Monthly Archives: September 2008

Everyday

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Lately I’ve been listening to Grace Jones quite a bit. Don’t know why, but I do love the albums she recorded with the Compass Point All Stars who included Sly and Robbie among others. Really a crackerjack team of musicians behind her, better than the disco team that recorded her first three albums.

My friend Jet resembled Grace Jones a little bit. He was black and had a fade much like hers. It was the look he was going after and succeeded at least to me after a few drinks. I think the first time I actually heard Grace was when I was visiting my friend Stan in Wallington NJ. We were probably going to a show or something and Stan played the Nightclubbing album which is my favorite Grace Jones record.

Through the years a subconscious gauge on how much someone loved music meant they had to have at least one grace Jones album, preferably one with the Compass Point team. It seemed that a lot of people that I met did. Jimmy Lee, an ex-roommate was infatuated with the song, Living My Life.

A favorite memory of mine, is when I was a bar back at McSwells on Friday nights with Declan and Martha and Slave to the Rhythm was on the jukebox. Slave to the Rhythm is one of my favorite songs of all time, but while bar backing I would invariably play a different version of Slave to the Rhythm on the b-side, called GI Blues.

I called it Heavy Rhythm for a long time. A harder version which is perfect for walking through the streets of midtown Manhattan. I hear it and I am back behind the bar washing glasses, stocking the beer and telling customers that I wasn’t a bartender. After downloading a version of the song I finally bought the album last night through iTunes, which doesn’t make it an album, but rather a download. I have a cassette somewhere.

Today I checked out some YouTube videos and found something that I hadn’t looked for before to my surprise. It was Lambert Hendricks and Ross singing Everyday. I remember in 1988 coming home from McSwells in an altered state one Monday morning and too wired to sleep, I turned on the tv and watched a show with David Sanborn and Jools Holland called Sunday Night.

Either Jools or David introduced a clip from the 1950s and it just grabbed me right from the start. I was captivated, just watching them swinging and singing. Totally captivated. I told my brother Frank about it and of course, he had some info and gossip about Lambert Hendricks and Ross.

It must have been before the holidays because for Xmas that year Frank got me a copy of Lambert Hendricks and Ross’ Greatest Hits. I loved it and played it quite a bit. A few years after that, I’m working at Right Track Recording and I forget who the client was, but a phone call came in for them.

I picked up the call and asked who it was and the caller said, Jon Hendricks. I sort of bent the rules and asked if he was the same Jon Hendricks from Lambert Hendricks and Ross. He said yes, that he was. I told him about seeing the clip from the 1950s on TV and it was amazing, I gushed.

I could tell that he was impressed that the music he made 40 years earlier was being appreciated by a younger generation. It was a small thrill just chatting with him for a minute. He did visit the Manhattan Transfer, that’s who he was calling for and made it a point to see me and shake my hand, thanking me for knowing his music.

A few years ago, Jon Hendricks and Annie Ross were performing together for what promised to be the last time. Dave Lambert died in a car accident in 1966. Annie was upset that Jon had mentioned that Annie was a junkie back in the day. She honored the engagements that were booked, but after that, never again.

I took Bill for an Xmas present to see them at the Blue Note. Cramped and crowded it wasn’t the best venue to see them but at least I had an opportunity to see the two of them for perhaps the last time.

Here’s the clip that I originally saw twenty years or at least I think it is. I still love it!
2.17.2020: Here’s the studio version, I hope you like it, let me know what you think!

https://youtu.be/ruztzNc8nn4

More Today Than Yesterday

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Hump day hump day hump day. That means it’s Wednesday. No one is impressed. Work was weird today. Caught a slight panic bug from the sole analyst, Esteban. He was one of the Three Stooges but now there is only Esteban. He’s getting married in a week or two. I’m thankfully not invited. Couldn’t afford a gift you see.

The stock market is not too well at all and that is bound to affect the company somehow. I’m staying until the end I think unless they decide to get rid of me too, but thanks to their ineptitude it doesn’t seem likely. So he was panicked and that got to me. You can see the fear and loathing n the faces of many business people in the area and it’s probably a lot worse downtown by Wall Street.

Whatever happens to the big players like AIG, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers (and soon Washington Mutual) will eventually have a ripple effect on my little five person firm. On top of that there is the election where McCrazy and Pallid and just tossing out lies, not really getting into the issues since they really have no leg to stand on in that regard.

I spent sometime with my sock puppet arguing with wrong wing sycophants on a Daily News discussion board which did not help my frame of mind. I knew it would be like this last year and despite my knowing, still I throw myself into the mess. Just now a commercial for McCrazy who claims he’ll be able to turn this economic crisis around, even though his ‘former’ advisor Phil Gramm is one of the architects of this fiasco and despite the fact that McCrazy stated himself that he really doesn’t know much about economics.

How anyone could listen to this idiot and take him seriously is definitely lost on me. Surprisingly a lot of people do. And then there are the ones who will never ever vote for a black man, no matter what. Juan reminded me of that. Living in the tri-state metropolitan area the majority of people I am in contact with are somewhat like minded and it’s easy to forget that there are a lot of people between coasts that do not think like me.

So there is the fear that November 4 might not be as good as I had hoped. I learned that lesson in the last presidential election. That awful sinking feeling as I watched the results come in. Now Obama is much more charismatic that Kerry and a hundred times as inspirational, but that might just fall by the wayside.

I know in my 46 years of being here I might not have seen much but in the past 8 years I think I have seen enough. Last night I was telling Brenda about how Bill and I took to the streets 5 years ago to protest the impending war. Millions around the world did the same that February day but we were ignored since Bush Co. was going to do whatever the hell it wanted to do, which killed whatever empathy and support existed following the attacks on September 11.

Now five years later things are even worse, making those days before the war seem somewhat golden in retrospect. McCrazy plans on bringing Pallid to the United Nations so the huntress could finally meet foreign heads of state. There are so many things piling up against Pallid, her lies, her drunken power etc, how can this be ignored? By the wrong wing attacking Obama’s character since they can’t go on issues. But I’ve already said that.

America- what a country!