This part week you and your mother were in New York City on business and I spent three nights at home with the cat. And since part of this blog is to tell you a little about who I am, who your mother is and how we see the world (at this moment in time), I thought it might be good to let you know that you are on my mind even when you are not near.....
So, on a trip to the Jazz Record Mart (a wonderful place that sells new and used jazz albums and CDs), I happened to find an album by tenor saxophonist, Coleman Hawkins. I know his music only by reputation but once I saw the title and that it was just $4.99, I HAD to get it.
And there I was Tuesday night, when you and your mother were sitting at the Broadway revival of "Annie", listening to Coleman Hawkins lay down his breathy melody lines that sounds like something like some beautiful sea creature calling for you somewhere out on Lake Michigan.
I wanted to find a link online for the last song on the album: "Sugar". Hawkins had played with jazz greats, like one of my favorites, Django Reinhardt, making a reputation in the 30s and 40s. When he recorded Sirius, he was getting up there in years, but as Benny Green writes in the album's liner notes (something mpegs don't really allow!) "he is not so senile that he cannot adjust that hoary old chord sequence with a series of descending minor seventh chords here and there...."
I don't know enough music to know exactly how to identify those "descending minor seventh chords"but am hoping someday you -- being far smarter than me -- will hear them. And when you're hearing that song, you'll think of me, thinking of you, far away and swimming towards us.
For now, I'll leave you with one of his classic renditions of a jazz standard:
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