I’m sitting here listening the King Cole Trio and that baby smooth voice of Nat King Cole and I’m seething. You know why? Nat King Cole was a jazz singer. Forget the pop tunes he sang later. Those were great too, even if they did make everyone forget what an incredible pianist Cole was. Fact is, that voice…impeccable. His phrasing, the way he caressed a tune. If someone told me I had to choose between Nat Cole and Frank Sinatra, well, shoot me now, but I’d have to pick the King. I know, I know. You think I’m being ridiculous and that I must be drunk, but it’s true. I mean, I’d hate to have to make that choice, but if my life depended on it and they told me I could take every side Cole made or every recording of Sinatra’s…well…you see, now I am thinking of those Sinatra days with Dorsey and I am beginning to backtrack. Okay, forget it. I would just tell them they would have to kill me because I wouldn’t be able to decide. Anyway, my point is, Nat King Cole was a jazz singer. Frank Sinatra was a jazz singer. Yeah, they both went the pop route later on, but man, they don’t make them like that anymore.

You can sing a song and you can give your interpretation of a song. You can make it your own. That is what the best of the jazz singers did. Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan could all sing Body and Soul and after they were done, you would be unable to say that one sounded like the other. They made tunes their own and that is why the classic jazz singers were some of the best singers ever.

Rod Stewart, Smokey Robinson, Gladys Knight — all great singers in their own right. But, in my opinion, they are not jazz singers. They may do a reading of a jazz tune, but I do not believe they will interpret it and make it their own. Now, I have only heard a few of the Stewart and Robinson songs and have yet to hear Ms. Knight’s. I could be completely wrong about her. But Stewart doesn’t move me. Smokey doesn’t move me. “Tonight’s The Night” moved me. “Tears of a Clown” moved me. Why do these guys feel it necessary to open up the great American songbook and give mediocre readings of classic tunes? Smokey Robinson is a titan when it comes to classic popular music, but he is not a jazz singer. Am I wrong?

Give me Nat Cole. Give me Sinatra. Tony Bennett. Billy Eckstine. Carmen McRae. Dinah Washington. Joe Williams. Give me true jazz singers and you other guys, please, don’t open the book unless you can truly make the songs your own and aren’t just out there doing the popular thing. Crooning is an art, not a side project.

Yesterday was supposed to be a day of leisure for me. I mean, what’s better than taking off a Monday, sleeping late, watching The View while eating a big old bowl of cereal? Yesterday was supposed to be my day. Just kicking around the house, luxuriating in laziness.

So, imagine how I felt being awakened at seven in the morning by my doorbell. Following the shrillness of the bell were the hard, rapid knocks of someone’s fist on my front door. Is there anything more disconcerting than someone pounding on your front door at seven in the morning? I mean, whatever they want from you, it can’t be good. And in this particular case, it wasn’t.

I pulled on some jeans and my old North Carolina basketball tee with the hole in the armpit, lumbered downstairs and with sleep squinted eyes, opened the door. Standing in the parking lot in front of my house was my neighbor, a nice old lady from Luxemburg. She stood between her car and mine, and I would like to say that what she told me next didn’t sound so harsh as it was said with a slightly German accent. However, the accent did not at all mute the shock of what she told me. “Your car has been broken into.” Now, I am sure there are worse phrases out there: “You’re fired.”…”Mother has cancer”…”I’m pregnant.”… and my personal favorite, “I don’t love you anymore.” Still, “Your car has been broken into” has a nice, stingy ring of it’s own, don’t you think?

Sidling up to the passenger side of my trusty Honda, I found a big, gaping hole in my passenger side window. Shards of glass were sprinkled over the black asphalt and in an instant, my heart sank.

My car has been broken into before. Twice actually. My car is ten years old but my passenger side windows are ten years, five years, three years and a day old respectively. I loved them all. The first two times I was living in a different area. This is the first time this has happened at my current home. You gotta love the big city. People like to say Nashville is small, and maybe they are right since the criminals seem to love my vehicle. The first two times, the thieves bashed the window but came away with nothing as I was sure to empty out my car every evening, making sure especially to grab my cd case. There have been nights when I have awoken with a shock, realizing that I left my beloved cd case on the floor of the car. In the cold, December air I would scramble out to my car at 2 in the morning, dressed in nothing but pajama bottoms and a tee shirt just to grab that cd case — My Holy Grail of music.

What did the bastards take this time? They ripped my stereo out of the dash. Grabbed every loose item they could find. AND, they got my cd case. I had carelessly left it on the floor of my car and just my luck, they got it. They got one of my neighbors as well. He drove by as I was giving my report to the cop. My neighbor yelled out of his jeep, “They got me too!” Then with a smile mixed with an empathetic wince, he said, “Shit happens!” Yeah, shit happens. I mean, think about it. Is “Your car has been broken into.” worse than “You’re fired” or “I don’t love you anymore” or, god forbid, “Mother has cancer”? Probably not. Not unless you loathe your job, lover and mother. And I don’t. So, yes, having my car broken into sucks. I feel violated. My love of human beings as been doused a little, but I am sure it will be back. Insurance is fixing my dash, replacing my stereo and given me another passenger side window (#4). Still, the Holy Grail is gone. That is what hurts the most.

I had 100 cds in that thing. It wasn’t just music to me. There were memories there. The Leonard Cohen cd my friend gave me on my thirtieth birthday. I didn’t like it at first, then I fell in love with it. Gone. Bob Dylan Highway 61 Revisited. One of the greatest albums I’ve ever heard. Gone. Madeleine Peyroux Careless Love and Dreamland. Gone. Those thieves couldn’t have known that hers was the voice I wanted to marry. Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On? In my opinion, one of a few “perfect” albums. Gone. Aesop Rock’s Labor Days — the album that I listened to repeatedly on the airplane flight from Nashville to San Diego only two months after September 11th 2001. The album that calmed me, made me feel like everything was going to be cool. Gone. Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Van Morrison, Elton John, Sam Cooke, Otis Redding. Dammit! Just thinking about it now pisses me off. And I haven’t even gotten to the jazz cds yet. Coltrane Newport ‘63. That incendiary version of “My Favorite Things”. Gone! Charlie Parker with Strings. The cd that got me through many a lonely night. That beautiful horn. Gone!! 100 memories gone just like that. My insurance company is giving me money for the stolen cds and that should placate me. Still, if you gave a man a car and let him drive it for ten years then took the car away and gave him a brand new one, same model and make, would it be the same? There were memories in those ten years. When my grandmother died, I didn’t cry. She had been dying of cancer and I knew her days were short. Maybe I prepared myself for it. I don’t know. Do you know when I cried? One night as I sat in my bedroom and listened to music, Ray Charles came on singing “That lucky old sun aint got nothing to do but roll around heaven all day.” Right then and there the floodgates opened. I shook and wept until there were no more tears to give. That song was always beautiful, but that night it took on a whole new meaning. Now, that cd is gone. And yes, I can replace it, but still, when those thieves took my music, they took a part of me with it.

Weird though, one cd was left untouched. As the thieves plundered my vehicle, they must have knocked this particular cd inbetween the seats, and in their haste, did not retrieve it. Which cd was it? Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks. My favorite cd of all time was spared from the ignorant hands of the wicked. Redemption. Bittersweet perhaps. But redemption just the same. Little by little I will rebuild my Grail. And you can bet this time that I will guard it with my life.

A lot of classic jazz added this week and as always, I’d like to add a few new MySpace friends. The first is Jeffrey Chin who gives a very pretty reading of “Everything Happens To Me” Also, Jaleel Shaw and his deep tenor tune, “My Future Has Passed”.

 http://www.myspace.com/jeffreychinmusic  

 

http://www.myspace.com/jaleelshaw  

Do you know why I’m proud to call the south my home? I’ll tell you why. Because only the manliest of men come from the south. You haven’t seen cool; you haven’t seen macho until you’ve stepped foot in the south. Don’t believe me? Okay, I’ll give you an example. Take my good friend Troy Gentry.

Do you know Troy Gentry? No? He’s the better half of the country music group Montgomery Gentry. Troy’s the guy with the extra white teeth. The other guy, Eddie Montgomery, can be recognized by his abnormally large hat. Remember Lester Young and those porkpie hats he used to wear? Well, Eddie’s hats kind of look like those, except they are much bigger. He’s a manly man and real men where big hats. Who cares if it looks like a U.F.O. landed on top of his head? Anyway, Troy doesn’t wear big hats. He just has unnaturally white teeth and the eyes of a sex offender.

Troy is the coolest of the cool. On my coolness scale - ranked from one to ten — he gets a ten. You know why? Because he killed a bear! And only the manliest of men can kill wild bears. That’s a definite ten on my scale.

Of course…the bear’s name was Cubby. Hm. Kind of a cute name for a wild bear. I mean, the only bear names cuter than Cubby are Snuggles and BooBoo. So…maybe I need to drop the coolness factor down to about an eight. I mean, it’s still very cool to kill a wild bear. But if the bear’s name had been Rifkin or Dahmer that would have been a bit cooler. Nobody would have sympathy for a wild bear named after a serial killer.

Come to think of it, how many wild bears have names? Hm. You know what? Cubby wasn’t wild at all. He was a tame little feller from what I’ve heard. So, I guess I need to subtract two more cool points since killing a tame bear is nowhere near as cool as killing a wild bear. And killing a tame bear named Cubby. Well…no one would mistake that for manly, would they? Still, my boy Troy bagged a bear. Tame or not, hunting down a bear in the wilderness is an admirable feat.

Wait…it says here the bear was in a cage when Troy bagged him. Gotta take two points away for that. And…uh…says here Troy paid a guy for the bear before he took out his bow and arrow and shot little Cubbence. You paid to shoot a tame bear named Cubby in a cage. What the hell, Troy? Two more points .

And…say what? You videotaped the killing then edited it to make it look like you killed the Cubbster while he was out in the wild. Geez, Troy. You’re really making it hard for me. I mean, I will only take one point away since you DID show off some rather impressive editing skills. But still…that’s kinda lame, you know? Little Cubby deserved more than that, don’t you think?

So…maybe I’m not so proud to be a southerner right about now. A good old boy pays a man for a tame bear named Cubby who resides peacefully in his little cage. Then, the aforementioned boy of goodness shoots said bear with a bow and arrow while taping it then editing it to make it LOOK like it was a cool kill. And on a personal note, I think killing animals for kicks is about a notch above mugging old ladies for their social security money. Half a point for that. Looks like you’re only left with one half of a cool point there, buddy. Pretty, pretty lame.

My girlfriend always said that Troy looked like a rapist what with the crazy eye thing going on. Troy’s no rapist, honey. He’s a cubby killer. My girl can rest easy tonight.

Of course, Winnie the Pooh better watch his back.

Daniel Craig is going to be a great James Bond. You know why? Because he’s homely but cool. He looks like the guy who never got the girl in high school and now he’s playing the coolest secret agent ever.

The worst people in the movie theater are the ones who show up late. Anyone who doesn’t care about missing the first ten minutes of a movie will surely not give a damn that you actually do care about the movie and don’t want to be subjected to their loud conversations. Of course, you’re always hesitant to tell them to be quiet because unlike public high schools, movies don’t have metal detectors. No matter what people say, Scary Movie 4 was not worth dying over.

A woman in Mississippi poured two quarts of hot cooking oil over her husband while he slept. He spent a week in a burn center with third degree burns before he died. Can you think of a worse way to die? How bad has marriage gotten? Husbands blowing up buildings so their wives don’t get it in the divorce settlement. A wife driving her vehicle through a building lobby in an attempt to run over her estranged husband. Paul McCartney accuses his ex of taking three bottles of cleaning liquid from his home and taking it to her office. What??? The guy is worth $1.5 billion and didn’t have a prenup and he’s worried about three bottles of cleaning liquid? Priorities, my man. “When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now…will you take me for a quarter of my wealth…make me wish I had a gun to off myself. Rip my poor heart out, mired in grief. Who could ask for more? Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?” Uh…apparently not. Truth is, though, I’d much rather lose a quarter of my wealth than have hot, boiling anything poured over me. Ain’t that right, Al Green?

The New York Mets are 14 games ahead in the NL East. If the excessive heat, continuous terrorists plots and forthcoming world war aren’t enough signs of the apocalypse, the Mets running away with the NL East should be!

Vanity Fair will publish the first baby pictures of Suri Cruise, the baby of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. Unless the baby has a second head and a nose like Jimmy Durante, I could really care less.

Why am I watching The Flavor of Love on VH1? It’s like a train wreck, this thing. How in the world do you continue to allow a woman to stay in your home AFTER she relieves herself on your floor? Let her go, man. Do you really want a wife you will have to walk?