Antikythera Mechanism

From Scientific American, a Lego Machine that predicts eclipses.

Recreating Music

Article and podcast from IEEE Spectrum describe the re-creation of poorly recorded music.

Idling

Walking to the train this morning, I passed an idling Jeep. No one in it. Business signs in the area reported the temperature was between 44 and 48 F.

Wow. If you can't handle a couple minutes in your car in this weather before the heat kicks in, you really need to move to Arizona.

Outed by Yahoo?

After years of not clicking on the online dating ads with pictures of "single women in your area", Yahoo now shows me online dating ads with pictures of "single men in your area". Apparently Yahoo thinks I'm gay. This will be a huge surprise to my wife and two children.

Sandinista!

On a recent trip to the record shop, the Uncut magazine by the register was irresistible. The cover story was about the Clash and the making of Sandinista! My favorite bit was how drummer Topper Headon would leave the studio between takes so he could watch Tony Thompson record with Chic in the studio next door. The article helped me listen to some classic Clash tracks with fresh ears. While Sandinista! had its duds, there were many gems as well. And I remember how the vinyl had hand-written messages between the grooves after the last track on each side.

Data Transmission

Been digging some recent Data Transmission podcasts, especially Jody Wisternoff (91), Patrice Scott (117) and Jaytech (121). Melodic, gorgeous, trippy house suitable for work, work-out, housework or commuting.

Careless Whisper

On a recent Saturday I found myself alone at work. From my desk by the window on the 26th floor, I could hear a saxophone player on the street below, playing for the tourists and other passersby. For hours he/she played tirelessly. Apparently he/she knows exactly eight songs:

1. Careless Whisper
2. Moon Dance
3. Human Nature
4. Happy Together
5. Never Can Say Goodbye
6. If You're Happy And You Know It
7. Flintstones Theme
8. Sanford & Son Theme

Each song would last about one minute, usually just the chorus or main theme, and then another one would begin. This is fine for people passing by, but it nearly drove me to madness. The worst part was that he/she played a wrong note on "Careless Whisper" and played the same wrong note every time. The main theme has three descending lines, the first two repeated, followed by one ascending line. The third descending line is supposed to end on the root of the chord, but he/she played the leading tone a half step below the root. So not only was it a wrong note, it was the worst possible wrong note--instead of resolving the chord, it produced the greatest possible tension. Like a Chinese water torture, I knew it was coming each time, and there was nothing I could do about it.

If you're going to play saxophone out on the street, please know the songs that you play. I will even give you some room for interpretation. And please, no more "Careless Whisper."

Another Bill Charlap Road Story

We have traveled for music before, even to see Bill Charlap play. However, we had yet to see Charlap play with his incredible trio. So, a couple weeks ago, Maria and I embarked on our latest indulgent road trip for music. On a Saturday morning, we dropped off the kids at Mom's (thanks Mom!) and were on the road by 11 AM, on our way to Detroit. We figured that would give us enough time for 5+ hours in the car, plus quick stops for gas and lunch, and counting the time zone change, to be at the club at 6 PM.

To avoid construction on the Eisenhower, we went around downtown Chicago. Once the GPS accepted the fact that we weren't going through downtown, we got the first good estimate of our arrival time, and we were right on track. I was nervous about traffic going into Indiana, and it was heavy but kept moving well. Leaving Chicagoland behind, and with Maria behind the wheel, we really started gaining ground. By the time we stopped for gas in Michigan, I think we had gained about 20 minutes.

Still I was nervous, and I treated the gas stop a little too much like a Chinese fire drill. The receipt didn't print at the pump, and I always get a receipt, so I dashed inside and asked for one, ran back out, and jumped into the car. A few exits later, we stopped at a Subway for lunch. That's when Maria noticed that the gas cap was missing. Distracted by the receipt, I had forgot to put the cap back in, and ours is not attached as many are. It was gone. And even with the time gained it was too far to go back and look for it. We got our sandwiches and drove on. (It's not dangerous without the cap, right? The things we do for music.)

I drove for about an hour, while Maria ate lunch and took a break. It was raining off and on. We were still gaining time, albeit not as quickly as before. I pulled off and Maria took over. We were starting to think maybe we could visit with Maria's cousin Marcus for a short while before the show.

There was a bad patch of construction just west of Ann Arbor, a few miles of one-lane traffic. We gave up some earned time, and still we were in the black. Visiting Marcus before the show was looking less likely, but we figured to get to the club in plenty of time.

And then we ran straight into the mother of all traffic jams. On the 96 outside of downtown Detroit, before the 94. We decided to just hang in there. That strategy had worked out fine outside of Ann Arbor. We inched along for a while and slowly realized that the entire freeway was closed. (I later learned that there was bridge demolition work.) We followed the detour signs for a while, and then we must have missed one. Detroit is interesting! Thank goodness for GPS. We found our way on to Grand River Road and were heading back downtown. We were going to make it.

The Dirty Dog Jazz Cafe is in Grosse Pointe Farms, a couple miles northeast of downtown Detroit. The GPS took us through an improbable series of narrow residential streets, and suddenly there was a little Main Street USA (Kercheval Street) and the cafe. No time to change, I threw on a dark long sleeve t-shirt (jazzy!) and we walked in. It was about 5:50. Our reservation was for the 8:00 show! But they had an opening at 6 and invited us to stay. Maria boldly asked where she could change her outfit. “The musicians haven't arrived yet—why don't you change in their dressing room?” So I was a slob, easily the worst dressed guy in the room, and Maria looked fantastic.

The cafe is a typical restaurant-size room with a bar towards the back. The piano and other instruments are set up in the front area, not far from the entrance. The room is dark and carefully decorated. We noticed that the etched glass at the top of a partition next to our table was filled with musical references—clefs, rests, etc.

The Dirty Dog has a three course prix fixe menu. There were no vegetarian entrees (possibly the only criticism I could have of the place) but they offered Maria a larger portion of the gnocchi appetizer, which she loved. I had a cheesy tomato soup and the lamb, both very good. For dessert I had the most unusual tiramisu. It was like a flan. All the right flavors were there, still the texture was completely unexpected. Just one more nit: no cappuccino.

While we were eating, the band arrived at the restaurant. A short time later they took to their instruments, the heavens parted and the whole room ascended into a musical nirvana. We were seated maybe 20 feet from the band as they played. As we expected, they played the room very well. They were not playing background music by any means, but they didn't make our ears bleed either. It was a fantastic hour of mostly uptempo standards in well rehearsed arrangements with plenty of room for improvisation. Several times I noticed Charlap throw in a reference to some other song—there were a couple measures of “In Walked Bud” visiting another tune. We arranged to stay for another set, and would gladly have stayed for the third except that Maria's cousin was waiting for us. Charlap and the trio are musicians' musicians, and there are few if any that both Maria and I enjoy as much.

We noticed, especially during the second set, that there were a number of couples who came to the Dirty Dog just for dinner, and there happened to be some music there too. It would certainly be worth going to the Dirty Dog just for the food (OK, maybe not all the way from Chicago), but I can't imagine a life in which I didn't realize there was a preeminent group of musicians playing for me.

I doubt that we have had a more enjoyable evening. Everyone at the Dirty Dog was incredibly nice to us. The food was very good. The music was unbelievable. Another crazy road trip for Bill Charlap, and it was so worth it.

Radio Deluxe Feed Broken

If you happen to use my RSS Feed for Radio Deluxe, it is currently broken.

The John Pizzarelli web site got a makeover last week. It looks great. Unfortunately, the Radio Deluxe download links aren't where they used to be, so my RSS feed doesn't work. In fact, I can't find the download links at all. If and when they reappear, I will fix the RSS feed.

Ricky Gervais Celebrity Lullaby

Ricky Gervais sings Elmo to sleep.

Fulton Street Roasting Works

Yesterday we attended a tour of the Intelligentsia Roasting Works. You enter an inauspicious, barely marked box of a building on the west side of Chicago, just north of the United Center. It starts with a coffee tasting, where the baristas are brewing three different roasts using the Chemex pitchers. There's a brief oral history of the company, followed by a world geography lesson, and then a discussion of the company's trade practices and involvement with coffee farmers.

Then it's roasting time! A batch of beans is loaded into one of the giant roasters, and in 10-15 minutes they go from green to roasted and ready to brew. The roasting caramelizes the sugars in the coffee beans, and enables the release of the coffee flavors. The main part of the roaster is a tumbler that looks rather like an overgrown clothes dryer. The roaster operator can control the flavors to some degree by adjusting the temperature (around 200 C, or 400 F) and the air flow within the roaster. When the beans are done, they get dumped into a cooling tray for a few minutes, and then they're ready for packaging.

The tour includes a visit to the cupping lab upstairs, where they test brew bean samples and taste them before purchasing the beans in volume. Most interesting was that they roast and brew the coffee completely differently for these tests. They stop the roasting process early, and steep the coarsely ground coffee in a glass without a filter. This produces something not at all enjoyable to drink (in fact, they spit it out), but it enhances both the good and bad characteristics of the beans, thus better informing their purchasing decisions.

The whole tour takes about 90 minutes. I can definitely recommend the tour for coffee enthusiasts and those working in hospitality. At the end, the tour attendees get a half pound each of the beans that were roasted during the tour, and ample opportunity to ask other questions. We and others wanted to know about decaf coffee, and whether the beans were already decaffeinated when they arrived or if they were decaffeinated on site. It's the former - the caffeine is removed, via one of a couple processes, before the beans arrive at the roasters.

Patricia Barber

It is so hard for this early riser to make it to the Green Mill on a Monday night to hear Patricia Barber and her quartet, but it is always so worth it. Some neighbors are also fans, and we had wanted to go together for the longest time and never had. This week we finally did. And we managed to get some other friends to join us as well.

We had to stop again at Julius Meinl on the way for a necessary caffeine fix.

There are so many things to like about the Green Mill. It looks and feels like it hasn’t changed since the 40’s. The people who go there go to listen to the music. The music is not ear-bleedingly loud. The indoor smoking ban means you no longer have to endure the smoke during the show, nor do you reek like an ashtray afterwards. And the setting allows for some serendipitous musical moments, like the pianist comping the police car siren as it zips by, or when the cash register bell is in tune with the song.

What else can be said about Barber and her group? The set is a tasteful mix of up-tempo and ballad, of unlimited joy and poignant melancholy, of the familiar and the bizarre. The musicianship is unparalleled. Each song is a master class of selfless virtuosity, listening and responding, construction and demolition. There was a version of “All The Things You Are” as insanely energetic as any I’ve heard, and a mellowed version of Smokey Robinson’s “Being With You” as only Barber could do it. Damn, we Chicagoans are lucky.

Ryan Cohan

Maria and I were at PianoForte for another jazz show recently. It was Ryan Cohan on piano with Lorin Cohen on bass. Cohan plays in a bop style that reminded me immediately of Bud Powell. There were fabulous, crisp arpeggios running all over the keyboard. Most of the set remained up-tempo. Each musician played one song solo, and they complemented each other well the rest of the time. The closer was a Charlie Parker tune.

We hadn’t been to PianoForte in a while, which is a shame because it’s a fantastic place to hear real music, in the amazing Fine Arts building. This show reminded us to keep coming back, and to actively recruit other music lovers to join us.

After the show, Thomas Zoells told us about a Viennese coffeehouse on the north side called Julius Meinl. We had to go right away, and although they were closed for a special event, they still made us coffee to go. Holy $#@! It was fantastic, smooth, flavorful, not at all bitter, and exactly the right temperature. How could we not have known about this place? OK, they opened in Chicago in 2002, after we were parents and homeowners and lived miles away, but still! A couple days later, we took Ella and Martin there for breakfast, which was outstanding. Expensive, but worth every penny.

Maultaschen

Or: Why I Bought My Vegetarian Wife A Meat Grinder For Her Birthday

My wife Maria is the weirdest vegetarian in the world. She won't touch a hamburger, and chicken makes her nauseous. But she likes hot dogs and bratwurst, even an occasional meatball. Any meat that bears no resemblance to the animal from which it came is a possibility. The more processing and fillers, the better.

Maultaschen are a specialty from Swabia, the area of southern Germany where Maria grew up. They are like big ravioli, and they are filled with a mixture of meat, spinach and other stuff. Maria loves them. The whole family loves them. And you can't get them anywhere in the US, as far as we know.

So for Maria's birthday earlier this month, I decided that we would make Maultaschen at home. This turned into a day long adventure. I found some Maultaschen recipes online, and we made our shopping list. We started at Sur La Table where we bought the meat grinder attachment for our stand mixer. The grinder is important because the pasta filling needs to be ground very fine. Then we drove up to Schmeissers in Niles to get some sausage meat. The people there were fantastic. Finally we went to the local Jewel to get the remaining ingredients. Maria found some flat lasagna noodles, about 8 x 16 cm, that looked just right.

Back at home, we soaked the lasagna noodles for about a half hour until they were pliable. Then we fired up the grinder and ground up the filling. The lasagna noodles worked out surprisingly well, but it was tricky to get them to stay shut after we folded them. Maria also tried filling some manicotti shells, and they worked well too.

For a first attempt, I think the results were quite good. We ended up with a whole lot of Maultaschen. Maria served them to the guests at her birthday party the following week, and they went over well. We still have some more in the freezer.

Only after our adventure did we think to check YouTube, and we found a couple great videos of chefs assembling Maultaschen the right way. Maybe next time we will be brave enough to make our own pasta dough.

How Many Things Are Wrong With This Picture?

Earlier today, in the locker room at the Y. Guy next to me has his cell phone out. Texting, two handed. While using the urinal.

Roy Hargrove

Roy Hargrove and his new quintet perform for a radio show in December 2009.



Check this out if you had any doubts about the new group. As I have said before, you know the music is happening when Roy is smiling and bouncing around, and there is plenty of that in this clip.

Maria and I saw the quintet perform at the Jazz Showcase on New Year's Day. It was an excellent way to start the year! Roy was looking rather natty, and with the glasses he's looking a lot like Diz in the 50's. It was a very good show, not the best I've seen him do, but that's a very high bar indeed. A normal mix of up-tempo bop and ballads. The club was overflowing, which is always nice to see.