I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in "Cheers & Jeers".
OK, you've been warned - here is this week's tomfoolery material that I posted.
CHEERS to Bill and Michael in PWM, our Wyoming-based friend Irish Patti and ...... well, each of you at Cheers and Jeers. Have a fabulous weekend .... and week ahead.
ART NOTES — this weekend saw the opening of a new museum (in his hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts) dedicated to the life-and-work of author Theodore Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss— which includes original oil paintings, a collection of zany hats, drawings and furniture from Ted’s studio.
Ted Geisel & you-know-whoTWO RECENT DEVELOPMENTS as regards to the Swiss Army (that do not involve knives) — first, the government rejected efforts by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party to outlaw vegans from compulsive military service — and there is now a proposal for women to attend the same required informational meeting at age 18 as men (although service will still be voluntary for women).
THURSDAY's CHILD is named Watson the Police Cat— an Alabama kitteh hired by a police department to end a rodent problem in their evidence room (where exterminators had failed) … and who also comforts crime victims who come in.
Watson the Police CatIT’S FASCINATING to see some of the old Watergate prosecutors back on TV — first, MSNBC has made extensive use of Jill Wine-Banks— the only woman on the prosecution team. Then I see Richard Ben-Veniste on CNN …. and now I learn that a Nixon docudrama has been ordered by the History Channel.
FRIDAY's CHILD is named Ratchet the Hero Cat— a Saskatchewan kitteh who alarmed a mother by just staring at her … alerting her to check on her ill son … who it turned out had suffered a ruptured appendix, and was able to rush him to the hospital before it was too late ….. and now: Ratchet will get bacon for treats.
Ratchet the Hero CatCONGRATULATIONS to the soon-to-be new prime minister of Ireland, Leo Varadkar— winning a critical vote to be the ruling Fine Gael party’s new leader (after the resignation of Enda Kenny) — and who is the gay son of an Indian immigrant to Ireland (with an Irish-born mother).
BRAIN TEASER - try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC.
SEPARATED at BIRTH — Boston’s police commissioner William Evans as well as Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC).
Boston police commissioner Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC)...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… someone whose sound seemed to presage the advent of world music is the jazz saxophonist/flutist Charles Lloyd— whose music also incorporated the R&B of his native Memphis, blues and rock music. So much so that — despite the decline of jazz during the post-British Invasion — one could see him perform at the Fillmore in San Francisco on the same bill as major rock bands. He has kept a lower profile since the 1980’s, yet is still pushing the limits of musical boundaries … and then in his next breath deliver a standard ballad as well as anyone. If you do not know his music, he describes it as having “the ability to dance on many shores”.
Charles Lloyd was born in March, 1938 in Memphis, Tennessee and has African, Cherokee, Mongolian and Irish ancestry. As a child, he marvelled at the Delta blues he heard played by a foreman on his grandfather’s farm in Mississippi and told the PBS News Hour about being “drunk with music” in Memphis:
I would walk down the street in my neighborhood, and coming out of every house, I could hear Billie Holiday, Lester Young, Count Basie, Charlie Parker, on and on.
Before he left Memphis to earn a music degree at Southern California, he performed with not only the jazz performer George Coleman, but also blues icons such as Howlin’ Wolf, B.B. King and Bobby “Blue” Bland. In 1960, he first made-his-mark by joining drummer Chico Hamilton’s band (as the guitarist Larry Coryell would a few years later) along with the Hungarian guitarist Gabor Szabo (composer of “Gypsy Queen”, which Carlos Santana made famous a few years later). Lloyd lived in Greenwich Village and was a bohemian, associating with painters and Bob Dylan.
He left Chico Hamilton in 1964 to join saxophonist Julian “Cannonball” Adderley’s band, whom he credited with helping him to see himself as a bandleader. This he did in 1965, forming a band that (one year later) came to include then-unknowns pianist Keith Jarrett and drummer Jack DeJohnette (and the two of them have recorded together on-and-off ever since). Charles Lloyd released several studio and live recordings from 1965-67, with some of his most popular songs (Forest Flower plus Of Course, Of Course). The album artwork followed the change in the music scene: more standard design on his debut album Discovery! in 1965, to 1967’s Love-In (that had a rendition of the Beatles’ Here, There and Everywhere) recorded.
His commercial breakthrough followed an appearance at the 1966 Monterey Jazz festival, with the live recording Forest Flower— that mixed Eastern music as well as jazz — which garnered not only favorable reviews, but also had heavy playing on radio stations and sell a million copies due to cross-over sales.
His quartet began to appear regularly at Bill Graham’s Fillmore Auditorium (the first jazz group to do so), sharing the bill with bands such as the Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin and others (on this bill, with the Butterfield Blues Band) and even sitting in with the Grateful Dead and The Byrds. The record producer Don Was describes him as the “first guy from the jazz idiom who — on a sociological level — had some connection to where the Grateful Dead were coming from”.
Fillmore shows: Jan, 1967His was the first jazz band to play in the Soviet Union (in 1967) by popular demand (not via a government sponsorship) and his musical style influenced even Miles Davis, in the run-up to his landmark album Bitches Brew— and Davis used both Keith Jarrett and Jack DeJohnette in his band (which furthered the connection).
Yet by the end of the decade, Charles Lloyd had become tired: stung by criticism (that he had “sold-out” by being too popular with rock audiences!), weary of touring and suffering from drug use. So he decamped to his home in Big Sur, practiced meditation and adopted a quiet life for much of the 1970’s. The one exception: he sat-in (and sometimes performed) with the Beach Boys (appearing on their Surf’s Up album, for example).
He was coaxed out of retirement by the French pianist Michel Petrucciani (who died young to a genetic disease that saw him only grow three feet tall). Following an extended illness in the mid-80’s (where Charles Lloyd almost lost his life) he has recorded with increasing regularity since 1990.
And while Charles Lloyd has tended to feature a more traditional modern jazz format since, he has still stretches of diversity. I got to see him at the Montreal Jazz Festival last decade in an unorthodox trio, Sangam— with traditional jazz drummer Eric Harland (who has been a regular with Charles for some time now) and the Indian tabla player Zakir Hussain — and this trio still performs (from time-to-time). Somewhat avant-garde music, yet still an accessible show.
In recent years, he recorded a 2011 live duet album with the Greek classical contralto singer Maria Farantouri — with Lloyd’s own bandmates joined by Greek musicians — called Athens Concert ... and now some of his concerts conclude with him giving a recitation from the Bhagavad Gita.
Last year, he released the album I Long to See You— which includes guest vocalist Lucinda Williams on a version of the Bob Dylan classic Masters of War as well as Norah Jones singing You Are So Beautiful— and the album concludes with an instrumental based upon a Buddhist prayer. I also liked that he was joined on this recording by one of my favorite jazz guitarists, Bill Frisell (who has recorded with Ginger Baker, among many others).
At age 79 Charles Lloyd shows no sign of slowing down (with an active tour schedule, including the Spoleto Festival in South Carolina) yet has already left quite a legacy. In 2014, a biographical documentary of his life was released entitled Arrows into Infinity, in 2015 he was named a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Jazz Master, earned an honorary doctorate at Boston’s noted Berklee College of Music that same year and just last year was inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame. And Charles Lloyd has a new album Passin’ Thru— in a more familiar quartet with Eric Harland on drums — that is set for a release in July.
Charles Lloyd (in the 60’s) .. … and much more recentlyWith all of his work, what to choose? I have to include his most popular song from the 1960’s (Of Course, Of Course) — the bouncy instrumental tune with Charles on flute, which one might have heard in the 1960’s at the Fillmore in San Francisco — though I prefer the new version w/Bill Frisell on guitar, Eric Harland on drums.
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And from the same album: his rendition (this time on saxophone) of the old Ed McCurdy anti-war folk song Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream— with none other than Willie Nelson on vocals. Charles Lloyd attracts that kinda talent.
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