Good morning! 9:30, 9 degrees(with a 'feels like' temperature of -7!)on this frigid Friday. Contemplating the contents of my refrigerator vs the need to go out and get more supplies. The hardy adventurer vs the cold weather wuss. Having not much of the former and a generous helping of the latter, the cold weather wuss usually raises his timid hand in victory. But since we have about another week of this, I will have to brave the elements at some point. Shit...
Music news. RIP Anthony Armand Corea, known to the music word as Chick. Seminal musician who influenced a whole generation of players and writers. Nobody wrote better songs than Chick Corea, except maybe Bill Evans.
We all went nuts over Light as a Feather, which also featured Stanley Clarke, Joe Farrell, Lenny White, Flora Purim and Airto Moreira. All the piano players had a Fender Rhodes keyboard- a bulky instrument which, as I remember, was not light as a feather. And all the bass players wanted to be Stanley.
I got to hear Chick at the Mississippi River Festival in Edwardsville IL. It was the second Return to Forever group, with Al DiMeola. Bill Connors was the original guitarist. My favorite of these groups was the one with Frank Gambale, who is what I'd call "scary good".
Anyway, a life well spent. 79 years old. Almost made it to what the octogenarians call 'overtime'.
As for me, still plugging along. I have $1.38 in streams to look at once that information is in(again, waiting for Pacific Standard Time to catch up with us here in the Midwest), and will eventually have two new albums to share with you. Still trying to get started on something new, and will also get there- eventually. What the hell, I've still got my guitar...
And that's my news for the day. Thank you Chick Corea, for all the great tunes. Litha, Tones for Joan's Bones, Spain, Windows, 500 MIles High. There was a girl I knew in college, a flutist named Karen Jones, for whom I wrote a flute solo called Tones for Jones's Bones. It' s probably still around here someplace..
Thanks as ever for stopping in and reading. Happy Friday to you, especially if you've had to work all week. For now, I'm outa here. More later. PS Today's tune is based on Body and Soul. The title is an anagram: Odd Boy's Ulna. Yes, an odd boy's anagram...