Heat Power Horns

Earlier this month I celebrated turning fifty. Wow. Halfway there. Fifty years is far too short a time to spend among such excellent folk as the humans of Earth I know and love. We had a great party, so thanks to everyone who helped celebrate, and wished me well, especially those that came from far away.

It’s been really, really hot the last few weeks, in the upper 90’s every day. A few days ago we finally got some rain and the last few days it’s been really pleasant outside, sunny and in the mid 80’s.

Our power went out last Saturday, at the zenith of the heatwave. Two power lines outside our house were rubbing against each other, causing a shower of sparks and everything to flicker, until the power went out completely. It took out our whole end of the block, and so all the neighbors came outside to see what was going on and it turned into a little party. The power company sent out one guy. After a few hours he wasn’t able to fix it and they sent out a whole crew. Fortunately that evening the rain came and it cooled down a little bit. Apparently they replaced a transformer and patched the power cables, and put in a few spacers to keep the wires from rubbing together. At four in the morning they brought the power back up. All the lights and appliances came back to life, waking everyone up.

We’re looking into getting solar power for the house. Now we’re considering what kind of setup we’d need to keep our power running in the event of a blackout.

I went into the city one day this week to see a show after work. It was the Ed Palermo Big Band. They play at the Iridium once a month. Rich, the piano player in my band turned me on the them, told me I’d love ’em. He’s been taking lessons with Ed Palermo’s piano player.

Shaw’nuff EPBB was out of this world! They have fifteen horns (5 saxes, 3 trombones, and two trumpets) with the reeds doubling on clarinets and flutes and one of the bones doubling on tuba. The rhythm section consisted of piano, bass, guitar and drums. Ed plays alto (monster soloist) in addition to conducting and emceeing, and the guitar player sings and provides schtick. He also had a guest tap dancer, and a violinist with a fretted, 5-string electric red violin the likes of which I’ve never seen. She played it amazingly, particularly the blues. The level of musicianship is superb in the whole band, their arrangements fantastic, and most of all their repertoire is.. out there.

EPBB’s first album was interpretations of Zappa songs, and that pretty much set the tone. Ed loves mashups and medleys, and specializes in juxtaposing dissimilar themes and moods, either sequentially or simultaneously. So most of the “songs” they performed were actually medleys drawing from jazz (Mingus, Tony Williams, Duke and Diz), prog rock, pop and of course Zappa going on for ten minutes or more. A perfect example was the show’s closer, which began with Mingus’s Goodbye Porkpie Hat, segueing into Jaco Pastorius’s Three Views of a Secret, passing thru Peaches en Regalia and some other Zappa stuff, ending with Baba O’Reilly.

The Iridium is a great place to see a show BTW. We sat right up front at a table with one of the sax player’s girlfriend (who was featured on a Deliverance/Giant Steps mashup) so we got to meet some of the players. After the show I bought a CD. I was gonna get the Zappa one, but when I saw it I had to get the one that had Lark’s Tongues in Aspic, Part II.

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