By any standards, one of the rising stars in many angles of contemporary songwriting and playing. Ms. McCalla has inserted the cello into traditional areas previously uninhabited by the instrument with especially rare and beautiful skills. A former member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, now hooked up with the quartet, “Our Native Daughters,” and following solo pursuits.
Her ambitious first record celebrated the work of Langston Hughes.
Overton Vertis Wright predating Otis Redding’s treatment of this classic
A haiku record review from Worcester Magazine 1980 or so
“Weather Report
Lennie’s on the Turnpike, Danvers, Massachusetts
October 30th 1971
I saw Weather Report twice in 1971 and the venues couldn’t have been more different. They were the opening act for Dr. John the Night Tripper at the 2,892 seat Beacon in New York with none other than Bill Cosby as the MC and they had an extended engagement at the 200 seat Lennie’s on the Turnpike in their newly reopened location following a fire in May 1971.
While I loved their performance at the Beacon, it was perhaps 40 minutes long and my seat was at least 25 rows from the stage. At Lennie’s, they played three sets that were about 45 minutes each and I was very close to the stage.
For the twenty years before the devastating fire, Lennie’s was located in West Peabody and host to many of the great names in Jazz: Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Count Basie, Charles Mingus, Chick Corea, Buddy Rich (14 times), Nina Simone, Earl “Fatha” Hines, Jackie McLean, Cannonball Adderley, Rahsaan Roland Kirk (9 times) and many more.
The band existed from 1970 through 1986. The late 1971 version was it’s most free before moving into more fusion and funk. It included Joe Zawinul on keyboards, Wayne Shorter on soprano and tenor sax, Miroslav Vitous on bass, Dom um Ramao on percussion, and Eric Gravatt on drums. This was truly an all-star band. In rock music a comparable grouping perhaps was Cream.
From Wikipedia
Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter had first met and become friends in 1959 while they were playing in Maynard Ferguson’s Big Band. Zawinul went on to play with Cannonball Adderley’s group in the 1960s, while Shorter joined Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and then, in 1964, Miles Davis’ second great quintet. During this decade, both men made names for themselves as being among the best composers in jazz.
Zawinul later joined Shorter in contributing to the initial fusion music recordings of Miles Davis, and both men were part of the studio groups that recorded the key Davis albums In a Silent Way (1969) and Bitches Brew (1970). Weather Report was initially formed to explore a more impressionistic and individualistic music (or, as Zawinul put it, “away from all that eight bars shit and then you go to the bridge...”). The Czech bassist, Vitous was an integral part of the band, but he left in 1973 when the band moved in more of a funk direction. Guitarist John McLaughlin was also invited to join the group, but decided to pursue his solo career, instead.
Hearing the band’s brilliant musicianship up close was revelatory. The musicians were at their peak and their first album only hinted at what they could do in extended live performance. Their second album I Sing The Body Electric featured live performances on side two from performances in Tokyo”
Ms. Saiser
“She Gives Me the Watch off Her Arm
by Marjorie Saiser
my mother wants me to
go to college
the closest she has ever been
is this
the dorm
her father had needed her
to dig the potatoes
and load them into burlap bags
but here she is
leaving her daughter
on the campus in the city time to go
we are at the desk
the clerk is wide-
eyed when my mother
asks her if she will
take an out-of-town check
if the need arises
if something comes up
so my girl will have money
even I know
this isn’t going to happen
this check-cashing
a clerk helping me with money
but miracle of miracles
the clerk says nothing
and I say nothing
and my mother feels better
we go to the parking lot
old glasses thick graying hair
she is wearing a man’s shirt
has to get back to the job
we stand beside her Ford and it is
here she undoes the buckle of the watch
and holds it out to me
my father’s watch
keeping good time for him
and then for her
she says she knows I will
need a watch to get to class
we hug and she gets in
starts the car
eases into traffic
no wave
the metal of the back of the watch
is smooth to my thumb
and it keeps for a moment
the warmth of her skin
”
More arresting work from the seemingly endless well of songs where the artist deftly talks and sings within a composition,
With grief coming out of the woodwork these days, I thought I would offer this find up to you
Edmund Burke
“It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little;”
And go out with more recent material, with Mr. Tate covering an Elvis Costello composition!