Many people know Wayne Shorter from his time with Miles Davis, or as a founding member of Weather Report. I know him as the musician about whom Joni Mitchell said: “Emotionally, he’s a better player than John Coltrane.” Which … you know how sometimes musicians should just stick to their music? That was one of those times.
So there’s a long story about how a pairs team was skating to this song at one of Mark’s performances, and it was a song I remember my dad liked, and nobody could tell me what it was, so I set up a Pandora station of 60s easy listening tunes (which is right in my dad’s wheelhouse), and I suffered through months of Ferrante & Teicher and the Percy Faith Orchestra, and I was so brain-dead that when the song finally did come on, it was almost 3/4 over before I realized, “Wait! That’s the song!”
I should probably not give Vince Guaraldi a list for putting me through all that (FYI, the song is “Cast Your Fate to the Wind”), but how can you be mad at the man behind A Charlie Brown Christmas?
In my real next life, I want to be Monk’s … you know, the guy who hangs around while Monk does his Monk thing. Miles might get the title, but to me, Monk will always be the coolest kid in school.
So first, Cedric asked Ray and I to pick up some mannequins for him from this free mannequin giveaway, but the giveaway turned out to be a hoax. Then we were going to get dinner at his favorite pizza place, but they had gone out of business. And then he said he had two tickets to see Terence Blanchard that night and did I want to go—but the tickets were for the Thursday show. It was Friday.
So what I’m saying is, not the best day for Cedric.
As you’ve probably figured out by now, I’m hardly the biggest fan of “white people jazz music.” But “Sing Sing Sing” is a great song no matter how you slice it.
Of all the jazz legends I didn’t get to see in their lifetimes (Sarah Vaughan, etc.), I did somehow manage to make it to a Sun Ra concert. And I have to say: As someone who likes the weird edge of music, I think I met my match.
Miles Davis called Sonny Rollins the greatest tenor ever. I guess there isn’t too much to add to that.
My son Mark, who is black, is a violinist. That’s impressive enough. But throw in “female” and “jazz,” and you see why Regina Carter is in her own category of awesome.
This list is dedicated to Mark’s friend Carmen, who—in addition to also being the adopted child of a single parent, because, of course—played a mean ragtime. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen an 11-year-old Asian girl busting out some Scott Joplin.
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