Covid-19 April Fool’s Prep Kit

Five Great Bagpipe Songs to Play On Your Balcony For Your Neighbors

Hand-knitted fingerless mittens

Zorro Protective Mask

 

Mao Tse Tung Substitute Toilet Paper (“Don’t squeeze the Chairman”)

Social Distancing Enforcement Device

TV Snacks for the Sports-Deprived

Covid-19 Testing Kit (unlimited supply)

And, an Exemption for Dr. Anthony Fauci:

No more surprises on April Fools Day.

Great Pre-1930 Jazz Tunes

I solicited the favorite pre-1930 songs of the Hot Jazz Records (1917-1931) Facebook group and this is what that knowledgeable group of folks came up with. It represents an enormous variety of music, ranging from "dance" to "blues" to "hot."

People will know some of the names in the list, but I'm sure many more individuals and bands will be unfamiliar. Do yourselves a favor and check out what these musicians have to offer. All of the songs on the list are available online. They are in no particular order.

1.     Oreste's Queensland Orchestra-When The Morning Glories Wake Up In The Morning

2.     Frenchie’s String Band-Red Hot Hottentot

3.     Fletcher Henderson-Whiteman Stomp

4.     Luis Russell: Jersey Lightning

5.     Duke Ellington: Jubilee Stomp (Victor)

6.     King Oliver: Canal St. Blues

7.     Louis Armstrong: Hotter Than That

8.     Irving Mills & His Modernists (w Jack Pettis) - At The Prom-

9.     Red Nichols: Feelin' No Pain (Brunswick)

10.  Nat Brusiloff and His Orchestra-Out of a Clear Blue Sky

11.  Powell's Jazz Monarchs -Chauffer's Shuffle

12.  Original Dixieland Jass Band: Margie

13.  New Orleans Rhythm Kings: Panama

14.  Jimmy Wade: Someday Sweetheart

15.  Red Allen: Swing Out

16.  Clarence Williams: Longshoreman's Blues

17.  Bix: In a Mist

18.  Frank Trumbauer: Ostrich Walk

19.  Walter Page: Squabblin'

20.  Cecil Scott: Springfield Stomp

21.  Joe Venuti/Eddie Lang: The Wild Dog

22.  Al Trent: The Nightmare

23.  Benny Moten: Goofy Dust (1924 Okeh)

24.  Jabbo Smith: Bandbox Stomp

25.  Charlie Johnson: Walk That Thing (take one or 2)

26.  Bessie Smith: Backwater Blues

27.  James P. Johnson: Snowy Morning Blues

28.  Fats: Ain't Misbehavin' (solo piano)

29.  Ted Lewis: Milenberg Joys

30.  Jelly Roll: Black Bottom Stomp 

31.  Jabbo Smith and his Rhythm Aces-Take Your Time

32.  Jack Purvis either Copy'n Louis or Mental Strain At Dawn

33.  Harlem River Quiver" Duke Ellington And His Orchestra

34.  The University Six -San

35.  Benny Goodman and his boys-Jungle Blues

36.  Miff Mole & His Little Molers-Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble

37.  Albert Wynn's Creole Jazz Band-Parkway Stomp

38. Fats Waller - Lookin' Good But Feelin' Bad

39.  Junie C. Cobb & his Grains Of Corn - Shake That Jelly Roll

40.  Fletcher Henderson - Pensacola

41.  Henry Red Allen - Singing Pretty Songs

42.  Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orch. - Rumba Negro

43.  Johnny Dunn, "Sergeant Dunn's Bugle Call Blues" and "Buffalo Blues"

45.  Paul Howard-Quality Shout

46.  Louis Armstrong & His Hot Five-Struttin' With Some Barbecue

47.  Bix Beiderbecke & His Gang -Sorry

48.  Original Memphis Five -Fireworks

49.  Jabbo Smith -Michigander Blues

50. Benny Goodman's Boys-Blue

51.  Roy Johnson's Happy Pals -Happy Pal Stomp

52.  Freddie Keppard's Jazz Cardinals-Stock Yards Strut

53.  McKinney's Cotton Pickers -I'll Make Fun For You

54.  Brownlee's Orchestra Of New Orleans -Peculiar

55.  Fate Marable's Society Syncopators -Frankie And Johnny

56.  Golden Gate Orchestra -After You've Gone

57.  Original Dixieland Jass Band-I Lost My Heart In Dixieland

58.  New Orleans Rhythm Kings-Barataria

59.  Mississippi Maulers -My Angeline

60.  Red Nichols & His Five Pennies -Alice Blue Gown

61.  Jack Purvis -Copyin' Louis

62.  Maynard Baird & His Orchestra -Postage Stomp

63.  Jelly Roll Morton-Burnin' The Iceberg

64.  Tiny Parham -Washboard Wiggles

65.  Danny Altier -My Gal Sal

66.  Paul Tremaine And His Aristocrats -Four Four Rhythm

67.  Cliff Jackson-Torrid rhythm

68.  Duke Ellington - Immigration Blues

69.  Cliff Jackson-Ring Around the Moon

70.  Blue Steele Orch.- Sugar Babe, I'm Leavin

71.  Perdido St. Blues- Johnny Dodds

72.  Tennessee Ten-Long Lost Mama-augmented version of the Original Memphis Five

73.  Charles A. Matson & his Creole Serenaders-Tain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do

74.  Charleston Chasers -My Gal Sal

75.  Lou Weimer's Gold and Black Aces, "Merry Widow's Got a Sweety Now

76.  McKinney's Cotton Pickers - Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble

77.  Jelly Roll Morton - Hyena Stomp

78.  Jimmie Lunceford and his Chickasaw Syncopators-In Dat' Mornin'

79.  King Oliver's Dixie Syncopators-Wa Wa Wa

80.  Louis Dumaine's Jazzola Eight - Franklin Street Blues

Beware Social Distancing Offenders: the Oblivi-Ometer is Here!

At last-a new weapon in the war against the spread of COVID-19: the Oblivi-Ometer! This vital invention is guaranteed to give accurate readings of any citizen’s self-delusion/ego-driven resistance to recognizing the threat of a pandemic. And to do something about it!

Some elements of design remain classified, but we can reveal that the system was built utilizing loading coils in parallel with reruns of Meet The Press to analyze the size of inauguration crowds. The Oblivio-Meter can now penetrate even the thickest skulls and if the meter shows obliviousness readings above a certain level, a shock from Central Headquarters can be delivered, knocking some sense into the subject’s stupid cranium.

Don’t you just wish?

On Bird's 100th

everyone’s taking a crack at Bird turning 100, so I will:

pubescent ill-fitting jeans of too-early fatherhood.

Out the Shed, gonged by Jo, return to shed.

Dig the drug and start a life spent scoring.

Scares the rest of Hootie’s boys and ripples out.

Dishwashing with a mind full of ecstatic lines. Meets the mob with simultaneous dreams-Diz, Monk…

The dream, sweeping up any musical minds not solely locked into self-preservation. Swamped in the wake of this enormous destroying juggernaut.

The buzz is all and is music and is drugs and the magnetism pulls in the village.

Bastard kind man, generous thief. Appetite’s a ponderous load that crashes wildly down 52nd St., sideswiping and enrapturing.

Wasted bright genius of focus and nod; all things to some and often nothing but tracks and trax. Cracking open the doors. 

Satori and scab, locked in a fatal dance.

Still the purest deeply soiled magnetic field. Swept clean now. Burnished to notes.

Peaches En Regalia

In honor of the 50th anniversary of Frank Zappa's Hot Rats, here are my lyrics to "Peaches En Regalia" (every note).

ENSEMBLE 1

Too lifelike to destroy,

That fruit can bring you joy.

Let’s put those peaches en regalia;

March proudly with them,

Watch them walk down the street.

Please won’t you let them pass by safely;

Don’t spit on them and don’t eat their little feet.

On a melba float, you can gloat,

As you proudly cheer:

“Let the peaches vote,” they can quote,

Shakespeare, they’re sincere,

You won’t feel remote, if you note,

How they wave to you

Just as if you were the proudest parents who had raised them

Like they were your own small fruit-like children.

Teach them loyalty, wisdom, dignity;

Open a can, let your mind expand.

SOLO

Set them free, remember even fruit has dignity.

When they come tell them hello,

When they leave tell them goodbye and

Come again, next time please stay longer.

Beware of reincarnation, that fruit you eat may be family,

What if you have stuffed a great-aunt in a spongy cake,

Have a heart, what if she is suffocating

In gooey artificial topping.

They like to dress in nice clothes,

A small string tie and a leisure suit.

No sense resisting a clean, well-dressed fruit,

Panama hat and their snakeskin boots.

SYNTH

Zappa used lots of notes with harmony that changes keys,

Arpeggios and passing tones that rise and fall with accidentals,

Winding riffs a twisted rock zoo,

Wah-wah pedals run amok too.

ENSEMBLE 2

Hear them coming, closer and closer and closer and closer with

Peaches Leading the way;

Peaches happy and gay,

Why can’t we treat them decently and

Not like delicacies, with a social disease.

SYNTH 2

Choosing fruit that really sings is not as easy as it seems,

No watermelon, pomegranate, seedless grape or sundried raisin

Has the impact of that peach so fuzzy, fully ripe, delicious.

REPEAT ENSEMBLE 1

4 Jazz Bad Boys

MILES DAVIS
Troop leader
of the Hip Patrol.
Change, like a tapeworm,
Eating out your gut.


ORNETTE COLEMAN
Ornette, the weird school kid. Intuited calculus. Flunked math.
Sneaked into the Band Room during English and tried to wrestle sounds from oboes and cellos.
Read comic books and slept with his homeroom teacher.
Liked his marching band uniform; lost a different piece of it every week.
Chess club.
Ornette, the weird school kid.
Bad reader. Simian line on his palm.
Juice fasts. Kools.
Brass, bow and reed junkie.
Hears one sound and devises a thousand ways to recreate it.



LESTER BOWIE
Man looks like an Algerian pharmacist:
Lucky Lester mixes the decoction,
Grinds the gris-gris.
And don’t worry about trying to find some damn philosopher’s stone.
Toys with the keys to the recombinant jazz gene lab. Sweeps up after closing and snorts what he finds on the floor.
Virus wrangler, germ dancer, spore fucker.



ARCHIE SHEPP
Hey man, you look like some kind of fucking duck. You hear me? Or some goose. Yea, some shit like that. You didn’t learn from no book. No, no book tell you how to make a face like a damn duck.
You blow that thing loud, right? You make some sounds. You blow tenor.
Allright.
You make some sounds like something inside that horn tryin’ to get out;
Reach up the neck of that horn and grab you by the throat;
squeeze you till you play what IT wants to hear.
Maybe that’s why you make that damn duck face.

The Happy Place and All That Crap From China

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"The Happy Place" represents the confluence of some of the most debilitated and degraded concepts in America. The Military-Industrial complex ain't got nuthin' on this unholy alliance of Kardashians, corporations, Instagram and New Kids on the Block (Happy Place founder Jared Paul is that group's manager).

This depressing shrine to self-delusional nostalgia, kind of a "Pet Rock" writ large, is also an homage to the concept of waste: a full spectrum of un-recyclable plastic, mylar, etc; what we might call:

ALL THAT CRAP FROM CHINA

[This is a set of lyrics I wrote but have been too lazy to write a tune for. 

If anyone is interested, go for it.] 

VERSE

I WENT INTO THE DOLLAR STORE, TO FIND A B-LIST GIFT;

A WONDROUS PLACE FOR ANYONE, WHOSE CHIEF CRITERIA IS THRIFT.

THEIR STORE IS A CORNUCOPIA, A KNICK-KNACK-PACKED UTOPIA;

NOTHING COULD BE FINER THAN

A VERITABLE NIRVANA, OF USELESS CRAP FROM CHINA.

CHORUS

SMERFS AND NERFS AND PADDED BRAS

AND KNOCKOFF GUCCI LUGGAGE;

PEARLS AND FLAGS THAT YOU CAN FURL AND

EVEN REMNANT RUG-GAGE.

HAWAIAN SHIRTS AND POODLE SKIRTS

AND DIRKS FOR MARTIAL ART-NESS;

GOBS OF THINGS THAT SING AND RING AND

OFTEN GLOW IN DARKNESS.

BRIDGE

IT FILLS OUR HOMES, FROM ATTIC TO BASEMENT,

WHETHER YOU’RE RICH OR POOR.

WHO CAN RESIST THE LURE OF THE CHEAP,

CAUSE MAKING A CHANGE WOULD BE QUITE A LEAP.

AND THAT WOULD BE A BORE.

CHORUS

GOOGLY-EYED DOLLS AND PORCELAIN URNS

AND PLASTIC OF ALL TYPES.

LIKE IVORY TOOTHPICKS, LICORICE STICKS AND

SANITIZED HANDY WIPES.

PENS THAT FLOAT AND BUBBLEHEAD GOATS,

HATS THAT FIT SMALL HEADS.

CHATTERING TEETH, EMBARRASSING BRIEFS AND

LOTS OF TOYS MADE OF LEAD.

TRIO

LET'S STAND AND CHEER FOR A

VELVET VERMEER.

IT’S A VERY GOOD BET

THAT CHINESE SWEAT

PRODUCED THE STUFF YOU WEAR.

THE LANDFILLS ADORE

OUR TRASH GALORE

SO DON’T BE AFRAID JUST TO

THROW IT AWAY;

IT’LL BIODEGRADE SOME DAY.

  

CLOSER

TO YOU IT MAY BE DETRITUS, DREGS, JUNK,

RUBBISH, TRASH OR GUNK, 

BUT BUDDY, TO ME , 

NUTHIN' COULD BE FINA

THAN ALL THAT CRAP FROM CHINA!