Jazz, Rock, and Shakespeare. @141point3kph - Tumblr Blog

Pathfinding, Life Saving, and Civics: Merit Badges of a Future President

This weekend marks the 105th anniversary of the founding of the Boy Scouts of America on February 8, 1910.

"Junior" Ford joined the Boy Scouts in 1924 at age 12. He remained a member of Troop 15, based at Trinity United Methodist Church in Grand Rapids, for the next several years. Ford rose through the scouting levels and attained the rank of Eagle Scout in 1927.

His Boy Scout sash displays 26 merit badges he earned: Automobiling, Electricity, Bird Study, Swimming, Handicraft, Pioneering, Firemanship, Physical Development, Cooking, Personal Health, Public Heath, Craftsmanship, Forestry, Camping, Carpentry, First Aid, Scholarship, Civics, Blacksmithing, Pathfinding, Athletics, Bookbinding, First Aid to Animals, Cycling, Life Saving, and Canoeing. The other two patches represent rank advancements.

Original image used for gif: Boy Scouts of America Merit Badge sash owned and worn by Gerald R. Ford as a scout.

141point3kph

My troop was invited to attend Gerald Ford's funeral at the beginning of 2007. I remember being really confused about what time of day it was rushing around to make sure I had a complete dress uniform because I had stayed up so late for new years. To date, he is the only US President who was an Eagle Scout.

Bill Evans - Suicide is Painless (the theme from MASH)

First of all, M*A*S*H in it's entirety just became available on Netflix. So goodbye productivity. Also, I've got a big EMT test tomorrow (the State of Maine Psychomotor Exam) so the fact that this is a song written for a show about medicine seemed appropriate, especially since modern EMS developed from the battlefield medicine that was going on around the time of the Korean War.

For a fairly simple song that pretty much just has an A Section, this thing makes for a great jazz tune. The simplicity of the melodic line allows for a huge array of harmonic possibility. With the syncopation in the melody keeping things interesting, the modulation that already exists in the form, and the breath the bar of 2/4 halfway through the form provides, Bill is able to use the repetition of the melody to sequence through different harmonic structures smoothly and take the song to some amazing places.

Nothing really comes close to the piano in creating such a full sound. Joe Pass and John McLaughlin can do amazing things with unaccompanied guitar, but the limitations of the instrument give them much less flexibility than Evans demonstrates here. Lenny Breau is one of the few guitarists who could really play chords and melodies simultaneously, but his chords were rootless two note clusters that implied rather than defined (not to say the spareness the guitar necessitates isn't beautiful), and his technique left him with two fingers to play melodically. Of course, only having two functional fingers on the fretboard never stopped Django, but I've probably gone far enough down the guitar tangent rabbit hole.

#jazz #bill evans #mash

Worth a listen between storms. Dreaming of days when it'll maybe be above freezing a bit. But hopefully not before I get some skiing in.

Taking pop songs and playing them as Jazz is usually pretty hit or miss (insert joke about Jazz, at one point, being pop), and I think Wes does a good job with this one. That flute and that horn section are clutch.

#wes montgomery

WE THREE CHIPMUNKS - THE AIRMEN OF NOTE

I heard this song in December on the satellite radio in my parent's fancy new car while I was out in Colorado. Just found the title written on my phone and looked it up again. I know it's probably the worst time of year to listen to Christmas music, but you should give this a listen because:

1) It's a mash up of We Three Kings and that Alvin and the Chipmunks song in which Alvin wants a Hula Hoop.

2) It's in 5/4 (they couldn't quite help themselves from quoting Take 5)

3) It's actually good.

4) It's the Air Force Band, so your tax dollars paid for it. (I'm pretty sure the pun in their name is the most justifiable instance of military spending I've seen)

#jazz #airmenofnote #mashup

Michel Petrucciani - Take the A Train Worked on this song a bit over the weekend and played it with Cooper and all on Monday (Gotta love that D7b5 chord in there). Coop told me about this recording and had to use both hands to do the left hand riff Michel plays in the A Section.

From Wikipedia on the song's composition:

"When ASCAP raised its licensing fees for broadcast use, many ASCAP members, including Ellington, could no longer play their compositions over radio, as most music was played live on radio at the time. Ellington turned to Billy Strayhorn and son Mercer Ellington, who were registered with ASCAP competitor BMI to "write a whole new book for the band," Mercer recalled. "'A' Train" was one of many songs written by Strayhorn, and was picked to replace "Sepia Panorama" as the band's signature song. Mercer recalled that he found the song in a trash can after Strayhorn discarded a draft of it because it sounded too much like a Fletcher Henderson arrangement."

So this is a song fished out of a trash can, to get around the music industry's stupid licensing, being played by a pianist who, with a genetic bone disease, outplays almost everybody I've ever heard.

Holy Jazz, Batman!

#hotjazz

In the summer of 1952, Charles Mingus and his wife moved to 1592 3rd Avenue, a $70 a month, one-room apartment with a kitchenette on top of the noisy El train.

Priceless

grumpybilbo-deactivated20170630

deathmetal-alchemist

I’ve waited so long to reblog this you don’t understand

Played my strat tonight at a gig in Manset. Leo Fender probably couldn't have imagined the music that people have made with that guitar over the past 60 years when the first one came out in '54. Here's to 60 more.

namelesspcs

After all the planes, trains, and automobiles (and ambulances) of the past two weeks I find myself: A: Glad to be back in Maine B: Glad that I got to visit all the people I did and do all the great things I did. (I played guitar in front of an audience in NYC! What?!) C: Missing that summer in New Mexico when I got everywhere I was going on my own two feet. I just rediscovered these pictures while looking for my copy of Back to the Future.

#WeHaveToGoBack #Philmont #BackCountry

someladyparts

Tales from the Trenches, Volume I

Cordelia’s Corpse

by Hailey Bachrach

Last year, a group of friends and I put on King Lear in a university basement for fun (why, what do you do for fun?), and I ended up playing Cordelia. I’d been angling for one of the meaner daughters, but I decided that if I was going to be the baby sister, I was going to make the most of it. I wanted to do more than just be the Nice One. I wanted to disprove that college Shakespeare course where my classmates spent most of our King Lear day tearing Cordelia apart for being such a prissy goody-two-shoes. And of course, having tried to avoid it in the first place, I wanted to prove myself wrong most of all.

slay-runt

Visit Original Link

141point3kph

Happy Halloween.

jimllpaintit

Tom Baker has vandalised and is pissing on the new Doctor’s Tardis As requested by Kristian Snowden

141point3kph

I want this on a T-shirt

magnumpistyle

Post Vietnam flashback Magnum always wears camo short shorts. Also note- this is what Higgins wears when he is architecting a dog house for the lads.

141point3kph

Sometimes, when the blog you follow about Thomas Magnum's short shorts posts so infrequently that you forget about it, the reminder that it exists at all makes its posts all-the-sweeter.

Also, did someone who knows how to use tumblr take a picture of a monitor? I'm confused.

#magnumpi #screenshot?#I_want_to_live_in_the_80s_but_not_really._Because_the_music._And_the_fashion._And_Reganomics._The_tracksuits_were_pretty_cool_though.

historicaltimes

The Beatles celebrate Shakespeare’s 400th birthday in April 1964

141point3kph

There's a really bad black and white photo of this happening in my mom's old copy of "Great Songs of Lennon and McCartney" that always intrigued me as a kid. After coming across this picture, I dug up a video of the Fab Four performing a scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream. I particularly enjoyed John's Thisbe (a role I played last year) and Ringo's modifications to the "don't worry, I'm not really a lion" speech. Also, this might be the most definitive post this blog ever has.

Here's the Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxXkdYr5JYg

#shakespeare #the beatles

lauramercierbodyscrub

Flawless remix > the Beatles

141point3kph

Gosh, those are some pretty big words to throw around. I could very easily compare the harmonic complexity, creative use of time changes, and lyrical dexterity of the Beatles' material to Beyonce's music, just as I'm sure any Beyonce fan could elaborate on her use of sampling and other modern techniques to create the rich timbres in her music. Beyonce's music is good. But I'm not going to get into all of that. I'm just going to point out that 50 years ago, four kids using a studio less complex than your cell phone made some music so innovative that they are still the standard against which all pop music is compared. The Beatles are the metric unit for pop music greatness. The Beatles aren't the best thing since sliced bread. The Beatles are sliced bread.

#slicedbread #the beatles