A Weekend in Southcentral Kansas

I spent last weekend in Pratt, a town of about 6,000 people in southcentral Kansas where the wheat harvest had been delayed because of the rain. At one point, this developing storm looked like it would spawn a tornado. This cell, I believe, created the tornado that was spotted near Great Bend, located to the north of Pratt, about an hour later. The wheat is visible in these first two pictures.


I was lucky to get this shot of a double rainbow after the storm passed.






This last picture gives the appearance of Pratt containing a lot of water when it actually is a dry place with much less rain that what we get in the Kansas City area.

Clicking on these pictures will enlarge them.

Garage Sale Blues

I was reminded recently of how much I don’t like garage sales. As a way of getting rid of some of our junk, my wife and I decided to have a garage sale once classes ended in the spring and before my summer classes started. We spent about two weeks going through our closets and drawers. Probably what we found the most of were old vhs tapes. Not realizing that many of them only sell for one cent at Amazon, we had priced many of ours for $1.00 and some for $3.00. Finally, after pricing our items, creating an inventory, paying for a license from the city, placing the advertisement in the local newspapers, and cleaning the garage, we opened up our garage sale at 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning. The most number of people came during that first hour. Regardless of our prices, we had people offering five dollars less than what we had marked on some of the furniture. Some of them were brazen enough to only offer a portion of what we were selling the item for. Maybe if I had spent more time at the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul when I was younger, I would have learned to refuse what someone had offered with only a movement of the head. If we ever have another garage sale, I’m either going to become more firm in getting my asking price or let someone else handle the negotiations during the first hour. After three hours, the number of people stopping to look slacked off considerably. What I enjoyed the most at that point was sitting in the garage and listening to Wolfert Brederode’s Currents . That music was the perfect accompaniment to a quiet late morning/early afternoon. All total, we ended up making about $100., about a third of what we had hoped to raise, which is about the average for each of the garage sales that we have had over the years. Almost none of the movies on vhs sold. Someone stole our dvd copy of Master of Disguise, which, according to the Internet Movie Database, is considered one of the worst movies ever but which we had priced for $1, I believe.

Women in Jazz

One thing that I have noticed recently is the appearance of more female musicians in jazz. My wife brought to my attention the emphasis on males in jazz. When I was furthering my own education in jazz, early in our relationship, she didn’t share my interest in jazz because of the predominant position of males. Usually, women have been seen as singers in jazz. If someone were asked to list the famous women in jazz, probably the list would include Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Anita O’Day, and Rosemary Clooney, for example, all of whom are vocalists.

When I was first discovering jazz, both Urszula Dudziak and Flora Purim were known for their singing. Ruth Underwood, on the other hand, made a name for herself as a member of Frank Zappa’s band, but she didn’t, to my knowledge, pursue an independent career as a musician.

Carla Bley and Joanne Brackeen, of course, were creating music in the 1970’s, but I was only familiar with Carla Bley from Gary Burton’s music.

More recently, I have seen Iro Haarla, Marilyn Mazur, and Julia Hulsmann emerge as leaders. Two younger women who have been gaining attention and earning accolades as composers and musicians are Anat Fort on piano and Froy Aagre on saxophone.



Both Anat Fort and Froy Aagre have released two CD’s of their work. Anat Fort’s most recent recording A Long Story, released by ECM in 2007, continues to receive a lot of good press. See this review , one of six, at All About Jazz. Let's hope that her next recording will be released soon. Froy Aagre’s recordings, Katalyze (2004) and Countryside (2007), have not received as much attention. Froy Aagre, however, is more rapidly available on YouTube. I recommend these two samples in which she plays with Mathias Eick: Long Distance and Factory . I like to think that ECM will be releasing Froy Aagre’s next recording.



Jazz is renewed with the presence of these women. I think the coming years will see more women gain attention as composers and musicians.

Irises

Irises, at least in this part of the world, are associated with Memorial Day, a day set aside for remembering the members of the military who lost their lives. Using a series of extension lens that add up to 7x allows me to get a closer shot than the flower setting on my camera. Just like the other pictures on this blog, clicking on the picture will enlarge it.