Simple Music?

 The Ministry of No Sense of Time

— Postcards From Red Squirrel Trail

Nothing much happened after the doings at Susa. Hephæstion died a few months later of drink and fever. Alexander passed away in Babylon from the same causes in the following year, 324 B.C. He was not quite thirty-three, and he had been away from home eleven years. He might have lived longer if he had not crucified his physician for failing to cure Hephæstion. Well, it was fun while it lasted.

— Will Cuppy, The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody

Over the past week I logged the most time spent listening to cover bands in decades. I don’t say it was thoroughly tedious (it was not.) The best take-aways were that  I had never before realized just how much I liked Three Dog Night’s “Momma Told Me (Not to Come.)” Also, I never knew that Randy Newman wrote the song for Eric Burdon. So, albeit obliquely, an educational experience. Closer to musical home,  I began mulling ideas for something (for the Henning Ensemble?) by the tentative working title of Simple Music. We shall see if I actually come to do something with these ideas. I’m posting basically as a potential reminder.

Excellent rehearsal of the Henning Ensemble yesterday, working on Down Along the Canal. Dark Side of the Sun, the Rahsaan Roland Kirk Fantasia and especially Jazz for Nostalgic Squirrels, which last we had neglected in prior rehearsals. I am so marvelously lucky to be able to work with these musicians!

Also, eight years ago today:

Some of you know that I am at work on Scene 8 of the ballet, a bit more than half done with it. I just now got a crazy, crazy idea. Absolutely a crazy-good, crazy idea. [1 July 2017]