New Orleans

My thoughts and prayers for all of those in New Orleans as Katrina approaches their shore. I love New Orleans and the people there, the music, the food and the history and feel ill when I think about what they are facing. Please make donations to The Red Cross or other charities which will be helping those wonderful people of New Orleans after Katrina has passed.

Ahhhh Sundays

When the pain is present, it is all encompassing
But when it is gone, it has no history
-Hannah Arendt



Listen to Koko Taylor I got what it Takes.. Blues at their best!

Piano

Piano

Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.

In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cozy parlor, the tinkling piano our guide.

So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamor
With the great black piano appasionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.

-D.H. Lawrence



listen to Thelonius Monk Round Midnight ... or perhaps in the mood for McCoy Tyner

Good Morning Heartache

I do not know the things which drove me ungentle
nor do I know the things which now bloat me with regret.
I know the you are gone and gone away and I am sitting here
too young to be left this old.--B. MacDonald

Listening to Billie Holiday's " Good Morning Heartache"

I've got those Sunday blues, straight through Monday blues

A Sunday Kind of Love

And the last perhaps will not return and knows me not, although I burn
And the trees over hang glowingly and I feel no one feeling me.
- Woman's Lament, Rainer Maria Rilke



Listen to Ella Fitzgerald...." A Sunday Kind of Love"

Saturday

Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
Than tired eyelids, upon tired eyes
-Alfred Lord Tennyson

Listen to Elmore James "The Sun is Shining".....(but it's raining in my heart)

Farewell to Mr Jennings

After silence, that which comes nearest to espressing the inexpressible is music
- Aldous Huxley

Farewell Mr Peter Jennings, a man of talent and integrity. I choose some soulful Ben Webster.

The Power of Music

We love music for the buried hopes, the garnered memories, the tender feelings it can summon at a touch- L.E.Landon

Somewhere Over the Rainbow....Judy Garland

Universality

Music is the universal language of mankind- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow



Thanking whatever Goddess that be for lives of all of those on the Air France flight and remembering that we are all connected.

Acker Bilk's Stranger on the Shore .. such a haunting yet joyful song

Without Music

Without music, life would be a mistake. I would only believe in a God that knew how to dance--Fredrich Nietzsche




Big Mama Thorton "The Big Change"..... still believe she was robbed. Elvis made a hit of her Hound Dog and Janis Joplin made Thorton's Ball and Chain mainstream.

WTF

I was perusing the morning papers today and came upon this story in the UK Guardian. About halfway through the article my WTF meter hit the red zone. The stories regarding the torture, yes torture, not mistreating, of detainees by soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gitmo have been leaking for some time now. As with most civilized human beings I was, and continue to be outraged at this flaunting of international law and basic human rights. The detainee in the article describes one of his female interrogators as being Canadian. The outrage of most Canadians following the kidnapping, and subsequent torturing, of Mr Arar clearly indicated that our nation has little tolerance for such abuse. I would hope that an explanation from our government is forthcoming.


British detainee's tale of US 'torture by proxy'

Making Music

Nothing on earth is so well suited to make the sad merry, the merry sad, to give courage to the despairing, to make the proud humble, to lessen envy and hate as Music- Martin Luther


Sonny Boy Williamson.. Help Me ... Great blues!