looking for fun, or hold long conversations about everything and nothing at all while nursing a beer or a milkshake and holding your stomach to keep yourself from laughing too much. Although he can be rather impulsive or irresponsible sometimes, since he’s not one to stop and analyze the bigger picture, he can also be humbled by his mistakes and work to correct them, even if it pains him. He’s very protective over his closest friends and his siblings and will do anything for them,

Welcome to the coast...

Dashiel’s powers became pretty obvious as soon as he learned to crawl. The baby would zoom around the room at an alarming rate, with his parents running around trying to catch him and his sister carefully protecting herself from getting hit by the little bullet toddler. Once he and his parents became aware of them, they quickly started working with him to get him to control his speed and test its boundaries, up to a point. They also taught him to keep this ability on the down low, a lesson his sister was only eager to back up. Still, Dash was never able to keep it completely hidden, dropping little hints now and then. The boy was always sociable and he liked to have large groups of friends and be the center of attention from time to time, so it just came naturally to him to let them out a little while pranking his friends or joking around. Unfortunately, not everyone who saw this considered Dash a friend, especially a teacher at his elementary school who’d never enjoyed the boy’s loud personality. He was actually able to catch Dash blurring on camera, just a blur of motion for a split second. Not enough to get Dash and his family in real trouble, but enough to convince the Parr’s to move out of San Diego and to a smaller town, somewhere where their abilities wouldn’t put them in as much risk.

Stay a while...

After a lot of thinking his family decided to settle in Costa Serena There, Dash learned to be slightly more discreet with his powers, showing them off only on school grounds or around people he knows will not freak out by them. He still feels guilty about the fact that his parents and his older sister had to basically leave most of their lives behind on a day’s notice because of a prank gone wrong, but he’d learned to forgive himself and tries to believe they did it too. Now, entering university at Ancora after finishing his last year of high school here, the boy is clearly the star of the basketball team, with the extra training sessions he takes with his dad. He’s also joined the running team, but tries to keep himself from getting into his super speed much there, to be fair to his classmates.

Connections:

Violet Parr (Older Sister): Although he and his sister don’t see eye to eye in a lot of things, and Violet’s insistence that he act’s with prudence at all times can get on his nerves, he still loves his older sister and is actually protective of her.

Jack Parr (Younger Brother): Jack-Jack, as he calls him, is one of his best friends and Dash is always trying to get him to tag along with him. Even though Jack marches to the beat of his own drum, they do have similar enough personalities for them to love hanging out, even if Dash gets on Jack’s nerves sometimes.

Miguel Rivera (Best Friend): Miguel has always been willing to listen to Dash and let him be his energetic self, and that’s something the boy is very thankful for. In turn, he tries to help the boy come out of his shell a little, without pushing him too much.

#disney rp #town rpg #brandon flynn #Dash Parr #the incredibles #incredibles 2 #c #local #summer district #openm

[epacer]

Classmates

Doug Robinson, Class of 1973

Here's My Story

I was raised on Art Street--there's a good start in life.

My folks were loving and unusual people. My older brother Andy was a neighborhood rockstar and my hero. There was always music in our house because Dad owned a couple of bars in downtown San Diego and he was always testing out new 45s to see which ones would end up in his jukeboxes. So Andy I and got our fill of Marty Robbins, Ray Stevens, Ray Charles and then later The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Kinks, Herman's Hermits and everything else that was happening at the time.

I started piano lessons at nine years old; Andy was already drumming in a rock band and I was learning drums from him as well. As it turned out, I developed a knack for picking up a new instrument and sounding better than horrible pretty quickly, eventually learning guitar, bass, vibes and of course piano and drums. My teacher, the lovably ancient Mrs. Foote (who would sit in my lessons with her Pekingese tucked under her arm while she wept loudly at how "beee-uuutifuly" I was playing) was less encouraging about my original compositions which began to emerge. (To all the parents out there--if your kid starts composing at nine, give her some room to develop those skills. She can always go back to practicing the Bach and Beethoven later.)

Frustrated, I quit taking piano lessons and started to practice on my own for hours every day. My first band experiences, though, were as a drummer. There were lots of rehearsals with groups like Bass Four, The Shylords, Kong and other '60s garage bands. I was a rocker for certain, although I did listen to Ahmad Jamal's beautiful version of "Poinsettia" over and over to try to figure out what was going on.

One day when I was probably 12, a young kid came up to me and asked if I wanted to sub for his jazz band's drummer. He twisted my arm by promising a payday of $5 or $10 for the gig, and the next thing I knew I was sitting in a rehearsal with four supremely talented young players: Nathan East on acoustic bass, Carl Evans Jr on piano, Hollis Gentry lll on sax and Casper Glenn on sax. It was the first time in my life that I'd even been the only white guy in the room, but I remember choosing not to feel intimidated. In fact, the vibe was so friendly and the laughter came so easily during setup that I had completely forgotten to panic about the fact that i knew NOTHING about jazz until Hollis--a handsome kid of about 14 with the poise and voice of an adult--called out the first tune (The Creator, by Pharoah Sanders). When I asked what I should play, Hollis grinned and said cooly "This is jazz, man--just play what you feel."

He didn't know it, but that comment probably jumpstarted my puberty and changed my musical life forever. We became a unit that served as the core group of the award-winning Crawford High School Stage Band, the Crawford Pep band and off-campus music groups like The Chapparells and Solid State. Jazz became the music of my heart, even though I never abandoned any of the other styles. They just slid over to the side and waited for their chance.

After focusing on the drums for most of my early teens, I was  eager to explore my piano-based compositions which were heavily influenced by Randy Newman and Rupert Holmes as well as the progressive rock of ELP, Frank Zappa and then Mahavishnu Orchestra and early Weather Report. Luckily for me, I wandered into the Crawford Choir room at lunch time (where I would normally compose instead of hanging out in the quad) and I heard someone playing piano in more or less my own jazz-rock style. To my shock, it was Keith Milne, a senior and athletic star on campus. I'd always figured him as a total square, but within minutes we were sitting side by side and composing the first of several wonderful melodies which were later brought to life by our excellent band The Twinkies, which also featured Cory Homnick and Paul Sundfor on sax, clarinet and flute; John Marotti on trumpet and flute; Mike Rios on bass; John Frawley on guitar and Gary Irvine on drums. Keith and I alternated on Hammond B3 and piano, and we built a nice reputation for ourselves in the San Diego area, appearing several times at SDSU's The Back Door, a folk club.

All along, I'd been volunteering my time at the San Diego branch of Synanon, an innovative drug rehab program that was blossoming into an intentional community where ex-addicts lived side by side with 'squares' like myself. I learned how to communicate effectively and to be empathetic with people from radically different walks of life. it was brilliant, eye-opening stuff and I used those skills with all of my relationships...and still do today, when I'm on my best behavior. In Synanon, I met lots of incredible musicians but none so important to me as Frank Rehak (frankrehak.com), a trombone legend who had played with Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and others, even though his terrible heroin addiction kept him from achieving fame outside of the music world. He took an interest in me and my music, and when I decided to move into Synanon full-time with the plan to teach music in their kibbutz-style school, he laid out a 40 hour weekly music program for my own education, along with pianist and wicked Zen master Al Bauman.

I could not have had a more exciting or fulfilling couple of decades. Frank and I became great friends, and through him I met David Scott, Bruce Gilbert, Doug Hurt, Ken Elias, Wendell Stamps, and other amazing musicians who held down a chair from time to time in the 'house' band known as The Sounds of Synanon. We played jazz festivals and college concerts as well as doing recruiting tours in prisons and juvenile camps where the audience was exposed to the success stories of the guys in the band, mostly ex-addicts themselves. I learned to be a radio personality from the one and only Dan Sorkin; I learned sales and creative marketing through our in-house business that came to be known as AdGap (Advertising Gifts and Premiums). I also fell in love a few times, with my longest relationship being the special union between Glenda Alice Garrett and myself.

We survived the eventual death of the community, plugging onward with other ex-residents who were part of AdGap which became a standalone integrated marketing company. For over a decade, Glenda and I traveled to work with clients around the country but most often with our friends at Abbott Laboratories who time after time risked ridicule and embarrassment by choosing our promotional campaigns over those of competitors who were far more qualified on paper. But as it turned out, our common sense and irreverent brand of marketing did the job for them and we succeeded beyond our wildest dreams--thanks in part to our talented colleagues, our wonderful assistants Sande Millstein and Judy Malcolm, and our fearless leadership team of Brooks Carder and Macyl Burke.

We were fortunate beyond belief, retiring in 2001. Returning to San Diego to spend time with my mom after my dad had died, we set up life in the hills of Escondido and it was good...but something was missing. I had a marvelous trio--JAZZOOO, with Duncan Moore and Ken Dow--but those moments onstage and in the studio weren't really enough to keep a couple of ex-revolutionaries like Glenda and me excited.

We found what we were looking for when we went to central Mexico to visit an old friend from our community, Mayer Shacter. We discovered San Miguel de Allende, an arts-oriented colonial town in the middle of the country. Amazing musicians, artists, writers and other creative types had all made the decision to live 8 hours from the beach, 90 minutes from an airport, and light years away from the kind of convenience we had taken for granted our entire lives as residents of the US. We built our new lives in Mexico, producing fundraising events, concerts, parties, contributing to college funds for under-priviledged kids, teaching, building a dream house and studio. And we also battled breast cancer, which brought us back to the US for a full nine months of treatment. Thanks to the tender loving care of our Synanon friends, along with the loving and professional wisdom of our dear friend Jaime Aguet--we conquered that challenge. But a couple of years later, our marriage ended. We both found true love again, but sadly Glenda's cancer returned with a vengeance and she passed away in January of 2015.

Life goes on, if we're lucky. Today I am back in San Miguel de Allende and facing each day as the first day of the rest of my life. Up till lockdown, I produced concerts, played gigs, taught a little and composed and recorded new music at a pretty healthy clip. My 2019 release is called HYMN FOR HER and it's dedicated to all of the amazing women who have shaped and guided me with their feminine energy and love throughout my life. My 2020 release is START WITH WATER.

Things are starting back up now as of September 2022--new shows, new music, new life! *Reposted bio from Doug Robinson in his own words posted on dougrobinson.com website.