Feeling Fifteen Again

Okay.. for once this blog is NOT about Drumpfen-putz or his minions.
It's about my first solo album of original songs, 'Feeling Fifteen Again'.

After Woodstock, (yes, I went to Woodstock.) I left home in 1969 and went to Nashville to be a songwriter and make an album. Fifty years later and half a world away, I made my solo album in Taipei, Taiwan.

Here's how it happened...

In mid-September, 2018, I approached my friend, Andrew Page, about being my producer. He had worked as co-producer on Joanna Wang's album the year before in Los Angeles. They had used my home studio as a their rehearsal apace for about a month prior to recording. Andrew and I had had long talks about the enterprise and the pit-falls of the music industry. He and I had worked together on a number of music projects as pianist and as trumpet player.

His first question regarding this new project was a poignant one; 'Why do you want to do this?' A reasonable query as I was rather older, at 68, than your average aspiring pop star. I told him that I knew I had it in me to record an album of original songs and as a convenient short-hand, I told him that it was on my 'bucket list'. His second question was more practical; 'When do you want to do this?'
'As soon as possible.'

I gave him a thumb-drive of about two dozen songs I'd written over the past few years.
After some thoughtful consideration and further conversations, he agreed to produce the album and act as music director and play both keyboards and trumpet.

We began almost immediately to arrange the songs. 

It was a most productive time; I wrote several new songs and re-wrote several others as we mapped out the untitled album. After about two weeks, we had fifteen songs to concentrate on perfecting. In the meantime, Andrew found and hired the players and booked the rehearsal rooms and the studio time.

We determined that the album would be 'old school'; recorded 'Live' for the most part, eschewing modern electronic sounds in favor of 'real' instruments. There would be no synth pads to simulate horns or strings. No electronic drums. No pitch correct. No auto-tune. 

Andrew hired some of best players in Taiwan and we went into full-band rehearsal with Chuck Payne on drums, Cody Byassee on percussion, G.E. Anderson on bass guitar, Jacob Liang on guitar, lead by Andrew on his customized Fender Rhodes. A five-piece horn section, lead by Andrew on trumpet, consisted of Matthew Richey (tenor and alto sax) Josh Shaffer (tenor sax) with Alan Wang on first trumpet and me on bari sax and flute. 

Additionally, we had two female back-up singers, Queenie Huang and Green Yang, complemented by G.E., Jacob and me on male back-up vocals. Mark Howe (guitar) rounded out the band; a large ensemble of twelve players. 

Andrew chose YuCheng Cinema Studios, in Nankang, for the recording. Andy Baker, an American, designed and runs the place. We scheduled five full 12-hour days to record thirteen songs for the album, 'Feeling Fifteen Again'.   

The results surpasses all of my expectations. 'Feeling Fifteen Again' is an album of American music which spans several genres; country, rock, pop, swing, gospel. There's even a touch or two of jazz to be found.   

It is a very personal album of songs; all written from life experiences - sweet, sad, bittersweet and joyous. In many ways, it is the story of my life written in short-hand and in outline form with editorial foot-notes and asides. 

My music influences include the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Frank Zappa, Randy Newman, Willie Dixon, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern and a host of other music giants.

Drumpf Seen from Across the Pond

Someone on Quora asked "Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?"
Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England wrote this magnificent response.

'A few things spring to mind.
Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.
For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace - all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.
So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.
Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing - not once, ever.
I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility - for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman.
But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is - his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.
Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.
And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults - he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.
There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface.
Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront.
Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul.
And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist.
Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that.
He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat.
He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.
And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully.
That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead.
There are unspoken rules to this stuff - the Queensberry rules of basic decency - and he breaks them all. He punches downwards - which a gentleman should, would, could never do - and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless - and he kicks them when they are down.
So the fact that a significant minority - perhaps a third - of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think 'Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:
* Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.
* You don't need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.
This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.
After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum.
God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid.
He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart.
In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws - he would make a Trump.
And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish:
'My God… what… have… I… created?
If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.'