A Teacher’s Teacher: Ellis Marsalis (November 14, 1934, April 1, 2020) Image Source: Chicago Tribune
All of us reach an age when it seems like every day someone of our generation dies, even more now with the COVID-19 pandemic. Sadly, on April 1, a giant in education and jazz became one of the numbers in the current pandemic.
In the 1980s, Ellis Marsalis, with his sons, became the fresh new face to a resurgence of jazz in the last decades of the 20th century. “My dad was a giant of a musician and teacher, but an even greater father,” Branford Marsalis said in a statement. “He poured everything he had into making us the best of what we could be.”
Ellis Marsalis had a light and graceful touch at the piano, allowing his enter fellings to pour out like a gentle flowing mountain stream. He had held a weekly gig for decades at Snug Harbor, one of New Orleans’s premier jazz clubs, before giving it up in December.
The New Times critic, Stephen Holden wrote: “Sticking mainly to the middle register of the keyboard, the pianist offered richly harmonized arrangements in which fancy keyboard work was kept to a minimum and studious melodic invention, rather than pronounced bass patterns, determined the structures and tempos.”
One of my favorite Cole Porter songs done superbly by Ellis and his son Branford.
SCVN President, Phil Bentley Teaching a Kindergarten Class In Sabino Canyon — Image by kenne
As Sabino Canyon Volunteer Naturalists (SCVN), we are not currently offering nature education programs to school children and the public because of the coronavirus. However, individually we are in the canyon, encouraging everyone to spend time outdoors.
This morning naturalist Nancy Wilkenson, who teaches in our kindergarten program, did this short virtual nature walk encouraging people to come out to the canyon. Nature is always open!
The Rhythm Room, Phoenix, Arizona (February 28,2020) — Photo-Artistry by kenne
It’s been several years since we have seen our good friend Diunna Greenleaf live.
So, when we learned that she was going to appear at The Rhythm Room in Phoenix,
On February 28th, we made plans.
I’m now in my 16th year of retirement. Still, like a lot of retired people, I stay very busy, working as a volunteer naturalist in Sabino Canyon, where we teach children about nature, leading nature walks and hikes on the many trails in Sabino Canyon. When I’m not volunteering, I spend my time doing creative things, usually after morning conditioning activities.
Over the years, I have created an extensive iTunes library of music and recorded poetry and psychology. This morning while walking in the neighborhood, I had my iTunes library on shuffle, and two of my non-music recordings of authors came on; Charles Bukowski, “Something for the Touts, the Nuns, the Grocery Clerks and You” and Alan Watts lecture titled “Insides and Outsides.” It was spiritual.
Alan Watts — Insides and Outsides (audio)
Charles Bukowski Video
We have everything, and we have nothing Some do it well enough for a while and then give way Fame gets them or disgust or age or lack of proper diet or ink across the eyes or children in college Or new cars or broken backs while skiing in Switzerland Or new politics or new wives Or just natural change and decay — The man you knew yesterday hooking for ten rounds or drinking for three days and three nights by the Sawtooth mountains now just something under a sheet or a cross, or a stone, or under an easy delusion Or packing a bible or a golf bag or a briefcase How they go, how they go! All the ones you thought would never go Days like this, like your day today Maybe the rain on the window trying to get through to you What do you see today? What is it? Where are you? The best days are sometimes the first, sometimes the middle, and even sometimes the last. The vacant lots are not bad Churches in Europe on postcards are not bad? People in wax museums frozen into their best sterility are not bad? Horrible, but not bad? The cannons, think of the cannon And toast for breakfast and coffee hot enough to know your tongue is still there Three geraniums outside a window, trying to be red and trying to be pink and trying to be geraniums No wonder sometimes the women cry No wonder the mules don’t wanna go up the hill. One more good day, a little bit of it
Enough and not enough Arcs and pilgrims, oranges, gutters, ferns, antibodies, boxes of tissue paper In the most decent sometimes sun There is the softsmoke feeling from urns And the canned sound of old battleplanes And if you go inside and run your finger along the window ledge, you’ll find dirt, maybe even earth And if you look out the window, there will be the day And as you get older you’ll keep looking, keep looking Sucking your tongue in a little Ah, ah, no, no, maybe
It’s the Holiday Season and what better time for Joe and Ricki Mensching to hold an open house for their train room, which takes up the space of their three-car garage. Ricki had asked me if I would take some photos, five are in this posting. Click here to see all 25 photos.
I also took five video clips, which I edited into a short movie of the Train Room Open House.
— kenne
Mensching’s Train Room Open House — Images & Video By kenne
A Teacher’s Teacher: Ellis Marsalis (November 14, 1934, April 1, 2020) Image Source: Chicago Tribune 
thesheaf.com
SCVN President, Phil Bentley Teaching a Kindergarten Class In Sabino Canyon — Image by kenne
Sabino Creek Below The Dam In Sabino Canyon — Image and video by kenne
The Rhythm Room, Phoenix, Arizona (February 28,2020) — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Charley Parker, A.J. Murphy, Diunna Greenleaf, Kenne Turner, Dale Armet
Bob Corritore and Diunna Greenleaf — Photos and Video by kenne
Self-portrait (Photo-Artistry)
Mensching’s Train Room Open House — Images & Video By kenne
