What a series. Hockey doesn’t get any better than the seventh game of the Eastern Conference quarter-finals between Montreal and Washington. My god. Fantastic. So Canada has a presence in the semi-finals, Montreal plays Pittsburg for Eastern Conference and Vancouver plays Chicago for the West. I’m ecstatic.
A few days ago I started reading Yann Martel’s Beatrice and Virgil. I bought it as an ebook to test the waters of laptop reading, until I can try the Kobo ebook reader – which Chapter’s make available in early May. But first I’d like to talk about the novel.
I haven’t finished reading it yet, but so far it’s engaging and impressive. I appreciate the tone of the narrator: inviting, intelligent, clear, and, at times, humorous. I love the structure: so far as I can tell, and maybe this is an ebook trait, there is only one chapter, which includes a short story, an essay, a novel, and a play. The two main human characters are a perfect match. One is a successful writer who stops writing after his latest work (a flip book novel/essay about the holocaust) is rejected by his publisher, the other a laconic, elder taxidermist who suffers from writer’s block for play he’s been writing his whole life – about a donkey and a howler monkey.
Incidentally, Martel’s description of a pear is a tour de force. I nearly jumped on my bike to search for the perfect pear, even though my stomach has told me many times not to eat them.
I will write a little more after I have finished the book, but for now I would say, this is a fine, inspired work.
Now, ebooks and readers. I want one so that I can read in bed without disturbing Kim. Also, the best light in our house is in the kitchen, but the chairs are a real pain for my bike riding backside. I like reading in a bath, a couch, or a bed. Fiction that is. Manuals and non-fiction need to be read sitting upright with an espresso at my side. In my research the Kobo looks best for what I need. I don’t want a gizmo with bells and whistles, I want to read, period.
So, when I go to Chapter’s next month I will hopefully be able to hold it in my hands and try it out to make sure the screen is not too small or reflective, and the light is good.
GAMELAN is a collection of bronze, wood, and bamboo instruments. Evergreen Club is a Toronto based ensemble that performs contemporary music written specifically for their gamelan, which comes from Sunda, west Java. They have been together since 1983 and I have been playing with them since 1994. (To hear us in action I’ve included two pieces below, both which I have arranged and feature me on kacapi.)
10 May we will be performing in Toronto at the Music Gallery, 197 John St. just up from CityTV building.
We’ll be playing new repertoire for gamelan and will include guest solosists on prepared piano, oboe and French horn. (SEE promotion flyer below.) For those of you who know me, I will be playing kacapi (20 string zither), as well as a few instruments in the gamelan.
Hope to see you there.
03 Pengkolan (Arr. Bill Parsons) ( On The Corner)
07 Dina Jandela MP3_ (Arr. Bill Parsons) From The Window
PROMO FLYER
EVERGREEN CLUB IN PERFORMANCE
BILL PARSONS, double kacapi
I wrote St. James in the mid-1990s after returning from Vancouver with an interdisciplinary MFA in music composition. I had an idea to create a recording of pieces that explored rhythm in an unconventional manner. Of the eight pieces that made it onto Passing Time St. James is the most rhythmically complex – each player is in a different time signature, with the guitar part in 200/8.
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St. James - CLICK/LISTEN
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REPRODUCTION
I have another collection of tunes ready to be recorded for a follow up album called Reproduction. Here the pieces explore a different orchestration, including Indian and Indonesian instruments. I hope to have this done in the next two years. Once the P minor blue is published and 6stringMosaic.com is up and running.
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In This is Spinal Tap lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel boasts that his amplifier “goes up to 11″ one louder than all other amps.
My friend Andrew Boniwell is a talented jazz pianist living in Toronto. We met at York University in the mid-1980s and have remained close friends ever since. He introduced me to the music of Brad Mehldau a number of years ago but my focus was elsewhere until recently. I discovered Mehldau’s version of I Didn’t Know What Time it Was and bought it on iTunes. I’ve listened to that piece so many times now I’ve lost track. I love the interplay of the trio, the arrangement, Mehldau’s freedom and playfulness… He has breathed new life into a wonderful tune.
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I have included a link to an animated full score of a recent Mehldau’s composition. It’s beautifully conceived.
BRAD MEHLDAU ANIMATED SCORE Don’t Be Sad
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I have included a few versions by some of my other favorite musicians,
Wayne Shorter and Gal Costa.
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Here’s the classic tune, Roadhouse Blues, which captures the essence of The Doors at the height of their popularity.
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Back in 2000 I travelled to Paris for a week to perform with Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan. I invited Kim to join me. One of the things we did, besides enjoying café noisettes and tartine, was to go on literary walks that were laid out in a book she brought, Time Out Book of Paris Walks.
On one of the walks, it could have been Walk Like a Man (Ernest Hemingway) designed by Michael Palin, or Walking for Godot (Samuel Beckett), we ended up in the Père Lachaise Cemetery at the site of Jim Morrison’s resting place. The grave was adorned with fresh flowers from recent visitors who still mourn the loss of the American singer. It made me curious about the Morrison allure. Was it that he embodied the spirit of the post-beat generation and became an icon of the baby boomers when he died so young? To be honest, I was never a fan. Though I like Roadhouse Blues, but more for the feeling and structure of the music than the lyrics.
When I think of who in the world I would like to spend a day with in Paris, living or dead, besides Buddha or William Shakespeare, I would have to say it boils down to: Erik Satie, Samuel Beckett, Thelonius Monk, Woody Allen, Ava Gardner, Billie Holiday and John Ralston Saul. How about you?
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I love the feeling of this tune, how it’s able to keep looping the same material but maintain interest for the listener.
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Here’s a chart of the original version of Roy Orbison’s classic song.
Whenever I hear the riff of Pretty Woman I can’t help but think of Devo’s Whip it from the early 1980s.
David Gilmore plays the famous tune solo, and then...
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