At last, a mostly peaceful week at home for both of us. Diana worked hard for four solid days to continue to come up to speed on her new job, her accounts, and the people that she works with. I had a couple of busy days with high impact outages and other annoyances. However, I was able to watch some of the World Cup and particularly enjoyed the Japan vs Belgium and Brazil vs Belgium games. It’s fun to text back and forth with my friend Judy, soccer referee extraordinaire, in California about our predicted outcomes. She chose Brazil to beat Belgium and so lost that game, while I chose Sweden to beat England and lost that one. I’m predicting Belgium wins 2-1 over England in the final.
One of my favourite musical bloggers shared these thoughts about the best footballer ever in his opinion, the Scotsman Alan Gilzean. He was a wee bit before my time, but this video would support the commentary that follows it:
Alan Gilzean was to use a fine Scots term a supremely canny player. He seemed to have an advanced football radar system that allowed him to know exactly where he was in relation to his markers and his team mates.
He insouciantly brought off feats of skill and technique that other fine players could only dream of – leaving opponents admiringly bemused and teammates exhilarated.
But, with Alan Gilzean it’s not the numbers that you remember it’s the breathtaking elegance of his play – the way he could amaze you game after game with the subtlety of his footballing imagination.
Reading about Gilzean had my mind drifting back to Kenny Dalglish, my favourite Scottish footballer, and his goals for Scotland in the World Cup and his amazing performances with Celtic and Liverpool.
On a sad note, I heard of the passing of Henry Butler on Monday, at the young age of 69. Butler was born in New Orleans and lived there for much of his life, moving to Boulder, CO after Hurricane Katrina and finally living in New York where he was an active participant in the jazz scene.
I met Mr. Butler on my very first visit to New Orleans, about a year after Katrina. I was visiting some folks from my State Farm account team and met up with Denny and Anne after dinner. They took me to the original Rock N’ Bowl and then to see Kermit Ruffins at Vaughans. Henry Butler was sitting in on keyboards with Kermit and Anne introduced me to him as she was helping him to a taxi – Butler went blind from glaucoma at a very early age. What an amazing night that was and what a typical kind gesture from Anne.
I like what the New York Times had to say in their obituary:
Mr. Butler’s music was encyclopedic, precise and wild. He was acclaimed as a member of a distinctively New Orleans piano pantheon alongside Jelly Roll Morton, James Booker, Tuts Washington, Professor Longhair, Fats Domino, Allen Toussaint and Dr. John. He was also a forthright, bluesy singer who often used New Orleans standards as springboards for improvisation.
Mr. Butler commanded the syncopated power and splashy filigree of boogie-woogie and gospel and the rolling polyrhythms of Afro-Caribbean music. He could also summon the elegant delicacy of classical piano or hurtle toward the dissonances and atonal clusters of modern jazz. He could play in convincing vintage styles and sustain multileveled counterpoint, then demolish it all in a whirlwind of genre-smashing virtuosity.
Dr. John (Mac Rebennack) once described him as “the pride of New Orleans and a visionistical down-home cat and a hellified piano plunker to boot.”
Ivan Neville, who leads the New Orleans band Dumpstaphunk and recorded with Mr. Butler as part of the all-star group New Orleans Social Club, said by email on Tuesday that Mr. Butler was “an amazingly, truly gifted musician and pianist like no other.” He added, “At times it sounded like he had three or four hands instead of just two.”
My big take away from this is – go and see the great live performers while you can! Make the effort to get out and see live music – you’ll rarely regret it.
Our noisy pool pump got even noisier this week and finally gave up the ghost. An expensive but much, much quieter pump has now been installed and is working very well. The great news is we’ll no longer be awakened by the pump turning on and off during the winter nights. It turns out the pump had been leaking for a while and supporting an outbreak of weeds in the pool equipment area – McD with her weed gun to the rescue!
Patty and Brent joined us for dinner on July 4th. Diana was hungry when she went shopping for dinner and so we had several courses – D’s famous meat and cheese platters, lamb chops on the grill, a selection of sausages with a selection of mustards, caprese, shrimp and veggie fries. There were lots of leftovers for the rest of the week. We decided not to brave the crowds to watch live fireworks and settled for the New York music and fireworks display on television – a sign of aging I’m sure.
We watched the movie “A Song for You” on Friday night. This film gives a behind the scenes look at 40 years of the PBS music show “Austin City Limits”.
I really enjoyed the view into what makes this show special as well as the commentary from musicians and the clips of archive performances – those by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Ray Charles being highlights.
Saturday took us back to the Kessler for perhaps our last concert with Patty and Brent before they move north – I’m sure we’ll try to tempt them to visit in the future with upcoming concerts. They’ve been working through a list of Dallas restaurants that they want to try or revisit before moving and chose North Italia at the new Legacy West development for our pre-concert dinner. The home made pasta dishes were excellent. Patty found a perfect new car for David parked across from the restaurant:
The concert was by the Devon Allman Band with opener Duane Betts. Devon is the son of the late Gregg Allman who started the Allman Brothers Band (one of my very favourites) with his brother Duane Allman and Dickie Betts on guitars. Duane is the son of Dickie and (you guessed it) named after Duane Allman. Both Devon and Duane played sets of their own music and then concluded with a tribute to their fathers and the Allman Brothers.
The opening dual guitar riff from “Blue Sky” always makes us smile:
The music is very much from the Southern Rock genre with a strong blues element. We particularly enjoyed Devon’s cover of “I’ll be Around”, originally recorded by The Spinners.
Devon was very brave when he rambled through the audience playing a guitar solo and stood up on one of the folding chairs beside us.
What a great night of music – right in my sweet spot with the dual guitars.
We stayed at the Joule hotel downtown after the show – a chance for Patty and Brent to treat themselves before moving. A good feature of this hotel is the champagne they serve you as you check in. That might be Diana’s favourite part of the hotel.
I finished “Blue Lightning” by Ann Cleeves this week. This was one of the books I got from my Mum and Dad for my birthday and is set on Fair Isle (located about half way between Shetland and Orkney islands) and a birders paradise. A body is discovered in a bird observatory and detective Jimmy Perez has to solve the murder in the middle of a very strong storm. I enjoyed the insight into 
the competitive bird spotting world and the twists and turns of the murder mystery plot. Fair Isle is also known for very intricately designed hand knitted sweaters.
Here’s one more song from Devon Allman to finish out the post this week: