Category: My Music
An ode to life in a red state.
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I’ve been listening to a lot of Wendy Eisenberg recently to prepare for an interview. All that music inspired this piece, performed on ukulele, diddley bow, pandeiro, and two tracks of soprano saxophone.
Leave a CommentPlaying The Fania All-Stars At My Retail Job
Takes me back to my early days playing
latin jazz and salsa in Tucson bars.
When we were all the way on
whole rooms full of sweating dancers
would cheer, spinning, singing along. ¡Baila!
Me, a 20-year-old white kid with no business
among these grizzled Mexican and Puerto Rican
veterans of the local music scene. Playing the claves
like an elementary school kid with woodblocks.
“If you’re going to play them,” Ismael said, “PLAY THEM.”
Later he would tell me, during a flamenco tune:
“Clap like my mama’s making tortillas.”
(He offered me cocaine, drank Scotch during every set
till the tempos were elastic as putty.)
Later I would lay jazz melodies over the dance rhythms.
Will, the bongocero, said to a new trumpeter:
“Can you play them jazz songs like my man Jason?”
I floated off the floor in my cap-toed spectators.
MCA Records offered us a deal, so we got together
at Izzy’s house to lay down a bunch of music.
Izzy got coked up, missed the meeting with the execs,
the deal was off. But when we were on, man,
we were all the way on.
/ / /
Jason Crane
27 December 2019
State College PA
This is my first attempt at a rudimentary multi-track recording. I played all the instruments (diddley-bow, pandeiro, cajon) and wrote the poem. I recorded it using a Blue Snowball microphone and Audacity, neither of which is really designed for this purpose. But what the hell, I dig it and I’m learning. Enjoy!
The text of the poem is here.
Photo of the Hagyard Building in Lenox, MA, courtesy of Sally Gustavson.
Leave a Comment“Griot” by Eric Ian Farmer
Live at Barrel 21 Distillery, State College PA, 7 November 2018