speaking of gratitude, it makes me feel so honored that our lifetimes overlap with musicians and composers and maestros like WAYNE SHORTER, who wrote this... one of the most covered songs in the history of the music we call jazz -- my friend Rico said it best when he once said to me, in a moment of Hemingway-grade sophisticated simplicity, "Wayne tunes are great."

speaking of jazz, it jazzes me to no end that this -- the first recorded instance of Footprints -- was recorded in the city in which I was born (NYC), on the day I was born, 10/25/1966...

in the opinions of lot of people I respect, it is one of the definitive compositions of jazz and one of the most memorable, eloquent themes in the history of all music (not just jazz and not an exaggeration)

so thank you Miles, thank you Wayne, and happy birthday to Footprints, still steppin after 47 years

I'm Just a Bill: nowbodhi's blissness

Hi... it's me Nobody. I'm 47 today, having been born this day in 1966. A hundred-legged dancing deity I met used the power of centiscorpion suggestion on me and (without speaking, mostly) put it in my mind that I shouldn't be so quick to shy away from the path that's true for me. To remind myself not to withhold what I know is the good stuff and the things folks -- despite how fucked up I might get in three dimensions trying to hitchhike my ass to the fourth -- can only get from me. So after years of avoiding it, I've made this page to avail the world -- or at least its wide web -- of the many terabytes of unreleased and out-of-print (the not-coming-back variety) music I've accumulated in lo these many lifetimes. Call it an Escher-Zen boomerang-in-reverse: on your big day, don't just grab the gifts you're getting but give the gifts you've got. Repay the debts, real and imagined... even the ones as yet unincurred. A down payment on the upbeat, and you're invited.

So let's begin at the beginning, yes? I extracted this from the TV station master tape and it did indeed take place on the very day I happened to hit these strained and strobe-streaked streets... a Tuesday entitled October 25, 1966 for those of you having linear time with your Friday caramel cappuccino. If you'd enjoy a knotty-but-nice, brief-but-big set of piano-jazzy goodness, commanded at center stage by some towering ivory, here comes the Bill Evans Trio, playing live on Danish TV while I was somewhere else on planet Earth getting this "begin breathing when I smack you on the ass" thing mastered.

Bill Evans Trio 
Studie 1 (TV)
Copenhagen, Denmark 
10.25.1966

01 Very Early 
02 Who Can I Turn To 
03 If You Could See Me Now 
04 Autumn Leaves 
05 Five 
06 Five (master take) 

total time: 24:28

Bill Evans - piano 
Eddie Gomez - bass 
Alex Riel - drums 

extracted lossless audio from an FLV file of the original TV master tapes
90 MB FLAC/October 2013 archive link

FLAC is the format of the files, lossless and all that good stuff... Thank you for hearing and listening and watching this space for more of the same, never the same way once. Because birthdays are like that when you're working backwards, remembering it all in reverse ;)       --J.