It seems like it is getting easier and easier for me to let things slide. I'm not as slack on book reviews as music in, but, getting there?
1st up, "The Unfinished Land", by Greg Bear, 2021, 369 pages, 100k words. Greg Bear was one of my fav authors for decades. To my knowledge, this is his 1st novel-length foray into fantasy since "The Infinity Concerto" (1984) and "The Serpent Mage" (1986). I have done rereads of both of those, and in fact recently purchased a bargain e-book version of "The Infinity Concerto" contemplating another reread.
"The Unfinished Land" is set at the time of the attempted invasion of England by the Spanish Armada (1588). A young English boy whose ship is sunk winds up aboard a Spanish galleon that winds up in the magical islands of the North Atlantic, in particular High Brasil. The ruler is a Vanir godess (never directly encountered), there are various (semi)immortals, magical beings, etc. A decent page-turner, but I never really engaged with it. Also, it was 1 of those stories where things seem to get destroyed as the central characters pass through them, which I usually find annoying.
#2, "City", by Clifford D. Simak, 1952, 302 pages, 82k words. I'm sure I got offered a cheap ebook on this. I always liked Simak, and I remembered this 1 as being good. It was good, a collection of short stories with narration in between tying them together, following humanity going post-singularity (but a completely 1952 version) and leaving the world to robots and uplifted dogs. I enjoyed the read.
It was funny, tho. I have kvetched lately about the preponderance of LGBTQAZ issues in recent sci-fi, this book definitely was a blast from the past. There are 2 female characters with very small parts, other than that all (white) men. Even the uplifted dogs all seem to be male. The lack of diversity was actually jarring.
I will be 70 years old in June. This may be the best story I have ever read. It's just perfect. It is the stuff of dreams.
I sleep and dream a lot, and my dreams had been getting stale. My dreaming actually did get some new energy from this story. Beautiful, haunting, full of love, and with a very sweet ending. Also, 1 of those books that presents as fantasy but is actually science fiction.
#4, "Make Shift", subtitled "Dispatches from the Post-Pandemic Future", 2021, 247 pages, 67k words. This year's installment of "Twelve Tomorrows", published annually by MIT Technology Review. I was excited when I saw that this had come out, dug right in. I got a story or 2 in and was like, "Oh crap, these are all pandemic stories, I don't want to be reading pandemic stories right now." I got my 1st vaccination March 4, but, I have been a hunkered-down fool for 1 year now, and I have a pretty bad case of pandemic fatigue.
Still, good stories by some of my fav current authors: Cory Doctorow, Ken Liu, Malka Older, and Karl Schroeder. The last story, "Vaccine Season" by Hannu Rajaniemi, gave an incredibly hopefully future vision. Phew, thanks Hannu, I needed that!
#5, "Klara and the Sun", by Kazuo Ishiguro, 2021, 330 pages, 89k words. A totally charming book. Klara is an AF - Artificial Friend, who are sold to be companions to tweens and teens. AFs are solar-powered and as such worthip the sun - Klara does anyway. She strongly reminded me of ... Piranesi!!! Both are unfinished, child-like individuals, and as such form completely bogus theories about reality and their place in it. (1 of the things I love about children is their persistent but usually spectacularly failing attempts to do science, to explain the world.)
This book has to be considered science fiction, but it also has magical and fantastical components. A great read.
In the fall of 1968, I met Delbert Lionel Hilgartner III. He was a sophomore at MIT, I was just starting. Pi Lambda Phi frat.
Del was cool: 6'1", cowboy boots. He had spent his senior year in Davis, CA. The 3 years before that, he had lived in Tangiers, Morocco. His dad was stationed there for VOA (CIA?).
In prolly late 1970, he started the band "Blue Eyed Boy, Mr. Death". (Yeats?). He played keys (Hammond B3 w Lesley), blues harp, tambourine, and sang lead, harmony, & backup. I played mostly lead guitar, a little pedal steel, and sang harmony, lead, & backup. Randolph Axel Nelson (Randy at 1st, later Axel) played mostly rhythm guitar, + bass, bongos, & sang harmony & backup. Barry I. Levine played bass & sax & sang harmony and backup. John Broderick (J. the D.) drummed. Barry was in Del's year at MIT, Randy had been in mine but dropped out. J. the D. was a Boston townie, he'd graduated college & taught grade school I think.
We weren't bad - John sent around some recordings early last year (linked to in this post, which also talks about BEBMD & the other 2 bands I played in in Boston.). We gigged pretty steady, frats, sororities, some high schools, clubs, spring of 1971. Del graduated w a Humanities degree & moved to the Village to teach film at Cooper's Union. That ended BEBMD.
Del turned me on to North African music - I haven't collected much of that. He also turned me on to Fats Waller. The king of stride piano in the late 1920's & 1930's. Great tunes, great lyrics, very upbeat. My wife described some of the songs as "playful", I agree.
In the late 1960's, I bought 3 RCA Victor Vintage Fats Waller vinyl LPs:
Valentine Stomp 1935
Fractious Fingering 1936
Smashing Thirds 1937
These albums also have some Fats solo piano pieces, mostly recorded in 1929.
I also bought "Classic Jazz Piano Styles" which had 4 tracks by Fats, 4 by Jelly Roll Morton, 4 by Earl Hines?, & 4 by ?.
A few months ago I started working up the Fats songs off of the 3 albums. I took a picture of the 3 albums' track lists. I highlighted my current status, what fun! iPad drawing tool intuitive!
Note, "i got rhythm" I don't do Fats' version, I do Ella Fitzgerald's. Fats also does "tea for two", I do the 1950's movie version. "ain't misbehaving" I did with Steve (Fuzzy) Konopka in "Steve & Chris".
Next up for recording (yellow highlight), "how ya baby?" in C. In process, I just worked up the chords for "how can i?" in D (red highlight) this morning. The song has a a red flag on it in OnSong - not ready to go. Easier chords than the prior 1.
And also in the pic, 9 blue highlighted possibles! I've been working the right column of 1937 songs, I think I'll switch to the left column of 1935 songs for a while. Next up, "thief in the night".
I have 14 total songs in OnSong under Fats: the 11 recorded, the 2 in process, and "if you're a viper", which is not 1 of my favs of his. If I record it it will be after the 9 possibles.
Odd that I didn't seem to like the 1936 album??? The other highlighted tunes have been on the hit parade in my head for 5 decades, I don't think any of the 1936 tunes made the cut.
For the last few of the greens I have worked up, I have added my chart to Ultimate Guitar. I've also added lyrics to AZLyrics. Yay for me, I'm performing a public service, capturing these great songs for posterity!
I R contributing to The Commons, FTW!
[Updated 2021-03-11]
Added "how ya baby?" by fats waller in C.
[Updated 2021-03-15]
Added "how can i?" by fats waller in D.
[Updated 2021-10-05]
Added "i've got a feeling i'm falling" by fats waller, billy rose, gene austin, annette hanshaw in D. I could not find a video of Fats singing this song, only of him performing it as a piano solo. I worked this version up from the Gene Austin 1929 recording.
[Updated 2021-10-07]
Probably Fats' best known collaborating lyricist was Andy Razaf (born Andriamanantena Paul Razafinkarefo). Is that not a great name? Say it, 7 syllables, 1 syllable, 6 syllables, it totally rolls off of your tongue. The Wikipedia article says that he was a nephew of Madgascar royalty - a dynasty of almost 400 years, they must have had a some decent genes ;-P
[Updated 2021-11-24]
Added "honeysuckle rose" by fats waller, louis armstrong, andy razaf in F.
An early Music In note, when I was looking for the video for "you got me under your thumb", I came across the Cleo Brown version - it had a very tasty intro. Cleo was known as the "female Fats Waller". She was 3 years younger, born 1907 (or 1909) vs 1904 for Fats. Her skimpy Wikipedia article says in 1935 she took over for Fats as pianist for the WABC orchestra in NYC.
It seems like most of her stuff is on this 27-track album, "Here Comes Cleo". Only $9.49 Amazon download, quel bargain! I've really enjoyed it. Favs: "you got me under your thumb", "my gal mezzanine", "when hollywood goes black and tan", "who's that knockin' at my heart?".
I found her the last week of Black History Month & thought, "How appproiate & fortuitous!". Touted on Twitter, crickets :-(
