August 2007 has been a tough month for the jazz community. Three musicians in three stages of life have passed away and each one has hurt really bad. Max Roach is inarguably one of a select few drummers to make the most musical sounds come from a set of drums. It's tough to judge a drummer on his musicianship seeing as how it is generally a toneless instrument. My dad seems to have a strange hostility towards drummers, calling them non musicians and saying anyone can play drums. Clearly, my dad has never heard Max Roach, and this solo on Sonny Rollins' "Blue 7", in particular:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=OXX8HJ9B

 

There is so much music contained within those few minutes of Max playing alone. All of the components are there; rhythm, form, melody, even harmony. It is an example of the drums being elevated to the level of an instrument capable of extreme musical beauty; a combination of the intellect, grace, sex (jazz is, or at least jazz WAS fucking music!), and humour. I remember in history class in my first year at Humber, we had to identify recordings for a test, and this solo came on. Within 3 seconds, I had my answer scribbled down, and I looked around at the class, chuckling, as if to say, "What an easy test!" It's a shame most people couldn't answer with as much ease, but that's the state of the music today. I was lucky enough to witness Max in person May 15, 2003, at the 50th anniversary of the great Massey Hall bebop concert with Max, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell and Charles Mingus. Being the only surviving member of the band, I suppose the promoters felt compelled to have Max make an appearance, but it was very awkward, because his Alzheimer's was quite noticeable. He spoke for a few minutes and played an absolutely BITCHIN' solo on just the hi-hat cymbal. All in all, I wish I could have seen Max in his prime, but I am blessed that I got to see him. May he rest in peace. He was 83.

A few days after Max passed, I was informed that a man named Dave Malysch passed away. Dave and I spent a week in the summer of 2003 hanging out together as 2 out of only 3 Torontonians at the Stanford Jazz Workshop in Palo Alto, California. He was a great lead trumpet player, a ridiculously kind man, and what makes this unbelievably tragic, is that he was only 40 years old. There is no word on what he died from, but I have heard that it was some sort of accident. What a shame. I remember him talking about how excited he was that after the workshop finished, he was going to rent a convertible and drive down the coast to Los Angeles. I also remember sitting next to him in a big band (this is in my trumpet days, remember) and sight reading a Thad Jones chart. I stumbled through it, and he nailed it! I had not seen Dave in a few years, but it really hurt to hear the news of his passing.

Tuesday night, as I was preparing a dinner for 10 friends, I was informed that Doctor Music, the great Doug Riley passed away from a heart attack at the age of 62, while on tour in Calgary. Doug was an absolutely slammin' b-3 organ player, among the best in the world. I caught many of his gigs over the last 7 years since getting into jazz. He was such a consistent musician that if I saw his name on the Rex calender, I could be sure there would be some grits n' gravy style gutbucket organ jazz to be heard. His presence in the Toronto jazz community will definitely be missed.

Had a fairly successful BBQ this past Tuesday. The menu was: Herb Crisps, Roasted Carrot Soup, Herb Salad with Goat Cheese, Roasted Mushroom & Parsley Risotto, Hickory Smoked Leg of Lamb, Lavender & Honey Ice Cream, Amaretto & Rum Flambeed Fruit Salad. I made the effort to include fresh herbs from the incredible garden in my back yard; Italian parsley, sage and tarragon in the crisps, marjoram and basil in the salad, thyme and Italian parsley in the risotto, rosemary in the lamb, and lavender in the ice cream. Making ice cream was a trip! It's funny, a few weeks ago I was looking to see if my parents had hidden any booze around the house (how very junior high!), and stumbled upon this incredible ice cream maker that hadn't been used in 15 years. This is the fifth dinner party I have hosted, and I would say it was easily the best. The food was at a much higher level (culinary school will do that to you), the weather was an absolutely stunning 28 degrees, I wore a sexy hot dog hat, and everybody seemed to have a great time. Check out my Facebook album for pics. If you're reading this and aren't on Facebook, then you can see them here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=4116&l=bf72e&id=500171987

Been listening to my Scorpio twin sister (we share a birthday!) Joni Mitchell NONSTOP for the past few days. Joni really is one of the great poets to come out of the pop music medium and she makes me proud to be a Canadian. One song really hits home with me, and it's called "Amelia" from her 1976 classic record "Hejira". I can vividly recall Joni performing this song at the one concert I saw of hers, October 29, 1998 at Maple Leaf Gardens (opening for Bob Dylan!). It's strange because I went to that show in 1998, and heard "Hejira" for the first time only a few days ago, but 9 years later, I remembered "Amelia". Here's the tune:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VG78FRG7

I was driving across the burning desert
When I spotted six jet planes
Leaving six white vapor trails across the bleak terrain
It was the hexagram of the heavens
it was the strings of my guitar
Amelia, it was just a false alarm

The drone of flying engines
Is a song so wild and blue
It scrambles time and seasons if it gets thru to you
Then your life becomes a travelogue
Of picture-post-card-charms
Amelia, it was just a false alarm

People will tell you where they've gone
They'll tell you where to go
But till you get there yourself you never really know
Where some have found their paradise
Other's just come to harm
Oh Amelia, it was just a false alarm

I wish that he was here tonight
It's so hard to obey
His sad request of me to kindly stay away
So this is how I hide the hurt
As the road leads cursed and charmed
I tell Amelia, it was just a false alarm

A ghost of aviation
She was swallowed by the sky
Or by the sea, like me she had a dream to fly
Like Icarus ascending
On beautiful foolish arms
Amelia, it was just a false alarm

Maybe I've never really loved
I guess that is the truth
I've spent my whole life in clouds at icy altitude
And looking down on everything
I crashed into his arms
Amelia, it was just a false alarm

I pulled into the Cactus Tree Motel
To shower off the dust
And I slept on the strange pillows of my wanderlust
I dreamed of 747s
Over geometric farms
Dreams, Amelia, dreams and false alarms

Good God, what beautiful images in those words and I love the use of Amelia Earheart as a metaphore for her need to escape. Also on this track, Larry Carlton proves just why he was the most heavily used studio guitar player in the 70s. He wasn't hired to provide guitar wallpaper to a record. Cats hired him because he's Larry Carlton. This is going to be a great month for me as a Joni fan, as on September 25th, Joni is coming out of retirement to release her first record of new songs in 9 years, "Shine". Also on the 25th, Herbie Hancock is releasing a record of her songs, which may suck (just like almost ALL of Herbie's "projects" of the last 30 years), or it just may be incredible. He's got Wayne Shorter on it, which is always a good thing. He's also got some great guest singers including Tina Turner, Leonard Cohen and Joni, herself.

Happy Labour Day weekend, y'all! I have a trip to the beach to look forward to on Sunday and a wedding gig to look forward to on Monday. Also, I just discovered a plethora of Gordon Ramsay clips on Youtube that are kicking my ass. One watch of a 4 minute clip, and my scrambled eggs improved about 1000 percent. Anyway, toodles.

Here's the latest rotation: Joni Mitchell's "Hejira", "Blue", "Shadows And Light", "For The Roses", "Court And Spark", and "Travelogue", Jeff Tain Watts' "Citizen Tain", the Beatles' "The White Album", Joe Williams & Ben Webster's "Havin' A Good Time", John Coltrane's "Ballads", Stevie Wonder's "Music Of My Mind", Stan Getz' "Focus", a Cab Calloway compilation and a Stax Records compilation.

Been a while since I've blogged. Lotsa shit has happened in the past month. I got a new job which I kinda like. I'm cooking in the 2nd floor kitchen of a 24 hour joint called 7 West at 7 Charles St. West (duh!), just west of Yonge, one block south of Bloor. The food is okay, although there are a few inexcusable shortcuts they take such as garnishing the dishes with this disgusting dried parsley crap. Also, the burgers and chicken is cooked ahead of time and reheated for service, which is kinda lame. But they have some delicious sandwiches, pastas, etc. Also, after everything is closed, it's the best food you can get, I'd say, next to Fran's, or King Palace (although King Palace is out of the way). I really like (most of) the people I work with. The hours are really fucking brutal. I'm working full time for the first time in my life, and I do 4 days a week, 7 in the fucking morning until 5 in the afternoon! Most days I don't get a break and spend the entire 10 hours on my feet, running around, bringing heavy containers full of things like bruschetta mix up 3 flights of stairs, or cooking by myself for the entire 2nd and 3rd floor! It's usually not that busy, but there's always a rush at lunch time of about an hour or two that gets pretty stressful. I'm surprisingly fine working the 10 hours, but it's really making me quite useless for the rest of the day as I just need to relax. I played a gig a few weeks ago immediately after a shift, and it was really embarassing. My sound was really weak, and I was forgetting melodies I have played a thousand times. Melodies I had JUST CALLED! It was at a reception for some computer genius convention, so nobody in the audience was paying any attention, but still, the other musicians were listening. Blech! Whatevs. Another thing is that the money is absolute shit. It's minimum wage, plus tips, but I've been stuck with a shift that maybe accumulates 20 bucks over the course of 10 hours, so it's awful, especially since I am trying to save up for Paris. The goal is to get good enough to work the busier night shifts. We'll see.

The jazz festival was just amazing this year. I was not able to catch nearly as much because of my job, but I heard some of the best music of my life. The Keith Jarrett Trio played at the new Four Seasons Centre opera house, and set my soul on fire. Anyone that has ever heard Keith's trio on record or in concert has most likely been moved by the ballads he plays, particularly the unaccompanied codas he does at the end of them. He did THREE OF THEM, and it was the most moving musical experience I have ever had. I have never had my life spontaneously flash before my eyes, which happened during the coda for "Someday My Prince Will Come". During "When I Fall In Love", I literally started thinking about my own death. If nuclear war had broken out on Friday June 29th and the walls of the Four Seasons Centre crumbled down killing me and the other three thousand people in attendance that night, I would have died completely at peace. I can't say that nuclear war struck that night, but I can say that Keith Jarrett played the most exquisitely beautiful music I have ever heard. I would not say it was the greatest show I have ever seen, as that goes to Prince and James Brown, who are more consistently great, but this is in the top 3, and that is saying a lot, considering I have seen probably more than a thousand concerts in my life.

Some other great shows included the Derek Trucks Band, who played a ridiculously hot set of blues and soul inspired fusion lead by the phenomenal guitar player, Derek Trucks. Chris Botti and his incredible band (Peter Martin, Mark Whitfield, James Genus & Billy Kilson!!!) played some smooth, smooth, smooth-as-a-baby's-ass music to an appreciative audience of 94.7 THE WAVE listeners (and me!). I dig Chris' playing. He's got one of the purest sounds on the trumpet I've ever heard live, and he employs the best musicians around. But it can get lame at times, such as when he played Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" or Ennio Morricone's theme from "Cinema Paradiso". I caught up with Chris before the gig and reminded him of the trumpet lesson he gave me in the basement of Massey Hall before a Sting gig 3 years ago. He asked me how I'm doing on trumpet......pfffft....I explained that not too long after the lesson, I switched to tenor. He knew it had nothing to do with him, and we laughed about it and then later on, I was pleasantly surprised when he told the story to the audience as a preamble to a story about him playing with Sinatra!

What's funny is that I went to Chris' gig straight from the Gay Pride celebration (in which Dance Yourself To Death played a great set!), so it was like I was seeing both ends of the spectrum, going from topless transvestites and old men in TINY fluorescent pink underwear to wealthy suburbanites with Blackberries clipped on to their belt and their patterned golf shirts tucked into khaki shorts. It was a nice contrast.

Some shows coming up that I'm looking forward to include Roger Waters, tonight (!!), the Police next week (!!!!!!!!!!), Meatloaf next month, and I might go to Velvet Revolver because they rock. Also, I am going to (hopefully be able to) treat myself to a brief trip to London before Paris starts to see PRINCE!! I bought tickets to his aftershow on September 20th, and tomorrow I'll get tickets to the main gig at the O2 Dome. Sweet Jesus, that will be incredible. Apparently Wendy will be joining him for these gigs (but not Lisa, who is pregnant).

And now for one of the most thoughtful and poetic musings on love to ever come out of pop music, Stevie Wonder's "If It's Magic".

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RB7QKI2T

If it's magic...
Then why can't it be everlasting
Like the sun that always shines
Like the poets in this rhyme
Like the galaxies in time

If it's pleasing...
Then why can't it be never leaving
Like the day that never fails
Like on seashores there are shells
Like the time that always tells

It holds the key to every heart
Throughout the universe
It fills you up without a bite
And quenches every thirst

So...
If it's special
Then with it why aren't we as careful
As making sure we dress in style
Posing pictures with a smile
Keeping danger from a child

It holds the key to every heart
Throughout the universe
It fills you up without a bite
And quenches every thirst

So...
If it's magic...
Why can't we make it everlasting
Like the lifetime of the sun
It will leave no heart undone
For there's enough for everyone

Here's the latest rotation: Stevie Wonder's "Songs In The Key Of Life", Jeff Buckley's "The Complete Live At Sin-e", Charles Davis' "Blue Gardenias", Larry Young's "Mothership", "Soul From The Cities, Vol 1: Philadelphia", "Soul From The Cities, Vol. 3: Memphis", Duke Ellington's "The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse", Phil Nimmons' "The Atlantic Suite", Phil Nimmons & David Braid's "Nimmons n' Braid", King Curtis' "Trouble In Mind", and Soundgarden's "A-Sides".

The Sopranos, the greatest television show in history, had its series finale last night. I, being the amazing friend that I am, supported my friends Jono and Colin's Salon Voltaire gig, had to wait until this afternoon to watch it, and let me say, it was EXCRUCIATING trying to avoid it being spoiled. My dad has this thing where he just hates TV and movies in general and enjoys spoiling them as much as possible. Apparently the second he read about it in the paper, he told my mom, ruining it for her! I'm lucky I'm such a lazy motherfucker as I didn't get up until he had already left for work. Ma warned me that it was in the paper, so as I come downstairs to get breakfast, I see an open paper on the table. I actually shielded my eyes with my arm and walked to the table blind, knocking into shit, stubbing my toe on a chair. But it all worked. I managed to get to Mike's around 11:30 this morning knowing absolutely nothing about the episode. I would have gone apeshit if someone had spoiled it. Seriously. My Facebook status last night was "Jesse is not watching Sopranos until tomorrow. If anybody spoils it, he will curb them and then sodomize the corpse." Not trying to be funny. Just telling the truth. Obviously, the necrophiliac part of me kinda wanted someone to push me over the edge, but the avid Sopranos watcher wanted the episode unspoiled. (By the way, curbing, which was introduced to the public in the film "American History X", is the act of getting someone to bite the curb, and then stomping on their head!!)

On to the episode itself, it was fucking brilliant, which was expected, but the way it played out was completely unpredictible. I had all sorts of expectations about who was going to die, who was going to flip to the FBI, who was going to switch crews, etc. None of them came true. As early as last year, I was predicting what song would end the show. I thought it would probably be an epic Rolling Stones or Van Morrison song as the show has used their music to great effect in the past. What did we get?? Fucking JOURNEY!! "Don't Stop Believing". Now, I think Journey blows big time, but the choice to end the show with "Don't Stop Believing" was GENIUS! The scene is Tony and his family all meeting up at an All-American style diner, and basically this tension just builds and builds because every single person in the joint could be FBI, a rival mobster, etc. What made it extra special for me is the importance that was placed on the music for this scene, as they went into great detail when showing Tony flipping through the jukebox to choose a song. The scene ended very ambiguously causing all sorts of debate as to whether Tony gets killed or not. In classic David Chase style, that's the point!! The show is not great because of the violence, the nudity, the gang wars, etc. It's the most complex character study I have ever witnessed and in 9 years, they have not done a single thing that could have been expected. Ending the show with Journey, as strange as it is to say, is the last in an unbroken streak of brilliance from this show. Ambiguous an ending as it was, I am perfectly satisfied knowing that I will never see another new episode again. As a tribute to the show, here is the Rolling Stones' "Thru And Thru", a very sad, very haunting Keith Richards vocal from the otherwise shitty "Voodoo Lounge" record in 1994. This song closed the second season; a classic scene juxtaposing a classy Sopranos house party celebrating Meadow's high school graduation with a montage of a former friend of Tony, who he extorted and whose life he basically ruined, packing up and moving away from the house he has to leave. P.S. When proofreading this last paragraph, I realized that I used the word "brilliant" no less than FIVE times, so any similar word you see, just know that it wasn't my first choice!

The Rolling Stones-Thru And Thru

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=U6DSNKTM

You know that we do take away
We deliver too
Open 24 hours babe
Just waiting on a call from you
Waiting on a call from you

Well Im in the yellow pages
You just take a look
Look me up under services
You know its just an open book
Babe its just an open book
Its just an open book
Well baby

Any minute, any hour
Im waiting on a call from you
And you know this heart is constant
Im your lover, baby
Thru and thru
Lover, baby, thru and thru

I only found out yesterday
I heard it on the news
What I heard really pissed me off
Cause now I got those fucking blues
I got those awesome blues
Babe I got those nothing blues

Any minute, any hour
Im waiting on a call from you
And you know this heart is constant
Im your lover, baby
Thru and thru
Lover, baby, thru and thru

You know that we do take-away
That we deliver, too
Were open 24 hours, baby
Were waiting on a call from you
But any minute, baby, any hour
Im waiting on a call from you
You know that this heart is constant
Im your lover, baby
Thru and thru
Lover, baby, thru and thru
Lover, baby, thru and thru
Lover, baby, thru and thru

Luminato was two tonnes of fun! I caught my friend and mentor Doug Wamble at the Courthouse on Monday and Tuesday, but what really represented a great Toronto summer festival was the shows at Harbourfront Centre on Thursday and Friday. Nothing like chilling out at a gorgeous waterfront amphitheatre, the cool summer breeze taking the edge off the humid Toronto air, listening to some high quality music for the price of on-the-house! I caught Somali-born, Toronto-bred rapper K'naan on Thursday night. He opened a Roots gig I saw a few years ago, and really caught my ear, so I was real happy about that. Friday was the incredible New Orleans based Dirty Dozen Brass Band. I was lucky enough to get a front row seat as I was excited about the gig, but wasn't really in the mood to dance, so I could still have a great view. But of course, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band funked SO DAMN HARD that I just had to get up anyway and shake everything I've got. Those are always the best shows. The ones where you're really not in the mood to dance and/or listen and the band is so hot that you just can't stop it. Another show I can remember like that was the Victor Wooten gig at the Opera House, fall of 2005. I was coming from a long shift at Sam The Record Man, which I had done on just a few hours of sleep. The second I got there, I realized how exhausted I was, and considered trying to get my money back so I could just go home. Then Vic started and I stuck around for a few tunes. I realized after about a half hour that it was probably too late to get my money back. But I was freaking exhausted so I sat down, with my back against the brick wall, and slept, in the middle of this packed club, with LOUD music happening all around me. But the music was so hot I had to get up, which I did, and stood, for the rest of the THREE HOUR gig!

Anyway, I'm gonna go shed. Jamming at the Rex tomorrow!!

Here's the latest rotation: A Keith Jarrett boot from Montreal in 2004 (I was there!), a Switch compilation, Cassandra Wilson's "Thunderbird", a Jazz At Lincoln Center playing Gershwin boot (FUCKING MARCUS ROBERTS!!), Amy Winehouse's "Back To Black", Steely Dan's "Two Against Nature" and a Sidney Bechet compilation.

Lots to update about, but I only just got up in the middle of the night to brush my teeth, and don't know how long I'll last. Plus, I'm still a little drunk from the party I went to, but here goes.

I saw the film "Paris, Je T'aime", a collection of short films about, obviously, Muncie, Indiana! Noooo, Paris, duh! Most of the shorts were great, and it was fun spotting extremely well hidden cameos from the likes of Marianne Faithful and Ludvigne Sagnier, among others. But it was the very last short that I really fell in love with. BY FAR, my favourite segment, it was directed by Alexander Payne, director of one of my all time favourite films, "Sideways". It's a Denver woman's trip to Paris, done with her own French narration, with hilarious American accent. It starts out cute and you laugh at this woman, but with an absolute genius pace, gradually builds an incredible melancholy sweetness that had me in tears by the end. This woman is me at many times in my life that I can pinpoint specifically, and yes, I, too, find it funny that the movie character I identify with MOST of all is this middle aged, very UNglamorous woman from Denver. I think it is no coincidence that the next film characters I most identify with are the two protagonists of "Sideways". Something about Alexander Payne, I suppose. Perhaps I should see his other films!! "About Schmidt" and "Election" are the ones to see, I've heard. Here's the short:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=xqstlUU_kD0

I had my gig last Sunday. Jesse & The Rippers' debut was a success, for the most part. Some things I'd do differently. For one thing, sharing the bill with another act, even one of a completely different genre, isn't necessarily a terrible idea, but it was in this case, as the guy delayed my first set by over an hour, causing the people who were there for me to become EXTREMELY restless, and causing most of them to leave after my first set, as the thought of sitting through another of this guy's sets was too much to handle, even with a last set from me concluding the night. Soooo, only 5 people were in attendance for the last set. But I look at the bright side, and determine that this REALLY loosened me up because I had the balls to play some tunes I was very hesitant to play without a rehearsal; and they went over great! D'Angelo's "Africa" was really soulful I thought, even though I totally couldn't remember the melody during the bridge! The first set went over very well. The club was packed, the band backed me up perfectly, and for the most part, I played relatively well. Listening to the recording, I realized that I have some serious issues with my sound, but I am going to take the time to fix them. Nobody wants to listen to a horn player with a shitty sound. My stage banter was at first nervous and dull, but when I introduced the band and said that Jeff and I were in Toronto All-Star Big Band ".....until I got fired...." and everybody laughed, I stopped being nervous and was just myself, which is always oodles of fun! The cookies I made were delicious! Unfortunately, I didn't bust them out until the last set, so not too many people were there to enjoy them, but more for me, I guess! I took a jar of marashino cherries, and just used the juice! I reduced the juice to a caramel, and incorporated that into the batter of these spice cookies I read, and altered, the recipe for in a Martha Stewart baking book (fantastic book, by the way!). All sorts of cool spices in there, eg, cardomon, cloves, cinnamon, anise, black pepper, etc. No ginger in there, which is funny because all those spices together made a predominantly ginger flavour. The cherry caramel formed these nice little red spots on the cookies. I thought I could make some sort of reference to menstruation when coming up with a title for the cookies, but then determined that it would be in poor taste. Plus, as a tribute to the Woody Allen movie "Small Time Crooks" that gave me the idea for the cookies, I just called them "Frenchy's Cherry Cinnamon Cookies".

The night before, Jeff and I went to Niagara Falls, New York, to see one of my all time favourite bands, Steely Dan. When I say "one of", I mean this really is ONE OF the bands I have listened to the most in my entire life, starting around the summer of 2000 or 2001 when I bought "Aja" on LP at a garage sale. I quoted them in my high school yearbook graduation quote. I have worn out very few CDs in my life, and just about all of them are Steely Dan ones. Anyway, it's rare that I can go to a show and, without even having to think about it, know the lyrics to every single song. The band was tighter than a nun's asshole, which can be expected, considering they generally get the creme de la creme to play with them. After the gig, I had a shitty, what I assume is a typical New York state casino-quality meal, and then lost $40 at blackjack, but it didn't even matter because the gig was so great.

There was a party at the Ezer residence tonight to celebrate their upcoming move downtown. It was one of those parties where I just ate and drank so much that I felt sooo full, but so damn good, as well. At the very end of the night, I, having brought my horn, played "It Could Happen To You" with Isaac, who was at the piano. I was drunk, so it was a little shaky, rhythm-wise, but I still liked it. We have a dual lesson with David Braid, coming up this week, which I am nervous for. David Braid is inarguably among the best pianists and composers in the country (in my opinion, the best, and one of the best in the entire world). We are SO fucking lucky that he lives and plays in Toronto, because he is not typical of the Toronto jazz scene, in any way. Personally, I have been very lucky that he's such a nice guy, and always approachable for a discussion about music and life, usually the latter. I am not entirely sure how this lesson will go, as I have not really ever had a lesson as a duo, but I have no doubt it will be incredibly enlightening. Anyway, here's Frank Sinatra singing "It Could Happen To You". It's the token happy, or at least hopeful song on Sinatra's "Close To You", which is among the best of the saloon song records, second only to "Only The Lonely".

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=LN1449XP

I am pretty sure I'll be in Paris, come October! So excited!! It's going to be tough as all hell, but well worth it, I'm sure. Do any of my faithful readers (HA!) know anybody else that is going to be there?

Here's the latest rotation: Cassandra Wilson's "Thunderbird", Frank Sinatra's "Close To You", Trio Beyond's "Saudades", Anthony Hamilton's "Comin' From Where I'm From", a Prince bootleg from Vegas in March, "The Dinah Washington Story", Funkadelic's "Maggot Brain", and K'naan's "The Dusty Foot Philosopher".

Oh crap, I just realized I forgot to write about Luminato. Oh well, next entry.