Thai Believe in the Art Festival

Last week of January there was a student event called "Art Street" at the university I am teaching. Since in Thai context ( and I think it also appear in many Asian context) that Thai art and spiritual belief have been long time co-existed since spirits are believed as "teacher" giving power in the form of knowledge in art field ( also in different field that related to tradional Thai art.) This paper spirit house founded close to stair case at my office, thought it was used during the festival. It's kind of intersting to me with the mixed emotion. With the whole elements that normally founded in the spirit house which most of the time made from hard materials, This spirit house is instead made of paper.....

An Inconvennient Truth-Global Warning

Just have chance to visit the website made for the movie "an inconvenient truth" after had been watched for months. Even the content of the movie is bloody serious, the first thought after tleaving the theatre is that it's not so hopeless saving our planet. Let's start doing something we, as individual, are able to.

From this thought, I think Al Gore and his partners made the right decision making this movie to communicate with audiences around the world, it has wider impact and hit the right target with the same limited resource than he alone travelling around the globe telling our inconvenient truth.

After I do change my "bad" habits to save out planet, to help spreading this inconvenient truth through whatever media I can is what I am able to do now. Let's see what we can do.

Hey, Mr. DJ. Put the Record on

Another good moment this morning. I had been told for a while about the return of one of my favourite DJ (also magazine editor, musician and tv host....and more) on a radio channel I havn't heard about. I gave a try on the way to work and it's kind of bringing back my good time when I was young(er) years ago watching or listening to his programme. To me it's not only the joy of music but the stories behind or related to them were also interesting things he'd told during his show. Just hoping I would have FM Tuner at the office.

P.S. The first song I heard from the channel was "Come As You Are" sang by a woman name ......... Love (not Courtney, for sure!) with a guitar, sound like playing live. Nice shot!

Tribute to Anondh

It was a month ago that I accidentally had a ticket for this concert without any knowing that this guy, Anondh, was the one of the great thai jazz musicians who played imporntant role pushing jazz to the wider range of audiences. Sadly, he died with another his American freind, also his teacher, during the royal jazz festival 10 years ago. I actually remeber that tragedy very well but I don't think he's the same guy this tribute was all about.

Good music, many good stories and as well the sad bbut true story. I was inroduced that he once played with a female saxophonist who was later lose contact since she had moved to France and havn't contact each other since then. But sometimes life is more strange than fiction, she came back to Bangkok on that week just to stop before taking her flight to Australia and wanted to played her music somewhere in bangkok. Some guys told her about the tribute but she respond back to them "why do we need to paly tribute to Anondh? He's not yet dead". She later realized about the death of her band member, also her teacher. So she straight ahead to the concert to face the truth by her own.

I saw her cry on the way to toilet and later found out about the whole story from the host about her unexpected coming. After she introduced herself to the band and the audience, she play the last song with them...she cried..and smiled it's one of my unforgettable moment

Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for good.

I found this mail in my draft folder which means it has never been sent to anyone I intended to....4 years ago( I think). Maybe it would be better that I should share it with you now, whoever you are.

Hello guys, got Noon message last night about my MSN name, but I fell asleep while I left my computer on-line. after a moment I feel like writing to you guys:) My MSN name (Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for good.) was taken from an article which later was mixed with music that was used in the movie "Romeo and Juliet", the song called "everybody's free(to wear sun screen)". It is a very good article, let's say, and very useful.When it was combined with music, the out come is Perfect! The orginal idea for me to change my name is that I was watching the BBC programmes called I LOVE THE 90's which annually collected the data of what are the landmarks of those years in 90's; songs, people, movie, products, movements...bla bla bla. but it is very nice to watch those year we, at least I, have passed. I am kind of nastalgia. here is the article:

Everybody's Free (to wear sunscreen) Mary SchmichChicago Tribune

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of ’97... wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be IT. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked.

You are NOT as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum.

The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary.

Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself, either. Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s.

Enjoy your body, use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

Dance. Even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for good.

Be nice to your siblings; they are your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography in lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel. Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders. Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85. Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

Hope that it would be more or less useful and give you all some nice ideas as it gave me. Just want to shared this good feeling with you guys. Take care, tee

Albums I have been listened lately

Got this 2 albums from a familiar reccord shop around my house. 2 different period of music but anyway giving me good time listening to both ( actually 3, the electro Jazz section came with 2 CDs) Strange but true, even I say how much I enjoy these songs, I didn't pay much attention to the song title or artists on the covers as I used to do. Maybe I am becoming what I don't wanna be when I was younger, busy! It's just the accuse, I can say. I am just being more ignorance to things around me just to keep me focus on myself. It's not good and I should improve my bad habit before too late

Movie that makes my stomach growling

Gosh! Only the movie title can kill me with food apetizing. There are scenes of a Chinese chef woking with his ingredients, fresh fish, chicken and slicing, streaming, chopping and ....etc. I have no enough torelation to finish the movie since my stomach cannot stop growling watching those scences. I heard about this movie long time ago, around 6 years ( I guess), about how good it was. But at the moment I was not so interested in the movie as I am now and it seemed not very famous among thais, moreover ,the VDO technology was quite uncomfortable with me since I have not enough money to spend for VDO while I had to spend some on my music CDs at the same time. Anyway, I just had chance to watch it around January this year (2006) and just purchased it a few days ago. It's worth spending every minute with, I can only say that. Especially for anyone who love food and cooking. It makes me more intersted in the next movie of this director, what will he do next? , since he did different kind of unpredictable movies.

Red and Green

Phaeomeria magnifica. (is it the name? it's too long to call) We simply called it Dalha. I have some amounts at the ront yard. The lines, patterns and the leaf curves catch me during I was waiting for my lunch to be delivered.

Pat Metheny on Kenny G

I got an email from Pat Metheny homepage infoming me about his new album with Brad Mehldau and it reminded me of article I had read years ago (6, I think) about his interview that blasted on Kenny G's music and musicianship. So I did search again for what it is really about ( 6 years caused me some lost of memory, and yes from all the booze I had taken during that period; alcohol, cigarettes and joints :D ) It's really a blast(back to Pat on G, not mine). After finish reading it, I can only think that it would hurt feeling of G's fan in Thailand a lot since he has lots of fan base in Asia who think his music is so "jazz" and take his music as a romantic jazz or jazz for lovers. Pat Metheny Kenny G Read it and think for yourself Question: Pat, could you tell us your opinion about Kenny G - it appears you were quoted as being less than enthusiastic about him and his music. I would say that most of the serious music listeners in the world would not find your opinion surprising or unlikely - but you were vocal about it for the first time. You are generally supportive of other musicians it seems. Pat's Answer: Kenny G is not a musician I really had much of an opinion about at all until recently. There was not much about the way he played that interested me one way or the other either live or on records. I first heard him a number of years ago playing as a sideman with Jeff Lorber when they opened a concert for my band. My impression was that he was someone who had spent a fair amount of time listening to the more pop oriented sax players of that time, like Grover Washington or David Sanborn, but was not really an advanced player, even in that style. He had major rhythmic problems and his harmonic and melodic vocabulary was extremely limited, mostly to pentatonic based and blues-lick derived patterns, and he basically exhibited only a rudimentary understanding of how to function as a professional soloist in an ensemble - Lorber was basically playing him off the bandstand in terms of actual music. But he did show a knack for connecting to the basest impulses of the large crowd by deploying his two or three most effective licks (holding long notes and playing fast runs - never mind that there were lots of harmonic clams in them) at the key moments to elicit a powerful crowd reaction (over and over again). The other main thing I noticed was that he also, as he does to this day, play horribly out of tune - consistently sharp. Of course, I am aware of what he has played since, the success it has had, and the controversy that has surrounded him among musicians and serious listeners. This controversy seems to be largely fueled by the fact that he sells an enormous amount of records while not being anywhere near a really great player in relation to the standards that have been set on his instrument over the past sixty or seventy years. And honestly, there is no small amount of envy involved from musicians who see one of their fellow players doing so well financially, especially when so many of them who are far superior as improvisers and musicians in general have trouble just making a living. there must be hundreds, if not thousands of sax players around the world who are simply better improvising musicians than Kenny G on his chosen instruments. It would really surprise me if even he disagreed with that statement. Having said that, it has gotten me to thinking lately why so many jazz musicians (myself included, given the right "bait" of a question, as I will explain later) and audiences have gone so far as to say that what he is playing is not even jazz at all. Stepping back for a minute, if we examine the way he plays, especially if one can remove the actual improvising from the often mundane background environment that it is delivered in, we see that his saxophone style is in fact clearly in the tradition of the kind of playing that most reasonably objective listeners WOULD normally quantify as being jazz. It's just that as jazz or even as music in a general sense, with these standards in mind, it is simply not up to the level of playing that we historically associate with professional improvising musicians. So, lately I have been advocating that we go ahead and just include it under the word jazz - since pretty much of the rest of the world OUTSIDE of the jazz community does anyway - and let the chips fall where they may. And after all, why he should be judged by any other standard, why he should be exempt from that that all other serious musicians on his instrument are judged by if they attempt to use their abilities in an improvisational context playing with a rhythm section as he does? He SHOULD be compared to John Coltrane or Wayne Shorter, for instance, on his abilities (or lack thereof) to play the soprano saxophone and his success (or lack thereof) at finding a way to deploy that instrument in an ensemble in order to accurately gauge his abilities and put them in the context of his instrument's legacy and potential. As a composer of even eighth note based music, he SHOULD be compared to Herbie Hancock, Horace Silver or even Grover Washington. Suffice it to say, on all above counts, at this point in his development, he wouldn't fare well. But, like I said at the top, this relatively benign view was all until recently. Not long ago, Kenny G put out a recording where he overdubbed himself on top of a 30+ year old Louis Armstrong record, the track "What a wonderful world". With this single move, Kenny G became one of the few people on earth I can say that I really can't use at all - as a man, for his incredible arrogance to even consider such a thing, and as a musician, for presuming to share the stage with the single most important figure in our music. This type of musical necrophilia - the technique of overdubbing on the preexisting tracks of already dead performers - was weird when Natalie Cole did it with her dad on "Unforgettable" a few years ago, but it was her dad. When Tony Bennett did it with Billie Holiday it was bizarre, but we are talking about two of the greatest singers of the 20th century who were on roughly the same level of artistic accomplishment. When Larry Coryell presumed to overdub himself on top of a Wes Montgomery track, I lost a lot of the respect that I ever had for him - and I have to seriously question the fact that I did have respect for someone who could turn out to have have such unbelievably bad taste and be that disrespectful to one of my personal heroes. But when Kenny G decided that it was appropriate for him to defile the music of the man who is probably the greatest jazz musician that has ever lived by spewing his lame-ass, jive, pseudo-bluesy, out-of-tune, noodling, wimped out, fucked up playing all over one of the great Louis' tracks (even one of his lesser ones), he did something that I would not have imagined possible. He, in one move, through his unbelievably pretentious and calloused musical decision to embark on this most cynical of musical paths, shit all over the graves of all the musicians past and present who have risked their lives by going out there on the road for years and years developing their own music inspired by the standards of grace that Louis Armstrong brought to every single note he played over an amazing lifetime as a musician. By disrespecting Louis, his legacy and by default, everyone who has ever tried to do something positive with improvised music and what it can be, Kenny G has created a new low point in modern culture - something that we all should be totally embarrassed about - and afraid of. We ignore this, "let it slide", at our own peril. His callous disregard for the larger issues of what this crass gesture implies is exacerbated by the fact that the only reason he possibly have for doing something this inherently wrong (on both human and musical terms) was for the record sales and the money it would bring. Since that record came out - in protest, as insignificant as it may be, I encourage everyone to boycott Kenny G recordings, concerts and anything he is associated with. If asked about Kenny G, I will diss him and his music with the same passion that is in evidence in this little essay. Normally, I feel that musicians all have a hard enough time, regardless of their level, just trying to play good and don't really benefit from public criticism, particularly from their fellow players. But, this is different. There ARE some things that are sacred - and amongst any musician that has ever attempted to address jazz at even the most basic of levels, Louis Armstrong and his music is hallowed ground. To ignore this trespass is to agree that NOTHING any musician has attempted to do with their life in music has any intrinsic value - and I refuse to do that. (I am also amazed that there HASN'T already been an outcry against this among music critics - where ARE they on this?????!?!?!?!- , magazines, etc.). Everything I said here is exactly the same as what I would say to Gorelick if I ever saw him in person. and if I ever DO see him anywhere, at any function - he WILL get a piece of my mind and maybe a guitar wrapped around his head. source: http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=807027