Happy Birthday Chet & a Lily Update

Well, the holidays are almost upon us. The year winds down hopefully with family, cherished friendships, and a renewed commitment to Ueshiba Osensei's Aikido. There are a couple of things I want to share with you. First, tomorrow is Chet Baker's birthday. He was born in Yale, Oklahoma December 23rd, 1929. I recently went online and ordered a copy of the 1988 documentary film(Lets Get Lost by Bruce Weber) which is about Chet's career and immediately on what turned out to be the last year of his life. Juxtaposing the later Chet with clips from his incendiary youth, it is a fascinating film on art, aging, fate. It focuses on his life as an artist. It reveals many sides of a man who was a genius and very complex. At the same time you
can see how intelligent he was and sense the Chet Baker cool. And behind it all there is the spectre of his drug addiction.

A couple of things I didn't know. In addition to being voted the top jazz trumpeter 2 years running in the '50's, he also tied Nat King Cole one year for top male vocalist. According to his mom 2 weeks after taking up the trumpet he was playing "2 O'clock Jump" along with Harry James. So Happy Birthday, Chet.

I also want to give a Lily update. I want to thank all those who have expressed interest in her return. One can only imagine how it was for her to be without shelter and regular food for two and a half months. After I adopted her she took up hunting. I was told that her previous family did not let her out. She is spending a lot of time inside, although she is going out more and more. She is eating a tremendous amount of food. She was very thin and I believe dehydrated when I got her back. So she is so happy to be back, to have her own space, and to have the comforts of regular food and loving attention. I have lost so many friends(cats) over the years that I think it is a miracle that she was able to return. So she is in a sense a Christmas present from the universe.

I put together a video of her. It was shot one morning with a
phone camera as we were both getting up. That background that keeps moving and shifting is my leg under a blanket. The background is a trumpet solo I did in September in Sebastopol. The song is Tenderly, one of my favorite Chet pieces. From my standpoint I was exploring phrasing, shading notes, spacing musical phrases. No background music, just me.