Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss

This is Mai Sugimoto a sax player in Chicago. I had never heard of her until five minutes ago. I only heard about three measures before I signed up for her newsletter, sent her a brief note and then decided to post about her or about her instrument.

I am going to recreate my list or scroll or document or codex with spiral notebook called “One Thousand And One Saxophone Nights”. I threw away the original when I moved in with Terry. I gave away or sold 25 boxes of books. I threw away about 100 handwritten journals including the one with the list of sax players. I was a bachelor until age 53. I was creating spacer in my life for something new.

I am typing this at Coupa while wearing a dog leash on my right wrist. Duffy is not quite tugging at me but sits two feet below and towards the west, I think. South. South by South west.

I wrote to Mai: Concert promoter and artist manager and blogger in Palo Alto dba Earthwise but born on the south side.

I love using that line. The best response was Willie Big Eyes Smith (1936-2011) who said “Midway Chevrolet? that’s where Muddy bought his Chevy’s”.

The saxophone project probably took 100 hours and 500 attempts. It was an alphabetical list of one thousand saxophone players from the history of jazz. No one needs to know the names of 1,000 sax players. Better would be to know more about Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane and how they influence or not Chris Potter and John Ellis. I could probably make a list of 100 (not 1,000) sax players I have worked with as Earthwise Productions. I think Larry Ochs is the last sax player I booked. No, Jonathan Bautista also known as Jonathan Lagunta or Jonathan Lagunta Bautista who played Lytton Plaza a pop up with Delbert Anderson trumpet and Rabiah Kabir flute/bongos on January 29 is the most recent. Although I’m not sure Jonathan would qualify for “A Thousand and One Saxophone Night -II” because the criteria I think is a nationally distributed recording or a review in Downbeat where you are mentioned.

But it started by going thru three books and making index cards of players and their year of birth and year of death. Then I would update with year of death if they died. Then I alphabetized the three sets and wrote them into a book. I would add in the margins or at the bottom for recent players. I used Penguin, All Music Guide and Rough Trade. Plus Downbeat.

Maybe I will do it again, and include Mai Sugimoto. And adjust the criteria to include people like Mai Sugimoto and Jonathan Bautista.

I think the next sax player I will see is Ben Goldberg with Myra Melford on April 5. Maybe I will define it in such a way that that works. A Thousand and One Reed Players Who I Read About or Worked With then I can include Beth Custer, Harvey Wainapel, Sheldon Brown, Ben Goldberg, Anat Cohen.

May I work with Mai. My blog to god’s embouchure.

and 1:

I namechecked for Mai Akira Tana.

andand: Jonathan Lagunte is the steward for the official Earthwise/Plastic Alto alto.

CUE THE HAIR-FLIP I caught Maya West and friends Sunday afternoon at Stanford student union coffee house aka CoHo; when they broke out Norah Jones “I Don’t Know Why I Didn’t Come” I texted a clip to Jesse Harris. He “liked” it back a few hours later. Not sure that finishes the game: it was fourth time I tried that.
I went to confirm and celebrate the removal of the sophomoric pro-terror anti-Israel and antisemitic tent installation. I played my version of Elton John on the found piano. Maya’s was better. I checked out the end of baseball vs Fullerton — sat next to 6’3” co-term Volleyball NCAA champion Caitie Baird from IN and her cutie a former baseballer named Barrera.

My piano series goes on sale Tuesday tomorrow for April 1-8 at the pitch or Mitch with Ethan Iverson (stylized as EIght SHOWS), Marta Sanchez, Tammy Hall, Dick Fregulia, Dick Conti, Motoko Honda, Will Bernard Freelance Subversives (and perversely built around guitar), Myra Melford with Ben Goldberg, Edward Simon and Murry Low with and with my favorite Stanford undergrad underground musician Rabiah Kabir on flute. (Rabiah also appears in Murry’s Latin big band March 9, and with Cien Mil Mangoes for Earthwise April 18).
EIght PART PIANO SERIOUS which is a Ring Lardner reference

Doing this from memory: Patti Cathcart, with Tuck’s guitar; Rachel Baiman, Roberta Lea, the late great Echo Brown to whom I am trying to produce a tribute; that’s only three I thought there were six; but I want to relate a story about the Harvard grad and retired doctor who drove down from afar last night and is a big fan of….thinking..damn am I sleep deprived…my headliner last night…Lizzie No and she deserves the group of No-heads or what-not and he said he was at my Roberta Lea show but did not remember that also on the bill was Rachel Baiman who is one of only two acts to have played the guild in MP before earthwise whereas there are 10 or more the other direction (Charlie Hunter, Mother Hips, Galactic, Molly Tuttle) and I said I had two female troubadours traveling with their husbands whose paths happened to cross in Palo Alto by Earthwise at Johnson Park. And this was October a week or so after terrorists killed 1,000 people mostly women and many at a music festival in Israel. And in one case Rachel was traveling with George a fellow fiddle player, from New Zealand; but Roberta was traveling with her husband who is also her tour manager; and when I explained to him — his name and number are in my phone but not my head in this instance and I did call him more recently and thank him again or re-ignite or kindle this narrative or my view of it– that as a Jew I am particularly triggered may not have been my word at the time, affected by the massacre and attack. And I gave a basic speech about worst case scenarios and emergency procedures. And he said something to the effect — which has brought up wells of emotion when I re-tell this — “I am a Marine and I am trained to help you in those situations” which he did not have to say but he did and I thank him.

But interestingly and I may be wrong the Harvard guy who is about 72 and Vietnam Era and maybe a Jew maybe not I thought he started to say and I excuse myself from the small talk circle that Roberta Lea might be advocating for the so-called “cease-fire’ which to Jews and Israeli’s is like condoning the terrorists and potentially antisemitic in itself. In terms of harassment, not sure the segue, the intent of the speaker is irrelevant by today’s customs. So people who think they are somehow helping civilians as human shields but are actually encouraging pogroms against Jews here are still in the wrong, I am so sorry to say. I am so sorry that smart and well-meaning and talented people are also ignorant.

And with the Fourth Estate in shambles and Democracy weakened it may come to pass, that despite starting with “fair play to those who dare to dream” we may be writing a tombstone aphorism for our way of life.

And as I wrote that I felt a small red bracelet on my strong hand right hand bite at me: its $5 or so from European Cobbler on Cali Ave — sight of my April 18 upcoming event – lord willing and the crick don’t rise and it somehow references Taylor Swift but I will leave it in a planter, outside the VZ cafe here.

Or shout out to quick to see

Fair play to those who dare to dream

1. shout out to the three female-led acts last night, February 14, 2024 Earthwise at Palo Alto Art Center auditorium: Lizzie No (also known as Stanford grad Elizabeth Quinlan from Princeton, NJ, on Thirty Tigers, booked by Virginia Prater, managed by Howard Greynolds and a crack band including Barry Stephenson on bass and Will Green on guitar — they sounded like they should open for Tedeschi Trucks band), Fumi Okiji Sink Head featuring her hubby Ben Davis on cello, Ben Goldberg on clarinet and Jordan Glenn on drums and as a lagniappe another Black Stanford grad, and another African diaspora expat performer known as Beti or Beti Masenqo on modified oud. She would not tell me her real name, wanting to mask her salad days as an engineering major turned civil servant in water policy in Sacramento.
2. But Beti Masenqo — the name references a type of Ethiopian stringed instrument — triggered me to think more about my friend Rebecca Eisenberg — who like Lizzie and Beti is a Stanford grad; but while the two singers are getting adulation, Becky — our miss Becky — we the people of Palo Alto thru Los Gatos who elected her with 40,000 votes — is now under extreme scrutiny to the point of mutiny of democratic principles — I called them Nazis. Six other members of that board Valley Water and their corrupt staff including Rick Callender and (TK attorney guy — who nobody voted for) are accusing her of this, that and the other. And charging us WE THE PEOPLE something like $600,000 The claim, let me see if I got this straight: called the boys pussies, dicks or assholes — WELL, THEY ARE PUSSIES, DICKS AND ASSHOLE, ENRICO ‘ENRICH ME”; then she stole 2,000 sheets of paper that tried to find something wrong in calling a crook a crook — I said that my Jim Plunkett pamphlet was worth more than that ream of paper — ream of decency I would say; then she did or did not answer the door bell after dark when some goon dressed in Valley Water golf shirts — if that is not redundant — rang her door bell hundreds of times. To get back the 2,000 sheets, the copy of their secret report? NO! He was trying to give her copy of another (paid for by taxpayers) report— the one that has two photos of her carrying said satchel out to a but not her car.f
3. Rebecca Eisenberg of Palo Alto, I would swear on a stack of Christian bibles even as a Jew, drives a blue car not a green car. So the report is false: it says the green car is her’s. Maybe that’s not even Rebecca. How do we know? Why should we care?
4. What we should care about is the $1B dam that Gary Kremens the incumbent pushed for but Rebecca, who went to Stanford and Harvard, pushed against. Although, as I said for the record, the dam cost $500M two years ago and now costs $1.5B — it has tripled in cost. Plus a finance guy said the costs would includes 30 percent more for financing — and its more like $5B all in not $500M. What the fuck! No wonder all these scumbags are calling her out. They want to put that fat snouts into the trough. Or as I said, in same public hearing: classic pork project, or what she calls “the golden spigot”.
5. Back at the ranch, planet earth, Earthwise: I have six slots booked for the 3rd Thursday event April 18 on California Avenue between El Camino and Birch: Cien Mil Mangos, Harvey Wainapel Brazil, Jack Tuttle and Friends featuring Sully Tuttle in tribute partly to Frank Ford of Gryphon, Roberta Donnay trio, Midtown Dreamers featuring Rouin and LeoC Chern a former Palo Alto Library Commissioner — I ran for the same seat, maybe the same cycle. When I applied to Library I was the only candidate who mentioned actual authors. 
6. I met some dudes from El Paso Texas and have a handshake to help produce an event there in their club — which is like the Fillmore or Independent here — to honor Miners great Kent Lockhart 1963-2023; Lockhart is a legend in three places: Palo Alto, Melbourne, El Paso;
7. Shout out to Phoebe Hunt, who may or may not own the chiefs, and did a version of Marty Robbins at Lytton Plaza for Kent;
8. I bought the USA Today today partly because it had an article on El Paso.
9. Terry and I are going to Yuma for the Yuma Arts Symposium where they trade pins.
10. Gunn Titans are in the CCS lower division — they are more like #40 out of 120 — but pulled out a win against Wilcox 82-81 and a brawl ensued, according to Post. Paly is in the higher bracket, despite losing to Los Gatos by 20. Paly is 20th in CCS or so. If Gunn wins they may end up playing Leland Chargers, which is the alma mater of a reporter I met at Valley water named Sakura Cannestra. Although I am not sure if reporters for non-profit newspapers are still reporters. The word is that these 501.c.3s are scams; you play for pay
11. Just got interrupted by Marla Allison and I am trying to bring her got Gunn High; I sent her a string of images: Thai boy of me and a trombone player doing BB King, a Winogrand image of a woman in tight shorts being a coke; me holding Lock’s #25 Titans jersey, wearing a Folkways shirt; La Dona flyer from August 7, 2021 by one of her friends who is Black and Pinay I think and worked as a security guard at Old Navy on Market in 2021; something about sweet foods made by a Pinay artist currently in the food themed art show at PA Art Center; portraits of Ethan Iverson and Marta Sanchez WHO APPEAR AT THE MITCH BY EARTHWISE APRIL 1, 2024 AND APRIL 2, 2024 by a high school artist using a computer program but who put in a lot of work to make it work; a Kinder box or wrapper because I based a Superchunk poster on it once, back in 1999 or 2000; art by an elder at the gallery near Printer’s Cafe on Cali Ave and this is where we came in… and1: I told Marla that one of her paintings of New Mexico the sky reminded me of Jasper Johns or Jaune Quick to See abstract maps or tiles. 
12. And and: I was angry this morning that my expired flyer was already taken down, for its primitivism unless someone was stealing the shard of a baseball card. 
13. I watched the TV morning news at Mac’s Smoke Shop because they teased a small segment about the antisemitic pro-Hamas display at Stanford. I will swing by their. Good riddance to bad rubbish. And an outrage if true Rebecca’s suggestion to Rick Callender of Valley Water is trying to get antisemites at the Islamic lobby to harass her. 

ORTHODOXY RATHER THAN

CONFRONT IT vs Groucho Marx prunes riff

Blackletter is a typeface, for instance in the Bible, Gutenberg — itself subject to a Broadway musical; Black Friar is or was an arts org or senior society at University Chicago to which my grandfather belonged. He was also Phi Beta Kappa.

There’s a musical named “Chicago” that Huey Lewis of Huey Lewis and the News once starred in but Pop Pop did not. He wrote something about his fraternity brother Roy Disney taking over the world, which actually came true. Or creating his own world Disneyland.

J.B. Pritzker did meanwhile sing “if I were a rich man” at Beth Am in 1974 when he was 10 and was merely a rich boy; he is governor of Illinois and a Jew. Nathan Shedroff who is Joshua Redman’s first cousin and also worked for the guy who wrote about typefaces and information — I’m forgetting his name — Access Guide guy or guide methinks — is the only other person alive who remembers J.B. pretty impressive take. The history professor at Princeton Amy Borovoy might have been there too but she has not responded for comment.

Something I’m not sure what wants me to close with spit in the whole and tune again.