Vlog: Red with Billy Child's Wheelbarrow

Red Wheelbarrows are important:

Driving up I-95 in fall 2007, while on tour, I was struck by the stark beauty of the New England autumn - the red, orange, gold, green, and yellow leaves of the tress rushing by the car window, the small clearings, the little pathways. It brought to mind the William Carlos Williams poem The Red Wheelbarrow and I knew that this project would be an impressionistic depiction of what I'd experienced on that drive. I wanted to capture, not just a sense of autumn but also the movement of autumn - wind blowing leaves as they spiral through the air in little eddies, the drumming of the rain as it hits the brown earth, the stillness of a lonely red wheelbarrow in the middle of an open meadow. Billy Childs

The poem that came to Billy Childs, is a poem on my classroom wall:

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

William Carlos Williams

jazz with strings

In the beginning... I was in college and opening myself up to new music in ways that had never happened before. One of the jazz LP's I bought was Charlie Parker playing with strings. To be clear, he was playing his sax, while he played music with folk playing string instruments other than guitar or bass. Here he is playing about something many of us are longing for these days

Then there was a desire to have a CD of Marian McPartland playing her own music. No easy link to the music on her CD, Silent Pool, but check out NPR's longest-running and most widely carried jazz program, Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz. The way you get that honor is to live a long life and to keep playing.

But probably my favored jazz with strings CD may be Clifford Brown, an amazing trumpet player who sadly died on the Pennsylvania Turnpike at a way too young age in 1956.

Here is Blue Moon from that session where he played with strings.

My mind is on these things because I am excited about what I plan to be a witness. Jazz pianist and composer Billy Childs has written a piece of music to be played by his 6 piece band along with the Ying Quartet (need some non-jazz). Montgomery County Community College tells me that this will be the regional premiere of the piece.

and this post of many links will end with one more, no string quartet, but Mr. Child's plays an appropriate tune for this moment.

jazz concerts

So I tend to blog after the show. I repent. The other week after church, chatting with a friend, I said that I was awed by the fact that we had tickets for 8 jazz concerts... never before has this been the case, however, we jumped in for reduced prices at two colleges.

The Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band, Dizzy is gone but the love continues...September 3, 2008 at Lafayette College, Easton PA Many living legends here who played with Dizzy!

The Back Bay Saxophone Quartet (well we don't have tickets, but if we hop on RT 78 after a quilt show in Harrisburg, it will take us to Bethlehem where they are playing at Moravian college this Saturday, September 6th. OK so they are jazz and classical music influenced composers who play saxophone.. could be interesting and maybe have time to say howdy to my parents in Bethlehem. Moravian's concert hall is a short walk from their condo. We have met there to listen to the Moravian College Big Band, who always puts on a great show.

Hank Jones playing piano duets with pianist Mulgrew Miller, who is also in the big band mentioned above. Hank is nearing or past 90 years of age his siblings, Thad and Elvin are also jazz masters. Piano duets, how cool will that be... Lafayette College on October 12, 2008.

Here Hank plays My Funny Valentine with the Meridian string quartet.

Speaking of string quartets, the innovative Turtle Island String Quartet is arriving at our local community college, MCCC, in Blue Bell on Novemeber 8, 2008. Not long ago I came across their new CD on which they do a tribute to sax legend John Coltrane.

Mulgrew Miller will be on stage yet again at Lafayette College with his band, Wingspan, on November 22, 2008. want a listen... here is Samba D'Blue composed by Miller.

December 12, 2008 at MCCC will be the night we see the master of the acoustic and electric bass, Christian McBride.

I am so glad I found the piece of music I highlighted by Hank Jones, because on January 24, 2009 at MCCC we will see jazz pianist, composer, arranger... Billy Childs playing with a string quartet, The Ying Quartet.

Dianne Reeves finishes off the jazz series at Lafayette College on February 7, 2008. Have you seen Good Night and Good Luck, the movie about Edward T Murrow? Then you have seen and heard her. She was the singer in that studio they kept flashing to throughout the movie. Many consider her the best jazz singer out there right now. here she is singing One For My Baby on the sound track to mentioned movie.

back again at MCCC on February 13, 2009 we will see John Blake Jr play some jazz on his violin... listen to some here if you are curious

OK, I am linked out. this is such a range of music... who could have imagined this coming into our lives before the pamphlets arrived this summer. We are excited and blessed to have the opportunity; and thanks to all those organizations that give grants and support cultural arts series, it makes it affordable for us.

remember support music... applaud, celebrate, enjoy