Image: The Palace of Justice buildings overlooking the River Seine …
The last time I saw Paris, was during the summer of 1975. If I say nineteen seventy-five as quickly as possible, it doesn't seem like 35 years ago – but 35 it was! On several very brief visits to France in the early 1970s, I never spent more than a couple of days in Paris itself, so you can be sure I was looking forward to my current ten night stay in this amazing city.
Already I am overwhelmed by the possibilities. Paris is a photographers dream, as well as their nightmare. There is so much history here; so many amazing buildings, streetscapes, wonderful backdrops, and spectacular locales waiting to be photographed that one great image is immediately supplanted by another one, and many others after that. And that’s before one actually enters any of the dozens of famous museums and galleries or visits historic monuments that present tens of thousands of photographic opportunities. Millions, even.
…Image: Motorbikes and scooters disappearing under a cover of snow …
When I stepped off my flight from Athens on Friday night, the temperature was a freezing minus three degrees. I’d forgotten how cold that is, but Paris didn’t take long to remind me.
On Saturday it snowed for most of the day. That may not mean much to many readers, but it was the first time I had experience the magic of falling snow since my last winter in London in 1976! Yes, it doesn’t take much to keep me happy on a holiday as you might guess, especially since we don’t get much snow where I come from in Australia (in point of fact, we don’t get any). That’s why I was happy to slop through the streets while freezing every step of my first exploratory walk around the neighborhood surrounding the Palace Hotel, which I am calling home during my stay.
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Image: View of apartment blocks taken from the Pompidou Centre …
Its far too early to give you any sort of useable impressions, but one obvious change over the past 35 years has been the huge influx of new immigrants into France. I can’t give you a breakdown of immigrant figures, but there appear to be large numbers of Indians and Pakistanis, and migrants from former French colonies in North Africa. Then there are Lebanese migrants and of course, Asians.
I don’t know how much of that often talked about French arrogance still persists, but I suspect even that has been tempered by the new migrants who have opened businesses across the city.
For example, the small Boulangerie that I have adopted for my morning coffee and cake, turns out to be run by Lebanese (whose owner has cousins in Sydney and Melbourne, and who speak perfect English, and are happy to use it). The young woman at the Asian restaurant I ate dinner at the other night also spoke excellent English, which made me think they were originally Hong Kong Chinese. And so it goes. In the face of all these new migrants that speak at least three languages, and sometimes more, the French must surely have begun to adapt and change their attitudes to foreign nationals, and to how they communicate with them.
So far, my very limited French has got me through every important encounter where I have needed to use it, and I’ve managed to bluff my way through others when my language skills were totally deficient – which is most of the time. It’s all part of the great adventure that is international travel, and I’m looking forward to the challenges and rewards ahead.
Two years ago I made a decision that continues to challenge and push me in directions that I had always dreamed about, but never knew if I could actually achieve. I sold my house, invested the proceeds, and I’ve been trying to live off the interest and a small stipend ever since. Occasionally, I do some part-time work to help supplement my self-funded retirement, but for the most part, I manage to live on less than AU$1800 a month. In fact, right now I’m getting by on AU$1500 a month.
I do this by trying to be as disciplined as possible with purchases that are not absolutely essential. Therefore, I rarely buy CDs, DVDs, or other home entertainment treats that I used to purchase on a weekly basis. I make do with a 30 year old television that regularly flickers and distorts, but not quite to the point where it is unwatchable. I go to the movies less than I used to, but still manage to eat out once or twice a week. I could have made further savings by giving up my car and using public transport. Come to think of it, I have given up my car. I got rid of my 18 year old Toyota Camry wagon just before I left Australia at the end of June. I could save even more if I cut cappuccino’s and cake from my diet!
My one weakness (apart from coffee and cake), is books. As much as I try to not buy books, I always seem to collect more. At least 80 percent of my book buying purchases are for secondhand books which I guess helps, but still, I just can’t seem to stop myself from accumulating more.
Thankfully, I’ve never been a smoker, regular drinker, or gambler – three things guaranteed to drain your wallet faster than a Wall Street banker! The trade off for all this austerity is that I am able to travel on extended journeys that most people – even those who are retired – are unable to.
For example, as I write this I am five months into a round the world trip that included three months in the United States, two of which I spent in New York City. I am currently into my second month stay on the Greek island of Ikaria, and about to head off to Paris, France for a ten day visit, before returning to Greece.
In March I will return to Australia, but not before I make a stop in Cambodia where I will visit the temples of Angkor Wat and other sites. If I can manage it, I will also make a quick side trip to Turkey to visit the ancient ruins at Ephesus.
Of course, having places to stay at little expense helps my limited funds go a lot further than they would if I was staying at even the cheapest hotels. My New York stay involved me apartment sitting for a friend of the family. In return for a rent free, two month stay in the Big Apple, I cared for two cats, some house plants, collected the mail, and let would be burglars and other ne’er-do-wells know by my presence that the apartment was occupied and being watched over. I also stayed with relatives while travelling through the southern states of America as far as Tucson, Arizona, and I am staying with family here in Greece.
Since I’ve been on the road, I’ve taken to signing my emails, and occasional Facebook and Twitter updates with the phrase: Love the Life you Live.
And why not? I am living the life I’ve wanted to live for many years, and needless to say, I’m loving it. I have little or nothing to complain about. I am in reasonably good health, and at 62 I’m young enough and fit enough to spend hours on my feet walking the streets of New York and other cities, and old enough to not be offended by pretty much anything that comes my way. In addition, I am tolerant of other people’s opinions, broadminded, easy going, and easy to get along with.
You only get one shot at life, folks (resurrectionist and Buddhist theories aside), and there is no time like the present to start planning for the day when you too will have time to travel, or put into train your long held dreams and desires – whatever they may be.
I’ll leave you with the chorus of a new song I’m in the process of writing with the above title, in hopes it will encourage you to pursue your goals with joy and love.
Image: The Bitter End, 147, Bleeker Street, New York City
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Man, I love the internet!
As I write this I am sitting on the Greek island of Ikaria, watching the fortnightly Bitter End All Star Jam in New York City streaming live via my laptop. The ‘house’ band for the jam generally consists of Dave Fields on guitar, Brett Bass on bass, and the organizer/host, Mark Greenberg on drums. I say, ‘generally’, because which musicians play on any given night depends on whether they are gigging elsewhere with their own outfits or with other acts, and tonight Brett Bass is away.
Other regular performers at the jam are the irrepressible Delmar Brown on Keytar (a keyboard or synthesizer hung around the neck and shoulders like a guitar); then there’s Chuck Hancock, a great alto sax player, Lisa, one of the Bitter End’s bar staff who always sings at least one song, Don Cazio the doorman and cashier, and a score of some of the hottest talent that just wants to hang out and jam late into the New York night.
The Jam works like this. While the ‘house’ band opens with three or four numbers to get the crowd jumping, visiting musicians and singers add their names to a sheet of paper and then wait to be called up during the show for a chance to strut their stuff on stage. At this point anything could happen, and often does. Singers and musicians who have never performed together are thrown into the mix for a night of great music that is always exciting, eclectic and rocking.
I made regular visits to the Bitter End specifically to catch the All Star Jam during both my two month stay in 2008, and my recent two month visit over the summer of 2010. So for the record, here is a profile of four of the greatest musicians you are likely to see gathered together in the same place on a Sunday night in New York City.
Mark Greenberg began playing drums at age 14. In the year 2000, he formed his own band, Pimp The Cat, which performs in the same vein as The Grateful Dead, Phish, and The Allman Brothers Band with which he has toured.
Mark has also played and toured with The Dave Matthews Band, The Charlie Daniels Band, Billy Bob Thornton, Vasser Clements, and The Doobie Brothers to name just five from his musical resume. In addition he had played on albums by Ronnie Earl, Dickey Betts (of The Allman Brothers Band), Otis Grand, Apache Stone and numerous other albums.
Mark Greenberg was born in Connecticut. At age 14, while picking tobacco, (yes, tobacco) he decided to take up the drums, which he ‘took’ to like a duck takes to water and thereafter determined to make music his career. He went to Boston to study music at the world renown Berklee College of Music. While there he was recognized by The National Endowment for the Arts with three fellowship grants, some Berklee Scholarships and other awards.
Mark has shared the stage and/or recorded with artists like Dickey Betts & Great Southern (The Allman Brothers Band), The Dave Matthews Band, Roomful Of Blues, Ronnie Earl, Bob Weir & Ratdog, Jimmy McGriff, Lee Roy Parnell, Billy Bob Thorton, Moe., Tongue n' Groove (Deep Banana Blackout), Roy Hargrove, The Doobie Brothers, The Charlie Daniels Band, Larry Coryell, Joss Stone, Bill Simms, Pimp The Cat, The Dana Fuchs Band, and many others.
Watching Dave Fields squeezing note after note out of his electric guitar, you just know he was born to play that instrument.
His father was the much lauded virtuoso pianist, composer, arranger and producer, Sammy Fields. Sam Fields insisted that his son receive a thorough musical foundation before allowing him to take up the guitar by making him study the piano (starting at eight), followed later by bass guitar. He was finally allowed to move on to the guitar (his preferred instrument) when he was 14. Dave quickly became an accomplished pianist and a skillful guitarist who was playing at recording sessions by the time he was 15.
Like Mark Greenberg, Fields studied at the Berklee School of Music in Boston. His musical résumé is exhausting to read through. He has been on tour with Tommy James and the Shondells; was director for the New Voices of Freedom who performed with U2 in their movie Rattle and Hum; he has played with and producing numerous jazz and blues luminaries; and he was a staff member for Look Music and has written CDs for many music libraries. In 1996 he started Fields Music, a company that services the radio, TV, web, film and industrial markets.
There can’t be a note or a chord that Dave Fields hasn’t played a million times over. He can play blindingly fast if he wants to, but understands that the best guitar players don’t just play fast, they know how to play s-l-o-w, drawing one note out so that it fills a whole bar (both the musical measure, and the venue). He can bend a ‘G’ string beyond its snapping point and still push it places many guitarists fear to tread. It is a pleasure watching him play – and play is the operative word. He is not afraid to have fun with his instrument or have fun on stage, and obviously gets real joy out of both, and that joy and enthusiasm is conveyed clearly to the audience.
Here he is fronting his own Dave Fields Band - Live at The Cutting Room – performing Let’s Get Shakin’. That's Dave Fields on lead guitar, with Dave Hughes also on guitar, Hurricane Bob Alfano (harmonica), Rob Chaseman (sax), Andy Huenerberg (bass), and Mark Greenberg, the All Star Jam host on drums.
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Brett Bass (bass guitar)
Image: The very illusive Brett Bass captured on film at the Bitter End
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Brett Bass plays bass. Could there have been any other choice for him? Of course, there could, but it just seems so right that Brett Bass plays bass. The thing I appreciate most about Brett's playing is that it seems to be so understated. It's almost as if he isn't there, but if he was to stop playing, you just know the performance wouldn't sound the same.
Most bass players tend to keep out of the limelight and just lay down that groove that (along with the drummer), helps hold everything together – and Brett Bass is no exception to this. In fact, Brett seems to have taken keeping out of the limelight to the extreme. Of all the musicians profiled here, Bass is the one who doesn’t appear to have his own website or MySpace page, and is all but invisible online. There are a bunch of music clips available via YouTube, which include Brett somewhere in the lineup, and some references to him appearing on other artists recordings, but that is about it. I couldn’t even find a decent photograph of him online, so had to make do with a screen shot from a video recording to illustrate this introduction.
Thankfully, I did manage to find one article online dated, Tuesday, April 15, 2003. Headlined 'Ace of Bass', the article written by John Davis for the Lubbock Avalanche Journal talks about a young Lubbock*, Texas bass player who is making it big in New York City. The bass player of course is Brett Bass, and from the article we learn that Brett’s interest in the bass guitar started at about 11 years of age. In 1998, at the age of 18, Brett moved to New York City with the help of his parents, and has been living there ever since.
"I find it to be sonically satisfying," Bass said of playing bass guitar. "It takes up a lot of room, sonically. It kind of supports the whole thing. It's the bridge between the harmony and the rhythm. It moves a lot of air. You feel it in your chest and in your legs."
I would add, and in your heart and soul.
On stage, hair down to his shoulders and sporting a pork pie hat, Brett rarely says a word, but you know he is there every note of the way. When a brief smile occasionally passes between Brett and Mark Greenberg, you are aware that he is loving every minute of the performance, and that right at that moment, there is nowhere else he would rather be.
In 2001 and 2002, Brett toured through the United States, Europe and Beirut with Enrique Iglesias, and has performed with numerous musicians since. On the following clip - from the DVD "Stranger: Bernie Worrell on Earth," - Brett joins Bernie Worrell (Talking Heads) for an improvization which includes Warren Haynes (Gov’t Mule, and the Allman Brothers) on guitar and Will Calhoun on drums. The track is available on the CD, Improvisczario.
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*Lubbock, Texas, is the birthplace of rock and roll legend Buddy Holly.
Delmar Brown (the creator of the Illuminator Keytar.) has performed with some of the greatest names in jazz, including Gil Evans, Miles Davis, Quincy Jones, Jaco Pastroius and many others. He has toured with Sting, Youssou N'Dour, and Peter Gabriel to name just three top acts. When Delmar steps into the Bitter End spotlights, he eats up the stage like no-one else I have seen in a long time. He coaxes notes out of his Keytar that makes you wonder if he is just a frustrated guitarist as his fingers fly across the keys in an attempt to keep up with his vibrant personality.
Here is a rare clip of Delmar Brown recorded in 1987 at the Free Jazz Festival with the Gil Evans Band in São Paulo, Brazil. The quality of the footage may be a bit rough, but there is nothing rough about the stunning performance Delmar gives in this nine minute video.
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I don’t know if Delmar Brown can hit those high notes anymore, but I do know he has a voice that is so powerful and dynamic it could stop a runaway freight train in its tracks! And you can quote me on that. You will find numerous videos through YouTube of Delmar performing, simply by searching his name. The man deserves wider recognition in his own right, and I’m happy to help that happen.
So how much would you expect to pay to see these talented musos? Twenty dollars?Twenty-five? More, or less? The really amazing thing about the Jam is that you can see these guys for Free! That’s right. Apart from the ‘two drink minimum’ you are asked to purchase during the night, there appears to be no cost to catch the show.
I deliberately said “appears to be”, because I have never been asked to pay to watch the show. I should explain however, that I have always attended early in the evening to catch part of the weekly Singer/Songwriter Sessions that kicks off at 8.00pm. There is a $5.00 entry fee for this, and I’ve always stayed on for the Jam which follows. I’ve never been asked to pay extra for this, and neither do the Bitter End website or the All Star Jam website give an indication of an entry fee. So I am assuming entry for the ASJ is free (If this is incorrect, I would appreciate someone letting me and other readers know by posting a comment below).
If you can’t physically be in New York to catch the show, you can always tap into the live stream and watch it from the comfort of your own home. To do that you will need to first work out the time difference between New York City and your home location, and the best way of doing this is the world clock feature on the Time and Date website.
So there you have it. My ultimate Bitter End All Star Jam lineup. You will see at least two of these four amazing musicians at each fortnightly gig, although you are more likely to see three of them – if not all four. If you are in New York City on the second and/or fourth Sunday of every month, do yourself a favor and head down to Greenwich Village and visit the Bitter End at 147, Bleeker Street, for a great night of live music. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.
Image: Motorbikes and scooters disappearing under a cover of snow
