Yesterday at a bar near my house called the 49ers, met an interesting singer from Russia. She had just finished singing I know by Irma, not one of those mainstream songs and she was as surprised as me that I knew the lyrics and was able to sing along with her ... so from this bonding session we got on to talking about other places shed performed in, and where shed picked up this song from ... Turns out NY, New York :) So in turn I told her about the time I had moved to New York circa end of 89 when Ed Koch was leaving and Larry Dinkins was taking over as the Mayor. On a now forgotten part of East Houston, somewhere between Mott and Mulberry was this place called The Knitting factory which after midnight was usually wreathed in blue black cigarette smoke, and drenched in soul stirring jazz ... On my birthday that November 9th, my friends Charles and Pathma took me there and I listened to Chet Bakers My funny Valentine played by Ahmad Jamaal and fell in love with both the music and the lights out ambience of a night club evening fuelled by cigarettes and beers ... Since then invariably if not every night, at least religiously every weekend I try and find a place where I can combine my love for dark edged music and live performances by strung out artists who can translate their passion into the currency of my soul whenever possible. My favorite music capital happens to be Glasgow in this regard ... f^$@# amazing musicians down there, nobody ever heard of ... New York was great in the eighties, Chicago got better in the nineties and now both of them have sadly lost their soul, the mayhem and madness of yesteryears all too sadly sterilized beyond redemption now ... Glasgow still has the grunge element going ... god knows for how long, but until that happens you can walk into a bar at 1AM and hear young bands sing songs that scorch the cockles of your heart ... Anyways heres My funny valentine ... a version very close to the brilliant cover done by Ahmad Jamaal those many many moons ago ....
Posted on: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 06:08:57 +0000
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