Going To Chicago

Off to Chi-town in the morning for another Jazz Fest in Grant Park. D and I have been making the trip every year since 87, except for a couple of years when either the weather or circumstances (a political convention one year)prevented. We usually have a good time and it's a good end-of-summer marker. In 1981, the first year we attended, so many of the greats were still alive and kicking. Count Basie's Band was featured with Joe Williams, who was subbing for Helen Humes, who died that year. Also the great Dexter Gordon was the featured act at the Jazz Showcase and admission was free, or reduced for those staying at the Blackstone. So many of the greats gone now that were featured in Grant Park over the years. As Ben Webster said so many years ago, "We're all dropping like flies."

Bird Lives

Today is the birthday of the one and only Charlie Parker. Another August baby. This is indeed a strange month. Cloudy, cool and Fall-like this morning. The Hog has rather dull weekend which I guess is fitting considering last week was the birthday bash and later this week I'll be in Chicago. Interesting line-up for the JazzFest in Grant Park this year. Two 100 year birthday tributes one for Count Basie the other for Coleman Hawkins, both who I was fortunate enough to see perform.

The Hog Logs On

Yardhog's birthday month celebration continues tonight at the Jazz Factory with a performance by saxophonist Jane Bunnet and her Cuban band. I first saw Bunnet last year in Chicago at the Hot House, one of that city's most interesting venues for international music. I hope to get some good photos with my new digital camera. For some reason I've been taking a lot of photos lately of attractive female musicians and singers. At the Jazzfest Sunday I got a wonderful shot of singer Sonia Hensley in a short yellow mini dress and matching high heels. Bunnet is also a very attractive woman, although not as flashy Hensley. I remember I couldn't take my eyes off of her in Chicago. It's always amazing to me that someone who is beautiful and wonderful to look at, can also be a great musician.

It's A Slippery Slope

Last night, before the latest cold front rolled in, I was feeling rather tired but instead of lying down I hopped on my bike and did a quick 10 mile ride in the park. It worked wonders, got me completely out of funk city.
     I'm going to miss it when the days become short in the Fall and I won't be able to use this therapy. Walking doesn't do it. I'm sure there's some advantage but it's not stressful enough to get the heart pumping and the endorphins going.
     Yesterday I bought a new helmet and a pair of bike gloves. The old ones I hadn't replaced in years and they were getting pretty funky. The gloves stunk to high heaven and my old helmet looked like something a street person in Chicago would wear. Today I'll work out with weights in the gym for an hour and then do another ride tonight.
     Had a close call this morning I was backing out of my drive-way when I suddenly remembered I needed gas, which caused me to stop for a split second. Just then a car whizzed past going at least 40 miles an hour. If I hadn't stopped I'd probably be a dead man. Moments like that make you think and come up with old cliches like "I guess it wasn't my time."
     Speaking of death I'm currently reading "It's a Slippery Slope." by the late monologist Spalding Gray. I picked the book up two years ago because of the title before I ever heard of Gray. I had a little intrigue with one of my muses on her front porch one night and she warned me "We are approaching a slippery slope!"
So, when I saw the title on the remainder table at Hawley Cooke I bought it to give her. Luckily I didn't so, two years later I discover it's by Spalding Gray, who I just learned of after his suicide earlier this year. Gray's mother committed suicide in her early 50s and he seems to have a morbid wish to join her. Early in the book he quotes from Becker's "Denial of Death."
     "The irony of man's condition is that the deepest need is to be free of the anxiety of death and annihilation--but it is life itself that awakens this anxiety, and so we shrink from being fully alive."
     BIRDS DO IT, BEES DO IT, EVEN EDUCATED FLEAS TO DO IT. LET'S DO IT, LET'S BE ALIVE!
     Being fully alive is something you have to work on every day.
     I keep waking up about 3 a.m. every morning with mini-panic attacks. Not fully blown, I don't have to jump in the car and drive around town in the middle of the night like a maniac trying to out run my angst. I just turn the tv on and let its babble wash over me. I don't really watch it of course, too inane. But this morning I turned it on and there was Little Joe Cartwright with a full head of hair and Dean Martin on his old tv variety show. It was an advertisement for a DVD that featured Martin and his show from the 1960s. Later clips showed him with Ethel Merman, Frank Sinatra and all these other dead stars. They all looked so alive and healthy. Boy, if they'd only known what was waiting in the wings. luv, yardhog

Flying Home

Yardhog is going through some serious chemical changes. Tittering on the precipice of a panic attack. Too much pent up energy and no immediate outlets. It will pass.
Illinois Jacquet the great tenor saxophonist died of a heart attack in his home in New York yesterday. He was 81 years old and had been leading a band nearly up until the end. He was mostly known for his famous boisterous solo on "Flying Home" with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra. The song was a national hit and Jacquet was forced to play it almost every night with the Hampton Band. According to the article this morning that's what made him leave the Hampton Orchestra two years later claiming physical exhaustion. He said later in an interview. "I had to quit. Hamp was getting rich and I was dying." Jacquet and drummer Joe Jones had trio with my friend organist/pianist Milt Buckner in the 1970s. Milt died around 1975, lugging his Hammond B3 organ down the steps of Joe Segal's Jazzshowcase in Chicago, but Jacquet seemed to go on and on. According the obituary this morning he was born in Louisiana, the son of an American Indian mother and a French Creole father. Can you think of a better lineage for a jazz musician? Heard about his death this morning after hearing him on a 1956 recording with Ben Webster entitled "The Kid and the Brute" they were playing on WNOZ New Orleans radio. Jacquet was one of the last great Texas tenors that included the likes of Arnette Cobb and Buddy Tate. Ain't none of them left now.
     Got an email the other day from the president of the Louisville Bicycle Club. The young man I saw in the accident Monday night is apparently doing okay. He broke several bones in his arms and hand. Thanks to the gods.

YARDHOG' S T-SHIRT ADVENTURE

Yesterday morning I went to Lotsa Pata to buy a muffalata sandwich wearing a t-shirt I bought at a club in Nashville called Bourbon Street Blues. It's a loud tye-dyed shirt with bright white letters that announce "Bourbon Street Blues - Nashville, Tenn. It always confuses people and I always wind up explaining to them that "Bourbon Street Blues" is a blues club in Nashville that recreates the New Orleans ethos with beads, booze and sometimes bare female breasts.
I did that with a young male clerk at Lotsa Pasta yesterday. I also told him about the club's house band Stacy Michart at "Blues You Can Use."
Yesterday afternoon I changed into the "Buddy Guy's Chicago Blues Legends" t-shirt I bought last Sunday. I was having a beer with a friend at the Cumberland Brewery on Bardtown Road when a woman comes up to me wearing another Chicago Blues t-shirt, not the same one but with a reference to Chicago. Turns out she lives on the North Side of Chicago and had driven to Louisville to see a Chicago Band, "The Buzz" perform at Stevie Ray's. She asked me if I was interested in going because the sax player and the guitarist were formally with the Buddy Guy Band. I said "Sure" and a couple of hours later I found myself seated in Stevie Rays' watching a kick ass white blues band do the blues... to be continued. luv, yardhog

Chicago, Chicago

Chicago, Chicago a toddling town! Back from a weekend in Chi-town. One of our best trips. Got into town early Saturday morning. Stayed at the sumptuous Conrad Hilton next to the old Blackstone, which is being renovated for condos. I haven't stayed this far up on Michigan Ave in a while and it was a nice change. Grant Park is directly across the street and Buddy Guy's Blues Legends is in back of the hotel. And Powell's Books, one of the best remainder book stores in the country is a block away.
The legendary jazz singer Sheila Jordan was singing at the Green Mill over the weekend. An annual event every Memorial Day. I brought Jordon to Louisville to appear at a Louisville Jazz Society concert at least 15 years ago and I hadn't seen her since. Now 75 she hadn't changed a bit. D and I were seated in a booth waiting for the concert to start, when suddenly D said "There she is!" Jordon, who was married to Charlie Parker's pianist Duke Jordon, had come in the front door and was headed for the bandstand. I stood up, went over to her and said "I picked you up at the airport for concert a long time ago. Do you remember me?" Whether she did or not, she jumped up and hugged me. Then I said "Gail Wynters said to tell you hello from Louisville." "Oh! I love Gail Wynters. Tell her, I hope she's doing well," she said.
The rest of the night was magic. Jordon was in fine voice and the young trio of piano, bass and drums was tight and swung like mad.
Chicago is cultural gumbo. The first thing I saw when I stepped out of the hotel Saturday morning was a large Indian wedding being held on the sidewalk in front of the parking garage. Several drummers were playing along with a recorded sound track while men and women danced, jumping up and down, their hands high in the air. The men wore white, gold trimmed ceremonial hats and the woman were dressed in saris.
The streets were also full of military men and women participating in the Memorial Day parade.
At one point a rather worn looking white horse was led to the front door and a large man, I presume the groom, mounted it. The dancing and drums became more intense and the group marched in a procession around the block to the front of the hotel where the wedding was being held.
It is impossible to stand out or be a freak in Chicago. To much competition. On the way to Water Tower I saw in quick succession; A man in a large black hat, striped shirt and boots, a man wearing a sandwich board which announced something about the Russian communists being responsible for world terrorism, a very thin middle aged man running in a bikini shorts, and a young black male midget who asked for a contribution. "We're having a party for boy who went down. Tickets are only $3.50."
The weather was a great, high in the 80s, but thunderstorms, part of a severe weather system that spawned tornados back home in Kentucky and Indiana, occurred of and on.
It rained Sunday night so, it was perfect for walking across the street and hearing the blues at Buddy Guy's Legends. A really nasty looking store-front but a nice spacious interior. The evening began with an acoustic blues group followed by a rather dull electric blues band. The music and the bland cajun food made for a convenient but less than memorable evening.
Before leaving Monday afternoon D and I walked down to Lake Michigan from Grant Park and got caught in a down pour that caused us to seek shelter under the trees in Grant Park.
Yesterday, a severe thunderstorm hit Frankfort just before quiting time. I waited it out and when I got to Louisville the weather looked like it had cleared up. So, I decided to ride up Frankfort Ave. on my bike for dinner. I stopped at El Mundo's and ordered a burrito and had taken about two bites when I looked up and saw a large black cloud bearing down on me from the north/west. One of the restaurant workers came out and said something about a tornado warning, which caused me to began eating my burrito even faster than I was previously, which had to be some kind of a record for burrito consumption. As the sky darkened and the wind picked up, I jumped on my bike and rode like hell for four miles arriving at home just as the first drops of rain began to hit the pavement. Whew! I spent the rest of the night sitting on my new screened in porch watching the first fire flies of the season compete with the lightning.