Jazz Guitar Hipness Is A Fun Experience!

Long, lilting jazz guitar lines really make me happy. Two elegant masters of mainstream jazz technique are Tal Farlow and Jimmy Raney. When they go off heavy into the merry world of the improv lines their music switches into a gear that is beguiling. Terrific good moods form in the cranium of elder statesmen like me upon hearing the good solid guitar work of Tal Farlow and Jimmy Raney. I like the picaresque aspects of the Raney style. But also I massively enjoy the myriad of mysterious intricacies Tal Farlow can conjure up. I especially dug a clever jazz joy...Farlow's rendition of the lovely tune, 'All of Me' today.

Atlanta Okinawa Kenjin-Kai: Exciting People

Atlanta Okinawa Kenjin-Kai is staying busy with many activities at this time. The members of this fine group promote the culture and ideas of the Okinawan people here in the Metro Atlanta area. The Okinawan culture has a long history of truly fascinating and profound creative experiences. The dances of these people bring a poetic and delightful approach to showing everyone how exciting and joyful the people of Okinawa are. I am excited about the many things going on with the Atlanta Okinawa Kenjin-Kai. In the month of September the busy people of Kenjin-Kai are going to be working extra hard.
On Saturday, September 18 and on Sunday, September 19, the fine members of the Atlanta Okinawa Kenjin-Kai will be participating in the annual JapanFest which will be held once again at Gwinnett Center, Sugarloaf Parkway. This is a fascinating event with lots of fun for everyone, both children and adults. This is a wonderful exchange of cultures--that of Okinawa, Japan and America. We know many people from all over the U.S. will enjoy this great time.
Also, I would like to let all people know that the annual Atlanta Okinawa Kenjin-Kai Christmas Party is coming on December 11 of this year. This event is always so much fun and it contains so much joyful music, dance and cultural exchanges. Remember, the culture of Okinawa is filled with creative, thoughtful history. I know my sons were excited (when they were young) when I told them Okinawa was the birthplace of Karate. And the energetic Taiko drum dances have always fascinated so many people. Also, the energy and attractiveness of the Okinawan people is indeed a wonderful thing to behold!
I am giving you a great recipe for a delicious Okinawan dish below. It is a sweet rice cake.
Okinawan Famous Baked Nantu!
5 cups Mochiko
3 cups dark brown sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 and one-half cups coconut milk (1 can 12 oz.)(Thaw coconut milk before you make)
2 and one-half cups of water
1 tsp vanilla.

Mix all the ingredients together and put in greased 9 X 13 baking pan and bake for 1 hour at 350F. Leave in pan until it is cool.
# Bake until knife inserted in the center comes out clean.
P.S. If you like, then add Sliced Almonds and Walnuts.
This makes it even more DELICIOUS!

Lee Morgan and fine Blue Note friends

Blue Note classic jazz recordings are a huge favorite of mine. This great Sunday I listened to a superb Lee Morgan work on Blue Note...the recording was called 'Candy.' This joyful so mod jazz music was perfect for my feisty mood, today. It had great work by the remarkable Lee Morgan on trumpet, Sonny Clark on piano, Doug Watkins on the bass and Art Taylor on the drums. The work of these guys is indicative of shiny, so truthful jazz music and the energy of the sounds is so engaging. On this fine set there was also a very big favorite ballad of mine...'All The Way.' This tune made famous by the incomparable Frank Sinatra has always captivated me. I remember the lovely film with Mr Sinatra...the one called 'Pal Joey.' People, this beautiful song 'All The Way' was in that unusual beauty of a film. It has so much poignancy and sensitive tone and it has always made a huge emotional impact on me. Today when I heard the so eloquent jazz piano solo on this thing it sent me off into a state of massive happiness! Also, the trumpet of masterful jazz man, Lee Morgan was full of such terrific appeal on Morgan and company's interpretation of this jazz beauty of a song. This has been a wonderful, emotional and gorgeous Sunday and I am such a happy man with a great soulful feeling going on in my being!

'Trombone Shorty' Serves Up Super Jazz

These times are so fantastic. Heard some great 'kickin' jazzy music late last night. The band was 'Trombone Shorty' and Orleans Avenue. They did profound renditions of the superb 'Let's Get It On' and 'American Woman' and the musicality of the fiery leader--'Trombone Shorty' Andrews and the terrific sound of his band guys...well, like this is WOW! This music is sensational. New Orleans people are marvelous! Hey, listen when young fellas like this can keep on bringin' the beautiful New Orleans music, then for sure we all got to remember those classic words.....'Life Is Good!'

The Wonderful Biscuit Woman

More memories today. Another story about my grandmother on my daddy's side. When I was about 10 years old living with summertime in my home town of Cairo, well let me tell you the heat was so strong it was hard to believe. That's how Southwest Georgia is. I would get up some energy some mornings about noon time cause I knew she would be cooking up some lunch. When I walked in the front door I could smell that GREAT AROMA....the smell of her fantastic biscuits was a terrific eating treat. After a little while my cousin Emmett (he loved her cooking, too) would show up and us boys and my grandmother and the great one my grandfather..well we would sit down at the old kitchen table and we would eat and eat and eat. Soon, the great lady brought out the mighty fine fried chicken and we would all gobble the delicious stuff down. But most wonderful of all were the biscuits. I have never seen a person know the meaning of downhome Southern culture like my delightful grandmother. It makes me a happy Georgia man indeed thinking of my heritage and meditating on the marvelous blood line that I come from.

My Grandmother.....her inspiring music!

Another blog on my grandmother on my daddy's side.....The tiny woman told me so many stories about how she played the old-style music on the ancient organ in her little church out in the country. I could just hear the vibrant organ music sounds coming from this so talented woman who played by ear because she could not read music. I know the reason I grew to love jazz and big blues music was because of this lovely little woman and her huge musical influence on me. It makes a person feel so good when a person of your blood really loves you....the really young boy. That's what this dear woman of my clan was to me. A lady who taught me how to have loads and loads of passion. That's why I care so much about life and art and music now. Let us all now praise the wonderful women of our lives.

My Grandmother...Bless her Soul!

Gonna write some blogs about my grandmother on my daddy's side. Here we go with one. Listen, the woman was very, very short and you better believe she spelled Southern culture with a big "C" and she was full of energy and lots of fun. I had no brothers and no sisters, cause I was one of those "poor things" in other words I was known as what the old folks called an "only child." In the summertime I went to visit my tiny grandmother a whole lot down in that old house in my home town of Cairo, Georgia which is believe me way down there in the southwest part of my state of Georgia. When I would walk from my daddy's store and go to visit the feisty old lady I suppose I was about 10 or 11. We'd sit out there on the old front porch just sweating like old pigs or hogs out there in that roughhouse scalding hot Southwest Georgia sun. The heat would just about slice a soul up cause it was rough as bloody crap. But I loved it because my grandmother would tell me old stories about how she ran off at the young age of 16 and married the thin man known as Thomas William White Sr. She told me wild stories about the crazy winter of 1899 when it was maddening and eerily cold for a town so deep down in the Georgia countryside. My grandmother on my daddy's side was a big believer in God and good gospel music. She'd get me to sing even when I was a little kid...and singing one of her favorite hymns...'The Old Rugged Cross' always made me smile. I realize now that I am a crusty veteran of many life experiences that I learned a lot sitting there on that wild hot front porch there in Cairo, Georgia. Lord,I figure I got swimming strong in such a deep tasty recipe of true Southern culture I was probably overwhelmed. Lots of times now the memories of my passionate grandmother well up in me when I get to thinking about this tiny woman who raised six big strong sons....well these kinds of memories are powerful indeed!

Slam Stewart, Red Garland: Good Jazz Guys

This is a tasty fun day so I listened to some old-style jazz swing guys. The man who brightened my day was the elegant bassist, Slam Stewart. In his career his style had such delicious exactness that it enchanted most everyone. I heard his rendition of the good tune called 'Manhattan' and things were so right! Also I heard the very grand jazz piano work of the marvelous Red Garland today. The man's a bit more of a modernist but the guy can make a keyboard come delightfully to life. Enjoyed the Red Garland work on the feisty tune, 'Billy Boy.' The great jazz work of Slam Stewart and Red Garland has made me truly smile today.

Brooke Anderson, Samantha Harris: Great!

Brooke Anderson and Samantha Harris are two of the most delightful new souls on entertainment news culture television. When I watch Samantha Harris on ET on the good ABC it just pleases me so much. The same is true for the marvelous Brooke Anderson on the HLN Showbiz fine show. It is good fun to keep up with the mighty shenanigans of pop stars on the two marvelous entertainment shows. There is something so sparkling and just incredible and super "hip" about viewing the incredible Samantha Harris and Brooke Anderson. They are two refreshing new shining light television stars, indeed!

Erskine Caldwell: A Georgia Author Giant!

This is a blog on a cultural Georgia treasure. Way back in late 1903 there was a man born in Coweta County, (now in metro Atlanta) Ga. by the name of Erskine Caldwell. The fellow great up to be a writer who had plenty of book sales savvy and much cultural impact on the distinct ethos that is the Deep South experience. He worked in Atlanta, Memphis, New Orleans and Lord knows how many other places. In 1925 he came to Atlanta and became a reporter for The Atlanta Journal. Years ago, I met a man who knew Mr. Caldwell quite well and he said E. Caldwell was a fascinating intellectual who truly understood the people of the Southern region of this country. In 1932 Erskine Caldwell came out with the mighty book called, 'Tobacco Road' and this work proved to be a remarkable literary juggernaut. It got deep into the souls and the raw passion that is the primal core of so many great Georgians. In 1933, Mr. Caldwell came out with another giant book success, 'God's Little Acre.' This thing gained the strong Mr. Caldwell even more success! 'Little Acre' is a wild story of a Georgia dirt farmer and all his people. It is full of a raw vigor that just vividly overwhelms the reader. In the late 1930s, Caldwell was a news correspondent in Spain, Mexico and Czechoslovakia. Two more Caldwell big novels came out soon. One in 1940 called, 'Trouble in July' and one in 1943 called 'Georgia Boy.' The fascinating aspect of Mr. Caldwell's work is the fact the man so beautifully earned his place as a great regional writer, a gentleman who could encapsulate the complex layers of the Deep South emotional experience and then bring this marvelous deep cultural world to life. Caldwell did for Georgia what the marvelous William Faulkner did for his area, the soulful 'Ole Miss' region. I stand amazed today knowing that I am a product of the very same beautiful state of Georgia, the place that produced a tremendously great man like Erskine Caldwell.

Paul Hemphill, an Atlanta Treasure!

Once upon a time there was a great writer in the Atlanta area, a man named Paul Hemphill. The guy came out of Alabama but he really seemed to dig the metro Atlanta area. He became a columnist for The Atlanta Journal and developed quite a following. Like me, my mother enjoyed his material also, saying he was like a blend of Caldwell, Faulkner and even Scott Fitzgerald. I remember the main thing that delighted me about the charismatic Mr. Hemphill was the fact he was able to capture the constant change that was happening in the Atlanta area and also for that matter the entire Deep South. I loved his books, also. Especially the material on baseball, Nashville and even later his great work on the mighty Hank Williams. It was a marvelous deal also that he snared the essence of great Atlanta Watering Holes like the magnificent Manuel's over on North Avenue and Highland. Paul Hemphill helped make The Atlanta Journal an interesting newspaper giving such great prose over and over to the Southern people.