The GGA Project -- Day #356 "Pretty Sure This Whole Project Was Leading to This..."

Stanley Turrentine came, I missed that series of shows, and then he died.


Dave Brubeck has come and gone 10 times since I moved to the Bay Area, and I missed all of those shows, too.  


In fact, most every living jazz great who still plays has been to this place I've been trying to visit since moving to the Bay Area, and I've missed them all.  So I knew there was NO WAY I was letting this project end without experiencing


Today's New Activity: Yoshi's!!!!!!


If you know me even a little, you probably know that I like jazz, and that I especially like hearing it live.  But somehow I've just never made the concerted effort to get to Yoshi's.  First of all, it's kind of pricey--for a student's budget anyway.  So there were a number of years when it just wasn't feasible.  And then it was.  But it just kind of dropped off my radar for a while, and when it would come to mind....I don't know.  The bottom line is that I just didn't get there.


A few weeks ago I even got really close.  I found myself across the street from the original, more well-known Oakland location when my friend Neal and I checked out Jack London Square.  This time around I grabbed Neal again and headed to the newer location in San Francisco, namely because the project was almost over and--of the upcoming performers--the one playing tonight in SF was the one I most wanted to see.

I really, really, really wish I had both better pictures and some accompanying audio for this post, but all I had with me was my phone camera, and audio was, of course, discouraged (in fact, we witnessed what happens when somebody breaks that rule.  A guy down below in the crowd flashes his flashlight at the perp and makes the hand-to-the-throat, slashing motion.  Ooooooooooh).

Lookit that.  A boda fide jazz club, replete with two-top bistro tables, an amazing sound system, and just enough room cleared of tables for the feelin'-it couples there tonight to dance their asses off to Eddie Palmieri's salsa orchestra.  What energy (not so much from Eddie himself, who was celebrating his 75th birthday(!)--though one thing I do love about jazz musicians is that they just keep right on grooving into old age)!

I loved the moments when the musicians just kind of worked up into a frenzy, the pure joy coming through in their smiles.  And--as always when I listen to jazz--I spent a nice moment remembering my grandfather, who introduced me to the genre in the first place.  It was also really nice to sense Neal, who's a bit new to jazz/salsa at this point, feeling the groove too.

Though there's a week and a half left of my project, I can honestly say that my mission here has been accomplished.  Not because of today's activity alone, but because I can say with confidence that the year of reaching into new, unfamiliar realms has somehow led me right back to myself...to me...the version I always liked best and knew was still in there somewhere.  It seems a bit paradoxical, but it's true.

Tonight I will sleep well, and in a new kind of peace....

The GGA Project -- Day #5 "Scooby Do Wop"

When Chuck Palahniuk's Diary started spewing four-letter words out of the CD player this morning, I decided to switch to the radio because the baby was in the car.  I can hardly listen to the radio these days on account of so little good music to break up the long blocks of obnoxious commercials.  Usually, I listen to either KQED/NPR or KCSM, the Jazz station (though this time of year there's a wee bit of wiggle room in the form of the all-Christmas-all-the-time KOIT).  Wow, writing that just made me feel like a 60-something Volvo driver.

Anyway, I love listening to the jazz station with the monkey in the car because he totally digs it.  He always gets this big goofy smile on his face and starts grooving in his car seat, especially during horn solos.


So this morning we were listening and a great version of "Blue Skies" came on, sung by a woman named Jennifer Leigh.  I wasn't able to find any copy/version of it to share here, but it'd be worth hunting down if you're interested.  I was really feeling this song and this version and decided it was a perfect moment to take on  Today's New Activity:  Scatting.


Ok, I need to clarify here.  For many people my age, "scat" means something very different than what I'm talking about here, and it usually involves The Japanese.  But I don't mean *that* kind of scat.  I'm talking about "Doop doop, dowawa scooby dop da" kind of scat, the art of jazz vocal improvisation.  Ella Fitzgerald was a master:

That's like CRAZY scatting.  You can get a little more down-to earth version here, from Jill Scott and George Benson:

(incidentally, this is the best version of the song "Summertime" I've ever heard, and I think if you can keep your head and/or feet still all the way through it you are defunct in some way and I probably don't want to know you)  :)

Scatting--or any kind of musical improvisation, really--is not easy.  And it's definitely not easy to do and not sound kind of corny.  My dear friend Kelsi is always down for any kind of musical jam session, vocal or instrumental, or both.  And I think it is part of her life's mission to try and convince other people to join her.  But for me, the hardest part of joining in on that particular kind of fun (aside from the fact that I don't play an instrument and have a voice that is, at best, average) is the part that involves letting go.  I mean you just have to really get past the fear of looking or sounding stupid in order to let come what may.  Many people don't care much for that loss-of-control feeling, and I am definitely among them.


Maybe it was because the song was so great, or maybe it was because my incredibly forgiving-of-faults 14-month-old son was my only audience, or maybe it's because chief among things on my mind lately is the idea of letting go and letting life in -- whatever it was, that scat just flowed right on out of me and filled the air inside my Toyota Matrix with a sense of whimsy, of devil-may-care lightness, of FREEDOM.  It's that freedom and energy-filled, organized chaos that has always drawn me to jazz, and it was invigorating to make some amateur vocal music of my own, if only for 3 minutes and 30 seconds during my morning commute.