Some common sense to begin restoring America to its former position of respect and admiration:
No more drone strikes. They don't stop, but help to make terrorists.
Save money and help the cause by closing the drone airbases.
Free Guantanamo prisoners which have already been cleared for release. Holding them is an affront to humanity and hypocrisy with regard to our values.
Apologize and compensate the families of innocent people hurt or killed by drones or other military action.
Withdraw all US
troops from Afghanistan.
Talk. The Taliban and more rational elements of Al Qaeda have indicated they are open to negotiations. History shows a large percentage of terrorists groups have been dissolved by joining the political process.
End support of dictatorships and repressive leaders.
Business selling weapons might be good for US weapons makers but not for the rest of us.
Support non-violent democracy movements. Chaos and instability only help terrorists.
Stop disregarding international law and national sovereignty in killing terrorism suspects.
Use foreign aid to support education, healthcare and
elimination of poverty.
(from The New York Times)
“I was in a rock band, I played with a bunch of Brazilians, I played R&B with Parliament-Funkadelic and all of that,” he said in an interview before his most recent album, “DreamWeaver,” was released last month. “I mean, I’ve done jazz with Miles Davis and Cannonball Adderley. It’s a goulash. It’s a gumbo.
George Duke, who as a small boy begged his mother to buy him a piano after she took him to see Duke Ellington, began playing professionally at a time when many musicians were interested in blending genres. He played in a trio that backed the singer Al Jarreau while he was still a teenager, then accompanied Dizzy Gillespie and other jazz musicians at clubs in San Francisco. By the early 1970s he had performed and recorded with Adderley, the jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty and Zappa’s Mothers of Invention.
Zappa “told me one day that I should play synthesizers,” Mr. Duke wrote on his Web site. “It was as simple as that!” Urged by Zappa, he said, he experimented with a few types of synthesizers before settling on the ARP Odyssey, “purely to be different from Jan Hammer, who was playing the Minimoog.”
Critics sometimes said that Mr. Duke’s music was too smooth, not
challenging enough, and that he was too eager to court a broad audience.
He disagreed. “I really think it’s possible (and still do) to make good music and be
commercial at the same time,” Mr. Duke wrote. “I believe it is the
artist’s responsibility to take the music to the people. Art for art’s
sake is nice; but if art doesn’t communicate, then its worth is negated.
It has not fulfilled its destiny.”
(from wikipedia.com)
The Hammond organ was invented by Laurens Hammond and John M Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Various models were produced, which originally used tonewheels to generate sound via additive synthesis, where component waveform ratios are mixed by sliding drawbars. Around 2 million Hammond organs have been manufactured, and it has been described as one of the most successful organs ever. The organ is commonly used with, and associated with, the Leslie speaker.
The organ was originally marketed and sold by the Hammond Organ Company to churches as a lower-cost alternative to the wind-driven pipe organ, and as an alternative to the piano. It quickly became popular with professional jazz musicians, who found it to be a cheaper alternative to the big band. Jimmy Smith's use of the Hammond B-3, with its additional harmonic percussion feature, inspired a generation of organ players, and its use became more widespread in the 1960s and 1970s in rhythm and blues, rock and reggae, as well as being an important instrument in progressive rock.
The Hammond Organ Company struggled financially during the 1970s as they abandoned tonewheel organs and switched to manufacturing instruments using integrated circuits. These instruments never caught on with notable musicians and groups as the tonewheels had done before, and the company went out of business in 1985. The Hammond name was purchased by Suzuki Musical Instrument Corporation who proceeded to manufacturer digital simulations of the most popular tonewheel organs. This culminated in the production of the "New B-3" in 2002, which provided an accurate recreation of the original B-3 organ using modern digital technology.
Hammond-Suzuki continues to manufacturer a variety of organs for both the professional player and the church. Other companies, such as Korg, Roland and Clavia have also achieved success in providing emulations of the original tonewheel organs. The sound of a tonewheel Hammond can also be emulated in modern software such as Native Instruments B4.
I just stumbled upon a video of your band on YouTube. I heard you guys at the beach last year. Very nice. Jay and David (founding members of OHO) know your keyboardist very well and actually played in a band with him years ago.
Anyway, still hoping OHO can get a date(s) from you at the Downtown Club. Fall or winter would be fine if your schedule is full.
Best,
Ray Jozwiak
Oho
Dear Ray,
I've had time to listen to some of your stuff and I don't think it's going to fly at The Downtown. We mainly book high energy pop/rock cover bands. Our demographic Thursday through Saturday nights is more of the young university crowd. We don't really do original bands & the covers you guys do are pretty obscure.
Thank you for taking the time to listen to Oho and for your kind response.
I presume you mean by 'high energy pop/rock cover bands' that each of them play virtually identical repertoire of predictable selections. Also, do I read into your comment 'high-energy' that for some reason (longevity?) you presume a lack of or a 'low' energy quotient in us?
It seems odd to me that you give the university crowd, a population who is dedicating or will dedicate 4 to 6 years of their lives to LEARNING NEW THINGS, no credit for artistic open-mindedness. Possibly you should reconsider ORIGINAL bands for the venue.
We seem to think that Beatles/McCartney/Lennon material as well as Leonard Cohen, the Rolling Stones, Peter Gabriel and the like are ANYTHING BUT obscure. But hey, that's just US! What the hell do WE know????
Best,
Ray Jozwiak
Oho
or B?
Dear Mr. Booking Agent,
Thank you for taking the time to listen to Oho and for your kind response. Should you and The Downtown decide on a change in format, we hope you will keep Oho in mind.
From the pen (or computer) of Mr. Rod Deacey, Frederick area music impresario. . .
". . . Brewer’s Alley Songwriters’ Showcase on Monday, August 5, features one of our long-time favorites, all the way from Nashville! – DONNA FROST, who visits the DC area every summer and always comes to Frederick to give her powerful pipes a work-out on some of her country-tinged originals, with the occasional Skeeter Davis or Janis Joplin song thrown in for good measure! This time Donna brings us the added bonus of rockabilly legend BILLY HANCOCK to share the evening and play along; Billy made his name playing bass and singing vocals with the late, great Danny Gatton in Danny and the Fat Boys and is in five Halls of Fame! It’s going to be a don't-miss show!
The piano prelude this week during the Dog Days of summer will be from our favorite seasonal responder – JIMBOW – who will give us some summer music with his usual mix of familiar phrases from other songs embedded in entirely new pieces; just as you are going, “Wasn't that…”, the music has moved on and is somewhere else entirely! Only Jimbow knows where he is going, and even he doesn't know more than a few seconds in advance… But that’s what makes it great entertainment, folks – get your tickets here – but then we don't have tickets, do we? Come early to get good seats for the evening and to catch the whole prelude! You can come upstairs at 7:15 pm (maybe 5 minutes or so earlier than that if we're ready; performers can come up when they arrive).
For cameo appearances this Monday, we are delighted to welcome CRUMPLED HAT (Rick CRUMP and Les HATley, who have been playing together for more than 20 years; not all the time, of course), the fabulous McTELL BROTHERS, who have been wowing us since they were knee-high to a grasshopper (they are larger now, and still scarily talented!), plus JASON SCHAARSCHMIDT, who has a hard name to spell – hope I have it right! We are also looking forward to the return of TOMY WRIGHT! Poet John Holly will read a couple of poems, and also pass the hat for our featured performers. I may squeeze in a poem or two if time permits…
This week, RON GOAD will hopefully be joined by WALT WAGNER with his cajón (not a needlework storage case!) for their weekly meeting of the beats – and maybe we'll see TOMY WRIGHT back behind the djembes and hi-hat – we live in hope! Last week, the rhythm section was completed by the addition of HOWARD RABACH on bass, who even made me sound good, so he passed the audition – you can come back any time, Howard! Songwriters are welcome to call on our mighty rhythmic resources any time to make their songs sound better, but be careful! When you unleash the beast it is sometimes difficult to get it back in the box…
Mister Goad’s horoscope this week says, “You will be a bit distracted in a good way…” Well, Ron is always a bit distracted, mostly in a good way, so that shouldn't even be in the stars… The words of wisdom this week go on to say, “Your high level of interest in a subject fuels productivity.” Maybe we should get Ron to take a high level of interest in Congress, especially since the majority of us have given up; a 10 percent approval rating tells us that…
Marjorie Thompson’s Guitar Class/Workshop was very much appreciated by attendees last Monday; we are working on getting Marjorie back early next year, as she is rethinking her two-year schedule… If you missed her class this time, you may have another opportunity to catch it relatively soon… Watch this space!
Make a trip to Brewer’s Alley this Monday evening to hear DONNA FROST and BILLY HANCOCK, plus our line-up of talented cameo performers! And remember, songwriters have a limited income, no health insurance and an uncertain future – and by ‘future’ I mean the rest of the week… Please come and watch them and listen to them and sympathize – it’s the only validation they need! Don't get too chummy, though, or they may follow you home, especially if they think you may have food and/or alcoholic beverages, so don't let your guard down for a second… If necessary, you can distract them by buying one of their CDs – they all have them, I'm afraid, often with photos or drawings of trees on them… Nobody knows why; don't bother asking! . . ."
(from wikipedia.com) Black-and-white as a description may be considered a misnomer in that the images are not ordinarily starkly contrasted black and white but combine black and white in a continuum producing a range of shades of gray. Further, many prints, especially those produced earlier in the development of photography, were in sepia (mainly for archival stability), which yielded richer, more subtle shading than reproductions in plain black-and-white. Color photography provides a much greater range of shade, but part of the appeal of black and white photography is its more subdued monochromatic character.
Black & White (then Back) is also the name of my latest solo piano release and describes the range of colors experienced by my very own fingers on the keyboard as I attempt to express my innermost emotions through acoustic grand pianoforte compositions and improvisations, captured digitally and included in this collection.
