Whaddayaget? . . .

“In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed. They produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
- Orson Welles (from The Third Man)

What do you think? Tell me at
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html  or at
http://www.ohomusic.com 


Other Ray Jozwiak Offerings

(To Access all Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano music you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RayJozwiak)

For all things "Gonzo Piano" please visit:
Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano on CD Baby.com
The Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano Website
The Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano You Tube Channel

For all things "OHO" please visit:
The OHO CD Baby.com Website
OHO Music Website
The 'More OHO Music' You Tube Website
The 'Original' OHO Music You Tube Website

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Pie . . .

(from http://inventors.about.com/od/foodrelatedinventions/a/pizza.htm)
". . . Considered a peasant's meal in Italy for centuries, we cannot say who invented the very first pizza pie. Food historians agree that pizza-like dishes, including flatbreads topped with oils, spices, and other toppings, were eaten by many peoples in the Mediterranean, including the Greeks and Egyptians. However, modern pizza has been attributed to baker Raffaele Esposito of Naples. In 1889, Esposito -- who owned a restaurant called the Pizzeria di Pietro -- baked what he called "pizza" especially for the visit of Italian King Umberto I and Queen Margherita. According to legend, this pizza was topped with mozzarella, basil and tomatoes to represent the three colors of the Italian flag, and the style was named for Queen Margherita. . ."


OHO
Saturday, September 12th, 2015
OHO LIVE AT JOHNNY'S PIZZA
OHO Live at Johnny's - 9:00PM
5601 Coastal Hwy Bayside
Ocean City, MD 21842
United States
4105247499
Price: no cover

BOURBON STREET ON THE BEACH
Jay Graboski (Sundays) -this week a performance of the OHO Duo (w/Ray Jozwiak) - 7:00PM
Coastal Highway & 116th Street
Ocean City, MD 21842
443-664-2896
Price: na
Sunday at 4PM

She/He
rehearsal recording from August 2015 by OHO (Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak)





What do you think?
Tell me at
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html  or at
http://www.ohomusic.com 


OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak.  Please Visit http://www.ohomusic.com 


My latest solo offering, Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak, featuring original, instrumental piano music is now available at - Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak

(To Access all Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano music you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RayJozwiak)

Also, be sure to visit:
http://www.rayjozwiak.com

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Bello Italia . . .

(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italy)
". . . Italy, officially the Italian Republic (Italian: Repubblica italiana), is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 (116,347 sq mi) and has a largely mediterranean climate; due to its shape, it is often referred to in Italy as lo Stivale (the Boot). With 61 million inhabitants, it is the 4th most populous EU member state. Italy is a very highly developed country and has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and the eighth-largest in the world.

Since ancient times, Sherden, Etruscan, Magna Graecia and other cultures have flourished in the territory of present-day Italy, being eventually absorbed by Rome, that has for centuries remained the leading political and religious centre of Western civilisation, capital of the Roman Empire and Christianity. During the Dark Ages, the Italian Peninsula faced calamitous invasions by barbarian tribes, but beginning around the 11th century, numerous Italian city-states rose to great prosperity through shipping, commerce and banking (indeed, modern capitalism has its roots in Medieval Italy). . ."


Italia
©2015 & 2014 Raymond M. Jozwiak
Available April 7, 2015





What do you think?
Tell me at
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html  or at
http://www.ohomusic.com 


OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak.  Please Visit http://www.ohomusic.com 


My latest solo offering, Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak, featuring original, instrumental piano music is now available at - Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak

(To Access all Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano music you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RayJozwiak)

Also, be sure to visit:
http://www.rayjozwiak.com

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Work . . .

. . . so hard . . .

Various sizes and colors of luggage are lined up on the walk.  One smiling, anticipatory face and two non-committal, yet marginally anxious ones proceeded from the luggage queue to the house. We were working on some final details.

One stranger and the six of us were in the punctual shuttle happily whisked away to our flight to JFK. Polite conversation took place to the muted sound of ‘Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me’ only because one prior passenger was already on board and had it not been for the stranger, the five (plus one) of us can sometimes been anything but polite.

Lunch at BWI, some beers and anxious chatter before meeting our last two travelling partners at the gate. The plane to JFK was tiny and the flight fast.  The plane had one row of two seats and one row of single seats.

The five hour layover prompted us to have a nice, celebratory dinner.  So where did we choose to eat?  Buffalo Wings, of course.  Fun place, lots of noise.  Tall table for a party of eight.  Needless to say we neglected to ask for ‘rail’ liquor in our mixed drinks and ended the evening with an outrageously overpriced bill.

Onward to Italy. . . an eight hour flight. Lots of sore buttocks, fitful sleep, airline food, movies, reading.

What do you think?
Tell me at
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html  or at
http://www.ohomusic.com 


OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak.  Please Visit http://www.ohomusic.com 


My latest solo offering, Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak, featuring original, instrumental piano music is now available at - Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak

(To Access all Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano music you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RayJozwiak)

Also, be sure to visit:
http://www.rayjozwiak.com

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Canal . . .

. . . you know


(from http://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-europe/construction-venice-floating-city-001750)
. . . in the 5th ccentury A.D. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, barbarians from the north were raiding Rome’s former territories. In order to escape these raids, the Venetian population on the mainland escaped to the nearby marshes, and found refuge on the sandy islands of Torcello, Iesolo and Malamocco. Although the settlements were initially temporary in nature, the Venetians gradually inhabited the islands on a permanent basis. In order to have their buildings on a solid foundation, the Venetians first drove wooden stakes into the sandy ground. Then, wooden platforms were constructed on top of these stakes. Finally, the buildings were constructed on these platforms. A 17th century book which explains in detail the construction procedure in Venice demonstrates the amount of wood required just for the stakes. According to this book, when the Santa Maria Della Salute church was built, 1,106,657 wooden stakes, each measuring 4 metres, were driven underwater. This process took two years and two months to be completed. On top of that, the wood had to be obtained from the forests of Slovenia, Croatia and Montenegro, and transported to Venice via water. Thus, one can imagine the scale of this undertaking. . ."

What do you think?

Tell me at
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html  or at
http://www.ohomusic.com 


OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak.  Please Visit http://www.ohomusic.com 


My latest solo offering, Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak, featuring original, instrumental piano music is now available at - Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak

(To Access all Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano music you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RayJozwiak)

Also, be sure to visit:
http://www.rayjozwiak.com

Tweet  

Stranger Than . . .

. . . fiction . . .

 (from http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/italys-singing-nun-cristina-scuccia-covers-madonnas-virgin-n230346)
Reviving Madonna’s blockbuster “Like a Virgin” may not seem an obvious pick for Italy’s singing nun, Sister Cristina Scuccia. After all, it's not entirely clear if Madonna was fully referring to the Holy Spirit when she belted out the words “touched for the very first time.” But Scuccia, who is set to release her debut album on Nov. 11 after winning Italy’s “The Voice” singing competition earlier this year, claims she only had the purest of intentions when she chose the track. “Reading the text, without being influenced by previous interpretations, you discover that it is a song about the power of love to renew people [and] rescue them from their past,” the nun told Italian newspaper Avvenire.

“We have transformed this song from the pop-dance piece, which it was, into a romantic ballad ... something more similar to a lay prayer than to a pop piece,” she added. Both videos are set in Venice, but while the American singer rolled around sensually in a gondola, the nun sings in various landmarks wearing a habit. Scuccia said she did not think Madonna had heard her rendition, adding: “I’d like to see her face when they tell her it’s a nun singing.”

What do you think?
Tell me at
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html 


OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak

My latest solo release, '2014' of original, instrumental piano music, can be downloaded digitally at:

(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)

Also, be sure to visit:
http://www.rayjozwiak.com

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Wines. . .

. . . to go with your music. . .

(from:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero_d%27Avola)
Nero d'Avola (Italian pronunciation: [ˈnero ˈdavola]; "Black of Avola" in Italian) is "the most important red wine grape in Sicily and is one of Italy's most important indigenous varieties. It is named after Avola in the far south of Sicily and its wines are compared to New World Shirazes, with sweet tannins and plum or peppery flavours. It also contributes to Marsala blends.

(from:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebbiolo)
Ampelographers believe that Nebbiolo is indigenous to the Piedmont region though some DNA evidence suggest that it may have originated in Lombardy. In the 1st century AD, Pliny the Elder noted the exceptional quality of the wine produced in Pollenzo region located northwest of what is now the Barolo DOCG zone. While Pliny does not explicitly name the grape responsible for these Pollenzo wines, his description of the wine bears similarities to later descriptions of Nebbiolo-based wines, making this potentially the first notation of wine made from Nebbiolo in the Piedmont region. The first explicit mention of Nebbiolo dates to 1268 where a wine known as "nibiol" was growing in Rivoli near Turin. This was followed by a 1303 account of a producer in the Roero district described as having a barrel of "nebiolo" (sic). In the 1304 treatise Liber Ruralium Commodorum, the Italian jurist Pietro Crescenzi described wine made from "nubiola" (sic) as being of excellent quality. In the 15th century, statutes in the region of La Morra (in what is now the Barolo zone) demonstrated the high esteem that the Nebbiolo vine had in the area. According to these laws, the penalties for cutting down a Nebbiolo vine ranged from a heavy fine to having the right hand cut off or hanging for repeat offenders.

What do you think?
Tell me at  
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html

My latest release, Black & White Then Back,
can be downloaded digitally at:

(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak3)

Also, be sure to visit:
http://www.rayjozwiak.com

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