Something For You: Elaine Elias plays Bill Evans

I’m such a hardcore Bill Evans place, I convinced myself I shouldn’t leave my New Jersey home simply because my town is next to Bill Evans’s birthplace.

I was charmed when I discovered that Elaine Elias had recorded an album as a homage to Bill Evans. Personally I can’t think of anyone who is in a better position to play Evans than Elias. She has jazz chops, and like Evans, she has classical training and has recorded a classical album (“On the Classical Side”), much like Bill Evans’s “Trio with Symphony” and his J.S. Bach noodling in the “Practice Tapes.” Of course, I also love Brazilian music: Gilberto, Jobim, and de Moraes.

Yes, Elias’s voice leans towards nasal when she sings in English on this album, surprisingly absent in the melancholy “Minha,” for me the gem of the album. Whatever you think of her voice, she more than makes up for it in sincerity. I think the music speaks for itself, and though the words help (Elias writes lyrics to Evans “Here is Something For You”), there is so much honesty in her performance, it’s almost unnecessary.

I think it’s unfair to try to compare Elias’s performance with Evans. She definitely makes the Evans standards hers, not succumbing to mere imitation of his shimmering style. By this I mean a sense of restrained elegance, and a light feminine touch. She still has impressive chops: just listen to My Foolish Heart or Here Comes That Rainy Day. It’s just that it has expertly controlled dynamics where Evans’s sometimes leap out at you. For the longest time, I was fond of saying that listening to early Bill Evans was like walking through a beaded glass curtain. Late Bill Evans was watching drops of water released into the middle of a quiet lake. Elias performance is early Bill Evans seen through the gauze of late Bill Evans.

Marc Johnson (bassist for late Bill Evans) and Joey Barron, both in Elias’s provide ample support with the right touch of sadness so crucial to any story about the heartbreaking life of Bill Evans. The solos are short, enabling a roster of 17 tracks, including a closing one that “morphs” from an original Bill Evans cassette – found by Marc Johnson and played to Elias – to the current recording by Elias. There is also pieces from Evans’s New Conversations (which Evans overdubbed with multiple pianos) that Elias reduced to miniatures for one piano. The motif of a particular riff from Waltz for Debby arises throughout the tracks, pulling it all together.

In the liner notes, there is mention of a bonus track for the Japanese release of this recording, containing RE: PERSON I KNEW, which just made me cry and run to my stuff animals for copious hugs.

One of my favorite still-performing bands is coming to town: The Blasters!!!!!!! I love them! And guess what? Same town as Robert Gordon last month! The center of it all: The Saint at Asbury Park, New Jersey March 6. They are also playing New Haven Connecticut on March 4 at Cafe Nine.

You can click on Phil Alvin’s screeching face above to go to their Myspace page to listen to some of their music.

I apologize for using my blog as a bulletin for upcoming gigs, but being in the business for some ten years, I know how difficult it was when we played shows in New York City. So any additional support I can help get, ESPECIALLY for my beloved Rockabilly, Roots Music, and *cough* Tudorian / Elizabethean music…..the only two genres I afflict my readers with….I’ll do it.

Don’t be a square. Show up!

What is it? Everyone debates, but there is no consensus. Mixer, extrovert, showboater?

Yet everyone knows what a wallflower is. I was just having a conversation with the bf the other night about how women tend to be wallflowers. It may sound traditional, and in some quarters, it may even be frowned upon. It would seem that society gives more leeway to women for being wallflowers. For men to be wallflowers, they would be seen as “queens” in the gay world, or socially-impaired in the straight world.

I know I come across articles where interviewed guys say how cool it is for the girl to be the aggressor once in a while, that it is nice for the girl to make the first move. I can sympathize with that. But I am surrounded by traditionalist books chock full of 1950s advice articles. I think it’s okay for the girl to be frightened little creatures, especially in settings where it’s a male-oriented domain. I too, see men who are wallflowers as a tad high-maintenance. I guess that’s what happens after years of soy energy bars, Starbucks Buttofuccocino and Sarah McLachlan mp3s on the IPod.

Trust me, if you are a guy who is after a girl, another tgirl, or even a guy, the bottom half always likes to be pursued. As much as people kick and scream about the perks of modern egalitarian order, there’s nothing quite as sexually arousing as a man on the prowl. He gets kingpin respect, no matter how much he’s not all that. Even though society ladies today flip gangsta signs and get out of confession booths without panties on, a man is still defined by his actions, a gal by her helplessness, or inaction.

Among girls, when they see a fellow sitting there waiting for the women to come to him, the first thing out of our scandalized mouths is, “who does that bloke think he is, a chick?” As a person who has pursued others decades ago – and seen how easy it is – I myself think, this guy is either a princess or he’s lazy as sin.

To be fair, in the game of the hunter and the hunted, what women lack in physical aggression, they more than make up for in signals. I guess it’s the guys who know how to read them that become the first ones past the gate. I think one needs to make the distinction between a wallflower and playing hard-to-get. A wallflower is just too shy to make the first move. Playing hard-to-get is pretending you are unobtainable even after the first move has been made.

Too long for a tweet, too short for an actual entry. Sorry! Will post a real entry later today.

Despite what gossipers are saying about Leno being the meanie, I do wish him well. But if I was someone who got caught in the pageantry leading up to last night’s triumphant return (and I just tuned in to see Coco’s last night several weeks ago, then compared it with Jay’s first night back, I would most likely have said, “This was what the hoopla is all about?”

I like Jay. I think he’s a pro. He can definitely get the standard laughs – one’s you don’t have to work too hard to get. But his routines definitely have a “ghostwriter” feel about them, as if he didn’t really roll up his sleeves the night before to knock them out. So last night’s installment was, well, very predictable, and very safe. And let’s face it, at the end of a long work day, maybe audiences want something predictable before they retire to bed. Maybe naked Max Weinberg in the sex offender’s outcast tents in the backwoods is not an image you want to have before you drift off to sleep, seven hours away from the next work day.

And whenever I get puzzled by the massive conservative votes on poll day, I always need to tell myself, “there’s 48 states between here and California.” Edgy humor about Jewish therapists and masturbating bears may not exactly work with someone who lives in Wyoming and had to put down a Grizzly in the backyard earlier that day.

Still, the return was anything but triumphant. Jamie Foxx was over-the-top in his professional fawner for hire, paid to rouse up the audience. Check’s in the mail. Lindsey Vonn demonstrated why athletes never quite made the leap over to the entertainment world: The audience had to chant U-S-A, U-S-A over her travel-worn voice to keep a viewer from falling asleep, country singer Brad Paisley’s neo-C&W act sealed my suspicions.

When we were driving back from North Carolina, we listened to the present roster of C&W music on the radio. (It was either that or church sermons) We just couldn’t believe how many songs repeated the same images Ad nauseam. By the time we reached Virginia, we were pulling our hairs out: OKAY, OKAY, WE GET IT! YOU’RE A MAN! YOU RIDE A STEER, YOU DRIVE A TRUCK! YOU LIKE THE LADIES! YOU DRINK WHISKEY! YOU GIVE A GOOD BLOWJ- wait, back up one right there Hoss.

But if there’s ever a lineup that screamed “targeted demographic,” it had to be Leno’s Tonight Show v.2 They know who their audience is: Red States people. And who’s tonight’s guest? Sarah Palin.

Keeping in mind that Palin’s appearance opposite Shatner during Conan’s watch was generally seen by his fans as one of the highlights of his 7 month residence, when Leno announced Palin as guest will be her first time ever on the Tonight Show, whatever few Coco supporters who were open-minded enough to give Jay a chance, are gone by today.

When we use to work those “in between” jobs, there’s always one guy who tries too hard to relate, using bombastic Chicago Manual of Style ebonics to show the full-timers that he was, indeed, one of the boys. Slang was dropped quicker than you could say “underaged suburban white teenage girls flashing gangsta handsigns on myspace.” And the funny thing is, you could soooo see the looks of horror on the unfortunate recipients’ faces. I’ve always applied the golden rule of hip: the harder you try, the more you expose yourself.

Coming from a culture that incessantly trumpets all things girly: shopping, doing nails, reading Cosmo, and bad-mouthing men, you can see why I have an insight into the pitfalls of trying too hard.

Recently, HuffPo featured “the most amazing Craigslist ad” on their blog. As I was reading it and thinking about soaping my ears, a part of me was screaming “there’s probably going to be a white boy under all this.” And well, let’s just say, he can counterfeit a culture but is still smart enough to know that when it comes to getting his apartment rented quickly, he’ll need to immediately revert back to a pictorial evidence that his targeted demographic is relieved to confirm (but will never admit).

One can only take so much of those Asians with their Ramen noodles.

Which brings me to speaking the lingo when online. I tried looking up 10 most annoying words on the internet. I can only think of 3 that grinds my gears.

1. LOL (or “I have nothing to contribute”) : I still have not, to this day, after almost 20 years online (when “world wide web” was only a concept and American Online was a black screen with text), ever fingered the three letters “LOL.” Online people use LOL freely and abundantly, even when there’s nothing to laugh at.

Me: my poor mother is in the hospital with Lupus

Some Yahoo hipster dufus: I hope it’s not life-threatening LOL.

2. “This is Random” : Is calling something “random” bad? I always thought life was nothing but chaos theory tamed by Monday morning quarterback analysis. But I’d pick random over its opposite (if random is bad, then its opposite must be good). Would you rather someone deem your presentation “random” or would you prefer they lavish the following compliment:

This is a carefully constructed presentation harnessing the collective synergies of a diversification that successfully targets across-the-board demographics.

No, if anything, random is the farthest thing from a full-out nerd. Random is totally fetch, because let’s be honest with ourselves: excrement happens.

3. “I’m Bored” :

I don’t read as many blogs as I use to, especially now that “tweeting” has become all the rage. Let’s face it, we all can’t be Oscar Wilde or François de La Rochefoucauld in wit and brevity. And who really cares what I am doing at the moment when Ashton Kutcher is tweeting from the toilet? But if you’ve got nothing to say, don’t waste my time or bandwidth my logging on to announce you are bored. Because now you’ve sent a meme of boredom around the world wide web. Entertain me: go read a book offline.

The tragedy was horrible, and saddening. I kept quiet and let every one else do the commenting. But today, I see that two agencies have been dispatched to investigate this death. Come on now. Dwindled taxpayer dollars can be put to better use. I’ll save these agencies the trouble with my congressional hearing-style PowerPoint chart:

Any questions?

Don’t make me pull out the Frog and the Scorpion Story.

As always, it is NOT OK for PETA to contact this blog poster.

don’t lie to yourself: you know you want it

I have said this in a recent entry. The new I-Generation of kids are so pampered, over-protected, and loaded up with unnecessary drugs they’ll grow up to be glass adults. The health care industry is one of the only four profiting businesses left in United States (the other three are religion, the war machine, and college). Every day I am reading something so ridiculous on the news that it simply can’t be ignored. So to inaugurate the final “split” of d332.com into three separate websites and it’s return to “The Art of Not Passing,” I am introducing a new category. The I-Generation. You could read the “i” as the country’s fascination with all things Apple (ie. i-pods, i-pads-i-phones ) or you could take the “i” to mean a over-preoccuppcation with one’s self.

Here is the latest one. Study shows that Hot Dogs are dangerous to kids. “The hot dog is just perfectly designed to act like a plug,” said Deepak Mehta, director of the pediatric aerodigestive center at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. (source: Group Labels Hot Dogs a choking hazard) This fellow must be behind on his Mercedes installment payment.

With all these INVENTED dangers, how in the world are we going to get our kids prepared for the REAL difficulties that lie ahead of them in life when a mere hot-dog is a “risk.” Do these kids even know an actual crises when they see one? Do they even know what to do if two girls were to show up on their doorstep and they can’t locate one cup? How else are we going to raise the kind of outstanding citizens who have the breeding to say “yes please” when 12 inches of steaming meat is unceremoniously shoved in front of their faces?

Next thing you know, a report will be showing that 5 kids hitting one kid in the back of the head with an inflatable fist-shaped toy while pumping warm water from a garden hose onto his face may or may not stunt a career in Tulvan throat singing.

They are only a handful of famous people whose birthday I want to celebrate. Among them are Glenn Gould, John Coltrane, George Bernard Shaw, John McLaughlin, Bill Evans, Carson McCullers, and of course, my beloved Jorges Luis Borges. But the person who deserves the most celebratory performance has got to be my favorite surrealist: Luis Bunuel.

Strange that I was forcing my friends to see Bunuel clips just this Sunday: A Slice of Bunuel, where friends of the Spanish surrealist filmmaker (of L’Âge d’or, Un Chien Andalou, Belle Du Jour (my all time favorite film), The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie, That Obscure Object of Desire) recount crazy stunts pulled by the filmmaker with the help of his partners in crime, Salvador Dali and Andre Breton.

Among the clips is a home movie showing Don Luis mixing some of his frightening strong drinks, one of which was the Bunueloni. Bunuel and his gang were known for dreaming up potent cocktails, which they dared each other to drink. No surprise that gin is a main ingredient, considering that “mother’s ruin” – a name for the hallucinatory nature of the alcohol – may have been responsible for a large part of surrealist imagery.

Luis Bunuel is known for his attention to preparing drinks. He even had one where his name is attached to one. The Bunueloni. Here is an excerpt from his autobiographical book “The Last Sigh.”

To provoke, or sustain, a reverie in a bar, you have to drink English gin, especially in the form of the dry martini. To be frank, given the primordial role played in my life by the dry martini, I think I really ought to give it at least a page. Like all cocktails, the martini, composed essentially of gin and a few drops of Noilly Prat, seems to have been an American invention. Connoisseurs who like their martinis very dry suggest simply allowing a ray of sunlight to shine through a bottle of Noilly Prat before it hits the bottle of gin. At a certain period in America it was said that the making of a dry martini should resemble the Immaculate Conception, for, as Saint Thomas Aquinas once noted the generative power of the Holy Ghost pierced the Virgin’s hymen “like a ray of sunlight through a window—leaving it unbroken.”

Another crucial recommendation is that the ice be so cold and hard that it won’t melt, since nothing’s worse than a watery martini. For those who are still with me, let me give you my personal recipe, the fruit of long experimentation and guaranteed to produce perfect results. The day before your guests arrive; put all the ingredients—glasses, gm, and shaker in the refrigerator. Use a thermometer to make sure the ice is about twenty degrees below zero (centigrade). Don’t take anything out until your friends arrive; then pour a few drops of Noilly Prat and half a demitasse spoon of Angostura bitters over the ice. Shake it then pour it out, keeping only the ice, which retains a faint taste of both. Then pour straight gin over the ice, shake it again, and serve.

(During the 1940s, the director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York taught me a curious variation. Instead of Angostura, he used a dash of Pernod. Frankly, it seemed heretical to me, but apparently it was only a fad.)

After the dry martini comes one of my own modest inventions, the Bunueloni, best drunk before dinner. It’s really a takeoff on the famous Negroni, but instead of mixing Campari, gin, and sweet Cinzano, I substitute Carpano for the Campari. Here again, the gin in sufficient quantity to ensure its dominance over the other two ingredients has excellent effects on the imagination. I’ve no idea how or why, I only know that it works.

—Luis Bunuel, My last Sigh (1982)

Recipe for the Bunueloni
(as demonstrated in a home movie by the director himself, bartending poolside)

3 parts (3 oz) gin
2 parts (2 oz) carpano (Antica or Punt e Mes) Red Vermouth
1 part (1 oz) (Cinzano Rosso) sweet vermouth

You could halved the recipe, but to really honor the surrealist tradition, you need to tie one on (the gin especially….look at my underlined italics) to touch the stars. I have a personal recommendation to make. If you want a fragrant gin, use regular Bombay. (Sapphire is too strong, and it kills the complex array of botanicals, spices and fruits). If you can’t afford Bombay, definitey go with Gordon’s.

For all the guys (and girls) that have ever declared they were buying a copy of playboy or penthouse to read the editorials, there is now, “Jennifer’s Body.” Let’s be honest, to watch this movie and criticize its plot development or cinematography is like kicking and screaming about a Kryzstof Kieslowski trilogy for lacking in Transporter-style car chases. You’re not being honest with yourself.

If you have seen this movie, rented it, or bought it, you’re only here for one and only one thing: Jennifer’s Body. For guys, it’s obvious. For girls, it’s to check out the competition and how hard we now have to work to live up to the current gold standard. (Megan Fox is presently voted the World’s Sexiest Woman, unless you live in Kenya or Java)

Fox delivers, definitely demonstrating that she deserves the throne more than her predecessor Angelina Jolie. Although….Amanda Seyfried (of “Dear John”) puts in a hysterical display attempting to look like an unattractive geek (she is not). Johnny Simmons fills in the duties of the trendy, omniscient Seth Rogan Syndrome, providing hope to all lifelong single nerds that they can, indeed, land a hottie like Seyfried (they won’t). Amy Sedaris, IMHO, steals the show as Seyfried’s mom. Sedaris, as the notorious Jerry, of Comedy Central’s biggest outcast, Jerry Blank of Strangers with Candy, here becomes the concerned parent. It makes sense, because Sedaris, like Seyfried, barely succeeds in hiding their good looks.

The acting is horrible, the goth is of the Hot Topic variety, the soundtrack music covers is laughable, and the fear factor is about as suspenseful as the next Macy’s sale (every 23 hours). On the aforementioned departments, the movie gets a 1. But as I have said before: NONE of us are here for anything other than to ogle and gauge Fox’s hottie index and Jennifer’s Body: how we covet, lust after, or have to live up to or be compared with the most prized geometry of present day. Here, Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried scores a 5.

How we rate each film is based on what we are looking for. So the median here would be a 3.