Can I help you with anything, sir? PART DOS

Continued from last night's post:

When I popped in the Blindfold Test CD, I was struck by this one really dense piano piece. It starts off populated by thick openly-voiced block chords, very quiet, very syncopated. And then it goes into this much more happy-go-lucky swingin' solo section where the pianist shows signs of being free but it's all within the mindset of straight-ahead. I thought for some reason of Oscar Peterson mixed with hints of Jaki Byard and Cecil Taylor. Very interesting. Can't wait to find out what this actually was. I am waiting to listen to the whole test more thoroughly before I post my comments and then look at the answers (which are already up now).

The other piece that was really good was a clarinet feature backed by a really tight big band. It was truly virtuosic playing. It couldn't have been Don Byron. It was too "refined" in its articulations. This cat was really tearin' it up.

12:05

Arrived home. Ate home-cooked food for first time since Thanksgiving.

1:13

Attempted to sleep. All I could do was scat. Whenever I go to sleep, or try to go to sleep, I scat. Like as if I was playing my horn. I even do the approximate fingerings by muscle memory. I do this a lot when I am not trying to sleep as well. It is what jazz musicians do. I should do a study on how much people obsessed with jazz hum melodies/improvisations to tunes out loud or in their heads during their day.

1:30

Showered, shaved. Left to get haircut for social event.

2:30

Arrived at Cingular Wireless. "Can I help you with anything, sir?" No. Thanks I am trying to get in and get out. But oh wait, did I mention I am with my mom? And she has a preferred guy she likes to deal with. His name was Kyle. Now, I should have known that taking a trip to the mall with a woman was a bad idea. With my mother - a terrible idea.

However, lately I have been very unable to do stuff without a working cell phone. After about an hour of talking fascist equipment/plan upgrades (since AT&T Wireless is no more and Cingular is the big boiee now), and features (camera phones, bluetooth, keypads, flip vs. non-flip, bluetooth earpiece vs. regular earpiece, etc.) I had a phone picked out. Check it. Hotness. No hope for the tape deck, or the Creedence (and by tape deck and Creedence I mean essential phone numbers on the phone but not on the SIM card (CURSES!!!). When your screen has been violently disconnected from your phone, it's rather hard to extract any sort of data - thank God for the SIM card...) Then we had to wait for all the other 600,000 people buying cell phones today for Christmas to get their SIM cards recognized and initialized by the network. We wait, and wait, and wait.

3:30

I go acrosss the hallway to try on dress shoes (cuz I forgot my one brown pair and my mom says I need a black pair too, which is true) at another corporate chain (Rockport). They don't carry Double E widths for my size. More curses. Got a fruit smoothie. Made the horrible mistake of ordering Sour Apple with Passion Fruit. Way too sweet. I felt like a diabetic on insulin-overload. Up to Johnston and Murphy where aside from the clerks and their shitty British accents and terrible service, everything in the store is $149.99 or more. FUCK ME FOR VISITING A MALL WITH MY MOM!!! Finally settled on a pair of loafers - so now I can look like a real corporate toolkit...

5:30

Went back to Cingular to see if our phones were ready. They weren't. But Kyle let us take the stuff home as the cards registered to the network overnight. Ok I have a sweet phone now, but I can't use it.

5:45

Listened to the end of Friday Drivetime Jazz with Willard Jenkins (one of WPFW's only quality jazz shows where the host knows anything significant about the music). Tune in every Friday from 4:00PM-6:00PM on 89.3 FM on your radio if you are in the DC area and online at www.wpfw.org. They stream through Real Audio. The number in the air studio is (202) 588-0893. Willard's website is www.openskyjazz.com. He and his wife Susan are big movers and shakers in the jazz world.


6:10

Got home. Started shabbat with Ben and Jon. Went to Raphael's going away party. Check out his blog. He just got a job with AP in London. Sweet deal for him. That's where good genes kick in in your favor.

10:30

Went home - vegged out on couch watching TV - House Hunters followed by some we-invade-your-house-and-renovate-it-while-you-are-away reality show. I have to say it was good. Addictive might be the better word though. Listened to more of the Blindfold Test.

Sleep at 3:00 AM.