Category Archives: music

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Learn young

This child is not afraid of the saxophone because she is growing up with it. The saxophone player is her father. She’s ready to help and be up on stage as well! She’ll have a fabulous jazz foundation and her father didn’t miss a note!

This is Tuesday night at the Bishop Hotel in Port Townsend, Washington. Chris Miller and Peter Leopold Freeman.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: saxophone.

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Music Magnifies Joy

Ben Sollee is new to me. I heard him at Over the Rhine‘s NoWhereElse Festival. In Ohio.

What a fabulous line up of musicians! Ben Sollee makes joyous music with a cello, his voice and a drummer! They made more noise and more complex rhythms than many much bigger groups! I got one of his albums and three other fabulous groups!

This is lovely:

All things shall perish from under the sky, music alone shall live never to die.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: magnify.

The photograph is of another group at the festival: Carolina Story.

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Dance card

When we danced at Glen Echo in the 1980s, there was dance etiquette. We did not have dance cards. Instead, we would see someone we wanted to dance with, sometimes while we were dancing with someone else. One finger meant next dance, two meant the one after that. If both were taken, a head shake. No one could remember beyond two so the etiquette was not to make promises beyond two dances!

Dance card

We finally meet again at a live band dance. I have not seen him since August. It is January.

“Hello!” says T. “Where have you been?”

“That is a great question!” I say very cheerfully.

He is looking at me.

“Oh, what a great song!” as the next song starts. I tap my foot.

He narrows his eyes a little, but replies “Shall we dance?”

We dance really well together. We have danced off and on for nearly twenty years. I asked someone for his last name just a week ago. I may have known in the past, but I had forgotten. It doesn’t really sound familiar. I do know he worked for years in counseling.

The band is loud so not conducive to talking much. The dance ends and he twirls me to a close embrace. He walks me back to the tables.

“You have not been at dances much.”

I blink at him. “You said your dance card was full.” I say.

“What?”

I sigh, trying not to exaggerate too much. “You asked me personal questions. Then at the next dance you tell me that you have a woman for every night of the year.” I flutter my lashes down. “I do hope you mean dancing.”

He is silent, absorbing this.

I am channeling my Tidewater Belle mother-out-law. “Ah am sure you are very busy.” I look modestly down at my lap, glancing across his lap as I lower my eyes. .

“Hmmm.” he says.

“Ah was so amazed that you had a woman for every night of the year that I could hardly bear to go to dance.”

I look through my lashes. He is studying me.

I smile sweetly. “Perhaps you could let me know if your dance card clears a little. Mind you, dancing only. Ah can be a little old fashioned about some things.”

_______________

The story is fiction. The photograph is from my wedding, 1989. He’s hamming for the audience again. I do not know who took this!

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Don’t shilly-shally! DANCE!

Ooooooo! Listening to Mitch Ryder and the Wheels Sock it to me baby, one of the songs here.

My muscles are BACK. Sometime in the last two weeks, while I was helping a friend in Michigan, my muscles came back. Three days ago I felt better than I have since before March of 2021. My normal energy level was back.

So what did I do? Overdid, of course. I did a beach walk on Thursday and then a local walk with a friend on Friday and then went to hear Johnathan Doyle on Saturday, fabulous! I had to dance!

Paid for it yesterday. The fast twitch muscles are back but it doesn’t mean they are strong. They are NOT strong. I have to be patient (I am not patient!). Yesterday I spent most of the day lying on the couch. Everything hurt and cramped. Ow.

BUT I can build those muscles up!

Here are some of my ex’es and my favorite bands and songs from jitterbug and lindyhop dance back in Washington, DC. I was delighted to see that Little Red and the Renegades is still playing. They played at the Kennedy Center early on New Year’s Eve. My spirit wanted to go but the body did not.

That is not a song they played back in the 1980s. We all get older!

And Doc Scantlin and his Imperial Palms Orchestra! We danced to them and I know the gentleman lindy hopping at the start. Probably others there too. We loved the Spanish Ballroom at Glen Echo.

And this was one of my ex’s and my favorite recorded songs to dance to… gosh, how naughty but true right?

I am so happy to have my fast twitch muscles BACK. Now I just need to build them up!

The photograph is from 1989, at our wedding. We are doing a move that was called “New York Kicks”. I think the photographer is my ex’s uncle. The band was Darryl Davis who is also still playing and is a friend and have you seen any of his Ted Talks?

Don’t Shilly-Shally! Get your dance shoes on now!

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: shilly-shally.

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Songs to raise girls: lullaby

Just you wait: new stories. We visited my Aunt Pat, Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Joan, all in their 80s. I want more stories!

My Aunt Pat and Uncle Jim were married for two weeks and then took a newborn home: me. My mother was in a tuberculosis hospital for active tuberculosis and could not be around me. I would be infected and die. So I went with my father, my aunt and uncle, my paternal grandparents and my great grandfather Malcolm Kenyon Ottaway and Florence Henderson Ottaway, who were visiting from Lincoln, England for two weeks. My father, aunt and uncle were all in college at the University of Tennessee. My aunt says it was rather chaos.

My great grandfather Mal would walk up and down singing this lullaby: “With her head tucked underneath her arm.” It’s about Anne Boleyn as a ghost after being beheaded, haunting the Tower of London. So this was one of my lullabies. Some of the songs to raise me were fairly peculiar choices. This might explain some things about me. My Aunt Pat says that Great Grandfather Mal said “‘ead tucked underneath ‘er arm”.

Here are the lyrics: https://genius.com/Stanley-holloway-with-her-head-tucked-under-her-arm-lyrics.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: just.

The photograph is Aunt Pat and Aunt Joan playing four hands Christmas songs. YouTube sometimes does not approve of my music choices. After finding these four versions of “With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm”, it plays this to try to mellow me out. Just stop that, YouTube.

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Small wounds

Small wounds over and over.

“The band is invited to Arizona. We’ll be on the radio. And I am trying to set up a recording.”

She keeps her eyes down. Tries not to hope. She has time, she could take time off. She has saved so much vacation, hoping. They would have to have someone stay with the kids.

“It’s going to be a great trip. I haven’t spent anything from the last big sale yet, been saving it for something like this. I was hoping we could record.”

She is wiping the counter slowly, over and over.

“That sale was amazing, just when I needed it. Debts paid and caught up.”

She works in the local government. Steady. It gives them health insurance. Secure retirement. Nothing spectacular. She turns to the sink, to rinse the cloth. The counter is clean enough. She isn’t going to think about it any more.

“That is great.” She tries not to hate the band. “At work–“

He is behind her and hugs her. “You are so great, here for me. We are going in three weeks. February. Perfect time for Arizona, I can’t wait for some sun.”

She tries to feel comforted by his hug and yields to it, as always. She is silent.

“Now make sure you don’t let the kids talk you into giving them too many things while we’re gone.”

She nods.

He kisses her head. He lets go and gets his guitar and coat. “Have a good weekend. I have to practice.” He is headed for the trailer, in the next county, alone for the weekend, to immerse in music.

She turns and watches as he leaves.

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The tweeter is twerked

Ok, I never signed up to twitter. Bunch of twits.

But I did write another verse for the song SAVED. It might not be the one that comes up on the You tube search. I learn it as a teen from side B of Moondog Matinee by The Band.

I sang it to my father. He said, “Where did you learn THAT?” I didn’t know and did an internet search. I forgot what album I leaned it from. It was his album, that I recorded on tape before I went to college.

Here is my new verse:

I used to Tweet, I used to Twerk, I used to Tweet, Twerk, I was such a Jerk

I used to tweet and twerk, tweet and twerk and I was such a jerk

But now I’m standing on the corner, it was too much work

That’s cause I’m saved, that’s cause I’m saved

People let me tell you about Kingdom Come

I’m saved, I’m saved, I’m going to preach until you’re deaf and dumb

I’m in the Salvation Army, beating on the big bass drum!

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Who else sang it? Laverne Baker! She is the earliest I’ve found. Recorded in 1960, though the videos are later.

And here too, along with her hit “Jim Dandy”.

The authors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saved_(Leiber_and_Stoller_song) .

Anyone else? Oh, yes, and I haven’t even listened to them all. But one is Elvis Presley. A gospel album:

And here is the dance video:

So, chief twit, tweeting gets a verse. I do not mind if it dies other than the verse. Shake your money maker, twitter!

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march on

This is my dead steampunk pirate costume. That’s what I wore Saturday morning for the Farmer’s Market. Friends were playing music and I danced. I managed to lure one very little person out to dance. She held my fingers and watched my feet as I let her around. She was fascinated, but did not want to look at my face. Sensible small person!

I switched to a skirt and skeletal stockings for the evening. The stockings are both left legs. The socks are both right legs. You can tell by where the fibula is in the lower leg: it should not be on the same side in both legs! I danced to a great Port Angeles Band: funk and reggae. I liked Joan Baez reggae style. Loads of fun and I won the dead steampunk pirate category. Well, there weren’t categories. I gave the prize to the band.

My friend P took this photograph with my phone. Thank you, P!

I need some stamina today. I have my last pulmonary rehabilitation visit, #24, and then a dress rehearsal tonight for the concert on Saturday and Sunday. You should come!

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: stamina.