Megabytes

Tonight, Wynton Marsalis and his pals from Lincoln Center played Portland’s Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Two sets and one encore.
Appointment in Ghana by Jackie McLean: solos on trumpet, piano, and tenor sax.
Movement #11: in 3. sounds of Spain. Melody passed from baritone to alto to soprano in the sax section. a beautiful piece.
Down By The Riverside, Oliver Nelson arrangement: The rhythm section shines and keeps time going in this piece with its funked-up melody. The first of many solos that can only be described as way out - Elliot Mason on trombone, followed by Ryan Kisor and Marcus Printup trading phrases on trumpet.
House of Jade by Wayne Shorter: beautiful melody, quite peaceful after the Nelson arrangement.
Portraits in Seven Shades, Dali by Ted Nash: written for a combined event with J@LC and MOMA. Marsalis explained that this piece “is in 13/8 or something like that… it’s impossible to count; you just have to feel it.” Anita declared, “It feels like a birth!” Came time for the drum solo, all the horn players clapped hands and stomped their feet in a complex rhythmic pattern, enabling Ali Jackson, drummer, to stretch and shrink the time.

~ intermission ~
The Holy Ghost from a Mass written for Abyssinian Church’s 250th celebration: Ted Nash on alto and Marcus Printup on trumpet shared an improvised solo where one was mimicking the other. It was done so successfully, I couldn’t really tell who was leading!
Continuous by Wynton Marsalis: “The melody doesn’t really end… why it’s called Continuous…” A bossa nova 5 minutes and 37 seconds in length. Marsalis dryly reports that it is best use a prime number like 37 when, for example, saying how late you will be. Not 20 minutes, but 17. He continued in this vein for a bit, prompting a few of the band members to say that his speaking was continuous. Moments like this, you can see how much affection members have for one another and how much fun they are having.
Braggin’ in Brass by Duke Ellington: recorded in 1939 by Ellington’s band and never played again. Never can tell when Marsalis is joshing you. Nonetheless, all this to say the trombone part is quite difficult. A repetitive sixteenth note melodic line that is passed between the three trombonists, each having about 2 sixteenths at a time. They executed it flawlessly! very impressive. iTunes Music Store has this song and I just bought my copy!Hymn of the Orient: 32-bar song form? not sure. the solos all started slowly, peaceful, building gradually into a frenzy. Solos by Victor Goines, tenor, and Sean Jones, trumpet.
Single Petal of the Rose by Duke Ellington: bass clarinet and piano duet. Bass clarinetist, Joe Temperley, is a former member of the Ellington band and most senior member of the J@LC Orchestra. A gentleman hired these two players to come and play this one song at his wedding in Paris. Lovely, warm clarinet tone with a healthy vibrato. Anita described it as “hopeful, tender, and realistic. perfect for a wedding.”
C Jam Blues with guest musicians: three locals, two trumpetists and one trombonist. Carlos Henriquez on bass had a swinging solo.
Encore: Cape Verdean Blues by Horace Silver: with a light drum intro, this latin blues piece began. The 2 alto players picked up piccolos for this song and began trading 4s and then 2s in a multi-chorused solo. Also solos from Vincent Gardner on trombone, one of the turmpetists, and Dan Nimmer on piano. Dan’s fingers were moving so fast, they were blurry from my 10th-row seat.

Wow! I am inspired by the virtuoso musicianship, the tight sections, the sexy drive of the solos, the choice of material, the depth of talent in the orchestra. Thanks, Wynton and friends, for a memorable evening.

There is some construction going on in the neighborhood. I sketched the shovel of a truck at rest.
In the same area, this tree provides shade and habitat to many creatures.

I didn’t notice until after I completed my drawing that it appears there is a face in the tree trunk. I took a photo, too. I get a kick out of comparing the photo and my drawing. Looks like I shortened the trunk a bit.

I’ve done my share of complaining of late. Well, I’m not really a complainer by character. But I sure have noticed the weather being cooler and rainier than usual. My friends have commented on this too.

Well, here’s the silver lining - great sky! The clouds have been full of texture and shape. Even the rain has added a glistening sheen to the sidewalks, flowers, trees, and streets.

And so, the header of my blog for June is a photo of a recent stormy sky. Yes, it has been modified a bit in Photoshop. I used a Hot Tip from Lynda.com that I read about just this morning. The tip was all about how to adjust skin tones using the Lab Color mode, but I thought I could as easily use the Lab Color mode to adjust the sky tones.

Here’s a before and after:

Can you see that the AFTER image has some more depth by darkening the different channels in Lab Mode? In the original tip, the subject was a man’s face which was adjusted to give him a bit of a tan.

I’m learning to enjoy the energetic skies that the wet weather brings.

Yesterday, the weather was all over the place. It felt as if it would rain from midday on, but held off until near sunset. I took an exuberant long walk up and around Mt. Tabor while on the phone to my parents. We spoke for over an hour, during most of which I was walking. Well, that felt great in my body; stretching and using muscles and breathing deep. all while connecting with my parents.

For dinner, I fixed some swiss chard and rice while A brought home a couple of pieces of baked chicken. delightful. Then she and I took a walk around the neighborhood, a more relaxing stroll than my earlier exercise. We have new neighbors moving into the house behind us and we stopped there to welcome them. They invited us in to see the work they were doing; scraping off wallpaper, pruning shrubs, removing carpet. Our 10 minute walk became an hour!

When we returned from our walk, I noticed the sky was doing remarkable things. I got my camera, turned right around and went out again. Forty-two shots later, I returned home amidst the heavy drops of rain that were just beginning to fall. The air was warm and the sun was just setting and the rain felt good. like a release.

I took this image yesterday mid-day from my backyard, and did a little image editing in Photoshop to create this month’s masthead image. The last 12 images for the masthead have all come from photos taken of plants in my backyard (except one image from the beach). It’s the start of a new 12-month cycle and my eye is turned towards the sky.

Clouds fascinate me with their constantly changing structure and type.

• Heavy cumulus.
• Wispy cirrus.
• Stormy nimbus.
• Mushroom-shaped cumulonimbus.

In yesterday’s image, you see fair weather cumulus with their sharply defined edges and bases at the bottom left, and some wispy high-level cirrus clouds in the top right. Watch for more sky and cloud images from me this year.