Thursday, April 25, 2013

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

Our favorite jazz guitarist...



I like Wes' version of this tune MUCH better than that ol' chestnut by The Mamas and the Papas, which is well and truly overplayed.  And then there's this, as long as we're on about "California Dreamin'"...



Both tunes are from our way, wayback... as in the mid-to-late '60s.  With apologies to Mr. Dickens: it was the best o' times, it was the worst o' times, with no further elaboration forthcoming.

That said... let's skip forward to a better place in Former Happy Days, i.e., 1976.  I was in Tokyo at the time and listened to this tune from George Benson quite a bit, George bein' another guy who ranks quite high in my panthenon o' jazz guitarists:



Yeah, it's a jazzy sorta day here on THPoNM and memories abound.

12 comments:

  1. Oh that George Benson tune - so hypnotic. He really is one of the very best. Thank you for that Buck - soothes the battered spirit at the end of a long day.

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    1. "Breezin'" is to me like the Mamas and Papas is to Virgil. Kinda-sorta. ;-)

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  2. As jazz guitarists go, and for the mood they engender, gotta say all three are supurb if a "jazzy sort of day" type happy hour is what you're after, but HEY, don't diss the Mamma's and the Pappas my man! That tune/version is suis generis in creating a certain haunting "mood" that is tough to match. It has special memories for me as I was engaged to the daughter of a Lt. Cols stationed at Mather in Sacremento while in plt tng in Del Rio in '66 (met her when she was a student at Ohio State when I was in ROTC summer camp in summer of '65@ Lockbourne AFB in Columbus where her father was then stationed) and remember listening to that song constantly on the Christmas leave drive from Del Rio to Sandy Eggo before I hopped on a plane to SF where my (then) "gal" picked me up. Couldn't have BEEN a more appropriate song for me then (and still provides haunting memories now.)

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    1. It's obviously a personal thing for you, then. I kinda have the opposite sorts of associations with the song and a woman who was once my wife.

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    2. I gathered as much, Buck, tho for me it's more of a bitter-sweet "of that time and of that place" memory as our relationship soured over--believe it or not--the 67 Arab-Israeli war. She was then attending San Jose State and had come under the sway of some Arabist sociology professors there and had taken the Arab side (her father was appalled, natch) To add a Hollywood ending to the tale the night I was flying out from Norton AFB to DaNang (on a
      midnight flt, no less) I called her up at her apt for one last good-by for old times sake from a pay-phone out-side the O-Club. Being obviously anti-Vietnam war too (she had swallowed the whole leftist bit) She pleaded with me to defect and go AWOL. "Come up to my place, we'll hide you and get you into Canada" she intoned. Buck, you can't believe the several thoughts that were racing thru my mind simultaneously. FIRST I had a REAL MENTAL PICTURE of me hiding under her bed while I listened to the bed-springs creek while she and her new lover were going at it, right? RIGHT... THEN, as if I were hovering over myself in an out-of-body-experience I looked down on myself and thought: "What a helluva movie scene this would make in a movie about the war in Vietnam." I ALSO was simultaneously thinking of the savage irony of it all compared to the way my father went to war--also at midnight:

      My father sailed along with the entire 2nd Rainbow Div in a fleet of troopships out of NYC harbor in Aug, 1944 ***. I couldn't help but mentally compare at that moment in our conversation even as I was talking to her the positive reinforcement one must feel sailing with 15, 000 of one's comrades on a powerful armed-to-the-teeth joint patriotic venture secure in the knowledge that one had the backing of the entire nation behind one to myself launching out alone in my 1505s on a plane of individual replacements unknown to me to various units with a nation divided and having the woman I had once loved at the same time urging me to defect. Talk about a powerful scene of mixed emotions!

      *** Interesting back story. My Mother's roommate out of college when they were teaching together (My "Aunt Evie") ended up in NYC working for the OSS. She kept tabs on Dad and when the Troop Convoy sailed she mailed a letter to Mom ( no return address, natch) with a single piece of flimsy with NOTHING but the date and the words; "They sailed at midnight" on it. I still have that in my treasured possessions today.

      Later, Evie became a cryptologist with the NSA with the PERFECT cover story. Remember, this was the 50s when most females in offices worked in typing-pools, right? Well, ALL govt agencies had them, and Evie's story was that she was a clerk typist for the CIA!!! IOW no elaborate fake cover-story and fake company names, mail, drops, etc, rather a plain-jane above-board (ostensibly) straight-forward job as a typist at the CIA. SO---drive to work every day and go in the front door of the CIA, then out the back (both figuratively and literally) and over to the NSA where she really worked. Helluva cover-story, eh? (KISS!!!)

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    3. Wow. Those are hella-good stories, Virgil... all of 'em, but especially the bitter-sweet one. Good on ya for making that "for old times' sake" call, BAD on her for everything else.

      I love the Evie story, too.

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    4. ****42nd Rainbow Div viz 2nd

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    5. PS to your "BAD on her" bit, Buck. One of my best friends is a guy who I met in ROTC summer camp. He was from Chicago and attended Tulane (but got kicked out, later graduating from SMU--he transerred from USAF to the USMA and was in the 1st MAW at Chu Lai at same time I was in DaNang)) Graig is now a multimillionaire industrialist whose family corporation owns (among other things) Arlington Race Track in Chicago. The last time I talked to him was when he was down in N.O. for the opening of the Fairgrounds Race Track after Katrina. I was mentioning that story to him (I had never done so befor,e for some reason. Graig, of course knew her as we had partied together in Columbus those many years ago. He said to me after I had finished recounting: "Did you ever talk to her again?" "No," I replied. "Good." he said. And that was that, lol.

      PPS: I bet Tulane wishes they hadn't kicked the hell-raiser out now, as Graig has donated many millions to SMU, LOL!!!

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    6. Oh, PPPS! To make it even "six-degrees-of-separation" better Graig went to Culver Military Academy in Ind with one of my 1st cousins on my father's side and knew him well.

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    7. Intersting about yer multi-millionaire buddy, Virgil. What happened to you in that space? Or are ya holding back on us?

      Further on the subject o' wimmen... I'm pretty sure you know this BUT... TSMP went over to the Dark Side, which is to say she became a tree-hugging, academic Lefty after we broke up. She's at that point now where we have absolutely NOTHING in common, other than our son. Bein' in her presence nowadays is a trial, at best, and un-freakin'-bearable, at worst.

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  3. I have, in my vinyl collection, numerous Wes Montgomery albums.
    I only have to get the USB turntable reconnected here to be able to listen to them again.

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    1. Almost all of my Wes Montgomery is on vinyl, too. I keep sayin' that I'm gonna get it back (the vinyl) someday, but the truth of the matter is I have NO idea where I'd put it.

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