Everyone who is someone will be there.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Hayden’s trumpet concerto is a warhouse every trumpeter wants to master. Even I in my brief career as a neophyte cornetist gave it a shot (too hard, gave up after two months). But for those can play it, it’s a been there done that task. The piece is a cold fish.
Until this morning. While dogging the oval track at the rec center, I heard a version on radio that sent me into the stratosphere. Sounded like no one I knew in the boys’ club of classical trumpet players. The player, I discovered later on the MPR playlist, is Alison Balsom who, as this picture suggests, isn’t in the boys’ club.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Guideposts
I prayed a lot in those day...prayed that my young wife would survive the cancer, that my tremor would go away,that Sylvia would touch me there, but none of these things happened. I quit praying and shortly after was awarded tenure and a promotion.
Opening of "Painting Before and After Words" at the Mpls Institute of Arts
Opening of "Painting Before and After Words" at the Mpls Institute of Arts, originally uploaded by TedSher.
Paintings of Margaret Wall-Romano
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Interview with Paul Desmond, University of North Dakota student union cafeteria, Oct. 13, 1956.
TS: I’d like to welcome you to the University of North Dakota, Mr. Desmond...
PD: Thank you.
TS: How was your trip here? Do you have a band bus?
PD: No no, no bus, station wagon, a Ford. You really don’t need a bus with a quartet because a quartet isn’t a, er a band, I guess you’d say. Station wagon’s are good.
TS: Gets kind of crowded, isn’t it?
PD: Yea, well it would be easier if we left Joe and Norm home, ha ha you know with all their things, but...heck...the bass goes on top and the drums in the back. It works out okay, even if we’re jammed in there.
TS: The bass is on the roof of the car?
PD: Oh yea, it’s okay. It’s in a hard case and tied down pretty well.
TS: Aren’t you afraid someone will steal it when you’re at a diner or something? Seems strange that’s all.
PD: Oh yea?
TS: Well I mean that’s an expensive bass I bet. Wouldn’t take very long to cut it loose, would it?
PD: It’s alright, okay? No one steals bass fiddles between here and Chicago.
TS: Okay.
PD: Have you ever heard us before?
TS: Not live, no. Hard to hear live jazz up here but I have your Basin Street album though. Love it. I mean really. You guys are far out.
PD: Thanks. That one’s the latest, like it alot, specially college kids. Anything you like special?
TS: The Judy Garland song, the one that has bells, clang clang...
PD: Trolley song.
TS: Yea.
PD: Nice to be interviewed by someone who knows what he’s talking about. Doesn’t happen very often, you’d be surprised.
TS: Your jazz is too far out?
PD: Well sometimes we go where angels guide us so to speak. I put my trust in unseen things, things we don’t know what they mean or if they’re crazy or what not. Being out there is sometimes weird. Goddam. Being in your mom’s stomach is the other way around in many ways...leave the form and structure in outerspace. Goddam.
TS: What’s your role?
PD: Getting Dave back on track when he wanders out there.
TS: What’d you do before you joined the quartet?
PD: Starved man.
TS: Yea.
PD: Gotta split. They’re getting ready for the next set. Nice talking to ya young man.
PD: Thank you.
TS: How was your trip here? Do you have a band bus?
PD: No no, no bus, station wagon, a Ford. You really don’t need a bus with a quartet because a quartet isn’t a, er a band, I guess you’d say. Station wagon’s are good.
TS: Gets kind of crowded, isn’t it?
PD: Yea, well it would be easier if we left Joe and Norm home, ha ha you know with all their things, but...heck...the bass goes on top and the drums in the back. It works out okay, even if we’re jammed in there.
TS: The bass is on the roof of the car?
PD: Oh yea, it’s okay. It’s in a hard case and tied down pretty well.
TS: Aren’t you afraid someone will steal it when you’re at a diner or something? Seems strange that’s all.
PD: Oh yea?
TS: Well I mean that’s an expensive bass I bet. Wouldn’t take very long to cut it loose, would it?
PD: It’s alright, okay? No one steals bass fiddles between here and Chicago.
TS: Okay.
PD: Have you ever heard us before?
TS: Not live, no. Hard to hear live jazz up here but I have your Basin Street album though. Love it. I mean really. You guys are far out.
PD: Thanks. That one’s the latest, like it alot, specially college kids. Anything you like special?
TS: The Judy Garland song, the one that has bells, clang clang...
PD: Trolley song.
TS: Yea.
PD: Nice to be interviewed by someone who knows what he’s talking about. Doesn’t happen very often, you’d be surprised.
TS: Your jazz is too far out?
PD: Well sometimes we go where angels guide us so to speak. I put my trust in unseen things, things we don’t know what they mean or if they’re crazy or what not. Being out there is sometimes weird. Goddam. Being in your mom’s stomach is the other way around in many ways...leave the form and structure in outerspace. Goddam.
TS: What’s your role?
PD: Getting Dave back on track when he wanders out there.
TS: What’d you do before you joined the quartet?
PD: Starved man.
TS: Yea.
PD: Gotta split. They’re getting ready for the next set. Nice talking to ya young man.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Now you take Heathcliff
As the sun is about to rise over the eastern horizon of my neighborhood, Duane locks the backdoor of his house next door and heads for the garage. He's off to early mass at St. John Cantius. It's 5 below so he's wearing his heavy dress coat and scarf. He would never wear a parka to mass because he's of that generation that dresses up for the Lord, even when most others don't.
I don't go to church except for a funeral or a wedding, but Lord thoughts do come to mind from time to time. Not this morning though because as I watch Duane from my kitchen window and after his car leaves the garage, I notice animal tracks on a new layer of snow. When the sun emerges low, I go out and look.
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Dec. 28, 2007
In the waning years of WW II, we were living in Rockville Center, Long Island, I was about 12 and dad was dying of a brain tumor. Mom said NYC was no place for a widow to bring up a child, so she packed us up and we took a train to her childhood home in Detroit Lakes Minnesota. That's where she met and married this widower. He was a clothing salesman and outdoorsman.
Dec. 27, 2007
Hamburger at Petes Place