keith.robertson@aig.com – Page 39

Week in Review – April 15, 2018

We attended our latest concert at the Kessler on Thursday night and the artist was The James Hunter Six – Hunter on vocals and guitar, along with double bass, drums, keyboards, tenor sax and baritone sax. James Hunter is an English R&B and soul singer who spent decades playing in small pubs and clubs around London before catching the ear of Van Morrison who appeared on his first album, “Believe What I Say”. Hunter toured with Van in the early 90s and sang backup on one of my favorite albums, “A Night in San Francisco”, in 1994. Hunter’s first album was released in the US in 2006 and he’s been touring regularly since. He’s one of those rare musicians who has success later in life – now 55.

I enjoyed the concert quite a bit – particularly the two saxophones playing the classic soul rhythms and some great tenor sax solos. We laughed whenever Hunter had something to say to the audience between songs – his strong London accent made him quite difficult to understand. Here are some short videos from the show:

Friday night brought some more crazy Texas weather, which is typical for this time of year. Around 6pm a strong hail storm erupted, managing to block one of the drains on the patio. I got the joyous task of going out in the storm to brush the water into the pool before it entered the house. Just when we thought the flood was over, it would start back up again. The good news is that Penelope was in the garage and no damage was sustained to our new roof (replaced after a hail storm right around this time last year that happened while we were attending a show at the Kessler). Here’s a video of the hail storm in progress:

After the storm, we settled in to warm up and watch a movie. Our choice was “Mr. Rogers and Me” – a documentary about the host of the beloved children’s TV program, “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood”.

This was a well done and insightful documentary. Mr. Rogers was an exceptionally kind and well educated man who strived to make every single interaction that he had with anyone a meaningful experience – his two goals in every encounter were to make the person feel relaxed and important.

I finished the book “Every Note Played” by Lisa Genova earlier this week and absolutely loved it. For the first time in a while I’m going to do a separate post on this novel as I have quite a bit to say on it. I came across a TED talk from Genova about “What you can do to prevent Alzheimer’s” that is worth a quick watch. The message I took away is that you have to build up a reserve of synapses by reading and engaging in mentally stimulating exercises so that if some stop to function correctly you still have backups.

I’ve started the new book from John Irving, “A Prayer for Owen Meany”, but am only 50 pages into the 700 page tome and so don’t have much to report yet. It is shaping up like a classic Irving novel so far and so I’m sure I’ll enjoy the remaining time reading.

I heard this track by Lester Young with the Oscar Peterson trio from the album “The President Plays” and was amazed at Young’s tone – quite different than some of his faster pieces.

And from a completely different genre, I heard this cover of Elton John’s “This Train Don’t Stop There Anymore” by Roseanne Cash and Emmylou Harris at Starbucks this morning while having our usual post workout coffee and a crossword session. I’ve always loved Roseanne Cash’s voice and songwriting and this is a nice country infused version of the John/Taupin song. This is from the album “Restoration” which features Nashville musicians covering Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s music. There’s another album with current pop stars doing covers but I don’t think I’ll enjoy that one as much.

Week in Review – April 8, 2018

Here’s a clue from the Saturday USA Today crossword puzzle for you to noodle on: “Beethoven’s homage to Napoleon”. I’ll give you a few minutes to ponder this one and then we’ll come back to it.

Some good news on the Nils Lofgren front. I wrote last week that his guitars had been stolen prior to the show that we saw at the Kessler. Fortunately Dallas Police were able to make an arrest and return the 4 stolen guitars to Nils:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/news/police-recover-nils-lofgrens-stolen-guitars-worth-over-2410k/ar-AAvnZrM

Tuesday took me back to cold, windy and rainy New York. The main reason for the trip was a visit to the Microsoft office at Times Square and so I stayed in the Sanctuary hotel on 47th street that I enjoyed on my last visit to the area. For Tuesday dinner I tried a small Belgian restaurant that my boss had recommended – BXL just off Times Square on 43rd street. They specialize in moules frites with 12 different sauces. I stuck with the classic mariniere sauce and could only finish about half of the 2lb serving.

After dinner I went for a walk down 6th Avenue to 34th street. Misty rain was falling which provided me this eerie looking view of the Empire State building just visible above Bryant Park and another clearer view from just across the street.

On the walk back to the hotel I saw some potential piano upgrades (kidding – that would be a huge waste of money) and a store that made me chuckle. One of the great features of New York is how easy it is to walk around and find interesting sights.

Geffen Hall on the right and the Metropolitan Opera straight ahead

After work at the Microsoft office, I walked up to 62nd street to Lincoln Center to see the New York Philharmonic performing at David Geffen Hall. The ballet, opera, and orchestra all have their own custom buildings on 3 sides of the plaza at Lincoln Center.

I had dinner in the “Kitchen” at Geffen Hall – a delicious scallop dish with roasted cauliflower, raisins, and nuts and then took my seat for the performance.

The first piece on the program was a world premiere of “Metacosmos” by Anna Thorvaldsdottir from Iceland. The conductor, Esa-Pekka Salonen, did a brief interview with Anna about the commissioned piece which she described as “finding the beauty in chaos”. In the 12 minutes I heard about 11 minutes of chaos and 1 minute of beauty.

Next was Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 performed by the 25 year old English pianist Benjamin Grosvenor who first performed in a fish and chip shop by the seaside and won the BBC Young Musician competition at age 11. I loved the precision of the string section in this piece – absolute unison from lead violin through double bass in the very quiet pizzicato sections. Grosvenor shone brightest in the cadenza at the end of the first movement which I found very creative. Here’s Glen Gould performing the same piece:

The final piece of the evening was Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3. Back to that crossword clue – did you figure it out? The answer is “Eroica”, the name Beethoven ultimately gave to the symphony. I take umbrage with the clue as the Playbill for the concert says that Beethoven says of Napoleon after he declared himself Emperor, “Is even he nothing but an ordinary man! Now he will also trample upon human rights and become a slave to his own ambition; now he will set himself above all other men and become a tyrant”. He went to the table, grabbed the top of the title page of the score and tore it in half. The first page was rewritten and the symphony was given the name Sinfonia eroica. The symphony was very familiar to me as I heard my Mum play it in our home many times growing up.

Thursday night was jazz night. I took the subway down to the West Village and caught the early set at Small’s jazz club. This is an aptly named tiny cellar club where the first few rows of seats are right on stage with the band. The first show was a sextet with tenor and alto saxes, piano, guitar, drums and bass and fully occupied the small stage. I appreciated the mirrors angled above the piano and drums that let you see exactly what the musicians were up to.

The menu at Bobo restaurant next to Small’s looked good and so I stopped in for dinner. The food more than lived up to the promise of the menu and I enjoyed an absolutely delicious steak tartare with shoestring fries and a mushroom tart that was perfectly executed.

The admission ticket to Small’s also provides entry to the Mezzrow cellar jazz club across the street and so I decided to stop in for a short visit after dinner. Monte Croft was performing on the vibraphone and is a real master. The sound in Mezzrow is really great from such a small venue. Here’s a short video of the vibraphone mastery:

Friday was another cold, windy and rainy day as I made my way to the airport to travel home. The 80 degree temperature on arrival at DFW was a pleasant change. Diana and I went to Keeper seafood restaurant for an early dinner as storms were forecast later in the evening and enjoyed their excellent calamari and lobster mac ‘n cheese. We thought we left time to get home before the storm but were mistaken. I navigated Penelope south from McKinney to avoid the tornado sirens, thunderstorms and potential hail. We stopped for coffee and thought it was safe to head home. Wrong – we drove right into a hail storm and had to make a quick U-turn to make sure Penelope didn’t get dented up – she took cover under an awning in front of a building and made it home unscathed.

After our workout and crossword on Saturday, we stopped into Starbucks to visit Alicia. It’s good to see how pleasant she is to everyone (even Mom) when working the register.

Dinner on Saturday night was at the Wahbas. We got to meet Patty’s sister and her family, enjoy amazing Brent smoked meats, and enjoy a variety of live performances in Brent’s music room – so much talent in the house that night.

My main book this week was “The Names” by Don DeLillo. This was recommended by Suzy Hansen in her book that I finished last week as a good tour of expat life in Greece. I read DeLillo’s most famous novel,”White Noise”, a few years ago and was disappointed but decided to give him another try with “The Names”. Portions of the book were compelling and enjoyable but the deep discussion on the origins of alphabets and language were too involved for my taste.

Here’s the Wikipedia summary: “The work, set mostly in Greece, is primarily a series of character studies, interwoven with a plot about a mysterious “language cult” that is behind a number of unexplained murders. Among the many themes explored throughout the work is the intersection of language and culture, the perception of American culture from both within and outside its borders, and the impact that narration has on the facts of a story.”

I picked up “Every Note Played” by Lisa Genova (a Harvard PhD neuroscientist) during my walk around New York on Tuesday night and it proved to have some unexpected links to my week. Genova is best known for writing “Still Alice” that became the basis for a popular movie about a lady suffering with Alzheimer’s. “Every Note Played” is about a concert pianist who is stricken with ALS and quickly loses control of his arms. In one early section the pianist talks about how much he enjoys the cadenza in Beethoven’s third piano concerto (the one I heard on Wednesday night) and in another section his ex-wife talks about regretting having given up her career as a jazz pianist and particularly playing at Small’s (the club I visited on Thursday night). Strange coincidences.

I heard a song by The Gaddabouts on Spotify Discover Weekly and enjoyed it very much. Turns out the Gaddabouts is Edie Brickell (of the New Bohemians and seen at the Oak Cliff Music Festival), Steve Gadd (superstar session drummer seen with James Taylor recently), Pino Palladino (one of my favourite jazzy bass players), and Andy Fairweather Low (seen with Eric Clapton at New Orleans jazzfest and a relative of my Mum). I’m looking forward to listening to the rest of the album this week.

Week in Review – April 1, 2018

Happy Easter and April Fools’ Day combined. I did learn from my Dad this morning that any April Fools’ jokes have to be executed before noon – so you’re safe now in this post.

Diana and I took a jaunt to downtown McKinney on Monday for coffee and a crossword at Filtered (local coffee shop) and then wandered around the corner to a new store McD had noticed that sold records. The Groovy Coop is a fun store with several racks of records (both LPs and 45s) and a lot of vintage curiosities. I stopped myself from browsing after the first two bins (new arrivals and the letter A) and had already selected two records. Dave Alvin’s Romeo’s Escape was from the “A” bin and features the great song “Every Night About this Time”. Interestingly, Dave Alvin was the first show we saw at the Kessler theater and we’ve been back many times since. I’ll always remember Diana leaning over to me as the show started and saying, “You know this is country music, right?”. Kind of a country infused Americana sound – but the first song was quite country.

The second record was Ray Charles’ “Genius Sings the Blues” which I have been enjoying on the Linn while typing this. I haven’t bought new records in a little while and will have to be careful to limit my visits to the Groovy Coop as I’m currently out of record storage space.

Penelope had one of her fits on Tuesday morning as I was starting my commute to work. As I accelerated hard to join the highway, the check engine light came on accompanied by the message “Visit workshop soon” (silly Germans) and a hard wobble of the engine. P had a service a couple of weeks ago where they replaced the spark plugs and this was the fist time I’d given her a good workout since. I found out on Wednesday morning when she was delivered to the “workshop” that one of the ignition coils had come loose and so the spark plug wasn’t firing. One might think it hadn’t been installed correctly after the plugs were changed. To add insult, it poured with rain all day Tuesday and Wednesday and the left windshield wiper wasn’t working properly – also something that was supposed to be repaired during the service. Glenda’s (featuring again later in this post) ex-husband (Penelope’s Porsche mechanic) was a bit sheepish about both issues. I’m happy to report P is back in full working order and has a full tank of gas for McD this week when I’m in New York.

Friday brought the much anticipated Nils Lofgren concert at the Kessler. This show had been cancelled twice – once due to the Force Majeure clause in Nils contract that allows him to cancel if Bruce Springsteen has a sudden desire to tour (The River tour) and once due to surgery. Jens and Glenda joined us for the show and pre-show burgers and tots across the street from the Kessler.

I was introduced to Nils by Andy Bull (who learned about him from his older brother) in University and he and I enjoyed his shows at the Glasgow Apollo and Usher Hall in Edinburgh (35 and 33 years ago). Lofgren has had a long and interesting career – starting with the band Grin, several excellent solo albums, playing on “Tonight’s the Night” and several other Neil Young albums, and the last 20 plus years as a member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street band.

One of Lofgren’s best known songs is an ode to Keith Richards, “Keith Don’t Go”. He did an excellent acoustic version at the Kessler – here’s some of the song and then his trademark finger picked harmonics in the solo.

In addition to his excellent guitar, Nils is also an accomplished pianist. Here he is with his poignant tune “Believe” from one of the early Grin albums.

The show concluded with “No Mercy”, a song I first heard on a Radio Clyde mid-morning show hosted by Dougie Donnelly, best known for his football commentary.

After the show, Nils was very gracious with his time to meet his fans and sign any albums and artifacts they had brought. It was fun to see so many people with very old albums under their arms. I got my copy of “Night After Night” and “Flip” signed along with a photograph of Nils and Bruce Springsteen at the jazzfest in New Orleans.

Lofgren is only 5′ 3″ tall and so it was fortuitous that he was a step up from me for this picture. Diana told him that I had attended the show at the Glasgow Apollo that features on the “Night after Night” album and he said that had been his favourite tour – it was certainly at the height of his popularity.

Diana found out on Saturday morning that Friday had been a tough day for Lofgren with his guitars being stolen overnight from a van parked outside the Holiday Inn where he was staying. He had spent Friday morning rounding up loaner guitars and gear. You certainly wouldn’t have known it form his attitude or the excellent guitar sounds.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2018/03/30/guitars-harp-stolen-e-street-bands-nils-lofgren-dallas/475079002/

Saturday was an on and off sunny day and I was able to sit outside and finish my long running book “Notes on a Foreign Country” by Suzy Hansen. The book chronicles Hansen’s changing views on American foreign policy as she lives in Turkey and visits Greece, Afghanistan, and Iran. One of the hardest hitting passages is when Hansen returns to New York and is admitted to a Brooklyn hospital for what is ultimately diagnosed as pneumonia. She tells of her American friends saying she was so lucky to be home when it happened. However, her story of misdiagnosis and the conditions in the Brooklyn hospital as compared to the Turkish hospitals she had visited is pretty scary. The book is fairly dense and intellectual but worth reading for a differing view on America’s role on the world stage.

If you haven’t heard enough about music already, I’ve been enjoying the new album from the jam band The Heavy Pets this week.

Week in Review – March 25, 2018

The week started out with a very unique experience and not one that I would have ever planned. Any guesses?

Don’t think you would ever guess correctly. After an all day work meeting, Mc D and I were invited to attend WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) Monday Night Raw. I remember my Grampa watching wrestling on TV on the weekends and have briefly watched some WWE on TV but never imagined being one of the rowdy nuts that watches it in an arena. It honestly seemed even more fake live and there were long periods of downtime between bouts for the adverts on the live TV broadcast. That being said, it was good, silly Monday night entertainment. The highlight was John Cena making a speech about how disappointed he was that the Undertaker hadn’t answered his challenge for a fight at WrestleMania.

On Tuesday it was time to get packed up for another trip to New York. This time some extra packing was needed (hat, gloves, boots) as 12 to 18 inches of snow was forecast for Tuesday night into Wednesday. Diana thought I was nuts for taking a flight when Nor’easter Toby was forecast.

Turns out I caught the last flight from DFW on Tuesday afternoon at 4pm. All remaining flights for the next couple of days were canceled. LaGuardia airport was like a ghost town on arrival since most departing flights had been canceled too. All of this made for a quick ride to the hotel.

Snow came down heavily all day on Wednesday but temperatures stayed above freezing and the snow was extremely wet and so there was minimal accumulation.

View from work office as the snow storm started

In front of the office about an hour after the storm started

My boss and I decided to be adventurous on Wednesday night and brave the snow for a show at the Blue Note jazz club. The subway was a great way to avoid too much snow and we made an initial navigation error, heading to Brooklyn instead of Greenwich village. A quick trip under the East river and back and we were on track. The show was Eric Krasno and friends with the special guest of the evening being the pedal steel guitar wizard, Robert Randolph. I’ve seen Randolph a few times before with Eric Clapton and Anders Osborne and so was looking forward to the show.

Eric Krasno is a guitar player best known for founding the bands Lettuce and Soulive. You might remember that I went to see Lettuce with Alicia and her friend last year. He has also won a couple of Grammy awards as a producer for the Tedeschi Trucks band (one of my very favourites). The show was very good with highlights being a cover of Blind Faith’s “In the Presence of the Lord” and the Grateful Dead’s “Sugaree”.

I felt sorry for the folks queuing up for the late show in the cold and snow outside the Blue Note. We hadn’t quite had enough music for the night and so headed around the corner to Bleeker Street and the Red Lion pub which has had good live music each time I’ve visited. There was a duo of guitar/singer and drummer playing classic rock songs very well that we enjoyed for a while. Things picked up when one of the bar tenders joined to cover a couple of Janis Joplin songs.

Flying home on Friday afforded me a 40 degree temperature change by leaving New York at 40 degrees and arriving to 80 degree plus in Dallas. You can see by this picture from the plane leaving New York that most of the snow had melted and it was a nice sunny day.

Saturday was another nice day and after workouts we sat out by the pool for most of the afternoon and got some extended reading time in.

I finished Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan and would give it a B+ rating. The first 100 or so pages were a solid A but I started to lose interest a bit in the middle. The beginning was enough to convince me to try another Egan book, “A Visit from the Goon Squad”. This held my attention much more effectively and I read the full book out by the pool on Saturday. The book is centered around the music business and the change in the economic and distribution methods over the last decade. I highly recommend this novel to anyone interested in music – the story telling is innovative, interesting and creative.

On Saturday night we watched “Lady Bird”, a movie that was nominated for several Oscars. The film is good and stars Saoirse Ronan as a high school senior in Sacramento trying to decide where to attend college. The interactions between her and her mother had me laughing because they reminded me so much of the conversations that I hear in my home.

If you’re a vinyl lover like me, you might enjoy “Why Vinyl Matters” by Jennifer Bickerdike. This is a coffee table style book that I received as a Christmas gift from Diana and has chapters from musicians and people involved in the music business relating why they love and appreciate vinyl records. I particularly enjoyed the interview with Nick Hornby who wrote “High Fidelity” that was the basis for the John Cusack film.

Speaking of vinyl, I revisited an album that I haven’t listened to in close to 20 years this week – “Toward the Within” by Dead Can Dance. This music gets very mixed reviews from people that I’ve shared it with – some really enjoy the unique Middle Eastern style instrumentation while others (most) can only stand a few minutes – which camp do you fall into?

Here’s something a bit less controversial from Professor Longhair – one of my favourites from his New Orleans style piano tunes. I’ve been practicing my scales and receiving commentary about how far I have to go to get back to reasonable speed and accuracy. It was interesting to discover that, similar to most measurements, there is a difference between the terms used to describe the length of musical notes between the United States and United Kingdom. What I know as a crotchet is a quarter note, a quaver an eighth note, a semi-quaver a sixteenth note and so on. This is all well and good but quickly falls apart when one moves away from 4/4 time and a crotchet is really a third note in a waltz etc.

Week in Review – March 18, 2017

The early part of this week was spent catching up on work and chores after Denny’s birthday weekend in San Miguel de Allende – piano tuner, car service, laundry (thanks McD) and the like.

On Friday I took the first of the piano lessons that Diana gave me for Christmas (thanks McD). Anthony has a music studio in a room of his bungalow in downtown McKinney and calls it the Piano Dojo. The lesson was very enjoyable as Anthony asked me to play scales and sight read (scales not so good after 40 years of neglect, sight reading not too bad). He also wants me to start learning basic drumming patterns so I’ve obtained drum sticks and a practice pad and might get started today. Apparently learning to drum teaches the brain to better manage right and left hand separation and is good for the type of blues/boogie piano that I’m hoping to learn. Anthony and I shared stories about jazz clubs in New York and musicians that we enjoy. I’m looking forward to getting my scales and drumming down so that I can schedule my next lesson.

We celebrated Patty’s birthday on Friday evening and started with a lovely dinner at Sachet in the very fancy Highland Park neighborhood just north of downtown Dallas. Sachet is a Mediterranean restaurant and was voted the best new restaurant of 2017 by the readers of D magazine. We started with several “meze” or small plates – the yellow beets, red beet hummus, oregano, labne dish was my favourite (tender and flavorful beets), followed by the spicy roasted eggplant, roasted peppers, garlic, tomato, and then the french Lentils, muhamarra, piquillo peppers, and walnuts. It’s always interesting how good fresh, well cooked vegetables can taste.

After the meze we enjoyed green fava falafel, radish salad, mint yogurt (my favourite dish of the evening with the best falafel I’ve tasted), charred octopus, Rancho Gordo beans, swiss chard, fennel, salmoriglio (not as good as the amazing grilled octopus in San Miguel de Allende), Casarecce, Turkish lamb ragu, pomegranate, labne (yummy lamb ragu), and finally squid ink spaghetti, lobster, tomato, white wine, and star anise.

Patty’s birthday was off to a great start but we had a surprise in store – John Oates at the Kessler theater (Dallas’ most redeeming quality). John Oates is one half of the best-selling duo of all time, Hall & Oates, as well as an accomplished solo artist. A member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Oates embarked on his solo career in 1999. He has recorded six solo albums and his seventh project, “Arkansas”, was released in February. He featured 6 songs from this album to start his Kessler show.

In addition to his solo shows, Oates continues to tour with Daryl Hall, playing sold-out concerts around the world. You could tell he was relishing the very small venue as compared to the sports arenas he plays as part of Hall & Oates. At one point he mentioned an upcoming Hall & Oates show in Dallas in the summer and invited us to join 15,000 of our best friends to listen to it – quite different than the few hundred folks at the Kessler.

Mississippi John Hurt at a Library of Congress recording in 1964

“Arkansas” is mostly a tribute to Mississippi John Hurt, an original bluesman who made his first recordings in the late 1920s, but also features some ragtime and Jimmie Rogers inspired pieces. Here’s a video of Oates performing “Make me a pallet on your floor” – the excellent Fender Telecaster work is by Guthrie Trapp. The video is followed by links to the original Mississippi John Hurt recording and the version from the “Arkansas” album.

Diana’s favorite song from the show was “Lose it in Louisiana”:

I’ve been enjoying “Manhattan Beach” by Jennifer Egan this week. The novel opens in Brooklyn during the Great Depression. Anna Kerrigan, nearly twelve years old, accompanies her father to the house of Dexter Styles, a man who, she gleans, is crucial to the survival of her father and her family.

Years later, her father has disappeared and the country is at war. Anna works at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, where women are allowed to hold jobs that had always belonged to men. She becomes the first female diver, the most dangerous and exclusive of occupations, repairing the ships that will help America win the war. She is the sole provider for her mother, a farm girl who had a brief and glamorous career with the Ziegfeld Follies, and her lovely, severely disabled sister. At a nightclub, she chances to meet Dexter Styles again, and she begins to understand the complexity of her father’s life, and the reasons he might have vanished.

That’s as far as I’ve reached in the story so far and it’s setting up for an interesting second half. The quality of the writing and story telling are excellent and I’m looking forward to trying some of Egan’s other novels.

On the musical front, I read about a new recording by Mary Gauthier called “Rifles and Rosary Beads”. This is an interesting album in that Gauthier composed it in writing workshops with soldiers that were designed to provide therapy by allowing them to share their stories and feelings. The songs are very good although, as you can imagine, quite melancholy and poignant.

You might remember my commentary on Gauthier’s amazing “Mercy Now” song in the June 26, 2016 edition of this blog – well worth a listen.

The musical lagniappe this week is from the 70s group Big Star – I heard it on the closing credits of an episode of the HBO series, “I’m Dying up Here”.

Week in Review – March 11, 2018

Have you heard of San Miguel de Allende in Mexico?

We hadn’t either until Denny pushed hard for this to be the destination for his 50th birthday trip. We flew down on Thursday and were happy to find it took a short 2 hour flight and 1.5 hour drive to reach the lovely house that Denny had arranged for us.

San Miguel de Allende is situated at 6,200 feet and has a population of around 70,000. The mountainside location leads to plenty of uphill and downhill walking. Our house was about a 10 minute walk uphill from the main square and so our calves did get a reasonable workout. The weather was very pleasant during our stay with highs in the 80s and lows in the 50s.

We arrived around 3pm and Sean and Sheri weren’t due until later in the evening, so we set out to explore the center of town. The main square is dominated by La Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel, the current parish church of San Miguel, which is unique in Mexico and the emblem of the town. It has a Neo-gothic façade with two tall towers that can be seen from most parts of town. It is one of the most photographed churches in Mexico. The church was built in the 17th century with a traditional Mexican façade. The current Gothic façade was constructed in 1880 by Zeferino Gutierrez, who was an indigenous bricklayer and self-taught architect. It is said Gutierrez’s inspiration came from postcards and lithographs of Gothic churches in Europe, particularly the one in Cologne; however, the interpretation is his own and is more a work of imagination than a faithful reconstruction.

There is a plethora of rooftop restaurants to choose from and we chose Quince beside the church as our first stop. The food and views were excellent – we think it might be the best grilled octopus that we’ve tasted.

As we stopped at a wine shop to stock up for the weekend, a very interesting Mexican wedding celebration passed by. A procession through town led by a donkey carrying flowers and tequila, followed by very large human puppets of the bride and groom, a Mariachi band, and the wedding party. As the weekend progressed we realized that this is a very common occurrence with many weddings taking place on Saturday.

Sean and Sheri arrived safely on Thursday evening and we headed to another rooftop, SMA restaurant, just up the street from the house. We had a delicious dinner and several of the group sampled Casa Dragones Joven tequila (apparently a favourite of Oprah and Martha Stewart).

Friday began with a walking food tour. This took us to 6 restaurants around town and our tour guide, Pascal, provided a lot of cultural and historical information along the way. The town, so the story goes, owes its founding to a few over-heated dogs. These hounds were loved by a Franciscan friar, Juan de San Miguel, who started a mission in 1542 near an often-dry river 5km from the present town. One day the dogs wandered off from the mission; they were found reclining at the spring called El Chorro. The mission was moved to this superior site.

San Miguel’s favorite son, Ignacio Allende, was born here in 1779. He became a fervent believer in the need for Mexican independence and was a leader of a conspiracy that set December 8, 1810, as the date for an armed uprising. After initial successes Allende, Hidalgo and other rebel leaders were captured in 1811. Allende was executed, but on independence in 1821 he was recognized as a martyr and in 1826 the town was renamed San Miguel de Allende.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the town was in danger of becoming a ghost town after an influenza pandemic. Gradually, its Baroque/Neoclassical colonial structures were “discovered” by foreign artists who moved in and began art and cultural institutes. This gave the town a reputation, attracting artists such as David Alfaro Siqueiros, who taught painting.

This attracted foreign art students, especially former U.S. soldiers studying on the G.I. Bill after the Second World War. Since then, the town has attracted a significant number of foreign retirees, artists, writers and tourists, which has shifted the area’s economy from agriculture and industry to commerce catering to outside visitors and residents.

Now back to the food. Our first stop was La Parada, a Peruvian restaurant, where we enjoyed ceviche with leche de tigre (tiger’s milk) and excellent pisco sours. We liked this one so much that we returned for lunch later in the visit.

Next was Casa del Diezmo, a Yucatan Mexican restaurant where we enjoyed Pork Pibil Panuchos. This place was typical in that you wouldn’t know it existed from the street and on entry found a gorgeous courtyard with beautiful plants and flowers.

One of my favourite dishes from the tour, mole enchiladas, was next at La Cocina, Café del Viajero. There are many different recipes for mole sauce, typically including chocolate, chiles, sweet and sour ingredients, thickeners and spices. The sauce at our stop was absolutely delicious.

Although the portions at each stop were relatively small, we were starting to feel pretty full at this point. The last stop before desert was Don Taco Tequila, a vegan restaurant where we enjoyed mushroom tacos.

The tour finished with ice cream from a street cart and delicious churros with caramel sauce. This was a wonderful way to explore downtown, the food variety, and to learn some history – thanks Anne for organizing.

After the food tour, can you guess what we did? Yes – another rooftop at Pueblo Viejo and then dinner downstairs. In between, Diana, Denny and I relaxed at the bar at a fancy boutique hotel called Beelia.

On the walk home we enjoyed several Mariachi bands with the Amistad band being a highlight. They were certainly the loudest with lots of brass and a sousaphone – sounded a lot like a New Orleans brass band.

Saturday started with a delicious traditional breakfast prepared by the housekeeper, Mar, who was lovely and welcoming and entertained us by trying to communicate in Spanish with no desire to slow down and help us understand.

Jimmy Ray “Anado” McLaughlin in front of Kismet

The day continued with one of the more unique activities of our visit – a trip to Jimmy Ray McLaughlin’s art compound a few miles outside of town. This is the kind of special surprise only experienced when traveling with Denny and taking advantage of his prodigious research. Jimmy Ray has lived throughout the US and around the world and likes to go by Anado, a name he was given in India. Anado uses bottles, tiles, and other recycled material to create very colorful and detailed mosaic artwork. We enjoyed the tour of his art compound with several galleries, a large mosaic wall called “Kismet”, his house and studio, but mostly his colorful commentary on his art and life.

Saturday dinner was our one “fancy” dinner of the trip at, you guessed it, a rooftop restaurant. Zumo offered fantastic views of the city and a spectacular tasting menu and wine pairings. Everybody loved their meal. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves and just say that the foie gras mousse and the short ribs were the stand outs for me.

wild mushroom potage with white truffle foam

Mezcal marinated foie gras mousse — mescal marinated foie gras mousse

Back at the house after dinner began game night. Several rounds of heads up started the hilarity and were followed by Kahoot where I learned that I know nothing about current popular culture but quite a lot about classic rock.

Sunday brunch was at another Denny deep research find, Nicasio Comedor Mexicano. This was a small, simple restaurant with an open kitchen where we watched traditional Mexican breakfast fare prepared with great flair and attention to detail – tweezers used to place garnish and tiny jalapenos. The pet duck wasn’t in its bed in the restaurant but rather in the pond since it was starting to get hot.

After brunch we visited Fabrica La Aurora, an art market on the outskirts of town that is a converted textile mill and houses many individual art galleries. Denny and Anne tried hard to find some art for their redone living room but came away empty handed. Sean found a very unique poker chip holder and we found a fun gift for Patty’s birthday.

The afternoon ramble through town started with tapas and drinks at the Luna restaurant on top of the Rosewood hotel (the fancy hotel in town). This had amazing views all around.

Next on the ramble was a stop at a tapas restaurant where Denny heard interesting music. The music stopped right as we entered but was quickly replaced by Los Miguels, Miguel and his friend Miguel, who sang and played guitar beautifully. Miguel #1 tried very hard to explain the meaning of each Spanish song to us in English before he performed – and he did an admirable job. His passion for his music and for communicating really came through.

We briefly checked out the tapas restaurant rooftop but weren’t huge fans of the electronic music – a hard transition from Los Miguels.

Anne had been mentioning a visit to “La Sirena Gorda” (the fat mermaid)for a couple of days and so we finally made a visit there on our way to an evening snack at Quince (finishing the trip as we began).

A late night game of liars dice finished out our last full day in San Miguel de Allende.

Sean and Sheri had a very early departure (5am – ouch) back to the airport and the rest of us left a few hours later. You can tell Denny had a good trip from his snooze on the drive.

On the drive to the Leon airport I emailed David to ask him about the rumor I heard from my Mum and Dad of a new cousin in the family. He quickly replied with pictures of Penelope’s new cousin – a gorgeous red Porsche Cayman. I’m looking forward to meeting her in Scotland in the summer.

For the musical lagniappe this week I offer two great songs that I heard for the first time this week. “Good to Me As I Am to You” by Aretha Franklin featuring Eric Clapton on guitar and “Tennessee Blues” by Bobby Charles, who also wrote “Walking to New Orleans”.

Week in Review – March 4, 2018

Our friend Ron was in town on Wednesday night and came over for dinner. We always really enjoy Ron’s company and it was very nice to be able to spend the evening catching up, telling stories, and laughing. Oh, let me not forget that Diana (Deeawna Lasagna – phonetic pronunciation help for Ron) made a lovely dinner as well on short notice.

The rest of the week was pretty quiet as we enjoyed improving weather and Saturday was the first day this year where it’s been warm enough to sit outside and read.

Our pleasant weather was in stark contrast to the Scottish climate – variously described as “The Beast from the East” and the “Hysteria from Siberia” were blizzard type conditions in Glasgow and throughout much of Europe. My parents didn’t get it too bad in Stewarton but were still experiencing new snow when we talked to them on Sunday afternoon. They described the snow as like “polystyrene (Styrofoam) balls” and very dry making for very slick driving conditions. Here’s a picture from the New York Times of a pedestrian in blizzard conditions in Glasgow.

Our usual coffee and a crossword on Sunday morning generated some humour around the clue, “Foe of Montague”. Diana couldn’t believe I didn’t know the answer was “Capulet” from “Romeo and Juliet”. I replied that I bet my Dad didn’t know that answer either – but of course he got it correct straight away when asked. That generated a reminiscence about the BBC television quiz show that my Dad participated in when I was very young and my question, “How did you get inside the television Dad?”.

We’re working on completing our Oscar ballots for the awards show tonight. Here’s what I have so far:

With no travel this week, I had some extra time to browse around on YouTube. This “Tuba Virtuoso” performance had me laughing out loud. Having played this instrument for several years, this guy is exceptionally talented and brings a lot of humor to his show.

The other one I really enjoyed is with John Mayer and the Wynton Marsalis septet performing “I’m Gonna Find Another You”. Mayer really is one of my favorite guitar players – such a sweet and round sound that he gets.

We watched a documentary on Eric Claptop, “My Life in 12 Bars”, which was pretty good. The highlight by a long shot was this clip of Blind Faith (his band with Steve Winwood) in Hyde Park. Steve Winwood looks like he’s still in high school.

I discovered a new TV show from last year, “I’m Dying Up Here” on Showtime. It’s about stand up comics trying to make it at a club called Goldie’s in LA in 1974. The acting and writing are very good and I’m also really enjoying the music. I’m of the opinion that all the best rock music was created in 1973 and 1974 and this show certainly supports that. Episode One had both “Calvary Cross” by Richard and Linda Thompson (best guitar solo ever) and “Strawberry Letter 23” by Shuggie Otis – two of my all time favourites.

I continue to slog through my book about a New York Times journalist living in Turkey. I enjoyed this paragraph:

“Here’s the thing: no one ever tells Americans that when they move abroad, even if they are empathetic and sensitive human beings – even if they come clean about their genetic inability to learn languages, even if they consider themselves leftist critics of their own government – that they will inevitably, and unconsciously, spend those first months in a foreign country feeling superior to everyone around them and to the nation in which they now have the privilege to live.”

The musical lagniappe this week is “Baby Bluebird” by the Fruit Bats. I pulled this album out this week and didn’t remember enjoying this song as much when I first listened.

Week in Review, February 25, 2018

President’s Day was a travel day back from Pacifica to McKinney where the refrain quickly became, “When’s it going to stop raining?”. We had over 6 inches of rain from Tuesday through Saturday afternoon and every time we thought there was a break and it was safe to head out, heavy rain came again.

I had a training class in the office on Tuesday and Wednesday and a meeting at a vendor office on Thursday and so spent a lot of time sitting in heavy traffic in the pouring rain – not one of my favourite ways to pass the time.

We joined Patty and Brent for their traditional Friday night pizza and wine dinner. As usual the food and company were outstanding. We decided to Uber home after a few glasses of wine and picked the worst possible time to go and retrieve our car on Saturday. The radar showed a break in the rain but guess what – yes, the heavens opened for our drive back home. It’s particularly helpful when Texas truck drivers speed through flooded areas and make it impossible for other drivers to see anything due to the spray.

Saturday was a very lazy day but we did rally in the evening for a drive down to the Granada theater to attend a concert we had bought tickets to a while ago. The show was two tribute bands – Trio Grande covering ZZ Top and Desperado covering The Eagles. Trio Grande started at 9pm with Desperado not beginning until 10:20. We made it until 11pm and then made the drive home. One of the clues on the crossword on Saturday was something like, “glue for a fake beard”. The answer – “Spirit Gum” – not something I’d ever heard of. Consequently I ended up taking 24 minutes plus to finish the puzzle as compared to McD’s admirable 12 minutes – not happy. As you can see in this video, the Trio Grande guys apparently made good use of Spirit Gum. They were quite loud, and the packed crowd quite boisterous, but did a great ZZ Top rendition. Desperado similarly did a good job of covering some quite challenging Eagles material. My favourite was the Joe Walsh song “Rocky Mountain Way”.

I made a pretty interesting music discovery this week on one of the artists I listen to most, Miles Davis. An article on a Scandinavian trumpet player referenced “Filles de Kilmanjaro” as a major influence on his style. What is this album that I’ve never heard of? Turns out it was recorded in 1968 as Miles was making the transition from his second great acoustic quintet to his “electric period”. The first sessions included Wayne Shorter on sax, Herbie Hancock on Rhodes piano, Ron Carter on electric bass and Tony Williams on drums. The later sessions had Chick Corea on piano and Dave Holland on double bass. I’ve been fortunate to see both Chick Corea and Ron Carter in separate shows at the Blue Note in New York and Ron Carter again in an amazing show at Birdland. This album came right before the classic Miles album “In a Silent Way”.

I highly recommend “Mademoiselle Mabry” – a tribute to Miles’ new wife, also featured on the cover art:

We’re settling in now for the closing ceremonies of the Pyeongchang Olympics. Hoping they match the promise of the opening ceremonies with the joint Korean team and the two doves becoming one to “Imagine all the people, living life in peace”.

Week in Review – February 18th, 2018

Travel to Pacifica, CA was the main activity this week. Spring has sprung there already.

Diana flew out on Tuesday to help her Mum with cataract surgery on Wednesday. All went well and recovery seems to be on track. Although I was alone for Valentine’s day, I did get a nice sign and bowl of treats. Clorinda had “Pacifica Penguin” waiting as my Saint Valentine gift.

I joined McD in Pacifica on Friday afternoon and we had a very enjoyable dinner with Clorinda’s new neighbours (Andy and Jude) on Friday evening. They live about 50 yards up Gypsy Hill from D’s Mum and their house has been beautifully remodeled with huge windows and views of the ocean. The sunsets are amazing. Andy and Jude first moved to California from England in 1989 and opened a record store in the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco. They are a very interesting and kind couple and have been great neighbours for Clorinda in the short time they’ve been there.

We met Finn in Los Gatos for Saturday lunch at a relatively new restaurant called Bywater. It’s owned by David Kinch who has the 3 Michelin star restaurant, Manresa, in downtown Los Gatos. He loves New Orleans and wanted to open a small, casual restaurant serving the local food. Bywater is a gentrifying but still pretty funky neighborhood of New Orleans that does have some great restaurants. I caught up with Finn over a yummy brunch and D sat at the bar and caught up with her friend Aimee who also lives in Los Gatos. It was nice to see Finn free of back pain and feeling positive.

The interesting painting on the Bywater wall, “Society of St Anne Meeting Spot”, refers to a New Orleans marching krewe that parades each Mardi Gras. Known for the very elaborate costumes of its members, the group gathers in the Bywater each Mardi Gras morning, with the Storyville Stompers brass band providing the music. As they pass through the Faubourg Marigny and French Quarter, additional costumed marchers join the parade at various coffee shops and bars along the route. The marchers continue to Canal Street to watch the Rex Parade and then return into the French Quarter. Of course it made us think of our own favourite Anne from New Orleans.

After lunch we played bocce ball at Campo di Bocce across the street (a very Italian spot). This was a lot of fun. McD and Finn weren’t much of a match for Aimee and me and of course we were very gracious in victory.

The eating continued with a three course dinner at Kris and Cat’s home. As usual, Cat provided several very entertaining stories – one from his childhood with a flaming Christmas tree being thrown out into a busy street below and another involving driving his new race car to get smog tested. Dessert was advertised as pear flambee but the rum refused to catch fire – even when subjected to a welding torch. We always come away with some great memories from a visit to their home.

Will and Christine were our lunch companions on Sunday. We let Will pick the spot and he came up with NOLA in Palo Alto – unknowingly keeping the New Orleans theme going. Lunch was great and then we made a visit to see the new apartment fully decorated and looking very cozy. It’s great to see them so happy with a very nice place to call home and a much shorter commute for Will.

Not too much progress on my Turkish book this week and I did start a new book for light relief between Turkish lessons – “Uncommon People, The Rise and Fall of the Rock Stars” by David Hepworth. Each chapter focuses on the rise or fall of a particular rock star in each year from 1955 to 1995. I very much enjoy Hepworth’s writing style and interesting stories. Here’s one about Ringo Starr joining the Beatles in 1962 – “The strongest influence on his upbringing was his grandmother, a woman of nineteenth-century superstitions. One was the belief that any child unfortunate enough to be born left-handed must be trained out of the habit. She set herself the job of making sure young Richard wrote right-handed. He subsequently played a right-handed drum kit with the inclinations of a left-hander. It’s Ringo’s grandmother we have to thank for the characteristic lacunae that made so many of the Beatles’ drum parts impossible for other drummers to play.” Diana’s Dad was similarly forced to write right-handed but performed surgery left-handed. David Hepworth was the host on the British music program “The Old Grey Whistle Test” which I enjoyed very much – check out some of the episodes on Youtube – some great performances.

Not too much time for new music discovery this week but I did hear this great song from my favourite Govt Mule album, Dose.

Week in Review – February 11, 2018

Back to New York again this week – maybe the last trip for a few weeks.

I flew up on Tuesday and met up with some old teammates for dinner and drinks – always fun to reminisce about what seemed to be funner times but I’m sure came with just as many challenges.

On Wednesday I made my first visit to Fraunces tavern in the Financial District. This is a Colonial tavern which has been operating since 1762 with over 200 whiskies and 130 beers. There is a museum attached with some fascinating stories. One of my favourites is that after British troops evacuated New York, the tavern hosted an elaborate “turtle feast” dinner for George Washington in the “Long Room” where he bade farewell to his officers of the Continental Army. We didn’t get to see the “Long Room” but I did have some great late night scotch eggs in “Lafayette’s Hideaway” bar.

As has become somewhat traditional, Thursday night was music night. This time jazz at Dizzy’s Club in the Jazz at Lincoln Center complex. My boss and I enjoyed dinner at Landmark in the Time Warner center at Columbus Circle and then headed next door to the jazz club. Dizzy’s is unique in that the musicians perform in front of large floor to ceiling windows that provide a view out onto Columbus Circle and Central Park. The sound is also the most pristine one can hear in any music club.

The music was by the Christian Sands trio who did a tribute to the music of Errol Garner. Sands is a 28 year old pianist who is viewed as one of the best of the younger generation. His technique and dynamics were both amazing. Garner is known for his swing playing and ballads. His best-known composition, the ballad “Misty”, has become a jazz standard and was featured in the Clint Eastwood movie, “Play Misty for Me”. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

A young singer, Michael Mayo, joined the band on a few songs – most notably Misty. I don’t typically enjoy jazz singers but Mayo’s voice was beautiful and his dynamic control excellent. The concert almost (not much at all really) made up for missing the Anderson East concert that Diana and I had looked forward to attending on Thursday in Dallas at the tiny club Trees.

We enjoyed watching the Winter Olympics opening ceremony on Friday and particularly the performance of John Lennon’s “Imagine” with two doves becoming one. The drones on the mountain were pretty amazing as well.

Since McD and I were not going to be together on Saint Valentine’s day, we celebrated early with a movie and dinner on Saturday night. The movie was “The Darkest Hour” about Churchill’s challenges in May 1940 during Dunkirk. We both thoroughly enjoyed Gary Oldman’s Churchill and learned a lot about those few weeks in history. Many of the classic Churchill quotes were in the movie, along with my favourite, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts”.

Options were limited since I had left it so late to make a dinner reservation and everywhere was busy with the pre-Valentine rush. I chose Perry’s Steakhouse and our first visit there was a big success. Great music from a lady singing and playing piano, steak tartare and escargot appetizers, tasty steaks, good wine, and lots of leftovers for Sunday. We look forward to returning to try the signature pork chop.

The Churchill movie brought to mind one of my favourite Supertramp songs about the Dunkirk evacuation, Fool’s Overture. This comes from an album with excellent cover art – wouldn’t it be fun to dust off the snow and play the piano with that view?

Here’s a couple of melancholy songs that have been on heavy rotation this week. “Summer’s End” – the first new song in many years from the outstanding song writer John Prine, and “I Think it’s Going to Rain Today” from Randy Newman’s first album many years ago with the lyric, “Human Kindness is Overflowing” and the immediately identifiable Newman orchestral arrangement. Why haven’t I heard this before?

My book this week was “Notes on a Foreign Country (An American Abroad in a Post American World)” by Suzy Hansen. This is by a New York Times journalist who moves to Istanbul and quickly comes to realize that her views and opinions on American policy are quite different when observed through the local Turkish lens. I’m enjoying the book quite a bit but think it’ll take several weeks to finish with some lighter material for breaks.

Here’s one final piece of music that I’ve been listened to several times this week – “Trust” by Roy Hargrove. I love the flugelhorn sound on this one. Hargrove was born in Waco, Texas and attended the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing Arts in Dallas. It’s there that he was discovered by Wynton Marsalis on a visit to the school. One of his big influences was David “Fathead” Newman who was a core member of Ray Charles’ Band. Interestingly Newman was the second concert that I saw in the United States – at a small club called The Caravan of Dreams in Fort Worth while I was working in the oil business. What was the first show I hear you asking – Delbert McClinton at the same excellent venue in downtown Fort Worth.