I'm doing the annual Inktober drawing event, again this year. It's a popular online event where artists draw from a list of daily prompts. It think it started as a way to get daily practice inking. The main focus is just do a drawing a day, for personal growth, no matter your level of artistic ability. It's fun to the see the wide range of creative solutions.
Here are my first ten drawing.
This Sunday Music Muse Day selections were inspired by group comments on a ECM Facebook group. Group members highlight their favorite ECM release, news, or comments about a musician connected to the famous German record company. I'm slightly amazed at the number of ECM artists I never heard of, and more so, of the releases of material of artist I've known. My first selection, Bill Conners Return, came from the mention of Bill Conner's birthday September 24th. (I featured him in my Jazzy Birthday video). Bill Conners recorded several solo albums, and various sideman sessions, with ECM, after leaving Chick Corea's Return to Forever. After returning to more electric jazz fusion with his power trio, he seem to stop recording after 1987. I hadn't come across Return in my recording shopping trips, so I bought it online. The CD "Return" was his return to recording back in 2005, and his last release, so far. He seem to have preferred teaching than recording. Return is a nice collection of post-bop jazz rather than fusion, which might disappoint some fans, but I like it. He does give a nod to his power trio records by including the tune, It Be FM, which I remember from his Assembler CD, released in 1987.
I'm doing the annual Inktober drawing event, again this year. It's a popular online event where artists draw from a list of daily prompts. It think it started as a way to get daily practice inking. The main focus is just do a drawing a day, for personal growth, no matter your level of artistic ability. It's fun to the see the wide range of creative solutions.
# 1 "Fish"
I'll post my drawing every couple of days throughout the month.
This Sunday Music Muse Day, bring finds us officially beginning the Fall season and having a warm sunny day, worth enjoying while last. I'm presenting two posts today, first one for CD selection and a second part for a Warped Sky Stray Clouds song. By CD selections are actually connected. First up is John McLaughlin & the 4th Dimension The Boston Record, a live set of one of McLaughlin's post Mahavishnu Orchestra groups. This was recorded on June 22, 2013 at the Berklee Performance Center, Boston. There's not much in the way of liner notes. Not that much more needs to be said about the legendary jazz guitarist, and fusion pioneer. All you need to know is in hearing the music. I'm always happy to come across McLaughlin releases I don't have. I'm happy to say, even after his Farewell U.S. Tour (I did get to see his Buffalo, NY date) he is still recording and touring Europe.
My second selection is Mahavishnu Re-Defined, A Tribute to John McLaughlin and the Mahavishu Orchestra. This is a 2 CD set released by ESC Records out of Germany. I'm sometimes leery of tribute projects, as they can be hit or miss, but I have to give this a thumbs up. Honestly, I only knew 4 of artists out of the 25 cuts on this set, John Stowell, guitarist (who I saw perform with Bob Snieder at the Bop Shop Record last year), French-Vietnamese guitarist Nguyen Le' (I have a excellent CD of his), Drummer Gary Husband for work with McLaughlin and earlier in bands of the late fusion great Allen Holdsworth, and drummer Dennis Chambers from various groups like the Brecker Bros, John Scofield, and McLaughlin. This is solid CD set with a nice variety of styles showing the many colors and tones of McLaughlin's music associated with the Mahavishnu Orchestra. The one head-scratcher is a cut by drummer Ron Thaler. titled 'Some Timeless'. Timeless was written my the late John Abercrombie, a favorite guitarist of mine, one of my all time favorite tune of his. 'Some Timeless' is a nice take on the tune, but I can't figure how it fits with this set. That may have to remain one of life's mystery's for me.
This week's Warped Sky - Stray Clouds tune is rather special to me. "In the Blood of the Night" is the most EPIC tune of The Warped Sky Band. It ranks as our Iron Butterfly "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida". "In the Blood of the Night", is a original tune, written in 1978 by Richard Miceli, my creative partner in the Warped Sky Band, with Rodney Means . The "band" was three guys screwing around with music in our apartments, annoying the neighbors. The tune was adapted from a poem of Richard's and I came up with music for him to add a vocal and flute against. Richard is big fan of Tom Waits, and I aways hear strains of that in his poems/lyrics. I'm amazed at the off-beat and dark insights on personal relationships his lyrics reveals. The original version, with Richard's vocal and flute, and the screaming electric guitar playing of Rodney Means is included at the end of this video. The full 14 minute EPIC, false start and all. This original version is presented more as tribute the friendship and good times we shared making music, whether good or bad, doesn't matter, as we had fun and hearing our tunes brings a smile to my face.
This new version was made with my vocals and guitar playing, and using a backing track created in Band in a Box music software. I couldn't hope to outdo the original version, especially try to top Rodney's guitar playing, so I went for simple Darker version. I actually had envisioned using it in a sci-fi detective story years ago. It still be happen. I might use this Dark Hooded character for another tune. "Schizoid', soon.This Sunday Music Muse Day I have a remembrance. I usually prefer to celebrate the birthdays of the living, and departed, but this will popped up on the Duke Ellington Society group. My father, Sam Woodyard, died on September 20, 1988, in Paris, France, of cancer. Sam was the drummer for Duke orchestra from the the mid-1950s, most famously beginning with the famous 1956 Newport Jazz Festival concert.. Many consider him one of Duke's best drummers. Honestly, he wasn't a part of my life, as he choose his career over family, and believe me, there is no bitterness in that statement, By way of closure, I had the chance to visit him in Paris, after the news of his illness was passed to his mother through Dizzy Gillespie, a year before he passed, and I travel to Paris for his funeral and carried his ashes back home. I'm proud of his musical legacy, and through the friends he made in Paris and elsewhere, I knew he was loved and comforted in his last difficult years. His music will continue to touch jazz fan for all time. RIP Sam.
Jimi Hendrix died on September 18, 1970. Usually, I don't like to commemorate deaths, I prefer to celebrate the birthdays of living, and departed. But since so many remembrance popped up in news outlets and social media the event was hard too avoid. Jimi Hendrix was one of my main early rock guitar hero (followed by Eric Clapton with Cream, and Jeff Beck). Sadly, I never got to see him play live. I was in the Basement Coffee House, a SVA and Baruch student hangout in the basement of Lutheran church on 22nd off 3rd Ave, NYC, when I heard of his death. I was stunned and shocked. Our illustration instructor assigned us to do a memorial album cover for him. I did a black on black portrait for my cover (flat and glossy acrylic paint) I still have somewhere. It's incredible how his impact is still being felt in music today, and not just an oldies Rock way.
So, Here's are my personal art tributes to Jim Hendrix, from old files.
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.
