It’s that time of the week again, friends! As I posted a few days ago, tonight’s show is going to be jazz-heavy. All jazz, in fact. There’s some straight forward traditional stuff, some crazygonuts freestyle possibilities, some very rock influenced options, big bands, little bands, duos… and only one hour, so I’ll make due with what I’ve got and try to get all the bases covered. There’s SO MUCH great jazz out there! I’ll barely be able to skim the surface, and I know it, but man – I’m going to try. I know you’ll dig this!

Update:

1. Buddy Rich & His Big Band – Dancing Men (feat. Simon Phillips on drums)
2. Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band – High Maintenance
3. John Coltrane – Giant Steps
4. Paul Bley & Sonny Greenwich – Steeplechase
5. Trent Reschny – Alone Together
6. Stan Getz & João Gilberto – It Might As Well Be Spring (feat. Astrud Gilberto on vocals)
7. Michael Brecker Quindectet – Brexterity
8. The Bad Plus – Iron Man
9. Diana Krall – Stop This World

So much good jazz out there. I think there were about three times as many tunes on my list that didn’t get played, opposed to the few that did. Oh well. I’ll just have to do another jazz show someday, or sneak them into other upcoming shows. As usual; thanks for listening. Hope you can tune in again next week!

Check back here often for updates, as well.

Night driving home from Winchcombe listening to this version of Joni Mitchell’s I could drink a case of you by Diana Krall.  Simply beautiful.  This verse in particular resonates…

Oh I am a lonely painter
I live in a box of paints
I’m frightened by the devil
And I’m drawn to those ones that ain’t afraid
I remember that time that you told me, you said
Love is touching souls
Surely you touched mine
Cause part of you pours out of me
In these lines from time to time

Oh you’re in my blood like holy wine
You taste so bitter and so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you darling
Still I’d be on my feet

They all want me to rock them
Like my back ain’t got no bone
I want a man to rock me
Like my backbone was his own

Yves Smith of the Naked Capitalism blog, responds to Paul Volcker’s editorial in today’s NY Times.

This is a thoughtful and insightful analysis of how modern finance really works in the 21st century, it goes well beyond ‘the fat cat’ statement by Obama.

From the Naked Capitalism blog, Volcker does not get it.
Paul Volcker has an op-ed in the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/opinion/31volcker.html that made my stomach sink. I had considerable hopes for Volcker’s involvement in financial reform; he’s one of the few regulators with the stature (literally and figuratively) who can say things to bankers, the media, and government officials that are unpalatable yet need to be addressed…
…Well, as much as Volcker’s is suitably skeptical of the 21st century version of financial services, his remedies would work for the industry circa 1990, but look anachronistic for the world we live in now.

Now admittedly, I am basing my views on Volcker’s recent remarks and his New York Times op-ed. Now that Tall Paul has been brought in from the wilderness and is the new face of Team Obama banking industry “reform”, his freedom to state his own views may be more circumscribed than before.

But regardless, in all his comments before, there is a scary failure to mention some critical aspects the modern world of finance. The big reason banks are too big to fail is that they control infrastructure which has become critical to commerce. Most important, they control the credit markets. And credit is essential to any economy beyond the barter stage.

One reason it is hard to make this notion as explicit as it ought to be is that “banks” covers a very wide range of firms, ranging from ones that look like traditional commercial banks (they take deposits and make commercial and residential loans), to ones with substantial asset management businesses (State Street) to ones heavily involved in transaction clearing (Chris Whalen contends that JP Morgan is a $76 trillion derivatives clearing operation with a $1.3 billion bank attached) to global capital markets players like Goldman, UBS, and Deutsche Bank.

The part that Volcker keeps skipping over in his various statements is the thorniest problem from a policy standpoint: what to do with global capital markets firms.

We have had an over twenty-year shift in practice. By most measures, the amount of lending that winds up being held by banks has fallen by more than 50%. Geithner, in a 2007 speech on financial innovation, noted that US banks were responsible for a mere 15% of non-farm, non-financial debt outstandings. The rest takes place via what Geithner calls “market based credit” or what others call the “originate and distribute” model (although Geithner also clearly includes credit default swaps in his use of “market based credit”).

Now even assuming we wanted a partial reversal (more on balance sheet lending), this is not an quick process. It is costly (as in banks on average would have to have much bigger balance sheets, hence vastly more equity than they possess now. Think of what it would take to reduce the use of plastic by 50% because we now know plastic has nasty environmental consequences. Going back to considerably more on-balance sheet lending would be a similarly large undertaking).

The consequence of this system of “market based credit” is that those markets have significant scale economies (network effects, high minimum scale required to be competitive, etc.). The result is a comparatively small number of firms have made themselves crucial. The Bank of England in its April 2007 Financial Stability report noted the importance of certain firms it called “large complex financial institutions” and deemed them to be important not simply due to their size, but also their crucial position in certain markets. Its list then was:

ABN Amro, Bank of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman, HSBC, JP Morgan Chase, Lehman, Merrill, Morgan Stanley, RBS, Societe Generale, and UBS

Of course, that list is somewhat shorter now, but a bigger issue remains: if you tried breaking the capital markets operations of these dominant firms up, those businesses would tend to evolve back into a concentrated format. And it is these origination and trading operations that make them too indispensable to fail.

In reading Volcker’s op-ed, he completely ignores the 800 pound gorilla in the room, that this crisis extended a safety net under these global trading operations. More important, the industry recognizes full well how it is now situated. These origination and market-making operations will not be allowed to seize up. Before, they merely played with other people’s money. Now they play with other people’s money and a guarantee. Having the officialdom say it ain’t so or pretend it is working towards a solution when it does not yet have one does not fool anyone who understands the real issues.

If you read the Volcker piece, “How to Reform Our Financial System,” you see an utter failure to acknowledge the problem posed by OTC credit markets (and before you say, “Put them on exchanges,” instruments with low liquidity don’t work well on exchanges. I can give you the longer form argument, but this post is already getting long. A lot of financial products simply do not trade often enough for them to be suitable to exchange trading).

olcker first talks about traditional banks:

…we need to recognize that the basic operations of commercial banks are integral to a well-functioning private financial system. It is those institutions, after all, that manage and protect the basic payments systems upon which we all depend. More broadly, they provide the essential intermediating function of matching the need for safe and readily available depositories for liquid funds with the need for reliable sources of credit for businesses, individuals and governments.

Yves here. No where in the article does he acknowledge that, as a result of policy, much of this activity has shifted to trading markets. We still get a traditional bank-centric view:

Instead, governments have long provided commercial banks with the public “safety net.” The implied moral hazard has been balanced by close regulation and supervision. Improved capital requirements and leverage restrictions are now also under consideration in international forums as a key element of reform.

Volcker then proceeds to act as if we have traditional banking versus proprietary trading of various sorts. He discusses the flawed distinction in his proposal, of customer trading versus proprietary trading, not to suggest that market making has become (like it or not) an integral component of our credit system:

The specific points at issue are ownership or sponsorship of hedge funds and private equity funds, and proprietary trading — that is, placing bank capital at risk in the search of speculative profit rather than in response to customer needs. Those activities are actively engaged in by only a handful of American mega-commercial banks, perhaps four or five. Only 25 or 30 may be significant internationally.

Apart from the risks inherent in these activities, they also present virtually insolvable conflicts of interest with customer relationships….the three activities at issue — which in themselves are legitimate and useful parts of our capital markets — are in no way dependent on commercial banks’ ownership. These days there are literally thousands of independent hedge funds and equity funds of widely varying size perfectly capable of maintaining innovative competitive markets. Individually, such independent capital market institutions, typically financed privately, are heavily dependent like other businesses upon commercial bank services, including in their case prime brokerage. Commercial bank ownership only tilts a “level playing field” without clear value added.

Yves here. Notice the gap and the slippery use of “capital markets’? Volcker talks about commercial banks, then talks about “independent funds…independent capital markets institutions.” Where are the trading desks that serve these funds and other investors? He at best alludes to it (”heavily dependent upon commercial bank services….including prime brokerage”). Then we get this:

Very few of those capital market institutions, both because of their typically more limited size and more stable sources of finance, could present a credible claim to be “too big” or “too interconnected” to fail….What we do need is protection against the outliers. There are a limited number of investment banks (or perhaps insurance companies or other firms) the failure of which would be so disturbing as to raise concern about a broader market disruption.

Yves here. Huh? What does he mean here? In context, is it not clear whether by “investment banks” he is referring to firms that engage only principal investing type activities, or referring players like Goldman and Morgan Stanley who are market-makers (as are Citi, Barclays, SocGen, etc.). And even if he does mean to include market-making (and it does appear he has switched gears) this bit does not inspire confidence:

The agency would assume control for the sole purpose of arranging an orderly liquidation or merger. Limited funds would be made available to maintain continuity of operations while preparing for the demise of the organization.

To help facilitate that process, the concept of a “living will” has been set forth by a number of governments. Stockholders and management would not be protected. Creditors would be at risk, and would suffer to the extent that the ultimate liquidation value of the firm would fall short of its debts.

Yves here. This idea is not politically viable, and it may not be operationally viable. AIG illustrates the difficulty of knowing how big these black holes will be when they open up, and further illustrates that they tend not to happen in isolation (as in a downdraft that can take out one systemically important player has probably imperiled others). It is not acceptable in a democracy to give the Treasury the near-unlimited check-writing authority to deal with systemic failures of highly-connected firms. While he mentions in passing the problems of connectedness, there is not enough focus on it here (and as we have discussed in earlier posts, the initial derivatives reform proposal did not do enough to address the real problem, credit default swaps, and its watered-down version looks certain to leave this product as hazardous as it was before).

And while Volcker does speak of the need for structural reform, which is absolutely necessary, his outline does not go anywhere near far enough to start defusing the bomb that financial services deregulation managed to create.

I believe this problem is solvable, but it requires even more intrusive measures than Volcker contemplates. The lesson of the Great Depression was that firms that benefitted from government guarantees had to be kept on a very short leash, and regulated in such a way that if they stayed within the rules and were competent, they would earn decent, but far from spectacular, profits.

The world has evolved so that many market making activities are now as essential to commerce as deposit gathering and lending. Those activities are de facto backstopped; there is simply no ready way back here (trust me, even if there were, it would take twenty years, and we’d still need an interim solution). We need to regulate those activities aggressively, including requiring much more capital to support them, and strict limits as to how much and what type of credit these firms can extend to hedge fund and other speculative investors.

The unintended message of Volcker’s op ed may be that even someone as tough-minded as he is may not recognize the magnitude of structural change needed to limit the extent of government guarantees to the financial sector and contain officially-backstopped risk-taking. It would be better if I were wrong, but we may need yet another crisis to produce the needed political will.

Full article http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/01/volcker-does-not-get-it.html

[ from addair who is listening to Diana Krall (The Girl in the Other Room) ]

time is neither hopeful nor forlorn. it is an assemblage. (detail)

Finally, I feel that I’m making progress in painting for the show.  The first one in the series (pictured here) is about hope versus hopelessness.  I approached the question through MLK’s conception of time.   In his Letter from Birmingham Jail he writes, “…time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively”.

time is neither hopeful nor forlorn. it is an assemblage.

More times than not studying history, I’ve become discouraged.  It seems that we are doomed to fail; that idealism reeks of naïvety, good eventually corrupts, and violence is inevitable.  Often I’ve felt that it’s hopeless and whatever I manage to do will is insignificant anyway.  I’ve been tempted to quit because I thought time must be charged with doom and marching toward destruction.  Cynical I know, but it seems that even in confident climates we lounge toward apathy.  In more optimistic eras people have been immobolized by the “strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills”.

time is neither hopeful nor forlorn. it is an assemblage. (detail)

It seems to me that there is something rather valid and true in MLK’s notion.  And though it comes with great responsibility, it is a relief.  Our time is hopeful or hopeless depending on us, our actions, our work, and our creativity.

time is neither hopeful nor forlorn. it is an assemblage. (detail)

As in all of my painting, I’m most interested in the question.  I don’t pretend to ever get it right but I am aiming to become “progressively less wrong” (Paul Grobstein).  Here is a painting in which I swam in the unknown and painted my perception of time (rather ambitious, I know – but “the time is always ripe” to venture).

So far, the only thing I like about Perth in summertime is the music – it’s concert season, and the city is flush with good music.  For a few months, the parks will be dotted with marquees and the air will hum with far-off drum-and-bass booms.  All the venues – whether pubs or footie ovals – will be booked up with scores of great gigs.  But once the weather changes, this place becomes a ghost town.  If you figure the music season to be November through early March, in 2008/2009 I saw The Waifs, Ani DiFranco, the Swell Season, Cheap Trick, Def Leppard, and the Cat Empire.  In the other 8 months, I caught Augie March (an Australian band), supported by an accoustic set of The Drones (another Australian band) and Katie Noonan (an Australian jazz singer) at an art gallery show.

Otherwise, summer is just too darn hot.  I’m hesitant to go to the festivals because I can’t stomach the idea of a whole 100˚F (or hotter) day in the sun.   Let’s face it, I’m hesitant to go outside, even to hang the washing.

But, ’tis the season, so I have to stock up on my tickets while I can.  Shows are significantly more expensive here (I’d like to think that the venues give the surcharge to the artists to convince them to come all the way out to WA, but I doubt it).  The chances are slim for buying a ticket to see a well-known (or even semi-well-known) artist for less than 50$.  Big names are easily 150$.  But it’s what I like to do, so I spend the money.  My musical season this year started in December (I missed Gomez in November due to the bike crash) with the Proclaimers and the B-52s.  On New Year’s Day, Daniel and I caught Tijuana Cartel (a great Aussie flamenco/electronic/latin fusion band) and the Cat Empire.  Last night I saw Neko Case at the Rosemount Hotel in North Perth.

I had heard Neko’s name thrown around for a few years, but didn’t really listen to her until I started podcasting NPR’s All Songs Considered (and its Live Concerts sistercast).  Otherwise known as the frontman for The New Pornographers, she solos as a guitar and piano playing folk chick supreme.  I think if I were to make my own music, this is what I would strive for.  I don’t know much of her background, but she uses a lot of animal/natural imagery in her lyrics, and I’m sold on anyone who references magpies in their songs.  Her solo album Middle Cyclone was recorded on a decrepit farm, and the sounds of frogs and crickets come through on some tracks.  In an interview with NPR she mentioned salvaging old pianos and putting them out to pasture like aged stallions.  I love it.  She’s signed to Anti-Records, which has a very hands-off approach to their artists.  Anti- hosts great names such as Elliot Smith, Jason Lytle, the Swell Season, Jolie Holland, as well as old-timers such as Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, Billy Bragg, Merle Haggard, Mavis Staples, and…. Tom Waits.  Whoever can sign Tommy the Cat has to be good.  For a peek into Neko Case’s music, check out this video:

So I snapped up a ticket to see her at the Rosemount Hotel in North Perth.  Lots of the old pubs/hotels in Australia have been converted to small venues, and it was really great to see Neko up close and personal.  Except…

There were clearly some issues with the electricity.  The opening act, Jen Cloher (a lovely accoustic singer/songwriter) seemed to fare fine, but once Neko and her band hit the stage, a fuse blew, the lights went out, the sound cut out… and so did the air conditioning.  After a few minutes, the stage was back on, but the A/C never returned.  It didn’t take long for the floor to reach body temperature, and the smell of laundry and perfumes and deodorants to permeate the air (thankfully, everyone had apparently showered just before the show).  Everyone started nervously eying one another, and we all turned slick.  Halfway through the show someone forced the windows open, and that relieved the swampy air a bit, but it was still over 30˚C/86˚F outside.  Some people left the floor to listen from outside on the patio, but that area rapidly filled up.  People are allowed to smoke in hotel al fresco areas, so it didn’t take long for the fresh air to turn sickening.  Neko’s sassy backup singer had a little fan with her, and she joked “This is my menopause fan.  My friend gave it to me, and she said ‘honey, you may not need this now, but you will,’ and she was right!”

I’m a bit annoyed by the Rosemount – the band had to ask for water and ice, and they should have put someone on the task of passing glasses of water to the audience, and they should have told smokers to head to another side of the building, but that’s Australia for you.  No love, no care, no service.  They didn’t even pass out tickets after the show.  This must be another quirk of Australia – at most shows I have been to, even if they are scanned, tickets are collected at the door, but often passed back when the show is over.  I asked if I could have a ticket and the head of security said he normally had them to pass out but today he couldn’t.  He suggested I come back to the Hotel later in the week.  Meanwhile, half a dozen ’security’ guys watched people leave the venue.  Somebody could have done it…

The band ended their set about half an hour early (I don’t blame them).  On the last song of their encore (which I was surpised they even bothered to give one), Neko thanked the audience for sticking with her and said, “Watch, as soon as we finish, the air will come back on.”  Halfway through the song it did, and you could see everyone in the audience, the lights of the stage reflecting in the sweat on their throats and shoulders, lift their faces to the cool air.  We all looked like baby birds in a nest, opening out throats to the sky.

Coming up: My friend Kate is taking me to Raggamuffin, an Aussie Reggae festival.  We’ll catch, among others, Sly and Robbie, Wyclef Jean, Lauryn Hill (but not the Fugees…?), Shaggy and Steel Pulse.  I’m a bit worried about it being outdoors, in the heat, but at least I can say I’d been to a proper festival.  In February there are two Perth Festival concerts I’m considering (but haven’t yet shelled out the cash for) – Calexico (US, the name says it all) and the Dirty Three (an awesome Australian instrumental group the denies description).  Late in the month, Dan and I have tickets to see Diana Krall and Madeleine Peyroux (and if you don’t know who they are but like jazz singers, shame on you) at a lawn concert in King’s Park. I have to miss the Pixies (damn damn damn) because of a schedule conflict.  I am so angry about that.  They’re re-creating the Doolittle Tour (minus the drugs, I presume) and it is just a crime to have to skip it.  Lastly, at the end of March (by when hopefully the weather will have changed) I’m going to the West Coast Blues and Roots Festival, put on by local muso John Butler. Old Aussie rockers Crowded House will headline, but the show also includes some eclectic groups – Gogol Bordello, who I’ve always wanted to see, Old Crow Medicine Show (yeehaw!) and the Swell Season (who I love love love). Some other big names in the lineup are Buddy Guy, Jeff Beck and Taj Mahal.  WOW.

“I love people. I just don’t like assholes.” — Ray LaMontagne

So does everyone but me know about this show on the Sundance channel that has Elvis Costello talking to and playing with interesting musicians? I just read something about it last week, then DVR’d a couple of episodes. Friends, it’s pretty great.

My familiarity with old EC hardly extends beyond “Veronica,” I’m a little ashamed to say. I probably know more about his romance with Diana Krall than I do his music. But I was captivated listening to him (in a topsy-turvy version of the way the show apparently usually operates) getting interviewed by Mary-Louise Parker; I loved his sharp take on and obvious love for all kinds of music.  

The second episode I recorded featured John Prine, Lyle Lovett, and Ray LaMontagne (who uttered my new motto, above, when asked by Elvis if he hated people). I mean, could you pack more goodness onto one stage? IT. WAS. AWESOME. And there’s apparently a Springsteen offering in the offing. Can’t wait.

Now, I know that MamaKitt has already blogged “Veronica,” but I hope the gods of FM and the blogosphere will allow the repeat, given the convergence of my discovery of Elvis’s show and my hearing one of his tunes on the radio this morning.

Also, there’s this:

Thanks to MK’s entry, I know that the song is about Alzheimer’s, but I’ve always been enchanted by the “well she used to have a carefree mind of her own” line, and found it resonating in a new way this morning. I have a friend who told me last week that her New Year’s resolution was to be more carefree – a worthy aim, absolutely, but not the easiest thing for a woman who is as driven and tightly wound as she (there’s, um, a reason we get along). Hearing that line this morning, I thought of my friend, and interpreted the words in a new way, more as a near oxymoron – as if “carefree” and “mind of her own” weren’t a natural pairing, the former suggesting lightheartedness and the latter signifying weighty, determined purpose.

This would be a perfect mantra for my dear friend, I thought. She can still be the intense person that she so lovably and inherently is, but she can leaven that with some lightness, some freedom of spirit, some moments without care. So dear friend, perhaps “Veronica” can feature on your playlist in the year ahead? You don’t have to become a different person — you can have “carefree” and “a mind of your own.” That is what I wish you in 2010.

CLICK THIS POSTCARD TO ENLARGE AND PRINT:

2 Shows! In One Night Only!
-1st Show: 8 – 9:30 PM
-2nd Show: 10 – 11:30 PM

For a special Valentine’s Event, Jonny Blu returns to the legendary New York Jazz Club “Iridium” in Times Square for his “Latin Sessions” Tour!
Performing songs from his new album “Taboo!”, including the hits “Babaloo”, “Besame Mucho”, and “Taboo”…and of course some of his popular originals too!

And Jonny will be performing some brand new songs for you!

Call and make your reservations because the club will fill up fast!

-Box Office: 1-212-582-2121
-Cover: $20
-Website: www.iridiumjazzclub.com

The Band:
Jonny Blu- Vocals
Bob Malone-Piano
Arun Luthra- Sax, Woodwinds
Vinny Raniolo- Guitar
Chris Marshak- Drums
Ritt Henn- Bass
Alan Ferber- Trombone
Roger Lent- Trumpet

ADD JONNY BLU’S NEW ALBUM “TABOO!” TO YOUR MUSIC COLLECTION!

PLAY “TABOO”!

Lori Romero

Diana Krall on the radio,
peelin’ a grape, crushin’ some ice
an infusion of possibilities, a tall sip of desire

on a night like this, feigning innocence
is like trying to sneak moonrise past a coyote

we dance, feet minnow in and out across the room,
a honeyed funnel of heat, fingers tingle

we lap at chilled martinis,
tongues curl, an oyster on the half shell
anticipation stirs like an unsheltered beast
with red-lit cigarette eyes

Lori Romero (Poet/Storm Chaser)

All Rights Reserved

© 2010

I have been listening to Mildred Bailey’s singing since the early Seventies, when I found the three-record Columbia set devoted to her recordings from 1929-47.  And she never fails to move me — with her tenderness, her technique, her wit.  But Mildred has very few champions these days.  Even the late Whitney Balliett, whose taste and judgment were unparalleled, wrote that Mildred succeeded neither as a pop singer or a jazz one.  And if you were to ask the most well-informed listener who the greatest women jazz singers are, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald would head the list (if not two dozen others ranging from Diana Krall to Shirley Horn to Ella Logan to Marion Harris) . . . but Mildred is forgotten, or all but forgotten.

Why?

It can’t be because of her race.  We finally have come to accept that White folks can swing, can’t we?

Some of her invisibility has to do with her elusiveness.  Billie and Ella have established, defined “personalities,” which ironically might have little relationship to what they sang.  ”Billie Holiday” as an iconic figure equals self-destructive heroin addict, short-lived victim, a tortured figure, someone for whom MY MAN or DON’T EXPLAIN was painful autobiography.  Subject of a bad melodramatic movie; a ghost-written “autobiography” and several biographies as well as documentary films.  And the most accessible visual image of Billie is from the 1957 THE SOUND OF JAZZ – careworn, rueful, lovely.  There is the engaging rasp of her voice in te Thirties, the moody cry and croak of her later recordings.

“Ella Fitzgerald” is sunny exuberance, scat-singing, someone making a jazzy version of the American songbook accessible to anyone in the Fifties who owned a record player.  A cheerful endurance, whether alongside Chick Webb, Louis, Basie, or Ellington.  Everyman and woman’s identifiable Jazz Singer, easy to understand. 

Today marketers call this ”branding,” boiling down the unique self into a few immediately recognizable qualities — as if people were products to be put in the shopping cart in a hurry.   

Then there is the issue of size. 

In Charles Peterson’s 1939 photographs of Billie that I have posted recently, we see a seriously chubby young woman.  Ella was always a large woman, but no one said anything about it.  Some astute listeners did not worry about a woman singer’s weight.  Think of Wagnerian sopranos.  Think of Kate Smith.  Did anyone care that Connee Boswell could not get off the piano bench?  And men are forgiven a great deal.   

But in pop music, listeners tend to be much more fickle, visually oriented, even shallow.  It is difficult to escape Mildred Bailey’s appearance.  She was fat, and not “fat” in a jolly way — not the way that some Twenties blues singers could use to their advantage: Helen Humes or Edith Wilson singing about their weight as a sexual asset (Miss Wilson’s lyric: “Why should men approach with caution / For this extry-special portion?”).  Aside from laughing at herself during the January 1944 Metropolitan Opera House jam session — while singing “Pick me up / On your knee” in SQUEEZE ME, she and the band are chuckling at the difficulty of such a task — Mildred did not joke about her size, nor did she make it part of “an act.” 

Many listeners want their popular icons to be erotically desirable.  Sex sells; sex appeals.  Eventually, as they age,  singers pass an invisible boundary and become Venerable.  Think of all the cover pictures of singers, male and female, posed as if on magazine covers — Lee Wiley reclining on a couch on one of the Fifties RCA Victors; Julie London smoldering, her long red-blonde hair flowing.  Misses Krall and Tierney Sutton, today.  (I receive many new CDs by young women who consider themselves singers.  They look like models.  They credit a hair stylist, a wardrobe consultant, a make-up artist.  I think, “Can you sing?”)

Consider Mildred’s contemporaries: pretty, svelte, apparently youthful forever: Peggy Lee, Edythe Wright, Helen Ward, even Doris Day.  But Mildred’s photographs make her look matronly, and she is making no effort to woo the viewer. 

Let us even give audiences of the Thirties and Forties the benefit of the doubt.  If you did not live in a big American city, how many opportunities would you have to see Mildred Bailey and to judge her on the basis of her size rather than her art?  Possibly you saw her on the cover of a piece of sheet music or stared at the label of one of her Vocalion 78s, heard her on the radio.  No film footage exists of her.   

There is the nature of Mildred’s art.  Many artists have one approach, whether they are singing EMPTY BED BLUES of SILENT NIGHT.  If she was singing DOWNHEARTED BLUES, she was lowdown and melancholy (while swinging); LITTLE HIGH CHAIRMAN and GIVE ME TIME brought out different kinds of tenderness.  On CONCENTRATIN’ ON YOU and ARTHUR MURRAY TAUGHT ME DANCING IN A HURRY, she was hilarious.  IT’S SO PEACEFUL IN THE COUNTRY was calm and pastoral, THANKS FOR THE MEMORY rueful, knowing.  And IN LOVE IN VAIN is, althought masterfully understated, a heartbreaking performance.  Versatility is bad for branding; it confuses the consumer.   

As a band singer — the first woman to be hired in that role — with Paul Whiteman and her husband Red Norvo, she recorded a good many songs that were forgettable: THREE LITTLE FISHIES, for one.  Perhaps the girlish quality of Mildred’s upper register may have disconcerted some listeners, who would prefer their jazz singers to be plaintive and husky.  But arguing over the definitions of a jazz singer and a pop singer seems a silly business.  Do you like what you hear?  

Although we can feel both fascinated and sympathetic while considering Billie’s difficult life, Ella’s poor childhood, Mildred would have had a hard time making diabetes and obesity intriguing to us. 

I also suspect that those who ignore her Mildred do so not because her voice displeases them, but because she subliminally represents OLD.  I don’t mean OLD in the sense of the past, but in the sense of elderly, of senior citizen.  What bad luck made Mildred identify herself “The Rockin’ Chair Lady?”  Of course, her performance of Hoagy Carmichael’s ROCKIN’ CHAIR was superb; she took it as her theme song.  But — when we want our stars to be aerobically bouncy — for Mildred to portray herself as immobilized, unable to get out of her chair, was not a good way to market herself.  (And artists were products even in the Thirties.)     

Alas, poor Mildred.  Were she to apply for a job and be turned down because of her appearance, she could sue, win, and collect a substantial settlement.  But dead artists can’t sue an ignorant public for discrimination. 

Listen to her sing. 

COPYRIGHT, MICHAEL STEINMAN AND JAZZ LIVES, 2009
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.  Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Michael Steinman and Jazz Lives with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Time for some well seasoned greetings! Here’s my favorite five holiday videos this year, a little blog Christmas package from our family to yours.

Lights and Dancers on Tiki Tender for Fun – Merry Christmas Everyone!
Each year my industrious brother Kent outfits his houseboat “Tiki Tender” with an incredible light display for the Chattanooga, Tennessee Grand Illumination lighted boat parade. But of course cool lights aren’t enough, so dancing girls atop the boat are the icing on his nautical cake! Click link, watch the video > Enjoy….

TIKI Tender 2009 Christmas Grand Illumination, Chattanooga TN from Kent Ready on Vimeo.

Merry Christmas Baby – the Genius of Ray Charles

Best trailer trash Christmas ever! Robert Earl Keen – Merry Christmas from the Family

Swing It! Diana Krall – Jingle Bells

Winter Wonderland – Wynton Marsalis

Thanks for watching, here’s wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a joyous New Year!

Tracy Ready is a Writer / Producer / Vocalist and Director of Photography based in Dallas, Texas. All sites and social networks are listed here > TraceTV sites
Follow Trace on Twitter @TraceTV

Sitting at the south-west end of the Taku Arm of Tagish Lake, at the mouth of the Swanson River, Ben-My-Chree is a Northern legend. Otto and Kate Partridge had come north during the Klondike Gold Rush, but never made it to Dawson. Otto got involved in shipbuilding, cutting lumber and then mining in the Southern Lakes region, and in 1911, they started developing property near their gold mine as a home. Otto named it “Ben-My-Chree,” Manx for “Girl of My Heart.” A combination of Otto’s story-telling, Kate’s hospitality and musical ability, and a spectacular garden in a remote glacial valley prompted tourists to start arriving, and during the 1920s it became a must-see for visitors to the Yukon. Otto and Kate both died in 1930, but Ben-My-Chree tours continued to be offered by the White Pass & Yukon Route into the 1950s, using the sternwheeler Tutshi (seen in the postcard above) to take people down the lake system. Click here to see a lengthy review of a film about such a tour. For more information and some photos of Ben-My-Chree, see Eric Irvine’s site at AtlinHistory.com. The story below, which appeared in Canadian Home Journal in 1938, describes a trip to Ben-My-Chree in the summer of 1930. 

 A Lady in the Wilderness By Frederick Niven You cannot be presented to the lady in the first paragraph. The stage has to be set, here, as it was set for us before she stepped forth and won our hearts. A thousand miles northward from Vancouver to Skagway we had voyaged, noting, nightly, the Pole Star drawing nearer. We had journeyed on beyond Skagway (the “Gateway of the North”) up the spectacular White Pass and heard, when the train stopped to let us look down on the great gorge of it, the roar of all its cataracts like the sound one hears holding a shell to the ear. We had seen, mounting onward, fragments of the trail of ‘98 in the steep gulch alongside, a foot-wide scar between the rock-slides that have descended over it in the years – as though Nature would fain wipe out the memory of it. Climbing on, at the boundary between Alaska and British Columbia we had remarked other evidence that we were indeed more than entering, that we had entered, the North, seeing on a blackboard on the wall when we halted there the imperative command that all mushers must report. We were going in. Men and women of the North speak of going in, coming out, not just going and coming. The phrase is inevitable. Here was a far cry from Vancouver. Here was a far cry even from Skagway as we rolled on by Lake Bennett that twisted under cliffs and round the butt-ends of rock-slides, with only the rufflings of passing winds on its surface and the twinkling pin-points of sunlight, though in ‘98 as many as four hundred rafts were counted at one time on it, rowed by sweeps, sculled by sweeps, aided on their way by blankets rigged up for sails on lopped trees for masts. Going in – indubitably were we going in. There is a feeling as of having come to another planet up there on the divide. And at Carcross, sixty miles or so north of Skagway (that once had a name more vocal of the land – Caribou Crossing – changed to Carcross because of muddles with the mail caused by the existence of the district of Cariboo in B. C.’s far interior) one is aware of the ambient silence and vastness of the Yukon. The sledge-dogs loafing there in summer-time hint of the winter life. It has a quality like that of a little village on the shore of a great sea. It is a jumping-off place for that wilderness, the peaks of which keep watch on it, the twisting waters of which come to its doors.

When they tell you that Yukon Territory has an area of 207,076 square miles – 206,427 of land and 649 covered by water – you are not surprised. When they tell you that the Pelly River, lying wholly within the territory, is three hundred and thirty miles in length and its main tributary, the Macmillan, two hundred, you are not unprepared for that statistical information. You can quite believe it. It feels like that here. The silence of the great hinterland laps the place as the waves play among the piles and breakwaters of an ocean-fronting village. Aboard the Tutshi (pronounced Tooshy), thrashing out of Carcross to investigate that silence, the realization must come to many that the old phrase, the Lure of the North, is not just poppy-cock. Most, I think, must be aware of it and to some of these it comes as a call to be answered, to some as a warning; better to be gone, they feel, before it has them in thrall. Of the lady whom we were to see later we had heard nothing at Carcross. A story or two we had been told, to be sure, of women in the North, such as that of the trapper’s wife who was brought in by dog-sled in mid-winter to the hospital at White Horse, some way further on northward, and two weeks later departed – with the new baby – for their back-of-beyond. Two other children there were also, whom they had brought along with them. On their return journey to their lodge in the wilderness blizzard assailed them. The storm continued and the husband built a shelter in which that woman of the North remained with the two children – and two-weeks young baby – while the man mushed back through the storm for more supplies. “That,” I suggested, “finished her for the North.” “Bless you, no,” was the answer. “You couldn’t drive her out with a club.” I thought of her as the Tutshi slapped with its stern-wheel on its way into that waiting immensity. Here was a land that seemed empty as the sky.

A gaggle of geese passed overhead and, dropping beyond a range to the southeast, left an added sense of emptiness. A flight of ptarmigan, piebald, white and brown, strung across the blue bloom of the dwarfed spruce trees, and there was the impression that this was more rightly their domain than ours. We were intruders among mystery. Beyond that silvery blue of the spruce trees were staring cliffs mutely, heedlessly, watching us. Beyond and above the cliffs were obdurate peaks with snow in their lower creases and glaciers lying in their upper hollows. From Tagish Lake to Taku Arm we churned on, the uninhabited shores slipping past. The reflected silvery light off the water touched, as with a veneer of unreality, the white-painted boat, the high pilot-house – and the faces of those who clustered on deck looking at this austerity of desolation. Valleys that we opened up seemed vast as Old Country shires. The mountains that hung along their far ends might have been of stationary clouds. The airplane, I considered, will make a great change in this land. I spoke the thought aloud, and a man who stood by me had a story to tell of adventure and fortitude of the pilots of these airplanes that are indeed changing the Northland’s life.

This article, however, is not of them but of a lady of the wilderness, and I would merely prepare the stage for her entrance as it was prepared for us going in, going on. When we had dropped Engineer Mountain astern and the little cluster of the houses of the Engineer Mine dotted along its base had dwindled to the value of crumbs- “Where are we going to now?” I asked the first officer, having been invited by then up into the pilot-house. He glanced over his shoulder, surveyed me for a moment, and then replied that he was not going to tell me; I was to see for myself without any preparation and so have my own uninfluenced impression. I accepted the decree and sat mute behind him, his robust figure, as he stood at the wheel, blotting out a section of the everlasting mountains. I looked down at the water that came rippling toward us, as if forever. I looked to the shores, and the blue-sifted spruce trees slid past on either side – as if forever.

The skipper came up; the first mate departed. We took a bend into West Taku Arm and at last I saw what seemed to be the twisting water’s end, and caught there the gleam of a few roofs, very small in the immensity. Yes, we were indeed, at last, at the end. But even though these stern-wheel steamers of the inland lakes and rivers are of shallow draft to make landings on beaches, we could not land at the apex here, shelving as it did into seepage and quagmire. We slowed down and crept close to high cliffs to west, along the base of which lay what I can but describe as a floating sidewalk. It disappeared round a projection of the cliffs, and as we drifted alongside a dapper Japanese – I say dapper advisedly, for he wore a boiled shirt and his trousers were creased – appeared at the cliff’s base, as if by some magic of this land. He caught the rope thrown down and tied us up to a knob of rock. With the other creatures of my dream – or the other incredulous mortals (on each face was an expression as of incredulity) – I went down the gang-plank. With them I passed round the base of the cliffs to where that floating side-walk touched land and with them, speechless, followed the path beyond. It brought us to a garden. “A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot.” But a garden here – what did it portend? How came it? The flowers were sweet-peas, delphiniums, asters, columbines, peonies, pansies, monster pansies, and many others besides – a pool of colour under the sheer precipices. And at the gate a lady stood to welcome us – dressed, by the way, as ladies are dressed who welcome us at garden-gates in the sophisticated hubs. As erroneous is it to imagine that women in these distant places (that is, places distant from wherever is our own centre) are clad in skins of beasts, as to imagine that men who can cope with the trials and affronts of the wilderness must needs be roughnecks. Stevenson once remarked that he had seen a London lawyer in the cottage of a Hebridean fisherman and not for worlds would reveal which he thought the greater gentleman! There’s a sophistication of the crowded centres that is no more than a veneer. Scratch it and you find the barbarian. And those who take their good manners and civilization into what we call the ends of the earth do not discard them there if they are the real thing.

 But this is a deflection from the lady who so charmingly met us at the gate of that sanctuary of flowers – not that she, memorable though her greeting remains, is the lady of this article. Would we care to walk round the garden? she suggested. Assuredly we would, and we passed on, a little quiet, spell-bound, for we had expected nothing like this, wilder wilderness, perhaps, but not a garden in it. And, finding it, the contrast with the scene round us made it all the stranger. Having walked through that oasis of colour we came to a house beside which was a small conservatory. There we clustered, looking back at that tended and multicolored enclosure, looking up at the contrasting severe summits, deeply aware of the quiet ashore here, the throbbing of the steamboat’s engine and thrash of her stern-wheel no longer sounding in our ears. It was then that a little silver-haired lady in velvet and lace came to the door – our lady of the wilderness – and bade us enter. “You must introduce yourselves, she told us, “for you know me now, but I don’t know you. It was a large main room into which we moved, with space for us all. There was a salver for our visiting-cards on a table to one side, cards of our hostess beside it; and a book lay there also for us to sign our names as her guests. The Japanese servant who had appeared round the cliff to meet the boat, and another, carried trays among us laden with glasses of home-made wine. When we had all drunk to our hostess she began to speak. She told us that this was a place far off to most and that it had been her husband’s custom to keep open house for all comers. He had recently died, but she was here to carry on the tradition. (He and she – from the Isle of Man – had been long in the North). Stories of the land and the old days, such as those with which he had been wont to entertain guests, she could not tell, but the house, said she, was still open house to all, as when he was there. And one usage that he had when visitors arrived she would ask us to acknowledge: Here, where all the boundaries were so close – of Alaska, Yukon Territory, and British Columbia (into the northern border of which, by the way, our twining inland voyage had brought us again, out of the Yukon) – it had been one of his aims to work toward friendship between the English-speaking peoples; and would we, to commence the evening, sing our two national anthems? “You see,” said she, “he had the two flags side by side on that wall.” There they were, the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes. We were all moved as one is moved , if not inhuman, by humanity and sincerity, by direct simplicity of speech and largeness of heart. In a corner-niche was a little old harmonium – it had been in the country close on fifty years I heard later – and sitting down before it she played, a frail figure in velvet, silver-haired, with lace at her throat and wrists. There were about thirty of us in the room and of these but five were of British stock – the others all American – two New Zealand girls (one of English, one of Scots extraction), a Canadian (from Calgary), my wife (an English-woman), myself (a Scot, born in South America). “We bring the Empire together,” the Calgary man would say when by chance the girls from New Zealand, my wife and I, and he happened at any time to meet. Now more than Empire was brought together. I was moved, deeply moved. I wished that Ramsay MacDonald and Hoover might have been there. It would have moved them I know, this peace-parley in the heart of that quiet North, this little old lady gathering us together in friendship. We sang first, in deference to the majority, led by our hostess, My Country ‘Tis of Thee. And when the Americans sang with us God Save the King I regretted that there were words of their anthem of which I had been uncertain, so well they knew ours and so enthusiastically sang – to us and to that lady in the wilderness who kept open house for us. After that we had community singing. We sang Scots songs that all knew, and old English songs, and songs of the war – Pack Up Your Troubles . . . , Tipperary – that recalled to some the bitter war years and made the spirit of this gathering doubly valuable, and plantation songs. But soon our hostess was prevailed upon by her friend and companion (who had met us at the gate) to lie down. Before she obeyed, however, she had to make another little speech, one of apology. She said that she had known a lot of trouble recently, and that very morning she had been upset. A murmur of condolence passed, and she went on to explain that there was a moose she was trying to tame. It had been coming very close to the door, but that morning, just as it drew near, an airplane roared overhead and frightened it away. The wilderness with its moose and its caribou and its wolves; the wilderness, and this garden, and airplanes: that’s the North today. I did not know if all was true or but a dream and that at any moment I might awaken. From her friend I heard of how, lately, our hostess (Mrs. Partridge) had been widowed but, loving the place and its memories, and all that had been made of it, hoped to stay on, with these memories. Twice a week in summer the steamer from Carcross called and everybody came ashore, as on that day. They had a motor-boat that the gardener ran. In winter they had their dog-team. They had their books. To my wife Mrs. Partridge said that perhaps, for this winter, she might go out. That, thought my wife, might presumably mean Vancouver, Victoria, or at least Skagway. “Oh, no,” was the response; “I might go out to White Horse.” Even in that reply was something of the charm of it all, the sense of other-worldliness, the spirit that made this visit memorable, an event of one’s life, an experience so unexpected that even now I wonder at times if it is something I have dreamt or imagined. A glance at the map will show how far out is White Horse, that tiny metropolis of the Yukon. When gold was found in place in the neighbouring mountains Mr. Partridge built here a home that would be worthy of a woman of civilized refinements, and banked it round with flowers.

Ben-My-Chree he called it, which is Manx for Girl of My Heart. And still his widow lingers here with her happy memories – to carry on, carrying on. After the singing there were new odours in the room and the servants brought among us trays of tea, coffee, and cakes. I need hardly tell you that before we left we all trooped past that couch where our hostess lay, to give her our sincere adieux. And then I stole off alone beyond the house, up the slope a little way (past a cluster of trees, the very boughs of which seemed to hold the hush), to look at the place where she lived. I got beyond the voices. I felt the enfolding silence, the silence one reads about, the silence of the Yukon. The sense of all being but a dream within a dream caught me; the strangeness caught me; the silence caught me. In fact what I felt there was perhaps that spell of the North of which I had often read. I realized that, for better or worse, it might easily take hold of one – till death do us part, as it were – and it was a spell, it seemed, at one and the same time tranquil and sinister, beneficent and terrible. I understood the Lure of the North, that Lure other than the one that is in the hope for sudden fortune in the gold of its rocks and sands. These phrases one reads – “Come and find me;” “What lies beyond the ranges;” and so forth – are not mere nonsense. I tore myself away from that arresting and detaining quiet, that spell, and joined the others below. Our heels sounded muffled on the floating side-walk as we returned to the boat. It was well on in the evening by the evidence of our watches but day lingers long in these high latitudes in summer, and even after we had cast loose and backed away from the cliff the sky above us was full of bright memories of day – and would hold them almost till a new day dawned. In the water through which again we thrashed the day had not gone. It clung there, beautiful and a little sad. But in the place we had left, under the towering precipices, lights were being lit. Yes, Ben-My-Chree was real. It was true, and we were leaving it alone there as the night of the valleys brimmed round it. I watched the lights diminish in size beyond our grey wake in the spectral water, watched till they were eclipsed at a bend, and then climbed again to the pilot-house in that queer drizile of lingering day through the gathering night. The first officer was there. He looked at me as I entered, raising his eyebrows in an inquiry. But, somewhat as he had wanted to give me no word of preparation for what I was to see, I felt unable to say anything to him in reply to that lift of his brows. And I think he understood. Of course he understood. I shall never, so long as I live, forget that lady in the wilderness, the lady of Ben-My-Chree. Reprinted from Canadian Home Journal, 1938. FOR BEN-MY-CHREE There’s a dear place in the Yukon, Where my heart is ever homing, When the birds return with springtime From the south; And I long, as flowers for sunlight, For that golden Northern gloaming, And the touch of Tagish waters On my mouth. I could tell you how the moose drink In the starlit upland meadow, Where the beaver builds his dam Across the stream; How the little fox slips swiftly Ere the moonbeams catch his shadow, When the lakes enchanted lie In winter dream. Of those mountains in the moonlight Words can never paint the glory- Pendant glaciers gleam like diamonds Viewed afar. Monarchs, they, of many winters And their snow-bound heads are hoary, Laved in northern lights Or golden evening star. Silver mists at dawn and twilight Drift above the sapphire water, Wreathe with haloed grace the site Of Ben-My-Chree; Though the Wilderness returns there, Takes her own I and gives no quarter, Dreams immortalize its loveliness For me. Kathleen Keats White.

And talking about special ladies how about this Super Star Jazz Singer and Musician who has in her own right put Canada on the map for some of the finest talents in the world.

If you know where Diana Krall was born and raised then you know where our first day of our Girlfriend’s getaway to B.C will be.

See you tomorrow

Cheryl Young, Realtor

Victoria B.C

(originally aired June 03, 2007 )

when the music goes around, everybody goes to town
but, here’s something you should know, ho, ho, baby, ho ho ho

Ella Fitzgerald – A-Tisket A-tasket
Louis Armstrong – When the Saints come marching in
Billie Holiday – Swing! Brother, swing!
Harry Belafonte – Day -O
Nat King Cole – Route 66
Nina Simone – My Baby Just Cares for me
Ella & Duke Ellington – It don’t mean a thing (if it Ain’t got that swing)
Frank Sinatra – That’s Life
Diana Krall – Hit that Jive, Jack
The Manhattan Transfer – The Boy From New York City

1. John Denver’s “SILVER BELLS”

2. The Carpenters’ “WHAT ARE YOU DOING NEW YEAR’S EVE”

3. Mindy Smith’s “MY HOLIDAY”

4. “THE HALLELUJAH CHORUS” by Johnny Mathis
I have several versions of this song. But his is the one I listen to most.

5. Amy Grant’s “BREATH OF HEAVEN”

6. Diana Krall’s “HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS”

7. “LITTLE DRUMMER BOY” by Harry Connick Jr.
8. “A CHRISTMAS LOVE SONG” by The Manhattan Transfer

9. “LITTLE ALTAR BOY” by The Carpenters

10.”THE LITTLE BOY THAT SANTA CLAUS FORGOT” by Nat King Cole

11. “I’M THE HAPPIEST CHRISTMAS TREE” by Nat King Cole

12. “SILENT NIGHT” by The Manhattan Transfer

13. “AWAY IN A MANGER” by Mindy Smith

You know, I could go on and on. The Redneck and I have a TON of Christmas music.

Suggested from Timo (www.tim-o.de) and being part of my list for a while – today is “her” day, performing a few classics. She for sure is one of the greatest Jazz singers – and sooo wonderful on the piano… Enjoy!

With Natalie Cole – Route 66

Fly me to the moon

Walk on by (very nice version!!)

Look of love

Boy from Ipanema

Thanks again to everyone for listening – and thanks again to Mandy, this time, for picking me up.

Here’s what was played this time around… Sorry for no links. It’s late, I’m tired. I sleep soon:

The Kyrie K Groove – Symmetry
Metric – Hustle Rose
Alanis Morissette – Head Over Feet
Sarah Harmer – Will He Be Waiting For Me
Joni Mitchell – This Flight Tonight
K.D. Lang – Help Me
Basia Bulat – Snakes and Ladders
Holly McNarland – Twisty Mirror
Megan Lane – Walking Alone
Jakalope – Don’t Cry
Holly McNarland – Numb
Sarah Slean – Awake Soon
Diana Krall – Departure Bay

CLICK THIS POSTCARD TO ENLARGE AND PRINT:

Jonny Blu returns to the legendary Herb Alpert’s “Vibrato Jazz Club” in Bel Air for his “Latin Sessions” Tour!
Performing songs from his new album “Taboo!”, including the hits “Babaloo”, “Besame Mucho”, and “Taboo”!

And Jonny will debut his new holiday song “A Holiday For Two”!

One night only! Call and make your reservations because this place seats only 300 and will fill up fast!

-Box Office: 1-310-474-9400
-Cover: $20
-Website: www.vibratogrilljazz.com

The Band:
Jonny Blu- Vocals
Bob Malone-Piano
Doug Webb- Sax, Woodwinds
Mike Scott- Guitar
Adam Gust- Drums
Lynn Keller- Bass
Shef Bruton- Trombone
Steve Stassi- Trumpet

PLEASE Consider Jonny Blu Music for your Holiday Gifts!
(Click this banner below)

Category 46
Best Improvised Jazz Solo
(For an instrumental jazz solo performance. Two equal performers on one recording may be eligible as one entry. If the soloist listed appears on a recording billed to another artist, the latter’s name is in parenthesis for identification. Singles or Tracks only.)
•All Of You
Gerald Clayton, soloist
Track from: Two-Shade
[ArtistShare]

Category 47
Best Jazz Instrumental Album, Individual or Group
(For albums containing 51% or more playing time of INSTRUMENTAL tracks.)
•Brother To Brother
Clayton Brothers
[ArtistShare]

John Clayton also arranged a song and performed with Yo-Yo Ma and Diana Krall in the following Grammy © Nominated Album:

Category 107
Best Classical Crossover Album

‘Yo-Yo Ma & Friends: Songs Of Joy And Peace,’ Yo-Yo Ma (Odair Assad, Sergio Assad, Chris Botti, Dave Brubeck, Matt Brubeck, John Clayton, Paquito d’Rivera, Renée Fleming, Diana Krall, Alison Krauss, Natalie McMaster, Edgar Meyer, Cristina Pato, Joshua Redman, Jake Shimabukuro, Silk Road Ensemble, James Taylor, Chris Thile, Wu Tong, Alon Yavnai & Amelia Zirin-Brown)

Sound familiar, my friends? I just sat here, ready to write something nice and cheerful to you, as I am sitting here, listening to Diana Kralls Christmas songs, but it was not to be.

Just now, a guy came in, talking down to me about a thing, that was not my fault. Sometimes, I really ask myself, why I am doing this. I guess its the money. I must be.

Anyway. 3rd of December today… I am still ill, or ill again whatever way you want to look at it. The christmas feeling just does not want to come to me this year, no matter how many times I listen to Etta Jones and Louis Armstrong. Perhaps I am frustrated. No, I did not even half finish my NaNoWriMo Novel. I spent half of my time in bed to be exact. So I have decided to finish the Novel for Christmas and then give it to BFF, who it was originally for. I swear, if I dont finish this until Christmas, I might as well never write again! (See what I did there? I never actually said that I would NEVER WRITE AGAIN! )

To my friends overseas – please dont be upset with me for not writing. Work is terribly busy, I am constantly sick and tired. Really, I know you are probably all really annoyed with me! P, I am on it! I will be doing the thing I promised. I just have not been in the right frame of mind. Sorry!!

Miss you guys and the Christmas lights of London!

Kiss,

Me x