Texas Live Music — Image by kenne
ever festival
has dancing muses
dancing
because that’s what they do —
I know, I was there
feeling the energy
creative energy
calling
the dancing muse
she appears
always colorful,
always free
not confined
to life’s rules
an expression of life
streaming
feelings of Duende
down the centuries
from the ancient muse,
Terpsichore
we drink
the playful spirit
delighting
a perpetual thirst
plucking the chords
inside the soul
— kenne
Images Captured At The Tucson Fold Festival by kenne
28th Annual Tucson Folk Festival Art Done By The Arizona Daily Star Cartoonist, David Fitzsimmons
Images by kenne
The 28th annual Tucson Folk Festival began yesterday — five stages and over 500 musicians. Not only is there plenty of music, but workshops, arts & crafts, food and children’s show. This little girl was playing in the fountain in El Presidio Park where one of the stages is located. Her mother, carrying the youngest of three, followed her around taking joyful photos. After awhile it felt good to warm up in the sun.
More postings to come on this annual event in the Old Pueblo.
kenne
Images by kenne
When we are home on Saturday evening, we watch the sun gone down and listen to Marty Kool’s “Blues Review” on KXCI — one of my favorite ways to enjoy life. This short video will give you a feel for what I’m writing about. You will also notice the running water sound coming from the fountain on the patio — another sound I love. If you are curious, the music in the background is Andy Poxon doing “Please Come Home.”
kenne
Things that make my day:
Ken & Mary Harris with Kenne & Joy Image by kenne
Joy and I are on a special trip to Houston to spend time with family and friends and we are being blessed with great fall weather — the folks here need it after the summer they have experienced. (We brought it with us from Tucson!)
One of the things we will be doing while here, which will include both family and friends, is attending our great friends “Ken & Mary’s Fall Music Festival” — for over fifteen years called “Ken & Mary’s Blues Project.” As announced in a previous posting, this year’s music will be provided by two friends and super blues musicians, Rich DelGrosso and Jonn Del Toro Richardson. Their latest album (Time Slips By) deputed #4 on The Living Blues Radio Chart back in February. As always, there will be other musicians sitting in as the evening goes on.
kenne
Baron Wolman Presentation — Images by kenne
Always reminding me that we’re apart
High up in the sky the little stars climb
Steals across the meadows of my heart
And now the purple dusk of twilight time
In a land of martinis and cigarette ash-
a club called the Purple Crackle-
Bill had his own hook
(that coveted twenty minutes
of just piano and his trumpet
while the rest of the band was taking
a smoke break and hitting on young
girls) The old club owner used to make them
play what they unlovingly called “mickey music.”
This, because it all
sounded like the Mickey Mouse March.
But it was a chance to play and what twenty year old kid
wouldn’t jump at a chance to play?
They were so full of dreams and wide-eyed future.
They were so young.
You wander down the lane and far away
Leaving me a song that will not die
Love is now the stardust of yesterday
The music of the years gone by
Round about midnight
the manager of the club would get drunk
and stumble down the hall to lose his money
playing cards with people a lot better and a lot
more sober.
One of the waiters would come in and give a signal
and the real music would begin.
None of that mickey mouse crap.
Jazz.
The hip crowd would come in and things would get real.
Bill would play his trumpet
his adrenaline pumping
his head spinning wildly
with big band dreams.
They’d play the greats:
Night Train
Blue Bossa
In the Mood
Stardust
Sometimes I wonder why I spend
The lonely night dreaming of a song
The melody haunts my reverie
And I am once again with you
When our love was new
Bill was night-dreaming.
These were the stars that hung above him:
life on the road
town to town
playing Jazz at the hottest clubs every night
being lost in a world of dancing and melody
feeling so unspeakably alive.
He was so young.
Miriam was daydreaming.
A white dress
white fences
and tiny white socks
these were the clouds that drifted above her.
She was so young too.
And each kiss an inspiration
But that was long ago
Now my consolation
Is in the stardust of a song
Bill’s big break came
when Vince Valentino and his big band
rolled into town.
One night after his show
he came down to the Purple Crackle
just in time to hear Bill’s hook.
It was just like the pictures.
“Kid,” he said,”I could use you in my band!”
Miriam was not so excited.
“It’s my dream!”
he told her as she cried.
He wrapped his arms
around her and she buried her face
in his shoulder on her parent’s
front porch. Around them was the
silent summer song of fireflies.
Was this the end?
They were both so young.
Beside a garden wall
When stars are bright
You are in my arms
The nightingale tells his fairy tale
of paradise where roses grew
The whole episode is neatly preserved in
a green leather scrapbook my grandmother
gave my grandfather for his 60th birthday.
Somewhere between his sepia colored baby photos
his years as a high school band director
and the cruel documentation
of his disappearing hair
it’s a single page:
There’s a picture of my grandmother, my grandfather,
and a glossy headshot of the Italian crooner.
The large caption reads: “Vince or Miriam?”
“Which one did you choose?” someone asked.
We all laughed.
I looked down at the picture of the kid with the
crew cut and the awkward smile and
silently thanked him.
Some nights, I looked up at the stars
and marvel that everything
our bodies
our very molecules
are made up of stardust.
All the old matter in the universe is sucked up
into the hearts of stars and then
hot new elements are shot out across the cosmos
bursting with vigor and vitality
and making all things born
so dazzling
so beautiful
so young.
We
too
are the product of a billion choices
over which we have no control-
Glittering moments of decision
that shimmer and then disappear
into the darkness of time.
We are made up of stardust and choices-
And the rest is jazz.
Though I dream in vain
In my heart it will remain
My stardust melody
The memory of love’s refrain
(cue trumpet solo)
Images by kenne
While Jill and Joy spent time with James and Chase at the iFest (Houston International Festival), I went to the Houston Public Library – Downtown, to listen to Dave Parsons (2011 Texas Poet Laureate) and some other poets at Public Poetry, after which Dave and I went to the Doubletree Houston for a beer.
kenne
Becoming is Superior to Being 