Posted on by Ian Hanchet

AI Re-Examined

I recently wrote a blog entry called “Authenticity” about having been duped by an event that was artificially created. https://vignettesandbagatelles.blog/2026/03/27/authenticity/. I was appalled that an artist could be manufactured and was able to fool me into believing it was real.

I have re-examined my stance on this and I now realize it wasn’t the event that angered and conflicted me so much as it was the fact that it was passing itself off as real and intentionally fooled me.

I was scrolling the other day and came across some beautiful videos that relied heavily on Artificial Intelligence. These videos did not pretend to be anything other than works of art that were made possible by computer skills. This one is by David Szauder and is truly mixed media. Take Five by Paul Desmond as a background for beautiful manufactured choreography:

This tango is also fascinating and “real”.

Szauder’s art is really compelling and my only regret is that it flashes by. One cannot savour the images as in an art gallery or a book, but must experience each idea on the fly. I have rewatched these several times and I am excited by each new discovery on repeated viewings.

One of my favourite films of all time is The Wizard Of Oz which is a film of fantasy and fantastical beings. There is a strong parallel in the next film that made me realize that all art is made with artifice. My father saw The Wizard of OZ in the theatre when it first came out and witnessed the gasps in the audience when the door opened to Oz IN COLOUR! Szauder has his own little Oz going on here:

The computer is allowing him to realize his fantastical ideas.

I am glad that these kinds of videos exist. I am a huge fan of animated short films made by our National Film Board of Canada. Many of the films that can be found here: https://www.nfb.ca/animation/ were painstakingly drawn and carefully blocked out. Labour of love. AI can’t replace it, but could augment it.

I still love hand drawn film as I still love Classical music even though more modern genres and styles are also appealing to me. When Mozart lived, the pianoforte had just been invented. It could be argued that much of his music might not exist had he not had the technology available to him. I play an instrument (Electric Guitar) which was invented roughly a hundred years ago. Although I can imagine a world without the electric guitar, I am glad I live in a world where they exist. Attempts to synthesize the guitar fall short of actual accurate replication (so far) in the same way that computer generated speech is often stilted. All of these things are becoming more and more refined on a daily basis. Kind of wonderful in a way if you don’t think of the side of it that is replacing humans.

Another artist I recently became aware of is Kelly Boesch. She uses bAI for the art AND the music. The art is superb. She has a vivid imagination and is supremely skilled at animation. I am less enamored with the music, but it isn’d innately bad, just a bit generic:

This reminds me of the star trek episode where Captain Pike who is quadroplegic and mute is hooked up to a device that lets him live as a walking, talking vibrant human. Not real, but an improvement on his actual state.

Kelly Boesch is worth investigating and I am drawn to her art even though it doesn’t hit me viscerally, more intellectually.

The artists I have included here are not pretending to be anything but AI artists. For contrast Look at the following clip.

The singer (who doesn’t exist) has all the rocker biker tropes and looks a bit like a Hollywood Willie Nelson. Like the singer in my post on authenticity, this song is aimed at my age group and on a peripheral listen is passable. They tried to pass it off as an actual singing TV contest show. Mercifully did not recreate Simon Cowell. Imagine that wanker cloned!!!!

You’d think by now they could have synced the lips better to the words not to mention the fingers on the guitar playing the actual notes. This was designed to fool us. Complete artifice with no redeeming qualities.

The last video excepted, I hope this blog entry leaves you less depressed about the encroachment of AI in our lives. It is up to us creatives to use technology creatively and not be driven by the machines.

Posted on by Ian Hanchet

Don’t

While reading chapter four of Mark Abley’s recent book “Numb” he talks about a song by U2 called “Numb” that has the directive “Don’t…” and hypnotically lists off all the the things not to do… here is a brief excerpt of the lyric:

"Don't take it on board
Don't fall on your sword
Just play another chord
If you feel you're getting bored

I feel numb
I feel numb
Too much is not enough
Gimme some more of that stuff love
Too much is not enough"

Believe it or not, I never heard this song before today(2026). I am not particularly fond of U2’s music. I think this song is effective, however. Not having Bono sing it reduces the probability of recognizing it immediately as U2. I can relate to the numbness and general overload as a response to over stimulation from the onslaught of shit spewed at us daily. Mark Abley says there are 30 “Don’t”s before the example I just showed. I didn’t verify. A lot of doom and gloom.

My mind went to a song I wrote in the earl 2000’s and recorded ten years ago called “Don’t” which is about all the things that get in the way when trying to meditate or do anything calm and beautiful. The song is built on an ostinato chorus of the word “Don’t” sung by a choir. I thought I’d already written a blog about it, so I searched my blog for the title and realized I hadn’t. I never counted the Don’ts either….

Don’t
By: Ian G. Hanchet

Don’t think, don’t talk,
don’t look don’t do it

we hurry too much
we worry too much
it get’s blurry too much
it all gets in the way

We delay too much
Throw away too much
Say “no way!” too much
It all gets in the way

Don’t think, don’t talk,
don’t look don’t do it

We ignore too much
Want more too much
Ask “what for?” too much
It all gets in the way

We bite too much
We fight too much
Think we’re right too much
It all gets in the way

Don’t think, don’t talk,
don’t look don’t do it

We call too much
We fall too much
Drop the ball too much
It all gets in the way

We ache too much
Don’t take a break too much
Lie awake too much
It all gets in the way

Don’t think, don’t talk,
don’t look don’t do it

We dilute too much
Pollute too much
Things Go kaput too much
It all gets in the way

We slave too much
We crave too much
Rant and rave too much
It all gets in the way

Don’t think, don’t talk,
don’t look don’t do it

We don’t love too much
We don’t love too much
We don’t love too much
It all gets in the way

My intention in writing Don’t is to remind ourselves to isolate from the things that distract, but it is coming from the place that it is achievable. Personal serenity is an achievable and desirable goal. I feel the song is positive which is contrary to my mother’s first impression of it which was… and I quote…. Pretty negative song!

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Sometimes A Song…

Sometimes writing a song is like opening a present. Unwrap an idea and voila! Other times it’s like baking a cake. measured ingredients and methodology. Often it involves tracing an existing outline and colouring it in. There is no right way. The muse is elusive and unruly…pun intended. 

My latest song is more like nurturing a seedling over several weeks. Every day there is a little bit of progress. I wake up in the morning and play what i’ve got so far. It started with a pleasing arpeggio connected to a second arpeggio which i repeated several times. i went on about my daily life and the next day i woke up and played the arpeggios and unconsciously went to a third chord. my brain must’ve been working unconsciously to resolve my progression and figured out where to go next. playing what is now the A section to my song over and over and humming along with ‘ghost’ melodies until the right on fit like an elusive jigsaw piece. When it falls in place it is so satisfying.

On to the next part. The B section is always a contrasting section. i started with a chord that hadn’t been heard yet and followed it with two altered chords that enabled a one note melody. The melody note is a B which is the 11th degree of an F#mi chord I transitioned to a C major 7 chord (maintaining the B in the melody)The B note being the Major 7th. I resolved it down to a B7 chord which means the melody was now the root of the chord. I left it overnight. The next day I resolved the B7 to E minor. Resolution is satisfying! I was now ready to continue. It all seems to fall organically into place. I am just here to catch it.

Two sleeps later I received the brainchild of inverting the order of my first idea and I now have a C section (obviously not a natural birth, this song). AABC eight measures each makes a 32 bar song. Now to just make more than one time through. 

I started writing this song on my Martin D28 and I was enjoying the sound and feel of it, but sometimes my fingers got a little in the way. This morning I switched to my Greenfield and the arpeggios were cleaner and the longer notes rang on better due to a slightly wider neck. I didn’t have to think so much about technique and lo and behold some lyrics started to flow. Turns out the song wants to be about injustice and greed. I realize this is all and abstraction to most people, the house is not quiet enough today for me to record what I’ve got so far.

It feels right. I may finish it tomorrow, may take longer. It’ll know when it’s ready.

Posted on by Ian Hanchet

Authenticity

I love discovering music and musicians that are new to me. This week I stumbled across a video of a song in a style that I really love. My first listen to ‘Another Day Old’ was thrilling. The voice and appearance of this artist snagged me, the topic (aging gracefully) perfect for my age group. The style of mid-sixties Memphis soul is a favourite of mine. all the instruments supporting the song were perfect. I immediately dug a bit deeper to find more about Eddie Dalton (the handsome, fit, singer in the video). I wanted to purchase any albums he may have made.

The web site offered not much besides variations on the video I had just watched. Glossy edgy black and white photography too good to be true MSG for the eyes. My spider sense awoke the seed of doubt in me that what I was watching was unreal. AI. My disappointment could not have been greater. It was like striking gold and finding out it was Iron pyrite (fool’s gold). Needing further info to prove me wrong I sought out more. A Facebook page offered many more songs all in the same style with the same or similar images I had already seen. There was no Wikipedia entry, no biographical detail. This Eddie Dalton appeared on the scene fully formed as an artist. Manufactured.

Part of me is impressed that AI was this advanced that I was initially fooled. I felt like Deckard in Blade Runner running tests to see if a subject is a replicant or not. The other (larger) part of me abhorred this as a betrayal of the quality I admire most in popular music which is authenticity.

I could imagine all the criteria fed into creating this: attractive middle aged soul singer; style of Memphis Soul; cross between Sam Moore; Al Green; Ben E. King; Bill Withers; Charles Bradley; etc. each new criterion sculpting closer to perfection until there was nothing left to refine. The difference is this is not a sculpture of a sculptor created by a sculptor. Nor is this a collage of different elements creating a whole. Maybe it’s like mixing a smoothie by adding ingredients until the desired balance is achieved. 

Why? 

I recently heard a term that resonated with me. The term is  the “attention economy” which covers bums in seats, eyes on screen, time spent, etc. I assume that there are royalties to be collected and money to be made from this song. Attention paid to this fictional singer means that less attention will be paid to other things. 

Nothing wrong with fiction per se. I read fiction for diversion and entertainment. The written fiction I have read I assume originated with an author. The author may have a pseudonym or an alias but I believe to my core is a human. Most of my teacher friends have read ‘work’ created artificially that is essentially plagiarism. I have a friend whose workaround for his severe dyslexia is to dictate narrative and edit it using artificial means. His stories do not suffer, in fact they might not have been shared but for this technology. I don’t think he asks the computer to write it for him, he puts in his words and the computer assists in his syntax and spelling, punctuation. If I had not been told, I doubt if I’d know. 

I have another friend who paints portraits. I have sat for a portrait and he created a near perfect image of me in several hours. My wife is a photographer who takes my portrait in seconds, sometimes manipulates the image using filters or erases some “noise” or smooths out a zit. Various art forms with different limitations but similar results. Not about the skill, or the effort, it is about being human. 

Artifice has always been an element of all the arts. Acting is completely phony. What is the difference? 

I am a songwriter. I love creating something that didn’t exist before, but is still recognizable as a song and hopefully is not derivative but complementary to all the music I have heard before. My music is a reflection of my humanity. Most music I love has this quality. Flawed human foibles are the root of songs I admire. 

I wanted so much to love Another Day Old as much as I love To Ramona by Bob Dylan or Into The Mystic by Van Morrison. I can’t. What the song has brought to me is an existential disturbance but also a determination to assert my humanity through my art. Be real!

Free advertising for someone who doesn’t actually exist.

Posted on by Ian Hanchet

Ceremony

I gave myself an hour to get here. Got here in half an hour.  The church is empty. My friend’s body isn’t here yet. I am reliving experiences I had with Joey. He is alive in my head like a slide show. Vivid. Vivre means to be alive. Same root. I am glad that his memory is alive. I wish he were.

This is a Catholic Church, not too far removed from my experience as an Anglican. I grew up as a choirboy and recognize the show biz aspect of a church service. The organist and tenor and soprano were the first in place out of sight in the choir loft. An elderly gentleman in a white robe came and made sure all the props were in order and the mic’s on. I am assuming he is what I would call the verger. He later led the coffin procession with a cross on a staff. His other duties were to assist at communion an provide the priest with holy water to sprinkle on the coffin and lit the incense and handed the thurible to the thurifer (priest) who swung it around ensuring an aromatic coverage for Joey’s remains. Everything was choreographed and succinct. Stand, sit, pray, stand, greet, sit, stand.

I am sure this ceremony was somewhat cathartic and had meaning for Joey’s family and friends. I am glad I went. Joey is sorely missed by all who knew him.

Be it resolved that when it’s my turn to go that there will be no ceremony, no ritual, no attempted solace from a virtual stranger (priest). Remember me vividly and kindly. It’s enough!

Posted on by Ian Hanchet

Monday Musings

While out shopping for groceries on the weekend my ears were assaulted by some adenoidal tenor on the sound system singing ‘o sole mio’ at the top of his lungs. Sounded to me like he was passing a kidney stone while sliding down a razor blade. I recently had a medical procedure to flush earwax, so perhaps my hearing is too acute at the moment. Nah.. I just hated it. Now, I used to shop at a Trattoria in Rivière des Prairies and there was a butcher there who burst into song every now and again which I absolutely loved, Same type of voice, but not squeezed through a shitty sound system. The cavernous space of a grocery store (supermarket) provides a nice reverberation for a solo voice, but the recording was not designed for this environment.

I don’t mean to disparage the tenor, or the composer, but it got me to thinking about how different people perceive music. It is a subject that intrigues me. Some people cannot stand Bob Dylan for example. I love Bob’s voice in all it’s different presentations and permutations over his 60 year career. I don’t like Elton John’s voice. There is nothing the matter with it, and he has written and performed brilliantly for almost as long as Dylan. I just don’t like it. There was a time in the seventies when you couldn’t turn on a radio without hearing Rocket Man or Honky Cat etc. Maybe I overdosed on it.

I have a book by Carl Wilson (not the Beach Boy) called ‘Let’s Talk About Love (Why other people have such bad taste)’. I bought the book ostensibly to reinforce my rabid dislike of Celine Dion’s overwrought and melodramatic music. He puts the phenomenon of Celine in a social and cultural context which actually helped me develop empathy for people with less sophisticated taste than me. Who am I to say it sucks if others derive enjoyment from it? I recognize my snobbery and it opened up not only empathy, but awareness that other people may have the same visceral abhorrence for music I love. One of my music professors at University used to paraphrase a familiar quote:”Beauty is in the Ear of the Behearer”, or my dad, who often quoted: “chacun à son goût”.

Tastes change. When I was a boy, the mere mention of asparagus or liver would make me dry heave. Turns out it was my mother’s culinary inadequacies that I didn’t like. It’s not like I now wake up craving either of these foods, but I will eat them if presented. I used to wear bell bottoms…..

Many people approach subjects as if there is one way to view them. People like to lump things in categories as if they are a monolith. “I hate Jazz” is one. I used to respond that “the person who says that just doesn’t know enough about it”which is both true and arrogant. The term Jazz refers to styles of music that originated in the late 1890s and contain as many disparate styles as one might expect in over 100 years. Some of the original styles are kind of museum pieces now. Dixieland music, Boogie Woogie and swing music have been displaced by more modern styles. I still like Satchmo, Fats Waller and the Dorsey brothers, but their music fits a sub genre much like Bach is Baroque and Debussy Romantic. The jazz that I am most drawn to is post bop and soul Jazz and even more modern modal and free styles and world music. They all have their place and are as different to each other as human beings are to each other, yet retain enough similarities to be recognized as belonging to a genre. An orange is a fruit, but it is also a citrus fruit and can be found in a section called produce.

Monoliths exist in other areas of life as well. Books: Is it literature, mystery, self-help etc.? Religions: Say the word “Christian” and believers as different as tacit monks to emotive bible thumpers in mansions to humble church goers to self serving hypocrites and everything in between. As much disparity as commonality.

When it comes to pop music, I am of a demographic where the music of my youth is no longer the dominant social guidepost. I am less a consumer of new things and my tastes reflect a different era from the present. I still love protest music and counter cultural music but there is no unifying popular culture like the human rights and anti war etc. like the sixties generated. I dislike much of what I hear in new music these days. The few exceptions are artists that are still writing in a style that has humanistic meaning and reflects an earlier time. I loathe generic country music, auto tune and gimmicks. I change the station.

I care passionately about art and music, and I guess what I am trying to express here is that I care less about what others think if they are not themselves on the path to knowledge and enlightenment. Who cares what I think anyway?

“Some people feel the rain; others just get wet.” -Roger Miller

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I Get Along Without You Very Well

When I had just started listening to Jazz at the age of eighteen or so, I had a very scant record collection. I had a John Coltrane Twofer called Black Pearls; Tom Scott and The LA Express; Erroll Garner ‘Concert By The Sea’ and perhaps a few others. My favourite pastime in those days was crate digging in used record stores. I also checked out any record section anywhere. One day in a Kresge’s or K Mart store in a mall in St.Jerome, Quebec I came across an artist I had never heard of. Chet Baker.

Something about the artwork and the handsome portrait drew me to this record. That, and the price of 69 cents. It was a “cutout”. A hole drilled in the corner and reduced to clear. I took it home and put it on my turntable in my bedroom and listened to each side in turn. I was attracted to the music. All Ballads. Some of the songs I had heard from my dad’s collection. Ella and Sinatra sang But Not For Me, My Funny Valentine, Summertime. I really liked that this was a quartet. Piano, Bass and Drums with Chet either playing trumpet or singing. His sultry androgynous voice delivered each song in a way that immediately connected with my soul. My collection today consists of 39 albums with Chet Baker as the leader(443 songs). Most of the albums are fairly high quality although some were just attempts to cash in for dope money. Chet, famously, was a notorious heroin addict. Even the ones where Chet is not 100 % have some redeeming qualities.

One night this week I was listening to Luciana Souza on her album “The Book Of Chet” which is a beautiful tribute to Chet’s memory and songs from his repertoire that are associated with him. One of those songs is “I Get Along Without You Very Well” by Hoagy Carmichael based on a poem by Jane Brown Thompson. which is a rueful ode to a lost love and the irony inherent in a statement that is untrue. Beautiful capture of a common life event. Luciana sings it well with a slight hint of her Brazilian accent. Her voice is sultry and her phrasing and pitch are excellent, but there was something missing. I went downstairs in the morning and put on Chet singing the song. To me, Chet’s version (from 1954) seems more believable. Chet’s pitch sometimes a bit flat, his frugal use of vibrato only on certain words. He wrenches the mixed emotion evoked in the lyric and tells the story as if it is his. I don’t mean too disparage Luciana. Hers is plaintive, reverent, perfect, professional, well recorded, sublime, in fact, but to me, it only made me desire to hear Chet’s original.

Chet starts off with a celeste intro (Celeste is a bell-piano…rare in jazz… best known for The Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy by Tchaikovsky) and Chet sings the first A section as if it is an aside. A soliloquy, A private moment. On the second A section Russ Freeman switches to piano and the whole rhythm section supports Chet’s singing gently in two, then some movement in the bass on the bridge. The outro ends with arco bass underpinning “break my heart in two”. A perfect little vignette of suffering and regret.

In my music program on my computer I have 16 different versions of this song from artists as disparate as Amos Lee and Chrissie Hynde, Jerry Jeff Walker, Linda Ronstadt, Kurt Elling, Kandace Springs and Diana Krall. I have four versions by Billie Holiday from very late in her career. Sublime. A second Chet Baker version from late in his career/life which is akin in feel to Billie Holiday. I know what came next and their tragic endings colour my impression of these versions. My favourite of the other versions is Sinatra”s which comes from one of the first concept albums ever “In The Wee Small Hours…” which was an artistic outpouring of his amorous troubles with Ava Gardner at that time. Frank’s version has Nelson Riddle’s strings underpinning his grief and is entirely believable. His emotional warble at times in this song sound unfeigned.

At the top of this blog is a photo of me with a Richard Avedon photo portrait of Chet Baker taken recently at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montreal. It got me to thinking about the different worlds of experience we bring to new experiences. Thousands of people passed by the Chet Baker photo daily, but I am sure I am probably the only one who stopped for a “selfie” because of my intimate relationship with this man’s music. The way I see and hear are unique to me and based on my soul and my experience. A photo of someone else at the exhibition did not stir up similar feelings although I was tempted by the photo of Dorothy Parker whose writings I love.

Likewise the way we hear music. A friend asked me last night if I could guide him on how to listen to Jazz. My listening experience is bordering on fanatical, but is curated. I know (now) what I like, and what I am willing to invest my time in. I have to think about how someone with a different set of experiences would proceed. Many years ago when I was studying music formally I met my brother at a Jazz bar and he said “I don’t understand Jazz”. He reads music, so I brought out my Real Book and showed him what was going on. The pianist was interpreting the melody of a standard. Not quite playing it straight. when the melody ended the rhythm section continued playing the changes and the soloist improvised new melodies over the chord changes. Fairly simple. He wrote me recently 45 years later and said he discovered Miles Davis’s ‘Kind Of Blue’. He said “Now I get it” …lol.

I enjoy watching people expand their knowledge and experience and especially when we can share a mutual love for a particular piece that has particular meaning for me. I feel honoured to have a part in it.

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My ‘Kids’ on my 70th.

I am fortunate to have reached a milestone. 70 years is a long time to be around. One of the best things I ever did was to become a dad. Best gig ever. Even the toughest times weren’t all that bad. We love each other. I am blessed. My daughters are Ema Jean and Nicola. Tepper is my son-in-law and the violinist is my BFF Jeff. The ‘kids’ prepared three lovely songs appropriate for such an occasion. I transcribed Nic’s “Eulogy”


“I had a small speech that I had written down, but I don’t really feel like reading it. A lot of you know my dad as a big jokester, but he was also a really great dad, and particularly when we were especially little.

He shone not only in the big moments but a lot of the small moments just running errands, you know: in the car; going to the hardware store; listening to The Debaters and Vinyl Tap on CBC radio… and the thing that is special about my dad is: we’d go along and a lot of kids would be bored but we wouldn’t because we had such imagination because that is something he really instilled in us and in the students that he taught over decades.

Sometimes our imagination’d got the better of us and we would be playing in the grocery store, we’d have all these little games going on and we’d lose track of him and we were never scared because all we had to do was listen…. And we would hear …without fail … somebody laughing , three aisles down… in the milk department and we would just go over there and he would be just making a stranger’s day and they would throw their head back with abandon and laugh.

Beyond that, another moment he really shone, was that, most kids grow up dreading their bedtime and I never thought I really had a bedtime, but looking back on it I realize that we did, but it was really more of a three act show. It would start on my parents’ bed, Ema and I flanking my mom, and she would read us library books while my dad was doing the dishes, and then he would come and give us each a shoulder ride to our beds and when we were there he would take requests for jazz standards and just play the most ridiculously beautiful complex music …”Daddy could you play ‘Just Fwiends’? It didn’t stop there, because after that he would tell the most creative stories that would put all of your streaming services to shame… and not only that, they would be stories that had recurring characters, it was like a series that we would tune into every single night and you know he spent the whole day entertaining a whole bunch of kids and he still took that time and did that for us.

Sometimes he’d fall asleep and we would say “daddy you’re drifting” because we knew that the story wasn’t over, and he would finish every single story the same way. He’d say “and THAT’s the end of the story!” So, I celebrate you dad, today and every day, and I’m proud to be your daughter. Happy Birthday!”

I am kind of proud that I have such wonderful children who appreciate what they have and who they are.

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Refuge

I was driving home the other night after dark, but not yet night. I was looking in the windows of the homes in Montreal West we were passing through. The houses were probably built between the two world wars or perhaps even earlier as Montreal’s suburbs were expanding. 

I was reminded of my own home growing up in Town of Mount Royal which was of the same vintage. Both neighbourhoods at the time were inhabited by middle class professionals in a society that was more nine to five and regimented. Churches were active and important back then. Children joined Boy Scouts or Girl Guides and on our street most moms were educated but could afford to stay home and raise their children. 

Bliminal spaces like this have always interested and attracted me. I was struck by the soft yellowish low watt lighting in empty dens, living rooms, front hallways. Lit for the inhabitants not yet home. I was comforted by this idea of refuge. Imagining walking in the door and being greeted by a warm living space with unmoving air from cast iron radiators.

As a youth, When I would return home from choir practice I would walk several blocks from the downtown commuter train (now part of the REM) and see similar homes waiting, dimly lit by perhaps a wall sconce or a table lamp. Perhaps the invisible kitchen was a hive of activity, someone preparing dinner in a brightly lit aromatic back room, but the rest of the house just waiting. Houses I would probably never enter, but I recognized the feeling, recognized the layout. Refuge. A quiet place to shake off the day and perhaps relax in an easy chair with the paper and a sherry or vermouth (like my dad did). 

I have been in many older homes in TMR, Montreal West, NDG and Westmount and I recognize the vibe. Clean, orderly, filled with loved objects and favourite books in neat bookshelves. Different homes with a sameness about them. These glimpses in passing are comforting to me. 

I am also reminded of a similar feeling I have driving on older highways and looking in windows of rural homes. My family used to travel between Montreal and Ottawa frequently. I had grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins in Ottawa. This is before the 417 was completed. The 417 bypasses everything and could be any highway anywhere with few landmarks or personality. The older highway took longer, but it passed real places where people lived.

Returning from Ottawa on a Sunday night the route offered glimpses into lives different from mine. I enjoyed the cold blue light from fluorescent lights in kitchens. I could imagine the hum from the fridge and the swish swish of a dishwasher in the after supper hour. The glow of a TV in another room, the scrubbed kids in their pjs staying up to watch Ed Sullivan. Some of the houses seemed plunked there randomly like a monopoly house dropped on a carpet.  There didn’t seem to be any reason for a house to to be there unlike the rambling farm houses which were large and had many out buildings.

Sometimes the route passed abandoned homes. Each former refuge transformed by life stories and hardships unknown to me, the casual observer, and lost in time.

As I write this in my comfy office I imagine someone walking their dog on the street glancing in here and seeing my computer screen and the back of my body as I sit here typing. Perhaps one day they will write about their impressions of this, my refuge.

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Light As A Feather

I first heard this 1973 album at my (soon to be) lifelong friend and mentor (Charlie Biddle)’s restaurant in Val David….late 70’s. He loved it and talked excitedly about aspects of the performance that at the time were beyond me, but which I quickly adopted and refined my love for jazz with the same fervour and listened attentively. I made a cassette of this and listened in my car constantly. I would listen to it panned to the left, panned to the right, and in the middle where it is supposed to be. I don’t remember offhand the channel that had more Fender Rhodes, but one of them did(does). The comping on this record is beyond great. Well beyond great. I could listen to it now and still get excited by it. 500 Miles High in particular with Chick playing Rhodes through a wah/volume pedal….I am going to put this on tonight. Joe Farrell’s playing I am hearing in my head as I write. Haven’t played the album in about a year. I remember whole sections of his solos. Stanley Clarke on upright bass is awesome. I can listen to the entire album and focus just on the bass or the keys or the sax. The vocals not so much. I find Flora Purim a bit “pitchy” at times, but I love it still. Her husband Airto Moreira on traps and percussion sounds like a section. I will include a link below so you can listen for yourselves, but I encourage you to listen on speakers or good headphones. Most people don’t anymore which is a shame. I have owned this album as an l.p. As a CD the aforementioned cassette and now mp3: mp3 is the easiest, but the vinyl lived.