pianogonzology

Thursday, April 23, 2015

Cold . . .

. . . sweet memories

(from http://articles.latimes.com/1991-11-05/news/wr-1156_1_ice-cream)
Around 50 years ago . . . ". . . Fidel Castro ordered his ambassador to Canada to ship him 28 containers of Howard Johnson's ice cream, one of each flavor. After tasting them all, Castro declared that his Cuban revolution must produce a quality ice cream of its own. So the Communist government plunged headlong into the helado business. An ice cream factory sprang up on the highway to Havana's airport, while an abandoned hospital in the city's busy Vedado district came down to make way for one of the world's largest ice cream parlors. Cecilia Sanchez, Castro's private secretary and close companion since their guerrilla days, took charge of the enterprise and named it Coppelia, after her favorite ballet. She designed the plaid skirts worn by waitresses at the two-story parlor since its inauguration June 4, 1966. As the revolution matured, Coppelia sprouted scores of branches in cities and towns across the Caribbean island. By 1980, the year Sanchez died, it was serving more than 50 flavors, from almond to walnut. . . "

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

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Normal . . .

(from The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression by Andrew Solomon)
(. . . Though effective treatments exist even for diseases we do not begin to understand, knowing how the components of a disease are related helps us to discern its immediate precipitants and address them. It helps us to understand a constellation of symptoms and to see in what ways one system my influence another. Most of the systems of explanation for illness-the biochemical, the psychoanalytic, the behavioral, and the sociocultural-are fragmentary and leave many things unexplained, and highly irregular and unsystematic. Why do particular feelings and particular actions correlate in illness but not in health? "Psychiatry's most pressing need," (Michael) McGuire and (Alfonso) Triosi write, "is to embrace evolutionary theory and to begin the process of identifying its most important data and of testing novel explanations of disorders. Attempts to explain behavior, normal or otherwise, without having an in-depth understanding of the species one is studying invite misinterpretation." . . . "

What do you think?

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Marching . . .

. . . onward . . .

I had the pleasure to add a piano melody to this movement from Jay's 'Ahora' suite, which is creatively simmering to perfection under his watchful eye (and ears). With some motivation ("What's my motivation Mr. DeMille?") and the free time to devote one's undivided attention without the pressure of other commitments, the process of feeling the music and using one's imagination to add a melody that positively supplements the beauty of the basic music is at the same time intriguing, challenging, gratifying . . . and fun!

Requiem For Dolmis (from Ahora)
Mix by OHO April 2015

What do you think?

Sunday, April 19, 2015

Monday. . .

at Brewer's Alley in Frederick . . .

Brewer's Alley Songwriters' Showcase MONDAY APRIL 20 -- Music starts at 7:15 -- Ray Jozwiak -- Bill Mulroney -- Tom Blood -- Chris Anderson is the featured artist -- 124 North Market Street/route 355 -- Since May 2007 at this location -- Questions? Contact Roderick Deacey -- Todd Walker -- John Holly -Ron Goad -- Take the elevator to the 2nd-floor listening room.

What do you think?

Saturday, April 18, 2015

Game . . .

. . . change . . .

(from http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/245085)
". . . Gravity Payments founder Dan Price has just announced yet another game-changing proposition.
Over the next three years, the 30-year-old plans to raise the minimum salary for every employee at his credit card processing company to $70,000, he told The New York Times. . ."

He reached his decision after reading a study that said money makes a major difference in the lives of those who make less than $70,000. The initiative will be funded by cutting his own $1 million salary to $70,000 and allocating 75 to 80 percent of the company’s expected $2.2 million in profits this year. 70 employees will get raises and some will see their salaries double. The current average salary is $48,000. “The market rate for me as a CEO compared to a regular person is ridiculous, it’s absurd,” he told the Times. The announcement was met by ecstatic cheers followed by speechlessness on the part of employees.

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 will be released April 7, 2014 Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak

The Gig . . .

. . . from hell . . .

. . . 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. . .

. . . and then I awoke.

What do you think?

Friday, April 17, 2015

Strange . . .

. . . but compelling . . .

(from http://www.npr.org/2012/09/05/158933012/the-strange-story-of-the-man-behind-strange-fruit)
One of Billie Holiday's most iconic songs is "Strange Fruit," a haunting protest against the inhumanity of racism. Many people know that the man who wrote the song was inspired by a photograph of a lynching. But they might not realize that he's also tied to another watershed moment in America's history.

The man behind "Strange Fruit" is New York City's Abel Meeropol, and he really has two stories. They both begin at Dewitt Clinton High School, a public high school in the Bronx that has an astonishing number of famous people in its alumni. James Baldwin went there. So did Countee Cullen, Richard Rodgers, Burt Lancaster, Stan Lee, Neil Simon, Richard Avedon and Ralph Lauren.

Meeropol graduated from Dewitt Clinton in 1921; he went on to teach English there for 17 years. He was also a poet and a social activist, says Gerard Pelisson, who wrote a book about the school.

In the late 1930s, Pellison says, Meeropol "was very disturbed at the continuation of racism in America, and seeing a photograph of a lynching sort of put him over the edge."

Meeropol once said the photograph "haunted" him "for days." So he wrote a poem about it, which was then printed in a teachers union publication. An amateur composer, Meeropol also set his words to music. He played it for a New York club owner — who ultimately gave it to Billie Holiday.

When Holiday decided to sing "Strange Fruit," the song reached millions of people. While the lyrics never mention lynching, the metaphor is painfully clear:

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
And the sudden smell of burning flesh!

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

What do you think?