I have loved this “Vincent” song as long as I can remember.
Maybe I found it on my Mom’s “American Pie” album. Maybe it was a tape I got of
Don McLean’s Greatest Hits, because I loved “American Pie”. I don’t know. This
song has been in my conscience for a long time. What a beautiful tribute to one
of the only fine artists whose work I get at all. It is no slight on them. Some
stuff is just more relatable to one person than another. Visiting The
Metropolitan Museum of Art some weeks back, once again Van Gogh’s work spoke to
in a way that far transcended most of the other historic work hanging
everywhere.
For awhile, I played and booked a little music at a since shut-down sushi joint called Kirin
Sushi. The owner was named Yoshi. She loved this tune and would always ask me
to play it. It is one of the many fond memories I have from that brief era.
Eating Chinese food with the staff, sushi for music, bring Don Truesdail in,
and eating a meal with Alan Silva while a brawl broke out, these are the
memories that have stood this test of time from those fleeting moments.
“Vincent” brings it all back. It’s nice how songs do that.
Speaking of, last night was another unforgettable edition at
my Acoustic Evenings at the Athenaeum showcase. Our acts shared the stage
and much great music from
yesteryear in an intimate and highly engaged environment. Huge thanks tour
performers: Guiro Grass (Travis Oliver and The Soul Man), Trails and Rails
(Paula, Walt and Mike), and Eve Selis and Mark Intravaia.
It was incredible night of music. Eve shared some terrific
tunes from her upcoming CD “See Me With Your Heart.” There are some great tunes
on it, including the title track. She raised a lot of dough (25K) on
Kickstarter to pay for this project and it is great to see an artist receive
that kind of financial backing from her supporters. The musical portion of the
evening ended with a transcendent version of “Hallelujah.” It was a pleasure
and privilege to share the stage with Eve, Mark, and Trails and Rails for the
show’s final act. Exhilarating and gratifying, it was. Our final show for the
Spring 2016 series is next Friday, April 29, 2016 at 7:30PM. The Athenaeum
Music & Arts Library is located at 1008 Wall Street, La Jolla, CA 92037.
It’s a special place to enjoy music.
Operation 365 2
- Jefferson Jay - Originals - 121 “First Night” by Jefferson Jay
Some of you make know and many people to do know this, I’ve
been busting out big batches of tunes to meet the musical mandate of this here
365. So I already posted my first experiment with this technique, 12 tunes I
wrote at once that I later labeled, “Welcome.”
Then I did 24 at once. I didn’t give them a name. I finished
posting most of those. And now I am beginning to unearth the sketch that the
most recent (and 3rd) mass songwriting experiment, another 24 –tune
chunk.
One of the interesting things that come with writing a bunch
of tunes at once in a fast-paced (so it doesn’t take months) way, is you write
a lot of things that you have no idea what they mean or why you wrote them. It
is sort of fun do dive into the web and roll around after the fact and try, to
figure out what the f you were talking about. “First Night” is a perfect
example of that.
So, one of the things I did to try to change up the 1st
set of 24 I did from the 2nd set of 24 was I assigned an hour to
each tune in the 2nd set. I figured there are 24 hours in a day, 24
tunes… that made for two in every major key. Next time I do this, if I ever do
again, I will write one in each key, major and minor. Anyway, I also figured
that could guide me a little bit in my word selection. Every bit of inspiration
adds to the delicious soup, the musical soup.
So “First Night” is the 4th tune, the 4 in the
morning tune. Somehow I found myself writing a tune from the perspective of a
baby who was being born and didn’t know anything about the world around him.
Hence the chorus, “I’ve never ever got up before.” For some reason later in the
tune I decided to include this detail, “Fresh out they named me Vince.” Now I
don’t really know anybody named Vince at this point in my life and I haven’t
known more than a couple of Vinces personally, ever. So, when I played
“Vincent” by Don McLean earlier today, this tune naturally popped in my head
and now you’ve read the longest story ever about how that happened. Thanking
you for your interest in our Operation 365 2.
Operation 365 2
- Jefferson Jay - Words - 121 “This Great Piece of Cinema”
I thought long and hard about what I should name “This Great
Piece of Cinema.” Honestly, if I spent half the time deciding what I was going
to say and trying to make it interesting that I do deciding what clever name to
give it might be an even greater piece of cinema. Who’s to say? God bless subjectivity.
It is all but all-encompassing.
So, other names considered, but ultimately unchosen
included, “The Brothers Karamazov,” “JJ Reads the Classics,” “Russian Lit,” “Dostoevsky,”
and “Don’tstoevsky.” That last one was Leanne’s. Maybe I should have gone with
that one. It’s not too late. It’s never too late.
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