Here Is What I Had On My Last Blog Site...
...before it was yanked because I wouldn't pay up. I didn't even know I was supposed to.
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Good Jam
We had a good jam tonight at Elmer's. Phil, Anne, Ralph, Rich, Art, Mike, Don and his wife, Juel, Tim, Jessi, Katy, Byron and I were there and everyone was playing right well. DK couldn't make the scene because he is getting ready to leave for the Great White North to work on his book. He was missed.
Katy played a old Appalachian tune on the frailed banjo and floored everyone, she is so good, so authentic. It make me proud because I was the person who gave her her first lesson on the banjo about three years ago. I'm taking all the credit even though I'm sure other's have had a huge influence on her as well. Her style is so simple, pure and perfectly rendered. Her voice is clean and real. It's so much fun to listen to her. She needs to build a bigger repertoire but if she worked at it she could be one of the finest banjoist/ballad singers around and make hundreds of dollars a year.
Byron brought an old May Bell parlour guitar and played pretty well. He played a Tampa Red song using a bottle neck slide and it sound pretty good. His timing was a little off but its a new song for him and he's still working on it.
Anne agreed to sell a Larrivee guitar back to me, which tickles me to no end. I traded it for a big Gibson about five or six years ago and have lamented that decision ever since. I think it would be a good guitar for Diane. It has a smaller, classical guitar style body and a very nerrow, Guild-ish neck and would fit her hands right well, beside the fact that it has a beautiful voice.
Phil was excellent as usual and everyone really played out strong and loud so jamming along was a real plaesure but four thirty rolls around pretty quickly so I must get off to bed.
Later.
Posted on Thursday, March 10, 2005 at 12:14AM by Rev. Peter Norman
Hello, It's Been A While...
...since my last entry. We've been pretty busy lately and I have had much opportunity to use the computer much less post an entry.
Our neighbor came by Sunday asking if we wanted an old wooden office desk. We use an old library table as a computer desk in our catch-all room euphemistically known as "the office", so we thought a old wooden desk would be a nice addition. We also figured that if we were going to move stuff around in the office, we (read that "I") should really clean the room out first while Diane and the boys went shopping.
Seven hours and several pulled muscles later, our office actually looks like one. I threw a ton of stuff away and packed what was left a little tighter and now I have all our instruments lined up in single file. Wow, I don't even want to go in there for fear I might mess it up.
Here it is, Wednesday night and I'm waiting for Byron to pick me up to go the the Fox Valley jam session. He's driving so I had a couple shots of tequilla and I'm in a good mood. Here he is now, I will finish when I get back.
Posted on Wednesday, March 9, 2005 at 07:01PM by Rev. Peter Norman
Things Have Been Pretty Quiet...
...lately. Dk, Byron and I went to the Fox Valley sing-around Wednesday night but I didn't think it went too well. It seemed to me everyone was playing like we were each hearing a different song, myself included. Maybe it was just where I was sitting or maybe that flu affected my hearing or mood, who knows. I usually enjoy Wednesday nights. Byron liked it a lot, it was his first time and wants to go back. He only brought his mandolin because he wants to develop some chops by playing along with everyone else. He wasn't that interested in leading anything.
I got home about eleven and to sleep by about eleven thirty. I slept straight through the night and was woken up by my alarm clock (I'm usually laying awake waiting for it to go off a four thirty). Then I was so tired (not tired, sleepy) during breakfast I almost fell asleep in my corn flakes, like Greg Allman falling asleep in his spaghetti.
Last night I just laid low and read after dinner, which Diane made. We had some nice broiled chicken breasts with teriyaki sauce and dragon rub, baked potatoes, and sliced beets, with a nice side salad. Yesterday was her day off so she did the cooking and gave me a chance to play a little guitar before dinner. She usually sits in the kitchen and plays while I cook, last night it was the other way around.
I was given a picture of DK and me playing at the DuPage County Forest Preserve's Harvest Festival. It took a lot of Photoshopping (I love turning proper nouns into verbs) because it was taken with a little instamatic and we're actually a very small part af a much larger picture of the whole stage area. Photoshop can do wonders and the picture turned out pretty well. Here it is;
Posted on Friday, March 4, 2005 at 09:11PM by Rev. Peter Norman
I'm Getting Better, A Little Better Every Day
I still felt pretty crummy today; with a case of sinusitis that is so bad it hurts just to touch my cheekbones and congestion that makes my chest feel like wet concrete.
I left work and was headed to the YMCA when I started thinking that I hadn’t recovered enough to work out but since I had my clean clothes in the trunk, I might as well go use the Y’s shower facilities and clean up before I went home. By the time I got to the Y, I was feeling like I should at least do some kind of workout, after all, I haven’t worked out since last Wednesday and it really makes me feel gross if I don’t work out for that long. I figured I’d do a truncated session, at least that would be better than nothing. By the time I changed into my gym clothes and got into the fitness center, I had decided to just start my regular program and just do as much as I could. By golly, by the end of an hour I had done my usual regimen and even though I just wore me to a frazzle, it seems to have been just what I needed. It helped clear up the pressure in my head and seems to have loosened up the congestion somewhat.
I went home after that, made a mess ‘o tacos for dinner and spent the rest of the evening sitting in the dark, playing Whispering on the mandolin. I did not even bother going to the Old Time Inn for our Tuesday night ado, just worked on Whispering so DK and I can add it to our song list. It’s kind of a neat little tune to wedge in between Charlie Poole tunes. Here is a picture of Charlie Poole and his North Carolina Ramblers. Charlie Poole on five stringed banjo, Roy Harvey on six stringed guitar, and Posey Rorer on fiddle.
Posted on Tuesday, March 1, 2005 at 10:52PM by Rev. Peter
And One Flu Away
Well, most of what I had has run its course. My wife (a medical technologist) thinks I had the flu, that damned George W. Bush. No flu vaccine and look what happens. The worst part of it was listening to her being so thankful that she's had her flu shot. Oh well, at least I'm immune now until some new mutation rears its ugly head.
It started like a cold, just a little tickle in my nose, sneezing, runny nose, that sort of thing. One day later I was a mess. I felt like one of those archetypical cold and flu sufferers on the Nyquil ads. I used to laugh when I'd see those commercials, thinking no one is every that incapacitated. I stand corrected.
By the next day, it began moving down to my chest, that's when it really got interesting. My sinuses where so stuffed up I could barely breath which actually was a relief because breathing hurt too much. I just laid around in old cloths and a huge wool sweater with big pockets filled with Kleenex.
Diane went to The Fruit Chili Party on Saturday night without me. I was tempted to go, I mean at least four different types of chili plus all the sides, pot stickers, corn bread, salsa, chips, beer, good friends...that's when I stopped concidering going. There was no way in hell I would want to take a chance on giving what I have to someone I didn't like let alone a friend. I stayed home and slept. I was probably better off anyway.
By Sunday night I felt good enough to take a shower, much to the relief of my family. In my opinion, there are few things that top a nice shower after four days of lying around sick as a dog. It made me feel so much better that I made a batch of barbecued country ribs, which I must say turned out right well.
I took five pounds of pork country ribs (they have much more meat than spareribs) and rubbed on our own special spice rub (there are many commercial rubs available but we use our own recipe, shhhh...it's a secret) and set them bone side up, making sure there is space between them, in deposable aluminum pans and covered them tightly with aluminum foil, crimping it around the rim lip of the pan, and roast them in a three hundred degree oven for one and a half hours. At the end of that time, I removed all the fat and juices that cooked out of the ribs and brushed on the barbecue sauce (store bought or home made, it's all good. Sunday I used K.C. Masterpiece chili and lime, which was excellent) with a two inch crumb brush, having been properly sanitized before hand, of course. For the final stage, I like to keep the ribs a little closer together than in the first stage. Sunday I was able to stand all the ribs up in one of the two pans I started out with. When all the ribs are standing, bone side down this time, in the pan, I pour more barbecue sauce over the top and put them back in the three hundred degree oven for another hour and a half, this time with the cover off. Being the thrifty little old time musician, I save the foil covers to wrap leftovers, etc., use it up and all that.
I served the ribs with rice and salsa, canned corn and a nice side salad with fat-free red wine vinaigrette dressing. That meal almost made me feel better than a hot shower after four days. It also made me sleepy.
Posted on Monday, February 28, 2005 at 08:14PM by Rev. Peter Norman
Oh, Boy...
...have I been sick for two days now. I got to work Thursday feeling fine and left feeling like I'd been run over by a bus. I stayed home from work Friday because I was sick, ("Yea, sure you were. How was your three day weekend?) now it's Saturday morning and I can't believe I could possibly feel worse than I did yesterday. This thing is horrible.I have a nagging, not throbbing but just nagging headache that starts just above my eyes and radiates through out the rest of my head. I'm a sneezy, watery eyed, runny nosed, coughing, conjested mess who's supposed to go to the Fruit Chili Party tonight. I look forward to this all year but wonder if I should go, I might infect everyone there. Maybe if I just stayed away from everybody, like that would be possible in that little garage. Maybe Diane can just deliver a bunch of chili to the van.Dk and I had a pretty good practice Thursday evening despite the fact I felt like crap. I did not feel like playing (or eating or doing anything but sleeping) but ended up playing for about a hour. I only played Regel arch topped, round holed guitar because it was out in the stand, I did have to actually expend much effort getting it, just reached over and ther it was.
Posted on Saturday, February 26, 2005 at 07:20AM by Rev. Peter Norman
Old Time Inn
DK and I went to the usual Tuesday night open stage at the Old Time Inn last night. It's nice having a place to perform on a regular basis about five blocks from the house. I was working on transcribing Mama's Got Her Boobs Out off an MP3 DK sent me, so I didn't get there until around eight thirty and DK still wasn't there. Turns out he had to turn around half way there to go back home and pick up the NIBA newsletter to drop off at Doris' house. We still were second up and the crowd wasn't very noisy so it was one of our better performances. We played Nancy Jane, Darlin' Cory, Kansas City Kitty, SOL On AOL, Window Shopping, East Bay Rag, Blue Moon Of Kentucky, That's Alright Mama and I think maybe one or two more, I can't remember exactly. I actually wanted to open with Mama's Got Her Boobs Out but even though I knew it well enough to play it for Steve in the back of the bar when I first got there, I didn't know it well enough to play it on stage. I bailed right after totally forgeting the second line and went into Nancy Jane instead. Hey, I'd just learned it half an hour before.
When we were finished, Brian and his girlfriend, who's name escapes me, asked me to stay up and play Tears In Heaven on the mandolin with them. Brian launched into the song before I had a chance to tune and it turned out I was about one quarter step out of tune with him. It sounded pretty obvious so I backed off considerably. After the set, Brian's girlfriend told me how cool she thought it was that I hung back and let her boyfriend really shine on guitar. Boy, sometimes you step in crap and come out smelling like a rose.
The Roy Rodgers Rose Band with Doris on bass and Steve on mandolin were up next so I stuck around to hear them and then DK and I spilt. Four thirty does roll around.
Posted on Wednesday, February 23, 2005 at 10:14PM by Rev. Peter Norman
My Day Off With The Magical Fruit
Yesterday was Presidents Day and my two youngest sons and I were off and at home. As with most old time musicians, I have a day job, you know, to eat and stuff. Diane had to work and Erik still had college classes so it was just “the twins” and I at home. (They are twins born four years apart.) I watched a Kill Bill 2 DVD on our PC in high definition, which was pretty cool, hung a roman shade in our upstairs bathroom window, took back some DVD’s, and went to the “Y” to work out.
I thought, since I was home for the day, I would make a batch of beans and rice. I’ve been experimenting with a low fat recipe for a couple of years now and I need to make it when I’m home for the day because it takes about four hours to make it right. I needed some groceries so I stopped at the store on the way home from the “Y”, went home and began cooking. I think I finally got it right. The recipe follows.
One pound dried beans (navy beans, black beans, red beans, black-eyed peas, they all work)
One pound of lean ham lunchmeat, sliced about one inch thick
One good-sized green pepper
Five or six stalks of celery
One good-sized onion
A dozen or so cloves of garlic (we like garlic, you can adjust the number of cloves to your own taste.)
Two teaspoons of salt (I use coarse sea salt)
One tablespoon of coarse ground black pepper
Two bay leaves
Six cups of water
Soak the beans per manufacturer’s instructions. (Over night or quick-soak both work just fine.)
When the beans are ready, coarse chop the onion, celery, and green pepper.
Fine chop the garlic.
Cut the ham into bite-sized chunks.
In a Dutch oven, bring about one eighth inch of water to a boil and add the green pepper, celery, onion, and half the garlic. Sauté until tender.
Add the ham cook until tender.
Add the pre-soaked beans, water, spices and the other half of the garlic.
Cover with the lid slightly ajar and cook on low for about four hours, checking every now and then to make sure the beans aren’t burning to the bottom. If they are, turn the fire down.
With about a half an hour of cooking time left, start cooking the rice per manufacturer’s instructions and begin smashing cooked beans against the side of the pot with a wooden spoon until the mixture reaches the desired consistency.
The bean mixture can be spooned directly onto the cooked rice on your plate or off to the side, depending on how you like it. Add a side salad, a nice loaf of crusty bread and wash it all down with a good beer or other beverage of choice.
The only fat in the whole dish comes from the ham. The ham I used last night was ninety-nine percent fat free, which means there were four and a third grams of fat in the whole batch. That’s pretty low fat and if you factor in that legumes actually lowers cholesterol in your body, it’s as good for you as it is tasty.
Enjoy!
Posted on Tuesday, February 22, 2005 at 11:28PM by Rev. Peter Norman
Zvonimir Tot Trio
My wife Diane, eldest son Erik, and I went to see the Zvonimir Tot Trio Sunday night. The concert was held in a little Lutheran church in Leland, Illinois.
Let me begin by saying that Leland is a town of about three hundred people eighty or so miles west of Chicago. We found out a couple of years ago that there is a pretty good jazz concert series at their Lutheran church when we saw an ad for a concert there by Johnny Frigo, the great jazz violinist and bassist from Chicago. Diane even called to make sure the ad wasn’t a typo. It wasn’t.
That night we were three of about thirty-five people who saw a fantastic show in the chapel of a beautiful old church about ten minutes from us. The band consisted of eighty-some year old Frigo on violin, his sixty-some year old son on drums, a bassist they hired from the musicians’ union hall, and a large, swarthy, young, smoking guitar player named Zvonimir Tot. Diane had been looking for a good jazz guitar teacher in our area for a while so she asked him, seeing as he was a big session man from the city, if he knew any good teachers out our way. It turned out that Zvonimir was, at the time, a professor of jazz guitar at Northern Illinois University, lived right in Leland, and in fact, was the musical and choir director of the church, hence the jazz series. Diane started taking lessons from him and has been steadily improving ever since.
Anyway, he and his new trio were the most recent offering of the Leland jazz series and it was a night to remember. The band is Zvonimir on guitar, Chicago jazz luminary Larry Gray on stand up bass, and seven-time Grammy winner Paul Wertico on drums. We sat front row center and just let the music wash over us. They opened with a swinging version of Just A Closer Walk With Thee, apropos concidering the venue location. For the rest of the evening they played an eclectic mixture of original tunes, each composed by one of the three musicians, with the exception on one called Cowboys And Africans, which was written by an old band mate of Wertico and has evolved and been adapted by Paul to such an extent that he claims it as his own.
The hour and a half concert flew by as the band played everything from the bizarre, avant-garde Cowboys And Africans, to more straight ahead ballads and even a waltz. There was a coffee and cake reception in the church basement afterwards where we got to meet the Gray and Wertico and found them to be warm, charming individuals. I had never met anyone who has ever won a single Grammy let alone seven so it was a real thrill.
Here are some photos.
Posted on Tuesday, February 22, 2005 at 09:28PM by Rev. Peter Norman
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Good Jam
We had a good jam tonight at Elmer's. Phil, Anne, Ralph, Rich, Art, Mike, Don and his wife, Juel, Tim, Jessi, Katy, Byron and I were there and everyone was playing right well. DK couldn't make the scene because he is getting ready to leave for the Great White North to work on his book. He was missed.
Katy played a old Appalachian tune on the frailed banjo and floored everyone, she is so good, so authentic. It make me proud because I was the person who gave her her first lesson on the banjo about three years ago. I'm taking all the credit even though I'm sure other's have had a huge influence on her as well. Her style is so simple, pure and perfectly rendered. Her voice is clean and real. It's so much fun to listen to her. She needs to build a bigger repertoire but if she worked at it she could be one of the finest banjoist/ballad singers around and make hundreds of dollars a year.
Byron brought an old May Bell parlour guitar and played pretty well. He played a Tampa Red song using a bottle neck slide and it sound pretty good. His timing was a little off but its a new song for him and he's still working on it.
Anne agreed to sell a Larrivee guitar back to me, which tickles me to no end. I traded it for a big Gibson about five or six years ago and have lamented that decision ever since. I think it would be a good guitar for Diane. It has a smaller, classical guitar style body and a very nerrow, Guild-ish neck and would fit her hands right well, beside the fact that it has a beautiful voice.
Phil was excellent as usual and everyone really played out strong and loud so jamming along was a real plaesure but four thirty rolls around pretty quickly so I must get off to bed.
Later.
Posted on Thursday, March 10, 2005 at 12:14AM by Rev. Peter Norman
Hello, It's Been A While...
...since my last entry. We've been pretty busy lately and I have had much opportunity to use the computer much less post an entry.
Our neighbor came by Sunday asking if we wanted an old wooden office desk. We use an old library table as a computer desk in our catch-all room euphemistically known as "the office", so we thought a old wooden desk would be a nice addition. We also figured that if we were going to move stuff around in the office, we (read that "I") should really clean the room out first while Diane and the boys went shopping.
Seven hours and several pulled muscles later, our office actually looks like one. I threw a ton of stuff away and packed what was left a little tighter and now I have all our instruments lined up in single file. Wow, I don't even want to go in there for fear I might mess it up.
Here it is, Wednesday night and I'm waiting for Byron to pick me up to go the the Fox Valley jam session. He's driving so I had a couple shots of tequilla and I'm in a good mood. Here he is now, I will finish when I get back.
Posted on Wednesday, March 9, 2005 at 07:01PM by Rev. Peter Norman
Things Have Been Pretty Quiet...
...lately. Dk, Byron and I went to the Fox Valley sing-around Wednesday night but I didn't think it went too well. It seemed to me everyone was playing like we were each hearing a different song, myself included. Maybe it was just where I was sitting or maybe that flu affected my hearing or mood, who knows. I usually enjoy Wednesday nights. Byron liked it a lot, it was his first time and wants to go back. He only brought his mandolin because he wants to develop some chops by playing along with everyone else. He wasn't that interested in leading anything.
I got home about eleven and to sleep by about eleven thirty. I slept straight through the night and was woken up by my alarm clock (I'm usually laying awake waiting for it to go off a four thirty). Then I was so tired (not tired, sleepy) during breakfast I almost fell asleep in my corn flakes, like Greg Allman falling asleep in his spaghetti.
Last night I just laid low and read after dinner, which Diane made. We had some nice broiled chicken breasts with teriyaki sauce and dragon rub, baked potatoes, and sliced beets, with a nice side salad. Yesterday was her day off so she did the cooking and gave me a chance to play a little guitar before dinner. She usually sits in the kitchen and plays while I cook, last night it was the other way around.
I was given a picture of DK and me playing at the DuPage County Forest Preserve's Harvest Festival. It took a lot of Photoshopping (I love turning proper nouns into verbs) because it was taken with a little instamatic and we're actually a very small part af a much larger picture of the whole stage area. Photoshop can do wonders and the picture turned out pretty well. Here it is;
Posted on Friday, March 4, 2005 at 09:11PM by Rev. Peter Norman
I'm Getting Better, A Little Better Every Day
I still felt pretty crummy today; with a case of sinusitis that is so bad it hurts just to touch my cheekbones and congestion that makes my chest feel like wet concrete.
I left work and was headed to the YMCA when I started thinking that I hadn’t recovered enough to work out but since I had my clean clothes in the trunk, I might as well go use the Y’s shower facilities and clean up before I went home. By the time I got to the Y, I was feeling like I should at least do some kind of workout, after all, I haven’t worked out since last Wednesday and it really makes me feel gross if I don’t work out for that long. I figured I’d do a truncated session, at least that would be better than nothing. By the time I changed into my gym clothes and got into the fitness center, I had decided to just start my regular program and just do as much as I could. By golly, by the end of an hour I had done my usual regimen and even though I just wore me to a frazzle, it seems to have been just what I needed. It helped clear up the pressure in my head and seems to have loosened up the congestion somewhat.
I went home after that, made a mess ‘o tacos for dinner and spent the rest of the evening sitting in the dark, playing Whispering on the mandolin. I did not even bother going to the Old Time Inn for our Tuesday night ado, just worked on Whispering so DK and I can add it to our song list. It’s kind of a neat little tune to wedge in between Charlie Poole tunes. Here is a picture of Charlie Poole and his North Carolina Ramblers. Charlie Poole on five stringed banjo, Roy Harvey on six stringed guitar, and Posey Rorer on fiddle.
Posted on Tuesday, March 1, 2005 at 10:52PM by Rev. Peter
And One Flu Away
Well, most of what I had has run its course. My wife (a medical technologist) thinks I had the flu, that damned George W. Bush. No flu vaccine and look what happens. The worst part of it was listening to her being so thankful that she's had her flu shot. Oh well, at least I'm immune now until some new mutation rears its ugly head.
It started like a cold, just a little tickle in my nose, sneezing, runny nose, that sort of thing. One day later I was a mess. I felt like one of those archetypical cold and flu sufferers on the Nyquil ads. I used to laugh when I'd see those commercials, thinking no one is every that incapacitated. I stand corrected.
By the next day, it began moving down to my chest, that's when it really got interesting. My sinuses where so stuffed up I could barely breath which actually was a relief because breathing hurt too much. I just laid around in old cloths and a huge wool sweater with big pockets filled with Kleenex.
Diane went to The Fruit Chili Party on Saturday night without me. I was tempted to go, I mean at least four different types of chili plus all the sides, pot stickers, corn bread, salsa, chips, beer, good friends...that's when I stopped concidering going. There was no way in hell I would want to take a chance on giving what I have to someone I didn't like let alone a friend. I stayed home and slept. I was probably better off anyway.
By Sunday night I felt good enough to take a shower, much to the relief of my family. In my opinion, there are few things that top a nice shower after four days of lying around sick as a dog. It made me feel so much better that I made a batch of barbecued country ribs, which I must say turned out right well.
I took five pounds of pork country ribs (they have much more meat than spareribs) and rubbed on our own special spice rub (there are many commercial rubs available but we use our own recipe, shhhh...it's a secret) and set them bone side up, making sure there is space between them, in deposable aluminum pans and covered them tightly with aluminum foil, crimping it around the rim lip of the pan, and roast them in a three hundred degree oven for one and a half hours. At the end of that time, I removed all the fat and juices that cooked out of the ribs and brushed on the barbecue sauce (store bought or home made, it's all good. Sunday I used K.C. Masterpiece chili and lime, which was excellent) with a two inch crumb brush, having been properly sanitized before hand, of course. For the final stage, I like to keep the ribs a little closer together than in the first stage. Sunday I was able to stand all the ribs up in one of the two pans I started out with. When all the ribs are standing, bone side down this time, in the pan, I pour more barbecue sauce over the top and put them back in the three hundred degree oven for another hour and a half, this time with the cover off. Being the thrifty little old time musician, I save the foil covers to wrap leftovers, etc., use it up and all that.
I served the ribs with rice and salsa, canned corn and a nice side salad with fat-free red wine vinaigrette dressing. That meal almost made me feel better than a hot shower after four days. It also made me sleepy.
Posted on Monday, February 28, 2005 at 08:14PM by Rev. Peter Norman
Oh, Boy...
...have I been sick for two days now. I got to work Thursday feeling fine and left feeling like I'd been run over by a bus. I stayed home from work Friday because I was sick, ("Yea, sure you were. How was your three day weekend?) now it's Saturday morning and I can't believe I could possibly feel worse than I did yesterday. This thing is horrible.I have a nagging, not throbbing but just nagging headache that starts just above my eyes and radiates through out the rest of my head. I'm a sneezy, watery eyed, runny nosed, coughing, conjested mess who's supposed to go to the Fruit Chili Party tonight. I look forward to this all year but wonder if I should go, I might infect everyone there. Maybe if I just stayed away from everybody, like that would be possible in that little garage. Maybe Diane can just deliver a bunch of chili to the van.Dk and I had a pretty good practice Thursday evening despite the fact I felt like crap. I did not feel like playing (or eating or doing anything but sleeping) but ended up playing for about a hour. I only played Regel arch topped, round holed guitar because it was out in the stand, I did have to actually expend much effort getting it, just reached over and ther it was.
Posted on Saturday, February 26, 2005 at 07:20AM by Rev. Peter Norman
Old Time Inn
DK and I went to the usual Tuesday night open stage at the Old Time Inn last night. It's nice having a place to perform on a regular basis about five blocks from the house. I was working on transcribing Mama's Got Her Boobs Out off an MP3 DK sent me, so I didn't get there until around eight thirty and DK still wasn't there. Turns out he had to turn around half way there to go back home and pick up the NIBA newsletter to drop off at Doris' house. We still were second up and the crowd wasn't very noisy so it was one of our better performances. We played Nancy Jane, Darlin' Cory, Kansas City Kitty, SOL On AOL, Window Shopping, East Bay Rag, Blue Moon Of Kentucky, That's Alright Mama and I think maybe one or two more, I can't remember exactly. I actually wanted to open with Mama's Got Her Boobs Out but even though I knew it well enough to play it for Steve in the back of the bar when I first got there, I didn't know it well enough to play it on stage. I bailed right after totally forgeting the second line and went into Nancy Jane instead. Hey, I'd just learned it half an hour before.
When we were finished, Brian and his girlfriend, who's name escapes me, asked me to stay up and play Tears In Heaven on the mandolin with them. Brian launched into the song before I had a chance to tune and it turned out I was about one quarter step out of tune with him. It sounded pretty obvious so I backed off considerably. After the set, Brian's girlfriend told me how cool she thought it was that I hung back and let her boyfriend really shine on guitar. Boy, sometimes you step in crap and come out smelling like a rose.
The Roy Rodgers Rose Band with Doris on bass and Steve on mandolin were up next so I stuck around to hear them and then DK and I spilt. Four thirty does roll around.
Posted on Wednesday, February 23, 2005 at 10:14PM by Rev. Peter Norman
My Day Off With The Magical Fruit
Yesterday was Presidents Day and my two youngest sons and I were off and at home. As with most old time musicians, I have a day job, you know, to eat and stuff. Diane had to work and Erik still had college classes so it was just “the twins” and I at home. (They are twins born four years apart.) I watched a Kill Bill 2 DVD on our PC in high definition, which was pretty cool, hung a roman shade in our upstairs bathroom window, took back some DVD’s, and went to the “Y” to work out.
I thought, since I was home for the day, I would make a batch of beans and rice. I’ve been experimenting with a low fat recipe for a couple of years now and I need to make it when I’m home for the day because it takes about four hours to make it right. I needed some groceries so I stopped at the store on the way home from the “Y”, went home and began cooking. I think I finally got it right. The recipe follows.
One pound dried beans (navy beans, black beans, red beans, black-eyed peas, they all work)
One pound of lean ham lunchmeat, sliced about one inch thick
One good-sized green pepper
Five or six stalks of celery
One good-sized onion
A dozen or so cloves of garlic (we like garlic, you can adjust the number of cloves to your own taste.)
Two teaspoons of salt (I use coarse sea salt)
One tablespoon of coarse ground black pepper
Two bay leaves
Six cups of water
Soak the beans per manufacturer’s instructions. (Over night or quick-soak both work just fine.)
When the beans are ready, coarse chop the onion, celery, and green pepper.
Fine chop the garlic.
Cut the ham into bite-sized chunks.
In a Dutch oven, bring about one eighth inch of water to a boil and add the green pepper, celery, onion, and half the garlic. Sauté until tender.
Add the ham cook until tender.
Add the pre-soaked beans, water, spices and the other half of the garlic.
Cover with the lid slightly ajar and cook on low for about four hours, checking every now and then to make sure the beans aren’t burning to the bottom. If they are, turn the fire down.
With about a half an hour of cooking time left, start cooking the rice per manufacturer’s instructions and begin smashing cooked beans against the side of the pot with a wooden spoon until the mixture reaches the desired consistency.
The bean mixture can be spooned directly onto the cooked rice on your plate or off to the side, depending on how you like it. Add a side salad, a nice loaf of crusty bread and wash it all down with a good beer or other beverage of choice.
The only fat in the whole dish comes from the ham. The ham I used last night was ninety-nine percent fat free, which means there were four and a third grams of fat in the whole batch. That’s pretty low fat and if you factor in that legumes actually lowers cholesterol in your body, it’s as good for you as it is tasty.
Enjoy!
Posted on Tuesday, February 22, 2005 at 11:28PM by Rev. Peter Norman
Zvonimir Tot Trio
My wife Diane, eldest son Erik, and I went to see the Zvonimir Tot Trio Sunday night. The concert was held in a little Lutheran church in Leland, Illinois.
Let me begin by saying that Leland is a town of about three hundred people eighty or so miles west of Chicago. We found out a couple of years ago that there is a pretty good jazz concert series at their Lutheran church when we saw an ad for a concert there by Johnny Frigo, the great jazz violinist and bassist from Chicago. Diane even called to make sure the ad wasn’t a typo. It wasn’t.
That night we were three of about thirty-five people who saw a fantastic show in the chapel of a beautiful old church about ten minutes from us. The band consisted of eighty-some year old Frigo on violin, his sixty-some year old son on drums, a bassist they hired from the musicians’ union hall, and a large, swarthy, young, smoking guitar player named Zvonimir Tot. Diane had been looking for a good jazz guitar teacher in our area for a while so she asked him, seeing as he was a big session man from the city, if he knew any good teachers out our way. It turned out that Zvonimir was, at the time, a professor of jazz guitar at Northern Illinois University, lived right in Leland, and in fact, was the musical and choir director of the church, hence the jazz series. Diane started taking lessons from him and has been steadily improving ever since.
Anyway, he and his new trio were the most recent offering of the Leland jazz series and it was a night to remember. The band is Zvonimir on guitar, Chicago jazz luminary Larry Gray on stand up bass, and seven-time Grammy winner Paul Wertico on drums. We sat front row center and just let the music wash over us. They opened with a swinging version of Just A Closer Walk With Thee, apropos concidering the venue location. For the rest of the evening they played an eclectic mixture of original tunes, each composed by one of the three musicians, with the exception on one called Cowboys And Africans, which was written by an old band mate of Wertico and has evolved and been adapted by Paul to such an extent that he claims it as his own.
The hour and a half concert flew by as the band played everything from the bizarre, avant-garde Cowboys And Africans, to more straight ahead ballads and even a waltz. There was a coffee and cake reception in the church basement afterwards where we got to meet the Gray and Wertico and found them to be warm, charming individuals. I had never met anyone who has ever won a single Grammy let alone seven so it was a real thrill.
Here are some photos.
Posted on Tuesday, February 22, 2005 at 09:28PM by Rev. Peter Norman
posted by Rev Pete at 7:38 AM
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