July 20, 2008

All that jazz

Yesterday's jazz concerts were beautiful. In the afternoon I went to a concert by the Creative Music Workshop students, a two week study of contemporary jazz creativity/improvisation. The first group was wonderful; the drummer was the son of a friend of mine and superb. I want to introduce him to Damian (my grandson who is a genius on the drums) when he is here is August. The second group played such cacophony I had to leave. My jazz piano teacher (one of the group leaders but unfortunately his group was last) said to hang in there but I couldn't. Then when I turned the radio on in my car, there was a discussion of a book about criticism and what we love. Do we love easy pleasure or do we love to be irritated. The examples they used were from music. Perfect!

The evening concert was Sheila Jordan, a contemporary of Miles Davis. Seventy-nine and three-quarter years and still cookin! She reminded me of my aunt Marcella who lived to 102 and saucy to the end. Sheila played voice and bass duets with Cameron Brown. Her voice was spectacular and she sang stories spontaneously. Sometimes singing to the bass (instrument) or to the bass player, and sometimes telling the story of her life. An inspiration! After the concert, I spoke to a friend who said Sheila Jordan has always been her favorite singer and she'd email me the title of her most favorite CD. Looking forward to having a CD of hers in my home library.

Posted by leya at July 20, 2008 01:07 PM | TrackBack