COFFEE & BISCUITS

I love to observe beauty. Beautiful clothes, beautiful people, beautiful words, beautiful sentences, beautiful books, beautiful mathematical models, beautiful movies, beautiful natural phenomena, beautiful furnitures, beautiful ideas, beautiful music….perhaps above all, I love beautiful music.

After these few years, I am still in love with this song: Jorge Drexler’s “Al Otro Lado Del Rio”. I posted it in my old blog couple years ago, now I do it again here.

The lyrics is so full of soul and hope, also a little sadness. Maybe I am influenced by its association with Motorcycle Diaries; whenever I hear this song I think of and feel for the loss and waste from wars and poverty. A heaviness would weigh on my heart.

I plunge my oar in the water
I carry your oar in mine
I believe I have seen a light
On the other side of the river

The day will come when we will be able to conquer
Little by little, the cold
I believe I have seen a light
On the other side of the river

Above all, I believe that all is not lost
So many tears, So many tears
And I am an empty glass

I hear a voice that calls to me,
almost as a sigh :
“Row, Row, Row!
Row, Row, Row!”

In this border of the world
Where we are imprisoned, are uncultivated,
I believe that I have seen a light
On the other side of the river

I was in New Orleans for four days, most of which I was actually working. However, my love for the city (well, at least the French Quarter area) is just as much as what I felt 4 years ago, on my visit just a couple months before Katrina. One sentence to summarize the experience: New Orleans is a different world from the rest of US. (this is the same reaction I had from my last visit).

Being in New Orleans is like travelling to the old world. It is entirely in its own world. It is slower than other US cities such as Houston, Atlanta, all those cities in East or West coast. The people, especially musicians, are more down to earth than their counterparts elsewhere in US.

I love the lazy Mississippi river. Love the creole tune. I love that for every block you walk in French Quarter, you’ll hear a different sort of music. Everywhere you go there is this upbeat sound of trombone or trumpet. Every night of those four days, my friend and I would venture into the French Quarter and go to some jazz/blues club.

And we found gold. Fritzel’s, a so called European Jazz pub, had us there for two days. I even got their CD. I can honestly say that this jazz club is the BEST that I have ever been to — in all the cities I’ve been to (SF, Chicago, HK, DC). Perhaps the jazz across these cities are not exactly comparable. (New Orlean’s jazz is the first in US, known as Dixieland Jazz). Nonetheless, I love New Orlean Jazz the best: banjo, trombone, cornet, clarinet, bass, drums, piano. Love the fedora hats.

It was a very memorable musical experience, sitting in that intimate little pub, in front of this loud, rauchy old man who kept making exclamations during the song. In this little place, all people care about is the music, not money, and not the world outside.

I remember that red-faced old man who threw a Benjamin Franklin into the bucket and requested the song “Many Mermaids” (a total impromptu). I remember how as the band played “Someday You’ll be Sorry” (written by Louis Armstrong’s wife, to Louis Armstrong), and all the old men in the audience threw up their arms during chorus to chime in.

I remember the first time I heard “St James Infirmary”, and then again the second night.

I remember the first time I heard “Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans”, and heard it again the second night.

A common word to describe the music and people I met here is “charming”. But “charming” is a little condescending. I much prefer “warm” and “passionate”, and “family-style”.

Being immersed in the jazz scene of New Orleans is a memorable, very memorable experience.

Now I am back, currently at the school library. I can’t help but relive the scene when the band played “Someday You’ll be Sorry” with that old raunchy voice yelling behind me.

On the plane back, I kept listening to this song, “Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans.” It conveys the spirit of New Orleans and its people, very well.

Since last year, I kept coming back to watching this performance of this song, by Katherine McPhee (my favorite American Idol performer next to David Cook) and Chris Botti. OHHHHH so much chemistry. As Botti puts it, Katherine has the perfect phrasing of the song. Makes me want to jump up and sing and dance. I also especially like the crescendo of the band at the first break of the song before the trumpet solo starts. What a classic!

Here are the lyrics for me to sing a long:

I’ve got you under my skin.
I’ve got you deep in the heart of me.
So deep in my heart that you’re really a part of me.
I’ve got you under my skin.
I’d tried so not to give in.
I said to myself: this affair never will go so well.
But why should I try to resist when, baby, I know so well
I’ve got you under my skin?

I’d sacrifice anything come what might
For the sake of havin’ you near
In spite of a warnin’ voice that comes in the night
And repeats, repeats in my ear:
Don’t you know, little fool, you never can win?
Use your mentality, wake up to reality.
But each time that I do just the thought of you
Makes me stop before I begin
‘Cause I’ve got you under my skin.

Search for “Por Una Cabeza Dancing” on youtube, you’ll find many awkward, stiff wedding dances to the song which in my opinion, completely butchered the passion in the dance. If you can’t do it justice, just please don’t do it.

But then I came across the following clip, of street dances in Argentina. I thought it was the best interpretation of the song I have seen yet.

In the CD version of Cruella Deville, the left hand is totally the basic 12-bars blues.

Yet, see what the following person has done to the song! SICK!

In no particular order:

1. 夜来香
2. Misty
3. So this is love
4. 不了情
5. Makin’ Whoopee
6. Unforgettable
7. Tea for Two
8. Smoke gets in your eyes
9. Ain’t Misbehaving
10. Moonriver
11. Somewhere over the rainbow
12. Bare Necessities of Life

And oh YEAH, definitely the goodies Christmas songs:
Winter wonderland,
Have yourself a merry little christmas

(will update continuously)

Is it me, or this summer feels conspicuously like fall? I am already thinking about Christmas!

I am not a fan of Mozart’s opera, but I am a fan of Mozart’s violin concertos. In particular, recently I couldn’t get enough of the following piece.

In early 1980s (or late 1970s), the Chinese government invited Isaac Stern for a “music exchange” visit to China. It was all documented in the documentary “From Mao to Mozart”. For me, the most memorable sequence of the film is when Isaac Stern taught the current Chinese National Philharmonic how to properly play this piece.

I like Cantonese rap (plain vanilla Cantonese rap…not techno/english-infused-ABC like Edison Chan’s). As P said, Cantonese has 9 tones. Perhaps this is a language meant for rap? Some Cantonese rap lyrics can be so “dei sei”.

Anyway, I find the following song by LMF (Lazy Mutha Fucka) quite soulful. Currently listening one of their older albums.

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