John Fogerty – Creedence Clearwater Revival

John Fogerty – Creedence Clearwater Revival and Solo – Born May 28, 1945.

2015 Update: Back in 2013 I wrote a quick post about John Fogerty on his birthday May 28th at that time Fogerty had just released the album John Fogerty Wrote a Song for Everyone. So in honor of John’s birthday, I listened to that album again today!! The majority of the album is covers of Creedence Clearwater Revival songs that topped the charts in the 60s! The great part of the album is the variety of artists that joined John on the album. The musicians include: Foo Fighters, Keith Urban, Miranda Lambert, Zac Brown Band, My Morning Jacket, Kid Rock, Bob Seger,Jennifer Hudson and others! John Fogerty truly did write a song for everyone!! Read More

Bowl of Heaven-Gregory Benford & Larry Niven

Bowl of Heaven – Gregory Benford and Larry Niven – (Book 25 of 2015)

It took me almost two months to finish Bowl of Heaven the collaborative effort from two of Science Fiction’s best authors Gregory Benford and Larry Niven. The reason is that while I was reading Bowl of Heaven I started several really good books, those boos caught and kept my attention, causing Bowl of Heaven to be continually put aside. The book never really hooked me, I didn’t really care about the main characters and it seemed that most of the story was just,, well quite simply, boring. But by the time I got to page 300 I thought I might as well finish the damn thing.The book is the first of two books the second is titled Shipstar and the question I face now is do I want to go on and read the second book in hopes that it is better than the first one?? Read More

Bosch and Art Pepper Perfect Together!

Watching Bosch leads to the Music of Art Pepper

Last night my wife and I finished watching the first season of Bosch on Amazon Prime. The series is based on the books of Michael Connelly featuring LA Detective Harry Bosch.  If you haven’t seen it do, because it’s really, really good. I have not read many of the Harry Bosch books, but what I have read I have enjoyed, and there are three of them on my TBR shelves! Michael Connelly is the executive producer of the show and I’m sure he has a lot of say over the way Harry is portrayed, which makes the series that much better! Read More

Watching You -Michael Robotham

Watching You – Michael Robotham (Joseph O’Loughlin #7)

As Watching You begins, Marnie Logan has problems her husband Daniel has been missing for a year and times are tough. Her missing husband  Daniel left a pile of gambling debts behind and Patrick Hennessey a mobster wants to collect. So Marnie is forced to take a job at with an escort service to help settle her debt and pay her bills. One night she meets and saves a businessman from committing suicide. She collects no money from the distressed John. Her pimp beats her! The next morning his body is fished out of the river. He has been stabbed and killed by a kitchen knife! Read More

Wallace Roney – Jazz Trumpet from Philadelphia!

Wallace Roney – Trumpet – Born May 25, 1960 – In Philadelphia.

Tomorrow May 26th is the great Miles Davis‘ birthday. Today is the  birthday of  the only trumpet player that he ever mentored Wallace Roney. Wallace was born in Philadelphia in 1960 So he is too young to have experienced 1960, which was the year that former Whiz Kids manager re Eddie Sawyer resigned as the hapless Phillies’ manager after a 9-4 opening day loss to the Reds and said.: “I’m 49 years old and I want to live to be 50.”  But I digress so it’s back to Wallace Roney. Read More

May Reading Update…..

May Another Good Reading Month – Five books finished with a week to go!

At he end of April my projected reads for May were projected to be…..::

What Then Shall We Do?
Dance of Death
Bowl of Heaven
A Delicate Truth
The Technologist

As I moved into May, I finished reading What Then Shall We Do? and Dance of Death. At that point, I went to the library and then changed the books. I added: How to Read the Solar System,and The Smoke at Dawn by Jeff Sahaara from the library. Then I added Preston & Child’s Brimstone (the book prior to Dance of Death) and The Devil’s Punchbowl from Greg Isles both from my TBR pile. Additionally, I continued reading Bowl of Heaven from Gregory Benford and Larry Niven. A few days later, Inspector of the Dead by David Morrell, which I requested from the library became available. I zipped through that book and then did the same thing with Brimstone!! Read More

Brimstone – Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

Brimstone – Preston & Child – Pendergrast and D’Agosta chase down the Devil?

Preston & Child’s FBI Agent Pendergrast investigates those curious cases, so when Brimstone opens with art critic Jeremy Grove found burnt to a crisp in a locked and barricaded room in the attic of his mansion in the Hamptons, you knew Pendergrast would be there soon. Grove is found burnt to death from the inside out, amid the smell of brimstone. And next to him is the devil’s hoof print burnt into the floor! Soon the question arises: Had Grove really made a Faustian pack with the devil and he came to collect??? Read More

Wajdi Cherif – Jazz Pianist

Wajdi Cherif – Tunisian Born Jazz Pianist – Born May 20, 1975

So May 20th is a holiday in several nations including, Cambodia, East Timor and Cameroon. It was also the birthday of a Tunisian jazz piano player, Wajdi Cherif!! Knowing nothing about his music, other than that he played piano, I went to Spotify and listened to his 2009 release Fuzzy Colours and I didn’t have to listen long to become intrigued by and enjoy his music. Returning to All About Jazz, I discovered that at five years of age Wajdi was learning to play tunes he heard on the radio in his homeland of Tunisia on his little piano. Wajdi never lost his love for music and along his life’s journey, he earned his BA in English Literature, but more importantly he discovered jazz!! At the American cultural center in Tunis, he watched live performance videos of pianists Chick Corea, Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans. He soon decided to make jazz music his career, and set out exploring it on his own. He made his professional debut in 1998. In 2003, he released his first album Phrygian Istikhbar in Paris. Accompanying Wajdi on the album were Diego Imbert on acoustic bass, Jeff Boudreau on drums and Habib Samandi on Arabic percussion. The album went on to become a finalist in the Indie Acoustic Awards in the USA in 2004!! From All About Jazz: Read More