Sunday Music Muse Day - Mike Melito/Dino Losito Quartet, Bill Evens, Soldier's Fancy

This Sunday Music Muse Day find me celebrating the new release of friend, and October birthday boy, Mike Melito, with The Mike Melito/Dion Losito Quartet You're It. This a tasty and highly anticipated CD has Mike and company deliveriing a solid and smooth swinging session.  I glad CD player use lasers and not needles or I wear this out in not.  I picked my copy at Bop Shop Records, you can, too.  Support you local musicians and retailer.  We need them both.

To round out my weekend music, here's Bill Evans Trio On A Monday Evening.  This a live recording of a date at the Madison Mission Theatre in Madison. WI. on Monday November 15, 1976. The liner note say even with the rise of electric jazz fusion and Bill's Heath issues "brought on my years of narcotic addiction, was still at the top of his game in'76".  I rarely hear a Evans recording when he's not.  This will been get plenty of hearing time from me.

Time for another additional extra, which a start with a Inktober 2020 drawing.  It curious how one word can launch you down a creative rabbit hole that would make Alice think twice.  Inktober's # 7 prompt was the word "Fancy".  Simple, enough but my brain immediately jump to "Soldier Fancy",  which was the folk group of friend back in the 1980's n New York City.

I was pressed for time, so I Google "Soldier Fancy" the song and the group. First thing to pop up was a paint titled "Soldier's Fancy" by Henry Victor Lesur.

This was a good start point for me.  I dug into Google more and found one version of the song on youtube, not by the Soldier" fancy I knew.  There isn't an online version of original group, Marie Mularczyk, Hazel Pilcher, and Jerry Mastriano doing the song (there has been additional members at different times)   There was a Soldier's Fancy reunion concert held in 2018 at the Folk Music Society of New York, although only Marie Mularczyk  remained from the group in he '80s.  The concert info mentioned Soldier's Fancy was featured at the first Annual Village Voice Festival of Street Entertainers. 

As it happens,  I have a cassette of the event, Street Heat, given to me by Marie, stored with my  Warped Sky cassettes. Plus, I had another cassette, Ballads Broadsides and Bad News, with Marie, Hazel and Jerry, which has the song Soldier's Fancy" on it, so I played the tune to refresh my memory on the lyrics

I decided to do drawing inspire the lyrics of their title song.  I tend to do my drawing in the early evening, in about 2-3 hours.  This came out well.

I decide to add gray tones later.

But as finished the the rabbit hole sucked me in deeper.  I needed to make a video using the tracks from the cassettes and my art.  But, one element was missing, I remembered I had a old Soldier's Fancy concert flyer somewhere my art file, that wild be perfect the video.  Of course, I didn't know exact where, so that meant search through boxes and art files in the basement. Three hours later I found it.

So, I gather the artwork and transferred the tunes from the cassette and make this video.

But the travel in the Rabbit hole are to be continue,  next week.  You see, as I said I was a friend of Marie through another musician friend, Paul Kovit,  he's the opening act on the Soldier Fancy concert flyer.  Paul was excellent folk guitarist and song writer, but he had a desire to play drums, so he got the idea to rent a practice studio, invite some friends to come play and jam so he could bang on the drums.  I asked me, and after heavy arm-twisting, I agreed. Paul was much better guitarist and musician than me. At the studio we were joined by...Marie Mularczky on acoustic guitar and vocals, Jerry Mastriano on electric bass, and female singer guitar who only came to a a couple of early session, not sure it was Hazel. I play my Fender Stratocaster with my EFX rack. We ended up playing Irish Folk tunes which I never played before. Paul named the ad-hoc group "No Laughing", is in no one was to laugh at his mistakes as novice drummer.  Well there was plenty of good hearted laughs in the year of bi-weekly sessions.  We start recording the sessions for fun.  In the end I thing we surprised ourselves.

Next week.  Enter No Laughing.

Sunday Music Muse Day - John Coltrane, Chick Corea, Warped Sky Stray Clouds

 This Sunday Music Muse Day start with a rainy morning and gloomy touch of the coolness of fall. Just the day for some jazz to lift the mood.  My first is John Both Direction at Once: The Lost Album.  Which is kind of embarrassing for me, since I bought the CD two years ago when it was released, and some how never posted about it. I realized my omission when I included Coltrane in the gallery of September Jazz birthday video (more on the later).  Historically this is interest set of recording, from a set tapes left in the hands of Coltrane's first wife Naima's family.  So how the session fell through the cracks of the recording studio and record company management. It  contain  several known Coltrane titles and several untitled pieces and alternate takes.  Well worth listen for Coltrane fans.

My second is Chick Corea & Friends Remembering Bud Powell.  This Tribute CD finds Chick and stellar group of jazz heavy weights celebrating the music of Earl "Bud" Powell considered "the  most influential jazz pianist of his time".  Setting "...the standard for post-Art Tatum players."  Sadly he had mental difficulties later in life. (The central character in the movie "Round Midnight" play by Dexter Gordon was base on Powell;'s later years in Europe).  This is a solid outing honor Powell music in splendid fashion. 

Next is another Warped Sky Stray Cloud tune. Finally, I can get this song out of my system. So, rough edges and all, here is the song, "Jazzy Birthday (More or Les) with vocal". Jazz Birthday is a tune, written in 1978, with the original title "More or Les". The "Les" in the title refers to a old friend of Les Bernstein, not Les Paul the great guitar player, and father (inventor) of the solid body electric guitar, although it could, also. This new version was made with my vocals (with jazz singer Giacomo Gates as my inspiration). Actually, it was the first lyrics (and last) I've wrote since the 1980's. It seems I could never pull off playing the tune and singing it at the same time. Finally technology solved the problem.

I like the way this new version turned out so much I plan to do a monthly video celebrating Jazz musicians birthdays and add it to my Sunday Music Muse Day blogs. Enjoy

Sunday Music Muse Day - Father's Day Edition - The Guitar Trio - John McLaughlin, Al Di Meola, Paco De Lucia, Warped Sky - Stray Clouds

Happy Father's Day to all dad of all kind, shapes, and sizing.  All the best, on this Sunday Music Muse Day.  My buddy Rodney Mean shared a concert video of a version of the super charged acoustic Guitar Trio of John McLaughlin, Larry Coryell, and Paco DeLucia from 1979.  I inspired me to pulled a two albums with Al Di Meola, which I think was the original lineup and the on that recorded and toured in the U.S.  :The Friday Night In San Francisco - Live, (1981) and Passion Grace & Fire.  and later The Guitar Trio CD (1996) I remember attending a NYC concert with McLaughlin, Di Meola, and De Lucia, probably about the late 70s. The blazing speed and shear barrage of notes never seem to diminish the high quality of the music.

Keeping with theme of Father's Day, here's a song about children. (Actually another (embarrassing) attempt to clear the backlog of undeveloped and unfinished music ideas.) "Flowers" is an original tune written by friend Peter Grosett back in 1982. Peter and I met at the Guitar Center in NYC, where we were taking lessons and started practicing. Peter was pursuing a career in Jazz guitar, and I was just trying to justify having a guitar. He was always a more accomplished player than I, but somehow we clicked and we liked playing together. We even did a couple of pay-for-tips gigs a East Village cafe, La Figero, and at an uptown venue. One of the joys of playing with Peter was his sharing his original tunes. "Flower; was actually performed in public, vocals and all. (There is reel-to-reel of it I need to transfer before it rots) As part of my Dragonfly Views blog I have a Sunday Music Muse Day post where I always hoped to present original music that I had filed away mostly unfinished and unheard, always putting it off because my playing leaves much to desired. But as I get older it becomes apparent waiting for perfect has become an excuse not to do anything. But, sometimes you just have to get things out of your system. So, rough edges and all here is the song, "Flowers". I hope it give a hints of the good song Peter wrote. This backing track was created in Band in a Box music software. You write in chords and a lead line and it creates a backing track and even a solo performance, with varying degrees of success. I admit the version came out more "smooth jazz" than I would like, and BIAB sound can be clunky and rough, but thats Jazz.

Peter and I are still in touch and his creative paths has turned to photography. I'm glad I was able to incorporate one of photo in this video. I hope my Peter like it as a tribute to his all around creative spirit. old and new. Enjoy