Monday 25th April
A sense that all classic jazz is about the normal guy or woman. The stereotypy of life just at or above the brink. They sing, are happy cause of luke warm life, in cosy love or missing the departed, the need to get him back home, the comunion with nature, with God, the attachement to music, the neighborhood, the gangster(s) (well finally getting a bit more interesting), but how this leads to disaster, so ntz ntz ntz! Same with the booze, the two bit hustler, the old age, the young and foolish (the idea that that’s wrong and needs mending), the getting by.
(A notable variation – the sinner man, a fantastic escape from the norm, where he’s worse off than even the devil, but that story too is told from outside, from the surroundings of safeguarded spirituality).

Strikes me as exactly that slack and (nearly) boring stuff that’s unrevealing had it not been for the music, the rhythm and texture of how they sing it. Same as the mid-low lives in my birdman type o’ writers and film makers. The thikness of getting through it all that you almost feel repugned by. Till you get the right wording or sound. Pace. And that ol’ simple lyricism of classic jazz, blues is barely there for me anymore. Belongs to an age of slow Mississippi lifestyle, logging, lodging, survival, with it’s slow meanders fested with gators, or swampy turns of life bogging you down in it. I can hardly stand this…so I need the new version:

Dialogue over the air. She looks over and pauses into my eyes. Fast layers of redgreen-tainted greys lining the background. One of those moments of think-across so she must have felt this. Can’t really see her gaze as light reaches from behind but I could draw lines where her mouth is. Where the brows. And the hair grows violent. Words. Where’s your mind?
smile slowly. might as well …
At how I will rapture your veins later. I can feel your red blushing the depth of my mouth now. At how I will make love to and how you’ll take it.
imoral suspension, should she feel molested, flattered
You assume too much, what do you think you know about me? how… well
I lean my head back, mouth slightly open, as with wind flowing across lips. Instead breathing in all that warm unexpectancy between us. Yes, the smell of it. Deep odour. Feel her eyes flooding my chin, neck with that colour. Then, gaining onto her face, eyes growing dark:
Better

Elsewise forgotten.
Or better not, the black hole sun impregnated version… (if you wet a bit or “aw”ed a touch above, skip this one).
… Just sexdump that girl.
And go for the one that would stab you while you lean your damn brains back in confidence. Full thrust. Gut or chest you red:
“I’ll give you lust mofo!”
Bed you after. There, wherever you were. Gumless. Sanguine core love.
“Take that for man-struation you idiot!” she’d go. Dark HOT sun!
And if you stand that, don’t sphnk a single flick in’er innards. Topdeep-end instead. If she were THE one she’d grow ovaries over tonsils.

So we owe it to Dylan, Tom Waits, Lou Reed and the likes to transition this into our lingo. Magicians of spell. Retelling the same fundamental story about Eggs and Saussage – our ero-thanatae redemption anxieties. And further on its the likes of Tricky, Radiohead and EL VY (“I’m the man to be”), etc that reword and wire things our way, my way. Or the redimension of urban from the 1920s city life to the 1980s (or even 2010s) in Ben Sidran’s King of Harlem.

A frame of mind I’d come across again in my last day of New Orleans Jazz Fest: the need to read, or read out loud passages from F Scott F while listening to or pausing for gasps of Tom Waits and his ferocious poetry. Or have a session of synchronous reading of F Scott and Raymond C, two of us in duet, while interspersing te texts. Find a dialogue between the two of them.

The blonde to my right on the way back from the swamp. Ozzy. A good profile contour. You keep that in mind when she looks at you as sideglances felt better. With sun sliced through bridge beams. Fast between the setting shadows. That visual imprint you retain so the face front is still just as good. But keep that retina lag of that second before. Sensual lift. Talking about meat. Just used that to see her better. You asking ’bout gator meet? How it was? No, I wasn’t, but have you had any? Yeah, have you? No. Tastes something between beef and chicken. It’s good. Oh, ok! (she might have slipped an awesome in there somewhere, I don’t remember).

The profuse sensation of well, zapping the waters of the Mississippi marshes. Danube Delta 1.5 years ago, that sample of bdayleisure rhyming with my Tonga waters when sitting with the ozzy (JimmyM) and the japanese (Nobu) after chasing whale-scapes all day, THAT holiday open feeling. The bits of water-boarding in the golf off Sanur beach. Resplendently smiling.
Sunsetting over bridges and motorways swooping the swamps into the slums of New Orleans. Listening to Sting. The need to listen to this more.

Is there a Financial District in N.O.? sure does look like that. I guess almost every major city in USA’s gotta have this 80-90-2000s bit of urban landmarks. It’s part of the american/western identity.

Queuing up for Preservation Hall Jazz Band. We glued into the line as soon as we dropped by. Curious to see what that 18yr old kid is doing now. Has he moved on?, has he gotten even better? Connor Stewart at tenor sax April 2015.
He was not there. Good session, but our first experience last year with a bigger band is unoubliable.

Then on Frenchman’s again
@ Snug Harbour – Charmaine Neville band & friends
started off with a Moondance variation, but given the lyrics change I look it up and as I dabble on the net for it this shifts into Caravan (maaan, I’ve heard two or three renditions of Caravan this week in Newrleans, this by Charmaine and one by the Jumbo Shrimps at Spotted Cat that are up there in my collection of Petruccianis and Whiplashes, the ones I’d overlap into multi layered sensorials). A mexican congas old geizer steps in and Charmaine grabs the cow bell.
Now the A Train. A mix of annoyed and inspired musician. That’s who Ch Nev is tonight.
Summertime by a fat mexican lady, gueststaged, donno where she picked this one from, she’s not sure either. And she was good! What was strange was that the mexican was far better and uninhibitted when she sang eyes closed. And when she opened and crosschecked with Charmaine her interpretation was more selfconscious and only ok. But oh she had imagination! My oh my!
Now a bunch of japanese, a guy at sax, one at guitar and ladies at drums, base, piano. All replacing the main act. Funny was that these guys were sitting next to us, mere spectators just minutes ago. Had no idea they’d be rolling in as guests to Neville.
But she gets back, just as nervous and inspired.
After the show I stayed a little moment back, right shoulder turned into Charmaine’s farewells to friends. Measured her up, her poise and chemical body. Was it letting on the same light?, taste? yes. scorpio demure. Sifted through her stuff back home and loaded up Eleanor Rigby

This NOLA you know is all about rhythm she said. It’s everywhere.

Mum had a chronic fatigue. Could barely hold her head up during the show. Told her to walk home. Or take my bag and give herself a break. Sleep on the table, on the wall, in that corner of jazzall. But she remained. Escorted me out in the end. I was at my third whisky sour. Injected with all that bazz(!) on top of it. So I had a search in my feet. The body sneaks in the crowd. The ears on harmonies radio-location spotting doors of joy across Frenchman, or on way back to the hotel.

Another night out. Saw this crowd hugging the corner of a street and FINALLY something that would flow in the veins of younger poliacoustic, cross genre shape.
Trei baieti de 20 de ani – New Thousand – afterparty.

Violin with eastern european (obvious to me) ethno influences kicking cu neobrăzare pe breakbeat si house/hiphop dj-mix with keyboards to flavour and connect it all into jazz. A borderless energy and sanguinity. These guys should get an inspiration and a kick out of playing the more culturally expansive Herbie’s and Wayne Shorter Duo. The sound and technical understructure is not that different. I lash out into desperate dancing. Mum shying away in the street. Tired smiling, space nudging expressions across at me. “What?!”
Night nights at me.
“In a bit” I gesture back. But my mind means.. in a beat! And I get back on raving with these guys.
They reminded me of an old fling Third Seven posted on youtube. It’s not thebsame thing but mixes with a similar surprising good feel.
Manifest Destiny cover

and

This trip turns fast into a musical hedonism these days.