LOWDOWN MONDAY MORNING BLUES

I don’t know how many jazz fans I have among my readers — or, for that matter, how many blues buffs I have among my jazz fans — but just between me and you (no matter how few), today I’m in a LOWDOWN and BLUE musical mood. To my non-jazz followers tried and true, you’re welcome to listen in too….with no apologies due if you decide to bid me adieu ’til my next post’s in view.

So, without further ado, here’s the LOWDOWN — BLUES, that is, played by a legendary New Orleans jazz man….and that’s no Bunk (I beg your pardon: it is Bunk) :

For my next selection this Monday morning, what else but the….

Some blues songs are a bit dirty, but I offer one that will leave you cleaner than a flushed toilet with a clogged drain….and, it’s conveniently in the same room:

Today is Easter Monday which, I’m sure you’re aware, is also DYNGUS DAY, which is big in Poland. Other than that, I don’t know a dang thingus about Dyngus, so I checked it out and found that it’s celebrated like St. Patrick’s Day is in Ireland, with drinking, parades, drinking, parties, drinking, dancing, and drinking. Of course, the Poles are open all night on Dyngus Day, so I’d like to close with a song apropos for the occasion — but unlike St. Patrick’s Day, I can’t show a Dyngus song because I don’t know a Dyngus song. Luckily, a melodious American opus will serve the purpose if we substitute DYNGUS for DUMAS:

Just between us, I thinkest that’s the dangest Dyngus/Dumas anyone could sing us to bring us to the finus. Thank goodness for Louis.

NO BRAINER DAY

I think, therefore I am. –René Descartes 
I overthink, therefore I post. –mistermuse

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Lately, I’ve been burning too much mental energy cooking up posts to roast Trump (e.g., I almost said toast rump); the heat is turning my face red and giving me the thinking blues:

Frankly, friends, I think I need to cool it before the strain becomes a drain on my brain and gives me a pain. Fortunately, Feb. 27 is NO BRAINER DAY — a perfect day to post a post which requires little or no thinking. But before you Trump reprobates snidely ask how that would make this post any different from my previous posts, answer me this: how much thought do you think The Donald gives his tweets? Even a smart-ask Trumpite should allow that mistermuse be entitled to one day of devoting the same paucity of gray matter to his post that your Orange Oligarch devotes to his tweets every day.

With that in mind, I’m giving the rest of this tome over to posting what others thought when they thought about thinking/not thinking. Do I think their thinking will make you think you’re thinking what I’m thinking about thinking/not thinking? Just a thought.

So, let’s get quoting before I change my mind and start thinking again:

I think that I think; therefore, I think I am. –Ambrose Bierce

[I think that I think, therefore] I yam what I yam. –Popeye the Sailor Man

There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking. –Thomas Edison

Ours is an age which is proud of machines that think, and suspicious of men who try to. –Howard Mumford Jones

The best way [for a woman] to win a man is to make him think you think as much of him as he does. –Evan Esar

In America, we say what we think, and even if we can’t think, we say it anyhow. –Charles F. Kettering

In closing, did you know Rodin’s THE THINKER was originally called THE POET:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thinker

I happen to know that THE POET didn’t appreciate the name change, thus this reaction:

Mused The Poet to a passing skunk,
“What good is being called The Thinker?
To some day convey the aura of a President,
It should Don the wrap, like you, of The Stinker.”

 

 

I’LL MEET YOU AT THE OLD CAMP MEETING

It has been some time since I devoted a post to one of my passions, namely CLASSIC JAZZ, so what say we ramble on down to the old camp meeting and get some jazz religion? If you’re not a classic jazz lover, perhaps it’s because you’ve never been exposed or open to the sound of America’s own indigenous music, with its roots in late 19th century ragtime, gospel and blues, among other influences. So I’m making it my mission (and New Year’s resolution) to deliver you from that sin of omission in your musical faith upbringing.

One of the greatest pioneering jazzmen was New Orleans-born Joseph “King” Oliver, mentor of Louis Armstrong, who made a number of historic jazz records beginning in 1923, including CAMP MEETING BLUES. Here is the beginning of that primitive recording, which transitions beautifully (after 37 seconds) into the PERUNA JAZZMEN’s 1988 faithful-to-the-original rendering:

Next, we turn to an even more recent rendering of an even older Camp Meeting song:

:

Our last Camp Meeting is a Swing era classic from another king, the King of Swing, Benny Goodman:

Now that you have seen the light, go and sin no more.

Amen.

Oh….and Happy New Year!

 

J TALK

Let’s talk a bit about the “J” ladies who will join us on this 9th walk into my feminine song series. Our stroll starts with a century-old blues, the title of which has origins lost in haze beyond where the crow flies. Speculation has it that the Crow in the title refers to racist Jim Crow laws in Southern states in those vestigial days, or to the name of a Native American tribe, but no one seems to know for sure. In any case, CROW JANE is a ‘blues J’ that’s a jewel of its genre, performed here New Orleans street-style:

Next, we have a sweet little number from 1930. You’ll love her when you see….

I don’t know about you — I could go for more of this gal. But enough walking. This time, we’ll go by Cab (the fare is quite good):