One In A Million . . .

 . . . from Ruth Underwood (wikipedia.com)

". . .Oh, I was probably one of those rather stiff people from the suburbs - I think some of us did understand, and we kept coming back for more, and more, and more. I remember being very upset when they finally finished their stint at the Garrick Theatre and went back to LA. I felt as if the real heart had gone out of New York City, and I had to get back on with my conservatory music training life, which seemed very dull after this. . . "

“. . . A couple of years ago, when I heard that Frank was ill, I called him up. For 14 years we had no contact at all. He invited me to the house and we enjoyed some really nice visits with each other. Last June ('93) he called and asked if he could sample some of my stuff. I was shocked because I hadn't touched a pair of mallets since March of '77. I ended up practicing for 14 hours, which was all the time I could get together in the context of my life now. I spent four days at Frank's house sampling. This was really a miracle for me - that I could be reunited with him and still have something to offer. . ."
(btw, Ruth is at 2:54)

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Funny. . .

. . . but not for the timid. . . 

Hailey Boyle has been funny like a dude since 1979. A rising star on the New York comedy circuit after her transplant from Fairbanks Alaska to Manhattan in 2004, she was a regular at Caroline’s on Broadway before relocating to Los Angeles in 2010 and tours clubs and colleges all over the country. Hailey has been named one of New York’s Top Ten Funniest at The New York Comedy Festival, and has been featured in The New York Daily News and UK entertainment magazine The List. A hit at the Glasgow Comedy Festival, Hailey is planning her third Scottish comedy tour for spring  2014.

    Hailey was also honored to entertain American soldiers on active duty in Greenland, The Bahamas, and Central America this past spring and looks forward to performing anywhere our heroes are stationed until they all come home. Now, fresh off her first feature film (About Last Night starring Kevin Hart) Hailey also had her TV Stand-Up debut this year on the TV GUIDE Network's "'Stand Up In Stilettos". Her blend of down home humor and big city wit are earning Hailey Boyle acclaim across the nation and around the world!

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Sticktoitiveness. . .

. . . or something. . .

(thanks to Wikipedia.com)
Cecil Taylor began playing piano at age six and studied at the New York College of Music and New England Conservator. After first steps in R&B and swing-styled small groups in the early 1950s, he formed his own band with soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy in 1956 and with whom he made his first recording that same year. Some critics said it already pointed to the freedoms in which he later became immersed.

Through the 50s and 60s, Cecil's music grew more complex and moved away from existing jazz styles. Gigs were often hard to come by, and club owners thought his lengthy pieces were not easily accessible to the general jazz-going audience. Landmark recordings, like UNIT STRUCTURES followed later, in 1966. Alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons later joined Cecil and became one of his most important and consistent collaborators. Taylor, Lyons and drummer Sunny Murray (and later Andrew Cyrille) formed the core personnel of The Unit, Taylor's primary group effort until Lyons's premature death in 1986. With 'the Unit', musicians developed often volcanic new forms of conversational interplay.

Cecil began to perform solo concerts in the early 1970s. Many of these were released on album and include INDENT (1973), side one of Spring of Two Blue-J's (1973), SILENT TONGUES (1974), GARDEN (1982), and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1973 and then a MacArthur Fellowship in 1991.


Cecil recorded sparingly in the 2000s, but continued to perform with his own ensembles (the Cecil Taylor Ensemble and the Cecil Taylor Big Band) as well as with other musicians such as Joe Locke, Max Roach and Amiri Baraka.  In 2004, the Cecil Taylor Big Band at the Iridium 2005 was nominated a best performance of 2004 by All About Jazz, and the same in 2009 for the Cecil Taylor Trio at the Highline Ballroom in 2009. The trio consisted of Taylor, Albey Balgochian, and Jackson Krall. An autobiography, more concerts, and other projects are in the works. In 2010, Triple Point Records released a deluxe limited edition double LP titled Ailanthus/Altissima: Bilateral Dimensions of Two Root Songs, a set of duos with long-time collaborator Tony Oxley that was recorded live at the Village Vanguard in New York City.

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The beauty of the Falls. . .

. . . From Wikipedia:
Taughannock Falls is located in the Town of Ulysses in Tompkins County, New York in the USA. The park is northwest of Ithaca, New York near Trumansburg, New York. The name Taughannock comes from the Algonquian-speaking Lenni Lenape (Delaware) Indians, referring either to chief Taughannock or the word taghkanic (great fall in the woods).

The main cataract of the falls is a 215-foot drop (66 m), making it 33 feet (10 m) taller than Niagara Falls. It is one of the largest single-drop waterfalls east of the Rocky Mountains.[2] The water flows through a long gorge with cliffs up to 400 ft high (120 m), characteristic of the area's gorges that give rise to the common "Ithaca is Gorges" bumper stickers and t-shirts. The waterfall and gorge comprise an example of a hanging valley that developed in a very similar fashion to the one at nearby Watkins Glen State Park. None of the local gorges were "carved by glaciers." In fact all of the gorges are post-glacial valleys carved by the streams that still run through them. It is the valleys over which the waterfalls hang that were eroded (over-deepened) by the advance of the Pleistocene ice sheets.

Visitors can reach an excellent view of the waterfall by walking along a 3/4-mile-long trail (1.2 km). The gorge trail is open all year long, unlike the rim trails which are closed to the public in winter. Visitors in autumn can enjoy the picturesque colors of the surrounding trees. Swimming under the waterfall is hazardous and strictly forbidden.




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