I live for whirlwinds like the past 48 hours, most of it with Meg Reney…(step)grandsons Bisbee and Atlas with us Thursday night, 15-month-old Atlas snuggling up with me for the night’s sleep, 3-year-old Bisbee calling “Tom” at the sound of my footsteps on the stairway Friday morning; the pleasure of putting together a playlist with Joe Temperley, Chick Corea, and T.S. Monk for Friday’s Jazz a la Mode, and looking ahead to next week’s features on Ray Charles and John Coltrane; the transporting experience of a Paul Winter-Jeff Holmes-Dawning Holmes concert at Bezanson later that night; breakfast with old friend and music maven Ceci Danforth Gilson on Sat morning; the gridiron season-opener between Amherst and Bates…Lord Jeffs won, 14-6, in a game best characterized as “we live to punt”; a glorious late afternoon ride through the back roads of Central Mass to visit with my 90-year-old mother who lights up when we arrive but doesn’t remember us so well moments later; dinner off the beaten path in Sturbridge; fresh peaches and cream for dessert at home; and this morning’s read of John Lahr’s fascinating profile of Al Pacino, which includes memorable examples of Pacino’s genius for becoming the characters he plays. Here’s one: when he was playing Richard III in Boston and Jackie Kennedy came backstage to greet him, “I didn’t even get up. I was so into it that night that I continued to be the King. I can almost not forgive myself for that.” I also noted David Mamet’s likening of Pacino’s improvising method with “the way Louis Armstrong played music. ‘He’s incapable of doing it the same way twice’.” Dawning Holmes sang Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” on Friday night, and followed it with the gospel classic, “I’m on My Way.” For this Sunday morning, here’s Mahalia Jackson’s original.
Posted on: Sun, 21 Sep 2014 12:28:37 +0000
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