Sitting on the Dock of the Bay

I do a bit of "busking" when the summer sun begins to draw tourist to our fair town. Not anything special. I usually bring a couple of instruments and a tip jar (in case someone would like to contribute to my beer habit and gas guzzling car - or is it the other way around?) Anyway, it is fun to sit in the sun next to the water and gives me a chance to view folks from a different angle and, in some cases, provide fodder for my blogs.

Sunday my family and I took a ride to Portsmouth to pick up one of my sons after a weekend of fun with his college friends at a beach in Kittery Maine. While waiting we walked about Prescott Park in the older part of Portsmouth, near Strawberry Banke, a restored 17th century village that duplicates life as it might have been lived back then on the New Hampshire coastline.

Shepp Shepard at Prescott Park
Portsmouth NH

Just a few minutes into our stroll, I spotted a gentleman, tucked into the side of a bench and hard upon a seawall overlooking a small clutch of lobster boats. He was playing a "Dell Arte" guitar - a"Selmer-MacCafferie" look-alike and an instrument I have been trying to save up enough money to buy for the last 20 years or so. His is a "petite Bouche" model and he was playing it with consummate skill and intensity.

I love "Gypsy Jazz", a kind of acoustic swing music popularized by Django Reinheardt and the Hot Club Quintet of Paris in the 1930's and 40's. When an accident to his left hand left him the use of only three fingers, Django developed a totally new style of jazz, using speed and triadic chords. He helped bring the guitar to the front of the band and made it a lead instrument.

I sat down and listened to this man play, and I felt happy. Gypsy Jazz does that to me. How could I not tap my feet or snap my fingers as these notes shimmered off the fingers and strings and spilled over me like a musical shower; washing away my troubles and cares?

The man playing the soulful guitar was Richard (Shepp) Shepard and is one third of a jazz trio, "Ameranouch"; the name developed from "American" which they are and "Manouche" the tribal name of the aforementioned  Django Reinhardt.

The other members of this "tribe" include Michael Harrist on upright bass and Jack Soref guitar.

"Shepp" was kind enough to talk with me for a half hour or so and even played a request. "Nuages" or "Clouds" in French was performed with loving care for its creator, Django and then Shepp paused and demonstrated how he has approached this iconic of all Gypsy Jazz anthems.

His take was pure American with a kick-ass hard bop approach. I was overjoyed. Silently I gave thanks knowing this style of music will never fade away. In fact, it has been reborn with a cleaner edge and a blazing rhythmic pattern.

"Ameranouch's" latest cd is titled "Hot".

 And it is! Thoroughly!

There are six songs all composed by Ameranouche and they provide many minutes of pure delight. Each one contains crisp lines and golden chords of pure joy.

"Canto" begins with a flamenco riff and dives headfirst into this Spanish gypsy influenced toe tapper that spins around like a bright red skirt to flow out from a perfect body and topped with eyes of flame and warm arms with fingers making love to castanets. (Whew! What a vision!" These guys are good!)

"Mambo 13" begins with assorted clicks and taps, perhaps made on half filled wine glasses and goes to the body of the guitar and rolls accross the floor with perfect rythym. (And occasional grunts from the boys.)

My favorite from this CD is "Johnny's Swing" written for Shepp and his wife Marias son John Russel' It truly roars out of the speaker and takes you along for a ride. It has a crisp pace and a bop style that appeals to my feet.

""Sweet Solitude" and "Hot" (protect your cd player from spontaneous combustion) are all smooth capable tracks that feature "Ameranouchs" gypsy flavored jazz with bop rifts and blues tones. These are men who are in a groove and they pave the way for the last piece on the album.

"Suite Maine" is a three part piece ("Drive", "Silloutte" and "Sunset Jericho") that allows the group to stretch out. It starts with a smooth flow of notes, a morning perhaps in Maine. It then allows a vision of pine trees, lakes and the outdoors and then the sun sets. But wait! What's this? Crickets. Gypsy jazz and a nighttime chorus are woven into a beautiful picture of sound.

 (L to r) Richard (Shepp) Shepard, Michael Harist and Jack Soref

I had a hard time determining between Shepp and Jack when they take the lead and, though it would be unfair to make comparisons (for they have a style all their own), their playing reflects the daring of Berrelli Legrin and the speed of Joe Pass, with a tightness and quality you would expect from a top notch group.  Michael provides the stability necessary from the lower end of the string family and he is more then adequate when it comes to bowing a riff.

"Ameranouche" is pure pleasure and you can catch them next at The Riverwalk Cafe and Coffee House in Nashua NH August 1st and The Greenroom in Somerville Mass. August 2nd.

This cd is worth getting. Add it to your collection of small group jazz for a smooth ride home. Or, if you need a little background to your next porch party. Perhaps a quiet evening in the pad with your favorite one? Whatever, I wouldn't steer you wrong would I? I haven't so far.

(C) 2014 by George Locke















Ameranoush Web Site

The Sins of the Fathers

I live in a town which triples in population during the summer. Meredith NH is located on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee and has been the gathering place for well over a century for middle and upper class folks from Boston and other urban areas in New England (we call them "flatlanders") who wish to escape the city when the weather grows unbearable. 

There is money to be had in these here hills.

Some of the money is spent attending summer theaters which sprout like mushrooms in New Hampshire from June to September,and Meredith has two of them - not mushrooms - summer theaters.  As a 31 year wedding anniversary present from our kids, several of whom have a bit of that theater blood in them, they  gave us two tickets to attend a show, and last night we did just that. It was "Miss Saigon".

"Miss Saigon" is a musical with lyrics by Richard Maltby Jr. and Alain Boublil, and music by Claude Michel Schonberg. They come armed with heavy credibility as they gave us"Les Miserables".

"Miss Saigon" is the 12th longest running broadway musical of all times which is remarkable considering the company they keep such as "The Sound of Music", "Oklahoma","My Fair Lady", "Cats", "Guys and Dolls" and so many more whose titles have become part of the broadway patois for the last seventy-five years.

I wish I had the space to list all the cast and crew from this show which left my wife and I stunned and left me with a 50 year old memory.

"Miss Saigon" is a modern retelling of the Puccini opera "Madam Butterfly" in which a young geisha and a young American Naval officer fall in love. He leaves "Butterfly" with a promise to return someday, which he does but with his American bride. "Butterfly" has had his child in the meantime, and this news which destroys her hopes and dreams causes her to take her own life at the end.  

As Bugs Bunny says at the end of the WB cartoon "What's Opera Doc?", "What did you expect from an opera? A happy ending?"

Now the setting is South Vietnam towards the end of the American presence and a few days before the helicopter lands on the roof of the embassy in Saigon and gave us that iconic picture of frightened Vietnamese clambering over each other to try and escape before the North Vietnamese pour into the city. They would be hunted down and shot as traitors by the new government. (By the way that scene was electrifying and left me numb! Hats off to the director Brian Feehan and tech director, Bryant Cyr!)

It was that iconic photo of the children left behind, and lifted up in despair to the chopper by hysterical mothers which caught the attention of Boublin, Schonberg and Maltby. What we had done to the country, we had done to the women of that country and left thousands of "Bui-doi", children of mixed blood, or "dust" as some carelessly put it.

"Madam Butterfly" is now "Kim" (played to perfection by Quynh My Luu) a bar girl who had lost her parents in an apparent napalming of her village. We see her first night in the bar, operated by a spot on sleaze named" Engineer" (Antonio Rodriguez III) She meets the American marine, Sgt. Christopher Scott (Justin Luciano...what a voice!)

Events progress to the bitter end and Kim takes her own life after giving up Chris and her son "Tam", played by tiny toddler Benjamin Tedcastle with mind blowing innocence and acting chops far beyond what his four year old face and body belies.

But what I really want to talk about is not this play (superb) the actors, directors, crew, technicians and ensemble (professional and up to any standard on Broadway right now!) but about a memory I had.

It was one of the first scenes when Kim agrees to become a hooker at the bar. I suddenly remember seeing this before. For real.

Many years ago when I was embedded as a military correspondent and photographer with the 1st Cavalry in South Korea, I spent time in one of the local villages.

Paju Ri was a typical town in a third world country in the middle of the last century. Dusty and poor with an agrarian culture that was dependent on rice as an economic backbone.

I could travel anywhere and at anytime with my journalist credentials and, as an 18 year old healthy boy, I visited many towns, including Paju Ri.

                                                                                              There was a bar called the Black Cat Club I frequented where I would sample Korean beer (vile), Philippine suds (even viler) and Koreas answer to saki - mokoli! (if you had a death wish!)

And there were girls. Lots of Korean young women spouting American names, Sandra, Jane and Diana. (Diana was a woman I had strong feelings for and decided to rent a "hooch" with her. Hilarity did not ensue and that is a story for another day.)

One Friday night, a new girl was introduced to the GI's gathered. I don't remember her name. But I do remember she did​ not look comfortable even a little embarrassed, perhaps. And she was dressed in her finest clothes, I'm sure. Those on this site who have visited the "Land of the Morning Calm" probably remember the long dresses and high waistline up to the chest or "folk costumes" worn by Korean women.. She was a little on the heavy side and was trumpeted by a local pimp as a "cherry girl". A virgin. I wasn't exactly on speaking terms with that name anymore....but I still remember feeling somewhat awkward at that moment. She was easily my age, and probably younger. I don't recall.

I left the club later that night wondering about her for she had disappeared as the evening progressed.

The next weekend I dropped into the place where everyone knows your name and saw her again. I had to look twice. The change was ugly.

Before there was a fresh face, a timid smile and pretty eyes. Now there was harsh makeup, thick mascara, rouge, crimson lipstick and clothes that were too tight, too provocative and a face in which the smile had run away, perhaps never to return. I grew in unasked for wisdom that night. It was as though a flower had been stepped on and then propped up with sticks, coated in lacquer and sprinkled with confetti. A gentle bird crushed and then stapled to a board. It just wasn't right.

I wondered at the change and what had driven her to seek this way of life.  Did she have parents? Was she a farm girl? 

The show I saw brought me back to those clubs and to a woman whose story was older then time and marched in step with conquering armies of brutish men since we first picked up clubs and learned to kill one another. I have never forgotten this persons face or the sadness that washed over me back then.

The show is remarkable, the acting and singing is excellent. The memories are sad.

Pictures above:  

1. Interlakes Summer Theater cast-"Miss Saigon"(left to right) "Kim", Quynh My Lu, "Engineer", Antonio Rodriguez III, "Chris", Justin Luciano.

2. "Miss Saigon" logo

3. Your truly South Korea, 1960

(C) 2014 George Locke

Eydie: A Torch Singer With Class To Burn

     She was a black and white goddess of song when I first saw her perform on Steve Allen’s version of the “Tonight Show” and I was sitting with the old man waiting for my mom to head off to work… the graveyard shift at the pediatric ward in a local hospital.

     Eydie Gorme was dark haired, and although the TV was without color, I envisioned her tresses a deep chocolate brown and soft and smelling of rose petals. Her lips were painted what I thought must be the richest vermillion imaginable. And her svelte form foamed into my adolescent mind with teen-age hormones rampant.

     Ah Eydie. Why did you have to marry that good looking guy….what’s his name?

     Oh yeah. Steve Lawrence. He had one hit……. “Go Away Little Girl”. Big deal!

     From those sweaty nights in the late 1950’s till this very day, I followed her career because her voice had balls. Now, don’t get me wrong. I know I’m transgender-ing adjectives. (I’m also inventing new words, apparently), but this woman could sing. I mean sing with a capitol GRRRRRF.

     It’s well known in the music business that she had a range of several octaves and could attack a song with no mercy, leaving lyrics, tone, volume and empathy crushed and broken in her wake when she finished. Smoke settled on stage or in the studio when this woman sang. And I mean this in a good way.

     She had a hit or two to pay the bills like “Blame It On The Bossa Nova”, but the real  skill she displayed as a performer lay with the American Song Book.

     As an example, I present to you her interpretation of an Iriving Berlin classic, “What About Me?”

     It’s true that this is not as well known as some of his most popular songs like “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”, “White Christmas” Etc., but it stands the test of time and the lyrics are real grown-up words with real grown up feelings. Her reading of this will tear your heart out. This is not a miss-soft-as-silk giggly teen age gusher. This is a full grown adult woman with a broken heart and she is belting it out to the one man in her life who got away. She probably has a glass of Old Granddad next to her the piano. And no chaser.

     “And maybe a baby will climb upon your knee and put his arms around you…but what about me?” Each time I hear this, my breath is taken away.

     No woman singer alive could “read” or interpret lyrics any better then Edie. And that includes a lot of diva’s, not the least being Ella, Billie, Edith, Barbra, Aretha and all the rest.

      Out of the service and behind a civilian radio station console, smelling of soundproof tile, ozone, hot tubes, warm plastic and cold coffee, I glommed every album (Columbia, I think) she cut that was sent our way as part of the avalanche of records we received from record producers every week.

     She and Steve were the toast of Las Vegas and clubs all over the world. They were show people extraordinaire and few couple acts could compete. (Mostly because they got divorced - ie.Sonny and Cher, Louis Prima and Keely Smith among others).

     Eydie also was fluent in Spanish and had a wonderful career in that market. 

     She passed away a few days ago and left us a body of work that speaks for itself.

     If you have never listened, I mean really listened to her, you are missing out on an acoustic miracle. There is a place in my heart where her larger then life voice will always reside.

     So long Edyie. What about us.  

Bob and Coal Porter

The "Coal Porters"

     No, that's not a typo. "The Coal Porters" is an indie-alternative-bluegrass band out of Britain that will knock your socks off. I have just come from a driveway moment this morning with an NPR interview and review of their latest album "Find the One" (to be released September 18) with so many good tracks, like their version of David Bowies' "Hero's" which takes this tune under my arm-pit and where I will proceed to give it a noogey (which I do to all good things).
     The use of dobro and auto-harp in strange places is terrific and with "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" guitarist Richard Thompson leading the way in "Hush You Babe" and another version ala the deep folds of the Appalaichan Mountain high lonesome sound of The Rolling Stones "Paint it Black", it will make you rethink acoustic music.
     It doesn't hurt that the producer is John Wood, the same guy who worked with "Fairpoint Convention", Cat Stevens, Nico, Squeeze and "Pink Floyd" and who's deft touch controls much of the steam this band can produce.
     With guest such as Thompson and sitarist Robert Elliot this is worth more then a listen or a casual flip through on iTunes.

Bob Dylan's latest change.

     Neil Herd, Sid Elliot, Carly Frey, John Breese and Tali Trow make "The Coal Porters" a truly uplifting experience to those jaded ex-folkster's from the UK and refugees from Harvard Square in 1962. Acoustic music has pushed the boundaries ahead and the detritus left behind is your own if you fail to keep up.
     Bob, remember him? He's the first name mentioned in this post.  Dylan has become over the years the master chameleon and guide to the roads less taken.  has done it again with "Tempest" his latest offering. I looked it up. He has 34 studio albums (read "cd's" for albums - yes I am, after all, a contemporary of Dylan) 58 singles, 14 live albums and 17 compilation albums. And not one of them sounds the same - even when he tried.
     As Garrison said last night on "PHC" it took years for him to get that old guy voice.Check out the latest Rolling Stone and his interview. The cover is worth the price of admission. The first words that come to mind on viewing is "Grand Old Man" of popular music.
     I have only hear bits and pieces of the disc, so more on that later.

Not Simone Enough

     The New York times grabbed my attention this morning, but not because of the recent unrest in the Middle East or the current crisis within the European Union. Or the toe to toe slugging match between Mitt and Obama, although I must say Romney has a remarkably accurate propensity for shooting himself in the foot.
     Repeatedly.
     No. It was instead a little story on page seven of the arts section which caused my already unbalanced blood pressure to make a mild detour on my imaginary electrocardiograph.
     A new biopic chronicling the life of Nina Simone will star a young performer with impeccable credentials and acting chops named Zoe Salanda. You will recall her as "Uhura" in the latest re-telling of Star Trek and she has also been seen in "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Avatar".
     The problem? Well, as activist and best selling author of "The Color Purple" Alice Walker has put it, this decision has re-ignited "colorism", her designation of discrimination based on gradations of color.
     As an over-weight white Anglo male living in the northeastern part of the United States, what I think about "gradations of color" does not really matter. I have never had to live with Jim Crow laws or had my life threatened because of my race.
     But I know one thing. I know the sound of Nina Simone's voice and her music cuts me to the quick.  And I also know her to be the very image of what whites considered a perfect example of the "negro race".
     Check out her song: "Mississippi". It stands head and shoulders above almost everything written by anyone about  discrimination - and it remains with "Strange Fruit." as one of most potent songs ever written.

     Every move of her head - shrouded with hair that many would consider "too short" and" too kinky" and every accusatory word that pours forth from those lips that many might consider "too big" bespeaks of a person who has caught the truth and will not let it go. In fact who would blame her if she beat it to death.
     But she would not. And them that would allow a woman, who is far lighter then Nina would, to play her  in an upcoming movies about her life should be ashamed and look a little further afield, for there are many actresses "of color" who could and should portray Nina Simone.
     Now some would say to me..."but George, come on, it's not the color. It's what she did - it's how she lived her life and banged those keys and sang in anger and justification that we should  be concerned with."
     But I say to you it is exactly that dark, dark color and those lips that sang, and those eyes that saw and those hands that attacked the key-board that should be celebrated, and not someone who fits into the sweet mold of light-skinned Hollywood's' interpretation of race.
     This is not a blog about acting, but about a word I used already.  That word is justification.
     Nina Simone was not a person who could instill peace of mind. She would not suffer fools gladly and her music always caught you off guard. Listen to her arrangement of  "Little Girl Blue". It will silence your soul.
     I hope that when the dust settles that the film story of Nina Simone will offer an actress of the deepest color and the deepest soul, for her life deserves that justification.

     .

The Winds Blow Lonesome At The Crossroads

A moment of silence, if you please. And in this moment, feel molasses warm sun on dark skin. Humidity thick as cotton and music sweet as a brown eyed young woman with long tan legs and a bottle of hooch.

"Honeyboy" back in the day.

Feel in this moment a lifetime of callous thick fingers on shiny steel strings and the certain joy of a bottle top glass slick sliding oh so sensual up the neck of an eight dollar guitar.

Hear stories from the lips and life of David "Honey Boy" Edwards.  His hard time ghost stirs from the crossroads and walks the delta road with feet that click like a piece of cold rolled metal on frets.

"Honey Boy", his aunt called him, when nine decade plus a few years ago she watched him toddle across the floor of a house in Shaw Mississippi. Honey Boy, who watched his father playing a guitar.  That wood and stretched-tight-string contraption siren that calls many of us overwhelmed him and the world lay at his feet.

The Grammy and the Delta Bluesman

He is gone now. Gone where the real guitar players go and is playing with Robert, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf  and the rest. He sits in peace on the back-porch of paradise where there are no signs over the water fountain that read "Whites Only" or the gates of gold for one color and the gates of coal for another.

He, the last of the direct links to Delta blues; with a good book, "The World Don't Owe Me Nothing: The Life And Times of Honey Boy Edwards"  and a string of sinuous songs; "Long Tall Woman Blues", "Gamblin' Man" and "Just Like Jesse James".

He eased into Chicago in the 1940's and played all the clubs and bars and street corners on Maxwell Street. He played and played, the notes spilling from the neck and the warm, slick slide.  And it was in that town he passed yesterday at 96. He played right up to a few months ago.  He was a Grammy Award winner and recorded for Earwig Music Company.

The Crossroads

Robert Johnson

I sat with John Lee Hooker in Montreal so many years ago. It was like no other conversation in the world. He would play a lick, then take a taste from the paper bag, then play a lick and talk some more.

I wish I had time to listen to "Honey Boy". 

What I heard, I never could duplicate.

So go down to the cross-roads no more, "Honey Boy". That man with the black suit and the hollow eyes and the hound dog is waiting. He will wait until someone else shows up.

But it will never be the same.

Adieu!

(C) 2011 George Locke 

Sams' Song - A Sad, Never Ending Melody

Although a song title, this blog does not refer to that endearing ditty written by Lew Quadling and Jack Elliot and sung by Bing and his son Gary back in 1950. Johnny Meets The Ghosts The melody is the familiar, haunting and eerie tune, "Ghost Riders in the Sky" by composer Stan Jones, and recalls a "cowboy" legend of an endless roundup, similiar in style to the northern European epic, "Wild Hunt" in which the doomed hunt a stag forever across an endless eternal forest. It has been recorded by many, including a wonderful rendition by Johnny Cash. This song, however, begins with the words:  "I have been a Provo now for fifteen years or more. With armalites and motorbombs I thought I knew the score." And ends with the chilling: "I can't forget the massacre that Friday at Loughgall. I salute my fallen comrades as I watch the choppers fall." This is a tune gloryfing surface-to-air-missiles and about murder, death and ruin and memories that run so deep they cut to the bone. Republican w/SAM Ireland has been called by some the  land of happy wars and tragic love affairs. I don't know about human love, (nor will I ever) but I do know that there are no happy wars. And there is still today no happiness many places in Northern Ireland, nor will there be as long a song can be raised with a glass of stout, celebrating martyrs and mayhem, slaughter and vengeance. For 800 years the might of the English have fought a small band of  "patriots" and stubborn folks who believe in an eye for an eye, a death with another death. There are those today who say "f**k the Brits" and "Go Home British Soldiers, Go Home." The Treaty of Lisbon means nothing to them. Tommy and his Longneck Years ago I spent 3 hours alone; one on one, with Tommy Makem, a poet, musician and storyteller from County Armagh in Northern Ireland. Three hours does not an expert make, but if I learned one thing in that time, it is that Ireland will never know freedom until the English leave. So said Makem, and so I believe. And how much blood will it take, Tommy? Do you know? You are no longer with us, but are playing your long-neck Celtic banjo with your lads, The Clancy Brothers and drawing a perfect pint in Heavens Pub. "Sams' Song" is sung today in pubs across the world. Youtube will slap you senseless with dozens of other ant-Brit songs filled with hate and avenging violence. Warren Zevon came close to defining this type of terror the world over with his "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" and Dominic Behan (younger brother of Brendan) nearly nailed it with his eulogy to slain IRA member Fergal OHanlan and "The Patriot Game". But even this song begot political fall out when the Clancy Brothers were singled out and chastised by Behan for not singing the line with says ".....and still de Velara is largely to blame. For shirking his part in the patriot game." And so it goes. On and on.  In this world where mankind is such a precious commodity even now we spill our blood and our childrens blood in places and for ideas which are, in the end, only pride. Pride goes before the fall. Are we too blind to see? I am sick of heart and will speak no more of this now. (C) 2011 George Locke