February 19
Blues is to jazz what yeast is to bread–without it, it’s flat. ~ Carmen McRae
The last time I engaged in my retirement avocation, i.e., this blog, was last September. As I continue my battle with OLD I forget how to do stuff. I used to pump out 2 or 3 of these puppies a week. It took me two weeks to produce this masterpiece. I’m also in a nonfiction book club. I can read maybe four pages before I fall asleep, the book falls to the floor, and I lose my place. Nevertheless, I still enjoy my Saturday morning doughnut runs . . . ~ Me
[Ruthie displaying the event’s stocking cap . . . ]
Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night but differently each time. ~ Ornette Coleman
[Once again, a big thank you to Nicole Mulder for putting this all together. Here’s to hoping this can be an annual event . . . ]
February 7
Jazz is the big brother of the blues. If a guy’s playing blues like we play, he’s in high school. When he starts playing jazz it’s like going on to college, to a school of higher learning. ~ B. B. King
[P K played at Theatre L’Homme Dieu this summer. We’re fans. . . . ]
[Starting off the program at the ice bar with drinks in shot glasses made of ice. It’s been really cold here for all of February . . . ]
If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know. ~ Louis Armstrong
[Nicole introducing P K – welcome to the beautiful performing area of Gathered Oaks . . . ]
Life is a lot like jazz. It’s best when you improvise. ~ George Gershwin
If you don’t live it, it won’t come out your horn. ~ Charlie Parker
Blues and soul and jazz music has so much pain, so much beauty of raw emotion and passion. ~ Christina Aguilera
[P K is from the Iron Range, a proud ranger . . . ]
The blues is the foundation, and it’s got to carry the top. The other part of the scene, the rock ‘n’ roll and the jazz, are the walls of the blues. ~ Luther Allison
What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man. ~ Ray Charles
[The view from our table . . . ]
I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues. ~ Duke Ellington
It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives it most distinctive characteristics. ~ James Weldon Johnson
If you don’t know the blues… there’s no point in picking up the guitar and playing rock and roll or any other form of popular music. ~ Keith Richards
[Nicole sets up the next performance . . . ]
The whole of life itself expresses the blues. That’s why I always say the blues are the true facts of life expressed in words and song, inspiration, feeling and understanding. The blues can be about anything pertaining to the facts of life. The blues call on God as much as a spiritual song do. ~ Willie Dixon
Jazz and blues fests are everywhere now, and Americana is going strong on college radio. What I’m hearing is an appreciation of real music. ~ Bonnie Raitt
The jazz and blues clubs are like the jazz and blues musicians – they’re disappearing. ~ Buddy Guy
February 8
By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn’t want your daughter to associate with. ~ Duke Ellington
In 1908 Handy didn’t know anything about the blues and he doesn’t know anything about jazz and stomps to this day. I myself figured out the peculiar form of mathematics and harmonies that was strange to all the world but me. ~ Jelly Roll Morton
[Ruthie at the Gathered Oaks performing center. If you see blue skies and bright sunshine in winter, you know it’s damn cold . . . ]
When I die, I want them to play The Black and Crazy Blues, I want to be cremated, put in a bag of pot and I want beautiful people to smoke me and hope they got something out of it. ~ Rahsaan Roland Kirk
[The cakes. Oh, the cakes . . . ]
Being materialistic is part of the hip-hop community’s nature, because jazz and blues and rock ‘n’ roll, when they started out in the urban communities, were about the American Dream, and the lack of opportunity in that structure. So they talked about everything – uplifting and getting what is perceived as success in America. ~ Russell Simmons
[And more cakes . . . ]
I was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and am a product of a family that were jazz aficionados and also very interested in progressive politics. And so I had a lot of artists and musicians in my home. Lots of Latin music, folk, and jazz and blues, bluegrass-type of stuff. Painters and stuff like that. ~ Jack Waters
[The audience . . . ]
I use rock and jazz and blues rhythms because I love that music. I hope my poetry has a relationship with good-time rock’n roll. ~ Adrian Mitchell
[More audience . . . ]
Where I grew up, Bob Wills and his western swing was very popular. And western swing is not that far from jazz and blues. ~ Willie Nelson
[More Nicole . . . ]
When I discovered Mose Allison I felt I had discovered the missing link between jazz and blues. ~ Ray Davies
My grandfather was Bob Shad, one of those legendary jazz and blues producers – he worked with Charlie Parker and Dinah Washington, and he produced Janis Joplin’s album [1967’s Big Brother & the Holding Company]. He always owned small labels as well – he had a label called Mainstream Records in the 70s. ~ Judd Apatow
I had the blues because I had no shoes until upon the street, I met a man who had no feet. ~ Denis Waitley
Every bad situation is a blues song waiting to happen. ~ Amy Winehouse
I been in the blues all my life. I’m still delivering ’cause I got a long memory. ~ Muddy Waters
I’ve said that playing the blues is like having to be black twice. Stevie Ray Vaughan missed on both counts, but I never noticed. ~ B. B. King
Blues is easy to play, but hard to feel. ~ Jimi Hendrix
Don’t waste your time away thinkin’ ’bout yesterday’s blues. ~ Jon Bon Jovi
The blues are what I’ve turned to, what has given me inspiration and relief in all the trials of my life. ~ Eric Clapton
My idea of heaven is a place where the Tyne meets the Delta, where folk music meets the blues. ~ Mark Knopfler
Everybody started callin’ my music rock and roll, but it wasn’t anything but the same rhythm and blues I’d been playin’ down in New Orleans. ~ Fats Domino
The blues was bleeding the same blood as me. ~ B. B. King
Of course, there are a lot of ways you can treat the blues, but it will still be the blues. ~ Count Basie
Some of the greatest blues music is some of the darkest music you’ve ever heard. ~ Bruce Springsteen
February 9
I’m not a blues singer, I’m a diva. ~ Nina Simone
Anybody singing the blues is in a deep pit yelling for help. ~ Mahalia Jackson
[Nicole introduces the final performers while the patrons enjoy cinnamon buns and mimosas . . . ]
There was one emotional outlet my people always had when they had the blues. That was singing. ~ Ethel Waters
I wanna show that gospel, country, blues, rhythm and blues, jazz, rock ‘n’ roll are all just really one thing. Those are the American music and that is the American culture. ~ Etta James
I like blues but it is music I am too ignorant to understand. ~ Barry Gibb
I once wrote a short story called ‘The Best Blues Singer in the World,’ and it went like this: ‘The streets that Balboa walked were his own private ocean, and Balboa was drowning.’ End of story. That says it all. Nothing else to say. I’ve been rewriting that same story over and over again. All my plays are rewriting that same story. ~ August Wilson
[Time to go home . . . ]
Jimi Hendrix came from the blues, like me. We understood each other right away because of that. He was a great blues guitarist. ~ Miles Davis
When I came to The Moody Blues, we were a rhythm and blues band. I was lousy at rhythm and blues – I think the rest of us were. ~ Justin Hayward
[A view from a balcony . . . ]
White folks hear the blues come out, but they don’t know how it got there. ~ Ma Rainey
[Ruthie . . . ]
When The Who first started, we were playing blues, and I dug the blues and I knew what I was supposed to be playing, but I couldn’t play it. I couldn’t get it out. I knew what I had to play; it was in my head. I could hear the notes in my head, but I couldn’t get them out on the guitar. ~ Peter Townshend
[Window view . . . ]
Blues was my first love. It was the first thing where I said, ‘Oh man, this is the stuff.’ It just sounded so raw and honest, gut-bucket honest. From then I started rebelling. ~ Carlos Santana
And at no extra charge . . .
Valentine’s Day (our 24th)
Valentine’s Day: the holiday that reminds you that if you don’t have a special someone, you’re alone. ~ Lewis Black
You can’t buy love, but you can pay heavily for it. ~ Henny Youngman
[I soloed for the photo because Ruthie wasn’t feeling photogenic . . . ]
Without Valentine’s Day, February would be…well, January. ~ Jim Gaffigan
February 15
I might go my whole life stealing money. I got paid to play basketball, which is a scam. I get paid to watch basketball, which is a scam. ~ Charles Barkley
Our Alex boys and girls high school basketball teams are both very good, keep us entertained over the cold winter months, will both be favored to go to “state,” as they say, and could make runs at the titles . . . ~ Me
They shot the ball well early. What comes out of the microwave hot doesn’t always stay hot. I know, because I eat bagels in the morning. ~ Shaq
[The Cardinal girls vs. Delano game – the Cards pulled away with a strong 2nd half . . . ]
You never make any of the shots you never take. 87% of the ones you do take, you’ll miss too. I make 110% of my shots. ~ Larry Bird
I’d say I gave it the old college try, except that I never went to college. ~ Darryl Dawkins (Hadley is going to South Dakota State)
I have two college degrees, but the only way I could ever make a living was by showing kids how to put a ball in a hole. ~ Red Auerbach
[Congrats to Hadley! (And in an amazing coincidence, Orono’s star player, Nolan Groves, scored his 2,000th point later in the day against Alex.) She has been my favorite basketball player to watch since she was a freshman. This week she put a cool 37 points on Providence Academy, the No. 1-ranked team in the state . . . ]
You throw up an airball and then Shaq goes up 15 feet to catch it and dunk it, and everyone says, ‘Wow, what a pass’. ~ Anfernee Hardaway
[The Alex boys – Orono game was a real barn burner – two teams rated in the top four in the state in class AAA . . . ]
What I hate the most is when the other team scores. ~ Joel Embiid
Canada is the nice apartment over the meth lab. ~ Robin Williams
Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States. ~ Porfiro Diaz (19th-century Mexican president)
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