Operation 365... Blog 42

Operation 365 - Jefferson Jay - Covers - 48 "Rock Aroud The Clock" popularized by Bill Haley
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW6A1vhy8vI

Went back to work teaching. Not too tough I gotta admit. I almost enjoyed it quite a bit. Helps when they dont; call you in 'til ten. Decided to write a book today and the best part is... the book's already written. The book will be "40 Days and 40 Blogs" and it will be a compendium of this here verbiage. It will have several parts. Parts 1-9, theoretically. 40 x 9 =365... well, something like that. Now all I need's a picture of myself looking like Moses walking through the desert for the front cover. I also got a new gig hosting Open Mic at The Turquoise in La Jolla on Monday nights. Yes, these are happy days. They're yours and my happy days... in fact.

I just learned the official band name was "Bill & His Comets." That's weird. Aaaand Bill Haley didn't write the tune. Max C. Freedman and James E. Myers did. They wrote it for Haley, for what it's worth. I also learned

Haley's recording nevertheless became an anthem for rebellious Fifties youth[7] and is widely considered to be the song that, more than any other, brought rock and roll into mainstream culture around the world. The song is ranked #158 on the Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

and

The original full title of the song was "We're Gonna Rock Around the Clock Tonight!". This was later shortened to "(We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock."

Wow. Thank you Wikipedia.

Operation 365 - Jefferson Jay - Archives - 48 Sene Africa with Old Man - 4-9-2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHV28TWbS2I

I like the illusion that randomness exists. I like welcoming it into my home for tea just to see what kind of visitor it would be. So I will do this again today. Using my archives to play. Who will come to play with us today?

Translated: I will now choose a "random" show and scroll to a random part of it and whoever it is* I will put them on.

And it was so. Sene Africa with Amadou teaches Jefferson and Destructo Bunny to dance Senegal-style. 4-9-2009 Awesome!

This is one of my favorite clips and Sene Africa are some of my most amazing friends who haven't been featured yet. This clip features Sene Africa finishing a tune and then going into a jam celebrating The Soul Man who joins them on guiro. The Soul Man appears in many of my videos. He is 92 years old and one of my dearest friends. We have been playing music and hanging out together for years, since he was in his early eighties. He is always an example to anyone he meets with his cool demeanor and his appreciation for playing music and life in general. At 92, he can still party and hang out as well as anyone I know.

This tune (we learn by the end) is a tribute to Soul Man as the they sing the refrain "Old Man, Kazan, Kazan" I think they think Soul Man's nickname is Old Man. It is awesome. Sene Africa asre Amadou Fall on kora, Ibrahima Ba on vocals and guitar and Abdullai on djembe. They are all super sweet guys and I am thrilled to have had the opportunity and have worked and played and hung out with them on many occasions. As I often tell my audiences, they have played for kings. For reals. Ibrahima's birthday was yesterday (according to Facebook) Happy Birthday Ibrahim.

In the middle of this clip Amadou forces me and Destructo Bunny to learn how to dance. It is classic. Much fun. More happy days... Ha ha ha ha. That was awesome. That really brightened my already shiny day.

Operation 365 - Jefferson Jay - Originals - 48 "I Guess That's a Song"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8jAyvNw5EE

Well, I guess you gotta have these some days. Hey, I don't have 365 songs. Well, not at least yet I don't. So here's one in the bank. While waiting for the hearty Sene Africa video to bounce. I started vamping on A minor and B minor. I kinda liked it. I thought I could come in and flow off my head what I was hearing. I listened back. It came out all right. Not exactly what I had in mind but not at all bad for the first try. And then the moment was gone... but was it...

I then recalled something I used to tell my Songwriting and Collaboration students back in the day. I taught I class called that that I designed in San Diego State in 2003 and 2004. I would tell them a song is anything you call a song. If you smack a stick on a wall, record it, put it on a CD and call tune 4 "Smacking a Stick on a Wall," then that's exactly what that is, a song. A short song.

I would then tell them we are going to spend most of our time working more conventional ideas of what a song consists of. Verses, choruses and the like. So this is it, my new song of the day, "I Guess That's a Song," I decided to call it. I may never play it again. It, or some version of it, may some day be the most requested thing I play. Who knows in this world? I'll have just have to tune in and find out.

NOTES: I successfully wrote recorded and posted this "tune" before Sene Africa finished bouncing. It took 11 minutes.

youtube suggested I add "somalia" (and "harp") to the tags for "Rock Around The Clock" and it (theoretically) doesn't even know I'm posting Sene Africa yet. Maybe youtube's making it's stance on "randomness" real clear and loud.

Blog 42 is dedicated to Jackie Robinson and the great Mariano Rivera.