Magnolia Blossoms_2011

My annual collection of magnolia blossoms appear below. Clicking on each picture will enlarge it.

I am a little slow in posting these pictures. All of the magnolia blossoms where I live are gone now. There was only one good day to get pictures because of the high winds and the cold front that moved in that evening and destroyed many of the blossoms. Even getting pictures on this particular day was difficult because of the wind. I was only able to salvage about forty pictures from the two hundred or so that I took that day. Enjoy!

Jazz Releases & 2011

I have found the first four months of 2011 to be relatively quiet ones in terms of jazz releases. I regularly check the reviews available online and haven’t been finding too much of note. I am looking forward to hearing Wolfert Brederode Quartet's Post Scriptum and Francois Couturier's Tarkovsky Quartet, both of which will be released later in the summer.

My attention of late has been given toward a few older recordings of current piano trios, some of which have been rotated in my alarm clock and serve as what I hear when first waking up. Maria Kannegaard's Camel Walk, which features Thomas Stronen on percussion and Ole Morten Vagan on bass, received only one or two reviews in this country when it was released in 2008. It is what I have been listening to most often. Initially drawn to that recording because of Thomas Stronen's percussion work, I have since been attracted by Maria Kannegaard's piano, particularly the rhythms maintained by what is presumably her left hand, and the somewhat less prominent bass work by Ole Morten Vagan.