So my student said, I hate when my dad plays gospel bluegrass

... So off I went to the deep back corner of my storage closet and I started looking at the Bluegrass CD's I had placed back there years ago to make room for jazz at home. And there I found Ain't no Grave Can Keep My Body Down on a Tim and Mollie O'Brien project. The jazz flowing through my horticulture class stopped.
I tried to tell the student it was Zombie bluegrass. But he was not buying that for a moment. However, I made it up to him Friday afternoon, when I let him play a Rush CD. Which took me back 35 years or so.

Have yourself an arts and crafts weekend in Allentown

In July I started up a conversation with Paul Gretian whose amazing photos happened to be at the same show as our craft. Later in the weekend he invited us to apply to the show his chapter of the PA Guild of Craftsmen puts together and so we will once again be honored to have our craft in the same space as his.

What is art what is craft? No matter. I am inviting you to have an Arts and Crafts Weekend in Allentown, PA.

The Craft show is happening Novemeber 6 and 7 at the Swain School. details

What I suggest is that you make a day of it and head to the Allentown Art Museum while you are in town for the craft show. It is great to hear that the museum is expanding, but sad to report the big connection is falling flat. You see the museum purchased a room that was owned and designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It was at this moment in the blog post where I was to connect arts and crafts, but the museum's expansion has closed the room from the public view.

And here I was to point out the specific painting by Arthur Dove which Mosaic Woman loves so much, but apparently not everything is easy to find on the internet. But here is a cool Arthur Dove painting of a sunrise:


by Micah MacAllen

The painting we saw at the museum reminded Mosaic Woman of mandalas, which she just happened to blog about.

and let me end with this: as I was writing this post, I was chatting with a member of the Swingle Singers on Twitter. I may just meet her and hear them when they tour the US. They take on many a genre and you can explore that, but this one caught my eye and ear. Have a glorious day and see you in Allentown

Jazz on Tuesdays--- Sunna's blessing and a question

Posting something on Twitter is a passing thought. I can put a link to a piece of our craft and within a minute 20 + folk will check it out. Then nothing. So it was quite a pleasant surprise to find a tweet from Sunna Gunnlaugs today.

I had sent a inquiry about songs folk see as blessings. And apparently Sunna has been thinking about it. Her response reminded me of an evening of live music when Mosaic Woman and I were introduced to the sacred music of Duke Ellington.

YouTube won't let me embed the video, but hopefully you are curious enough to click here.

what song is a blessing to you?

It is a good thing to have a room waiting for us

The other day I blogged about the gospel tune, We'll Understand It Better By and By. It was a hymn recorded by Thelonious Monk. The biography I am reading stressed these lyrics...

We are often destitute
of the things that life demands,
Want of food and want of shelter,
thirsty hills and barren lands.

The point being made was to reference the history Monk had emerged from. I emerged from some suffering in my youth, but I have never experienced a want for food. Mosaic Woman and I did go through a year in Oregon when we were both graduate students. I look at what our earnings were that year and I wonder how we did not want... loans, part-time jobs, and frugality.

Monk did not record any of his music until he was 30. And at that time he still lived at home, or at least had a room in his mother's house. It was in that room where he crammed a piano and then a sextet, which prepared for that first recording. If it wasn't for that room, Monk would not have been able to stick to his dream to be himself first and foremost when he played piano.

My parents have always had a room for me. They have in the past in good times and in bad like when my first attempt at college was not quite a success. Years later, Mosaic Woman and I would return to Pennsylvania after 8 years of roaming about the US, and that return was made a lot easier by the room provided us. The other night, I searched and searched for an unknown version of We'll Understand It Better By and By. Nothing met what I wanted. One of the first I found was a bluegrass version. They skip the verse mentioned above, then skip some others, and add one not found in the lyrics I had found. But this guy made it into my grandparent's LP collection and then into mine...
...

my interest in Monk takes me to Charles Albert Tindley

My last post ended with a video of Thelonious Monk playing what he called, "Bye and Bye, when the morning comes." As I read about Monk's family moving to New York City and the conditions in which he lived, I want to say, "how could I imagine." But catch myself, because if I can't imagine, I can't attempt to feel. and the Lord knows I need to work on feeling. As I read on in the Biography on Monk, I learn about the man who wrote that hymn...

Charles Albert Tindley, who also wrote Stand By Me
Tindley is known as one of the “found­ing fa­thers of Amer­i­can Gos­pel mu­sic.” The son of slaves, he taught him­self to read and write at age 17. He was a driv­en young man, work­ing as a jan­i­tor while at­tend­ing night school, and earn­ing his di­vin­i­ty de­gree through a cor­re­spond­ence course. In 1902, he be­came pas­tor of the Cal­va­ry Meth­o­dist Epis­co­pal Church in Phil­a­del­phia, Penn­syl­vania, the church where he had ear­li­er been the jan­i­tor. At the time of Tindley’s death, his church had 12,500 mem­bers. The Tind­ley Tem­ple Unit­ed Meth­o­dist Church in Phil­a­del­phia was named af­ter him. Tindley’s “I’ll Over­come Some Day” was the ba­sis for the Amer­i­can ci­vil rights an­them “We Shall Over­come,” pop­u­lar­ized in the 1960’s.

Bye and bye, when the morning comes

We are tossed and driven
on the restless sea of time;
Somber skies and howling tempests
oft succeed a bright sunshine;
In that land of perfect day,
when the mists have rolled away,
We will understand it better by and by.

Chorus:
Bye and bye, when the morning comes,
When the saints of God are gathered home,
We will tell the story how we've overcome,
For we'll understand it better by and by.

Verse:
We are often destitute
of the things that life demands,
Want of food and want of shelter,
thirsty hills and barren lands;
We are trusting in the Lord,
and according to God's Word,
We will understand it better by and by.

Chorus:

Verse:
Trials dark on every hand,
and we cannot understand
All the ways that God could lead us
to that blessed promised land;
But He guides us with His eye,
and we'll follow till we die,
For we'll understand it better by and by.

Chorus:

Well it's A for the ark, it was a wonderful boat
Build it on the land, you'll get water there to float
And B for the beast at the ending of the wood
We will understand it better bye and bye

Children, it's bye and bye
Better bye and bye
We will understand it better bye and bye
Children, it's bye and bye
Better bye and bye
We will understand it better bye and bye

One of these these mornings, coming bright and soon
Will the veil of the temple be torn in two, will it be made whole again
And when we get in heaven, gonna understand it then
We don't understand it better bye and bye

[chorus]

Well this old world is not my home
Got to see that city has been built by God
And Jesus remembers I am a fallen sinner
We will understand it better bye and bye

[chorus]
We will understand it better bye and bye
We will understand it better bye and bye

shooting for 50, a family tradition

My sister flew home to celebrate my parents big year. Turning 75 this spring, they are within a few months of reaching 50 years of marriage.

Not that long ago I thought, music, we must have music from 1958. I found lists of number 1 hits, best jazz, best country, top 100 songs, and then I went through my jazz Cd's. Let me say that there were a bunch of folk sounding like Elvis back then. I put together 50 songs from that year. My dad, sitting to my right, was heard singing a line here and there. But my youngest aunt proved to be the music lover in the group. My one aunt and uncle were appreciative of the country hits including Johnny Cash and Kitty Wells.

50 years... I celebrated when both sets of grandparents made it that far. At the dinner, the aunts and uncles who had survived to see the day had already celebrated 48, 48, and 54 years of marriage. Though my sisters are older, I am the closest to 50 as Mosaic Woman and I have celebrated 16 anniversaries. In the year 2042... at age 78, I hope to be listening to 50 tunes from 1992. Wonder what I will remember?

As for the big hits of 1958, The Everly Brothers competed with Elvis and the Chipmunks hit #1 twice, but I left the Chipmunks off the Cd's, which allowed room for some 1958 music I own, including Lets Fall In Love by Duke Ellington and Johnny Hodges. A tune I once listened to as I drew a card for the one I love.

... and Since I-tunes had no 1958 Elvis tunes which I could burn as an audio file, I pulled out my one Elvis CD, which meant the evening had one gospel tune... Praise be to Elvis for being a man of faith, may that wondering spirit find some peace.

Don't know if this is the exact version, but here it is.


Peace