(from http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_music.html#vGMC3c51rp64YyJ9.99)
"Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything."
-Plato
"One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain."
-Bob Marley
"If music be the food of love, play on. "
-William Shakespeare
"I think music in itself is healing. It's an explosive expression of humanity. It's something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we're from, everyone loves music."
-Billy Joel
"Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent."
-Victor Hugo
"Music in the soul can be heard by the universe. "
-Lao Tzu
"Without music, life would be a mistake."
-Friedrich Nietzsche
"It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature and everlasting beauty of monotony."
-Benjamin Britten
"Where words fail, music speaks."
-Hans Christian Andersen
Scared Money (Don't Win)
from Where Words Do Not Reach by OHO (Jay Graboski, David Reeve, Ray Jozwiak and a host of others)
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)
I would like to send you OHO's latest album via WeTransfer for airplay on PRM. 'Where Words Do Not Reach' is an archival collection of OHO's instrumental works dating back to 1974 and ending with a couple of new tunes. For the more adventuresome listener there is a lot to appreciate here starting with the intense album opening "Board Organ" where furious drumming, off kilter keyboards and fiery guitar run amok in an all-out progressive psychedelic jam. "Nocturnal Recurrence" is another solid track and very heavy on the keyboards while "Albumblatt" is an excellent all acoustic guitar number with impressive fret work from O'Sullivan and serves as a nice reprieve from the previous chaos. "Motion of Motion" is another fine acoustic guitar piece followed by the much heavier "Snow Lady/I Crawled" where the band's eclecticism shows up in the form of wild keyboard sounds and a somewhat darker theme. The band continues its genre hopping with the pop inspired "Aubrey Circle Dance" and the feel good country grooves in Non-Sex Nonsense". The album ends with two new tracks, "Slough of Despond" and "Unique", both having a more refined sound with the latter featuring mostly piano and Graboski's treated guitar chords. Where Words Do Not Reach covers a wide range of styles and sounds, enhanced by the band's eclectic arrangements and tuneful songwriting. Please visit www.ohomusic.com
Unique
from Where Words Do Not Reach by OHO (2015)
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)
. . . your little game of self-importance
Show us just how wonderful you are
Dazzle with deception all the minions
Who have placed their trust in you
So innocent so true
Have you never placed yourself in someone else's shoes
Have you never tried to see their point of view
You're thorough to ensure that everything will go your way
Would you like them all to do the same to you
So now I find you don't want to look me in the eye
I hope I never sympathize with things you do
in the unrelenting interest of you
Back in school they taught us to be civil
Treat each other how you'd like to be
Even though you'd like to think you're special
We're the same both you and me
Have you ever tried to focus and just see
So now I find you don't want to look me in the eye
I hope I never sympathize with things you do
in the unrelenting interest of you
Walk a mile in someone else's shoes to know
Exactly how they feel
You might think the world owes you a favor but
It's still not right to steal
Please believe you me I'm not that sterling
Everyone does things they can regret
Even in the noblest you will find
Humanity will cause diversion from the truest path
But now I find you don't want to look me in the eye
I hope I never sympathize with things you do
in the unrelenting interest of you
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)
The bar was moderately full and the manager said we could play. As a matter of fact, he said we could begin at any time. But we didn't even know where the stage was or how to access the venue to load our gear in. Meantime, more and more people flowed into the room(s). MANY, MANY more people flowed into the room. Now the manger was sounding annoyed. "You can start whenever you're ready!" Ready? How could we be ready when we still haven't located a door? (Flash to a parking garage) Equipment unloaded from vehicles and stacked ready to be brought in. Finally, directions were received regarding access to an elevator and the venue. Two of us began to load the gear into the elevator, while the remaining man agreed to park the cars. Wheeling what appears to be a Leslie tone cabinet into the lift I suddenly and regretfully realize that . . .
I FORGOT TO BRING MY 'OHO' UNIFORM!!!!
AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
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)
. . . although there have probably been many others worse, or at least as bad, than this. . . it certainly seemed beyond belief at the time.
The bear of it all was that we didn't even play. The whole thing seemed like some long, drawn-out, absurd awards ceremony-type of thing with lots of gratuitous thank-yous, gushing and fawning. Meantime we were simply anxious. Anxious about when we would play. Anxious about setting-up. Anxious about how long we would take to set-up and anxious about how long they expected us to take to set-up.
And then. . . just like that . . . it was over! They didn't even ask us to set-up, to play, to get ready to set-up or get ready to play. What a downer!! And we were in the back-end of the huge venue, not really sure how far we were from where we had parked and where we had left our gear in anticipation of playing.
The other guys seemed to have gotten their gear packed back into their vehicles and I was the last but not quite sure where my stuff actually was. We did locate it and there was confusion as to where the best exit was located from which I should leave.
Then an employee emphatically told me that I had to have everything removed within a short time period to make way for the following event, which seemed unreasonably short. And without explanation I found myself outside, with my vehicle, ready for loading but somehow the vehicle slipping from within my control. It actually drifted downhill, into traffic on the road and a semi merged mysteriously between my car and me. I watched helplessly as the car sped, driver-less, ahead, downhill quickly beyond my reach (as if I could physically have stopped it alone anyway) until it crashed into a wall at the end of the road where only left and right were the only options had there been an actual driver.
Soon I found myself with Pam, pouring out my heart in explanation and saying, "If it had not been a dream I may have been able to DO SOMETHING!" But I said this to her in my dream. . .
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)
. . . in the name of humor. Purportedly Sonny Rollins' own words. . . possibly. . . but undoubtedly re-arranged . . .
(from http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/sonny-rollins-words)
I started playing the saxophone when I was thirteen years old. There
were some other kids on my block who had taken it up, and I thought that
it might be fun. I later learned that these guys’ parents had forced
them into it.
* * *
The saxophone sounds
horrible. Like a scared pig. I never learned the names of most of the
other instruments, but they all sound awful, too. Drums are O.K.,
because sometimes they’ll drown out the other stuff, but it’s all pretty
bad. Jazz
might be the stupidest thing anyone ever came up with. The band starts a
song, but then everything falls apart and the musicians just play
whatever they want for as long they can stand it. People take turns
noodling around, and once they run out of ideas and have to stop, the
audience claps. I’m getting angry just thinking about it.
Sometimes we would run through the same song over and over again to see if anybody noticed. If someone did, I don’t care.
* * *
There
was this one time, in 1953 or 1954, when a few guys and I had just
finished our last set at Club Carousel, and we were about to pack it in
when in walked Bud Powell and Charlie Parker. We must have jammed
together for five more hours, right through sunrise. That was the worst
day of my life.
* * *
We always dressed
real sharp: pin-stripe suits, porkpie hats, silk ties. As if to conceal
the fact that we were spending all our time playing jazz in some
basement. I remember Dexter Gordon was doing a gig at the 3
Deuces, and at one point he leaned into the microphone and said, “I
could sell this suit and this saxophone and get far away from here.” The
crowd laughed.
* * *
I really don’t know why
I keep doing this. Inertia, I guess. Once you get stuck in a rut, it’s
difficult to pull yourself out, even if you hate every minute of it.
Maybe I’m just a coward. If I could do it all over again, I’d probably be an accountant or a process server. They make good money.
* * *
Once
I played the Montreux Jazz Festival, in Switzerland, with Miles Davis. I
walked in on him smoking cigarettes and staring at his horn for what
must have been fifteen minutes, like it was a poisonous snake and he
wasn’t sure if it was dead. Finally Miles stood up, turned to his band,
and said, “All right, let’s get through this, and then we’ll go to the
airport.” He looked like he was about to cry.
* * *
I
released fifty-odd albums, wrote hundreds of songs, and played on God
knows how many session dates. Some of my recordings are in the Library
of Congress. That’s idiotic. They ought to burn that building to the
ground. I hate music. I wasted my life.
. . . in proper order. . . they sound more like this . . .
(from http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/sony-rollins-the-colossus-20130819)When I visited Sonny Rollins at his home in Germantown, New York, a semi-hardscrabble hamlet 100 miles up the Hudson River, the 82-year-old jazzman they call the Saxophone Colossus was doing his laundry. "Oh, man, come on in, man," Sonny said in his reedy, slightly high-pitched voice as he stuck his head out the back door of the modest house, blood-orange skullcap on his kingly, lantern-jawed head. Jumble of shirts fresh from the dryer in his arms, he led me through the cluttered kitchen to a sitting room. "Be with you in a minute," he said with a sigh.
For Sonny, certainly one of the greatest tenor-saxophone players in the history of the instrument invented by Adolphe Sax in 1841, and a key figure in jazz for more than half a century, it is a drag any time "the celestial Big Picture" is infringed upon by "the Little Picture," which the musician defines as "that day-to-day crap you have to put up with on this misbegotten planet.". . .
"That was my life back then – I thought it would always go on like that, never change," Sonny said. Now, on "the wrong side of 81," he could feel the metronome inside his head ticking away, each instant too precious to be squandered on the puny minutiae of the day-to-day.
For instance, only that week he'd spent nearly the entire morning down in the Big Apple, making an episode of The Simpsons. Sonny played a holographic image of himself that hovers, godlike, outside the bedroom window of perhaps his best-known mainstream musical disciple, Lisa Simpson. Sonny had three lines, which he dutifully repeated over and over again, coached by a voice on a speakerphone originating 3,000 miles away in Los Angeles. Later, Sonny said that taking all morning to produce a hologram visible only to a TV cartoon character was "kind of strange," especially for someone who'd managed to cut albums like Tenor Madness and Saxophone Colossus in a few short hours on a two-track machine located in Rudy Van Gelder's Hackensack, New Jersey, studio.
"Technology, man," Sonny said with a shrug. "All this little stuff interrupts my chain of thought. Consequently, I haven't been able to properly practice my horn the way I have to," he said, emerging from the laundry room in a loose-fitting khaki shirt, a pair of baggy gray sweatpants, and thick white socks stuffed into open-toe leather slippers. "If I don't get to practice, work on my embouchure and scales, then I can't play correctly, and if I can't play correctly, I can't work out my ideas, and if I can't work out my ideas, then I go crazy." . . .
One of the great stories in the annals of jazz, or any other modern creative endeavor, Sonny's two-year "sabbatical," time spent practicing alone on the desolate, decrepit walkway of the Williamsburg Bridge in New York, remains the jazzman's emblematic moment. It was a radical move. After all, Sonny had already fronted groups that included Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, and Max Roach. Saxophone Colossus, recorded in 1956 and including all-time classic performances of "St. Thomas," "Strode Road," and "Blue 7," established him as a star.
Yet Sonny wasn't happy. "It wasn't like I was playing bad," he told me. "I just knew I could get better, that I had to get better."
The original plan had been to woodshed in his Grand Street apartment on the Lower East Side, but the lady next door had just had a baby, and he thought if he played too loud he'd give the child "bad ears." That's what led him to the bridge – 135 feet above the roiling East River, he could really let loose under the sky and the stars with the whole city laid out before him. Musicians all over town thought he was nuts. Why did he need all this practice? He was the best; wasn't that good enough? But those people didn't hear what Sonny heard. He was nothing but a glorified beginner, Sonny believed, a work in progress. There were places he needed to go. When he got there, that's when he'd come back.
Tell Sonny that the image of the brilliant jazzman seeker – the lone figure amid the chaotic howl of the city, blowing his horn in quest of a bit of sanity – has always been a source of personal inspiration and he will be touched by the comment. Mention that he's your favorite player, along with Sidney Bechet and Johnny Hodges, and he'll shake his head slowly. "To be put with those guys, wow. That's a real compliment." Go on to say that you always hummed "St. Thomas" for your children when they were tiny, and a few years later your daughters made you a birthday card with a handmade tinfoil saxophone in the middle of roughly drawn treble clefs along with the words Sonny Rollins, and the Colossus will begin to tear up. . .
"You mean, like you're going to play this music and the rivers are suddenly going to run backward?" I asked, trying to be funny. After all, he was already perhaps the greatest single improviser in the history of jazz. No one had his emotional range, the ability to one moment be riffing like a musical stand-up comedian and then, abruptly, be tearing your heart out with the abject blues of the human condition. What about that fabulous opening to Monk's "Misterioso"? How about that spectacular ending to "God Bless the Child"?
This made Sonny laugh. When Sonny laughs, you know it. He bends his neck back nearly 45 degrees, casts his eyes skyward, and his mouth becomes a widening circle. Ha-ha-ha, he goes, loudly, like howling at the moon, albeit with perfect breath control.
"Don't you see, that's exactly the point," Sonny chortled as he clamped his skullcap onto to his head. "Those notes you mention, those notes have already been blown."
. . . I'm sure the latter is much more accurate . . .
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)
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)
Jay's interview on Seacrets radio in OC went really well. The Ditty sounded great. The staff reacted favorably. And Oho was invited to play, live on the radio. All's right with the world.
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).
My latest solo 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)
(from www.wikipedia.com)
". . . Recording sessions took place at Columbia's 30th Street Studio over the course of three days in August 1969. [Miles]Davis called the musicians to the recording studio on very short notice. A few pieces on Bitches Brew were rehearsed before the recording sessions, but at other times the musicians had little or no idea what they were to record. Once in the recording studio, the players were typically given only a few instructions: a tempo count, a few chords or a hint of melody, and suggestions as to mood or tone. Davis liked to work this way; he thought it forced musicians to pay close attention to one another, to their own performances, or to Davis's cues, which could change at any moment. On the quieter moments of "Bitches Brew", for example, Davis's voice is audible, giving instructions to the musicians: snapping his fingers to indicate tempo, or, in his distinctive whisper, saying, "Keep it tight" or telling individuals when to solo.
Davis composed most of the music on the album. The two important exceptions were the complex "Pharaoh's Dance" (composed by Joe Zawinul) and the ballad "Sanctuary" (composed by Wayne Shorter). The latter had been recorded as a fairly straightforward ballad early in 1968, but was given a radically different interpretation on Bitches Brew. It begins with Davis and Chick Corea improvising on the standard "I Fall in Love too Easily" before Davis plays the "Sanctuary" theme. Then, not unlike Davis's recording of Shorter's "Nefertiti" two years earlier, the horns repeat the melody over and over while the rhythm section builds up the intensity. The issued "Sanctuary" is actually two consecutive takes of the piece.
Despite his reputation as a "cool", melodic improviser, much of Davis's playing on this album is aggressive and explosive, often playing fast runs and venturing into the upper register of the trumpet. His closing solo on "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down" is particularly noteworthy in this regard. Davis did not perform on the short piece "John McLaughlin". . . "
To me, American football is an entertainment and marketing phenomenon. The sheer number of fans
(i.e. Fanatic)
Definition of FANATIC
: marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion <they're fanatic about politics>
alone boggles the mind.
(from wikipedia.com)
". . . The first instance of professional play in football was on November 12, 1892, when William "Pudge" Heffelfinger was paid $500 to play a game for the Allegheny Athletic Association in a match against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club. This is the first recorded instance of a player being paid to participate in a game of American football, although many athletic clubs in the 1880s offered to help players attain employment, gave out trophies or watches that players would pawn for money, or paid double in expense money. Football at the time had a strict sense of amateurism, and direct payment to players was frowned upon, if not outright illegal.
Professional play became common, and with it came rising salaries, unpredictable player movement, and the illegal use of amateur collegiate players in professional games. The National Football League, a group of professional teams that was originally established in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, aimed to solve these problems. This new league's stated goals included an end to bidding wars over players, prevention of the use of college players, and abolition of the practice of paying players to leave another team. The NFL by 1922 had established itself as the premier professional football league.
The dominant form of football at the time was played at the collegiate level, but the upstart NFL received a boost to its legitimacy in 1925 when an NFL team, the Pottsville Maroons, defeated a team of Notre Dame all-stars in an exhibition game.[18] A greater emphasis on the passing game helped professional football to further distinguish itself from the college game during the late 1930s. Football in general became increasingly popular following the 1958 NFL Championship game, a match between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants that is still referred to as the "Greatest Game Ever Played". The game, a 23–17 overtime victory by the Colts, was seen by millions of television viewers and had a major impact on the popularity of the sport. This helped football to become the most popular sport in the United States by the mid-1960s. . . "
I used to try to understand it so I could watch it with others and participate in the enthusiasm and fellowship of the occasion. I have to confess, I never fully grasped the concept. In time I even stopped trying. Don't get me wrong, I truly understand and appreciate the concept of cheering for the local team (in any sport) and feel that the camaraderie that results is good for the individuals as well as the society. But I still don't understand, nor at this point in my life need or want to understand, the game of football.
Nevertheless I most certainly do intend to fully participate in the 'good vibes' inherent in the process next Sunday at the party, drinking and enjoying good friendship when we all gather to watch football, even though I still don't understand the game.
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