Dear Friends,
It’s sort of the first official day at work after six weeks off. I have an all-day training to attend with my fellow team leaders. I’m looking forward to learning more about my new role as the leader of the 4th grade team at my school.
In almost every job I’ve had in my life I’ve sought out more responsibility. I do this because I am a pretty darn good supervisor/mentor/boss. My secret is that I listen to my folks and do what I can to make their lives easier. If your team is happy, they are productive. I haven’t led a team yet that didn’t work hard and improve. I have zero plans for anything different this year.
Hopefully the training will be good.
*****
Yesterday was a really nice birthday party for Mia. It was a loving environment, and Ryan’s in-laws were excellent hosts. Mia was happy as a little clam, too, and seemed to be very pleased with her presents. It was nice to see Ryan and Bree, of course, and it was also great to have some time with my dad, my mom & Joe, and my Aunt Julie.
Afterwards, I got to spend about 90 minutes over at the J’s house and it was great to see everybody there, too. I love that our friendship never misses a beat. It was a really great afternoon all the way round. I am a very lucky fella.
I made some baked potatoes and salad for dinner and then hit the sack. For some reason, I had insomnia on Saturday night, so I was burning the candle at both ends yesterday. I don’t know why I couldn’t just sleep. I think my body clock is way off and the heat in our bedroom is pretty significant. The A/C just doesn’t cool our big ol’ room the way it should when it is flaring like twenty rabid horses outside.
*****
Dizzy Goes Hollywood is a recording I discovered just a few years ago when I was teaching music to elementary students online. I was familiar with Dizzy Gillespie’s name, of course, and had enjoyed his music a lot. His discography is huge and somehow, I stumbled across the song, “Walk On The Wild Side” from this record.
It’s rad to think that something so cool happened sixty years ago and for fifty of those, I was completely unaware. Now, I’m sure there are tons of jazz purists out there that would say this is not a great record and that is just Dizzy having fun with songs from different movies, but I love it.
For one thing, every song on the record is familiar in some way. I might not have been able to say the name of it, but when I scored it on Discogs a couple years ago and threw it on the first time, it was so easy and comfortable to get into. It just made sense.
Dizzy Goes Hollywood is named as such because it is Dizzy Gillespie doing his thing on a nice-sized handful of songs from the movies. It came out in 1964 and there isn’t even one track on the record that isn’t great.
“Theme From Exodus” starts things off. It sounds like so much of the music from movie soundtracks from the late 50s and 60s. I love me some TCM (Turner Classic Movies) and this sort of easy, flowing, swing jazz is just rife in the films of that era. “Theme From Exodus” is like an old jazzy, boozy friend.
“Moon River” and “Caesar and Cleopatra” are both awesome. There is kind of a funky swing with “Moon River” that takes you by surprise a little bit, but the melody comes in and out throughout and you just start bobbing your head a bit. I love it.
“Caesar And Cleopatra” has a little Latin tinge to it here and Dizzy’s horn just sings. There are only 11 songs on the record, so the whole thing kind of flies by and when “Caesar And Cleopatra” is over, it’s hard to believe that it’s almost a third done.
“Days of Wine and Roses” is also just fantastic. It’s some great work from Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer that Dizzy treats with an easy, fun style. If you have ever seen the film, Dizzy’s treatment of it makes it seem like a much happier film than it actually is in real life, as the kids say.
The aforementioned “Walk On The Wild Side” is such a great track. It really is the true shining like it on Dizzy Goes Hollywood. I have played it for literally hundreds of students over the past four years and they love this song. It’s kind a crazy, but if I want the kids to kind of calm down and bop a little bit, I just put this one on.
It’s a long one, too. The longest on the album by far and it never loses my interest. I need to see the film it came from, I think.
Side two starts with “More” from the film, Mondo Cane. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the movie, but the song is awesome. It reminds me of stuff from the soundtrack from a movie I love called Metropolitan.
“Love Theme From Lolita” follows it nicely. There is a really nice back and forth between the piano player (name is something I can’t find) and Dizzy. The two of them go back and forth in the middle of the song with the requisite skill and finesse.
“Theme From Picnic” is another super familiar sounding song but a film that I am not aware of. It’s got that vibe, though, like the movies of its time where the characters are falling in love or something. A montage kind of thing.
“Never On Sunday” is another wonderful little track that I had no idea existed. It’s kind of swingin’ in this rendition and sounds like something that should be playing in the background of a scene where people are, again, falling in love or dancing cheek to cheek in a big ballroom. Beautiful and fun.
The “Theme From Lawrence of Arabia” is another where Dizzy disassembles a song you know and if you listen closely, you can hear the original version, but if not, you can just let it take you away to whatever foreign place in your mind you want to visit.
“Carioca” is another Latin beat that just kind of rules. It finishes the record and makes you want more. If you listen on a streamer like Spotify, as I often do with a guilty conscience, the songs that the algorithm feeds you after this record are pretty rad, too. It’s like a gift that keeps on giving.
Maybe I’m weird, but I love this stuff.
*****
See you tomorrow.
AI is Dizzy.
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