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Jamming

Wishing you a sunlit New Year

January 6, 2024

On a clear day during the deep winter months, the lakeside BRC domicile not infrequently bears witness to stunning sunrises at daybreak in which shafts of golden light pierce the wintry horizon.

From our breakfast table on a cloud-covered morning, the blazing solar globe can be observed (below) creeping over the rooftops on the opposite shoreline sometimes spilling an array of textures and colors across the skyline above and still waters below. When the quilted clouds slowly boil away, an unexpectedly clear day will often follow. We call these morning spectacles “Giverny in the Sky” alluding to the pastoral paintings of French Impressionist Claude Monet.

For other daybreak photographs taken from the BRC upper deck, enter sunrise in the website home page search engine and enjoy.

During the recent Holidays, the co-host of our Thursday evening jams took the occasion at his home to pause the music session and invite us to sit down in the dining room for tea time and bakery-fresh pastries. In a busy Holiday Season, it was a warmly festive interlude for camaraderie that was enjoyed by all as 2024 drew near.

From the BRC: May your New Year be filled with fellowship and sunlight.

Jamming

Out on a Limb

September 2, 2023

A few years ago, several of the ladies in our mid week jam session in a Lake of the Ozarks township formed a splinter group called “Out On A Limb.” These musicians perform regularly at nearby retirement homes and church functions, and they regale their audiences with lilting three-part harmony singing. In addition, one band member is a veteran clogger and a burgeoning harmonica player. Recently, the band was scheduled to perform at a local church luncheon for handicapped citizens, but at the last minute one of the musicians was unable to attend the gig. The BRC banjoist was hurriedly recruited to round-out the quintet.

The church staff provided a splendid sound system, and the banjo picker filled-in baritone harmony vocals for the missing voice. During the performance, the BRC craftsman also played a novel harmonica duet with the clogger in a nostalgic rendition of “Red River Valley” as seen above. The delighted throng of luncheon guests, their care providers, and church staff applauded approvingly.

After the gig, the banjo guy was presented with a marvelous jar of peach preserves freshly canned by the guitarist. He gratefully thanked “Out On A Limb” for inviting him to share in their music before such an appreciative audience.

From the BRC: Ladies, please call upon him again, soon.

BRC Activities, Jamming

Dear Friends

July 22, 2023

A couple of members of the G&F jam band and kin have family connections to local retirement homes. Not infrequently, gigs will be scheduled to entertain the folks residing in these facilities, and the residents are always grateful for some spirited live music and sing alongs. We discovered that one of the establishments had a client who was previously linked to show biz, and he happily provides the role (seated below right) of a chatty master of ceremonies for our performances. His fellow retirees love it, and so do we.

One of the favorite and very senior members of our long-term Thursday night jam sessions recently relocated to a nearby retirement facility. For decades, he was an unfailing resource for the lyrics and tunes of old cowboy songs, and he can still perform these classics, as he did in years gone by. It is a joy for the G&F pickers and singers and his spouse to revisit these fond musical moments with him (below right guitar). Another resident who was a previous G&F banjo player quietly sat by the band enjoying the familiar sing alongs.

From the BRC: Dear friends bring us precious memories.

Bio, Jamming

Ojai Again

July 8, 2023

After a covid hiatus, the BRC craftsman and spouse journeyed last month to California to renew their attendance of the annual Ojai Music Festival. The 2023 invited Musical Director of this 77th annual Fest was banjoist Rhiannon Giddens. Known in the 5-string community as an eclectic folk musician, a focus of Ms. Giddens` artistry has been to give voice to the voiceless. With her praiseworthy agenda of humanism, she assembled a marvelous admixture of international musicians whose diverse instruments blended together per her prediction like “cousins talking” and sharing their heritages.

Pictured below in the Ojai community center, the banjoist/musical director had an afternoon city park performance moved indoors during the Fest because of briefly inclement weather. She was accompanied by multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi on percussion.

A versatile musician, composer, and writer, Rhiannon plays violin (below center) amidst some instruments from foreign lands. She is currently authoring a series of children’s books. Her varied creative works have won a MacArthur Grant and two Grammy Awards.

Although initially known as a member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops folk trio, Ms. Giddens has a seraphic opera-trained voice. She demonstrated her spell-binding vocal skills singing (below far right) with the Attacca String quartet. During this collaboration, a dog and a coyote had a barking dual in the ravine behind the outdoor stage. The performers and audience were undeterred.

Rhiannon`s voice also joined the chorus (below) in the performance of the Pulitzer Prize winning opera “Omar’s Journey” that she had co-authored with Michael Abels. The libretto chronicles the true story of a slave kidnapped in Africa and brought to America.

With a host of gifted international musicians at the Festival, Ms. Giddens sang in English, French and Italian. She was accompanied by her partner, the astonishingly powerful pianist Francesco Turrisi. Spanning several octaves, she sang ragtime, pop tunes, and arias.

After she rendered a particularly tender love song in Italian (below) that was woven with his keyboard underpinnings, Turrisi dabbed an eye and confessed softly in his microphone, “She made me cry.”

The Musical Director also sang in Japanese and Chinese during the festival further underscoring a world rich with overlapping musical traditions. With Giddens on the banjo and Wu Man playing the Chinese lute, the two musician demonstrated (below) that music is borderless.

Ojai proved again to be a multifaceted learning environment. As the township is an artists` community, the Music Fest coordinates yearly with an open house tour of artists` homes, so festival goers can visit the studios and galleries of local painters, sculptors, and artisans. This educational program is especially valued by the BRC spouse who is a painter.

The annual four day event was concluded with a rollicking evening jam session presented by the visiting international artists who again confirmed the communicative language and fellowship of music. For past postings on previous BRC visits to the Ojai Festival, enter “Ojai” in the homepage search engine.

In the spirit of the annual Ojai Fest, the BRC traveler revisited a familiar local jam session of Bluegrass pals to experience again with them the mutual joy of music and song.

A very special thanks is owed to the guitar craftsman (far left) who again graciously supplied a banjo for the visiting BRC musician to pick during the weekly Sunday afternoon jam at the nearby Oak View Community Center.

From the BRC: We hope our readers and the good folks pictured above, had a restful Fourth of July holiday and enjoy a splendid summertime.

Bio, CD songs, Jamming

Springtime in the Ozarks & more

April 15, 2023

With March winds and April showers, our Spring season in the Heartland has been wet and blustery. Despite cool and rainy days, the neighborhood daffodils and tulips have bloomed, trees are leafing-out in the countryside, and turtles have re-surfaced in the lake behind the BRC workshop. This week, temperatures surprisingly crept up into the low 80’s, and our Wednesday afternoon jam session in a village nestled in the foothills of the Ozarks was convened at an outdoor pavilion in the township`s municipal park. Although a very breezy day, bluegrass pickers and singers cheerfully gathered as the sun spilled down around us. School kids merrily romped in the adjacent playground while fitness walkers paused to enjoy the music, dance with our clogger, and sing-along to familiar gospel tunes.

It looks likely that the pavilion and its lively greening environs will become our regular jam session venue for the months to come.

Between 2004 and 2006, the BRC craftsman wrote and recorded 4 solo CDs of original music. Three of the discs benefitted our local Children`s Hospital, and one disc was in support of Health Volunteers Overseas, a medical philanthropic international organization.