Home : Plato's Words : July 2003

July 2003

Well here it is the middle of July and by now I would have typically posted my entry here. Life has been busy, first with the jazz festival that ended the month of June and then on to other things. Gardening, cycling, running, barbecuing, hanging out with friends, redecorating my music room, painting stairs and doors and several other things seem to have occupied my time as of late. Currently I am obsessed with the Tour de France. Watching those marvelous athletes has inspired me to get into better shape and tackle some of the hills and head winds that I often complain about while cycling. I will complain no more! How can they cycle day after day in the heat wave that exists in Europe right now? They sprint up mountains and that is day after day after day. I marvel at that kind of dedication and drive. Of course I want Lance Armstrong to win again. I also want a racing bike but for now my mountain will suffice as I try to keep up with my racing husband on his beautiful red Italian Basso racing machine. No I can't keep up, but the challenge is there none the less.

Ah…but my words here are supposed be about music are they not? There has been music too. The festival was wonderful as usual and I was able to see quite a bit again in between performing myself. That now on July 18th seems like a distant memory.

More recently I went to hear my friend Kate Hammett-Vaughan with her duo partner, bassist André Lachance at The Cellar. What an exciting evening of music! A tight rope they walk as they take standards and build and shape the stories and pictures that the songwriters have given them as a framework. There is a wonderful bare bones quality to the bass/voice duo sound. Kate and André present improvisation at its best with risk taking that is very exciting indeed to hear as a lover of jazz improvisation. I so admire both of those musicians. There is fearlessness and risk taking that must exist in order to really improvise jazz as they are do. I know they don't perform as a duo very often but I hope they will appear once in awhile in that format. It was very inspiring to me.

In the listening department I have signed out some discs from the library lately as well as a lovely little documentary on Dizzy Gillespie's "Night In Tunisia". It was very interesting to see the footage and hear Dizzy speak about how the idea for the tune came to him. He is such an adorable man to listen to when he speaks. He really did make such an impact on jazz in his life time as a performer and as a composer.

I signed out "Take Love Easy", the duo recording of Ella Fitzgerald and Joe Pass. Lovely, lovely music. I also listened to some old Frank Sinatra recordings with Nelson Riddle orchestrations, some John Coltrane live recordings and a couple of Carmen Macrae recordings too. I have always loved Clifford Brown's music ever since my friend trumpeter Derry Byrne got me hooked so I recently pulled out several of those great recordings and got my Clifford hit again.

The rest of the summer I hope to learn many more songs to freshen my performing repertoire and also hope to find the inspiration to compose some new ones. Usually that happens when I go home to visit my family in Saskatchewan. Last summer that's where I wrote several of the songs that appear on my latest recording "The State Of Bliss". Hopefully inspiration will hit this August because that's when my sojourn home will be this year. Grasshoppers and mosquitoes beware, I will be prepared for you!

I hope you all have a wonderful summer.

Karin