Author: ekkarn

2013 Jazz from Cuba’s Roberto Fonseca – Yo! (that resonates here in the Philly Area)

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Roberto Fonseca KellyWynton

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Twin Sons of Different Mothers and times?)

(tangentially speaking – about the headline the Yo – is usually followed by Adrian ….. here (ADD strikes again)

Checking out the Roots Music Reports Jazz Chart this afternoon, I saw a name that interested me at number 12, right after the Duduka Da Fonseca Trio, was Roberto Fonseca and his latest album Yo. So the question before the house was who is this Roberto Fonseca and what does he play!! YoI download the album from Spotify and only got to listen to it on the way home. Now that is not a good thing because the trip home from work only last about four minutes (note that is one of the reasons that I have worked at the same job for the last 34 years!!) Anyway, the brief listen to the opening track “80s” was really all I needed to hear to know that I wanted to hear more from this artist! After work I listened to most of the album and while portions of it are not really my taste, I did enjoy the album, and who knows in another few months with the way that my taste is evolving, it may be right up my alley!! Anyway here’s some information about Roberto…….

Roberto Fonseca (born 1975, Havana) is a Cuban jazz pianist. From an early age, Fonseca was surrounded by music: his father was a drummer, his mother, Mercedes Cortes Alfaro, a professional singer (she sings on her son’s most recent solo album, Zamazu), and his two older half-brothers, Emilio Valdés (drums) and Jesús “Chuchito” Valdés Jr. (piano) are also two young musicians of great international prestige. After an early interest in drums, Fonseca switched to piano at the age of 8, and by 14 was experimenting with fusing American jazz and traditional Cuban rhythms; he appeared at Havana’s Jazz Plaza Festival in 1991 when he was just 15. Fonseca studied at the Cuba’s prestigious Instituto Superior de Arte, where he obtained a master’s degree in composition, even though he often says that he was a really bad student. After earning his degree, he left Cuba to find his sound…….Read More

And find his sound he did, and along the way he has been instrumental in the global renaissance of Cuban music. Roberto’s music is known for fusing Latin jazz, urban music, and African rhythms with the sounds of his heritage. His first album was a collaborative effort teaming Roberto with Javier Zalba in Temperamento and released En el Cmienzo in 1999. A solo album Tiene Que Ver, followed in the same year, and in 2001 Elengo and No Limit were released, After their release, Roberto concentrated on touring with Buena Vista Social Club and Rubén González, along with producing records for Asa Festoon and the late Ibrahim Ferrer. Since 2007, he has released three more album Zamazu (2007) Akokan (2009) Live in Marciac (2010), and that brings us back to 2012’s Yo. Check out Roberto at AllMusic – here So let’s go “into the night: with “80s” from Roberto Fonseca………..While I have been writing this and eating supper the music of  Eldar Djangirov (No 15 on the RMR Jazz Chart this week) has been playing in the background … this is a young piano player I need to find out more about… damn all together now “Too Much Music , Too Little Time!!”

Me, Myself and Family….. Eli’s Coming and Going! Oh My……..

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For her birthday this year, our daughter Elizabeth’s boyfriend Jimmy bought her a kitten, She originally wanted an all black cat, but when she went to the pet store she couldn’t pass up this cute little kitty…..

Eli

Elllie2

So Eli came home with her and eventually back to her apartment in Delaware. Eli had been fixed only a few days prior to Elizabeth adopting him and last week he developed a sore around one of the stitches and wouldn’t leave it alone. So Elizabeth took him to the Vet. On her way there Elizabeth had this premonition that the vet would tell her that Eli was actually a girl cat, This had happened to us years ago when Abigail and Lucy went to the vet and came home James and Fenwick!! It wasn’t long after arriving at the vet’s office that Elizabeth was informed by the technician that Eli appeared her to be a girl cat a fact that was shortly confirmed by the Vet!! So Eli became Ellie and to protect her from getting the sore infected she was given a cone, not one of those normal cone but an extra special fancy model……

Ellie and Cone

And now she is internet famous as her picture has made it to Reddit!

Our little kitten needed a cone. This is the smallest one they had.

This moornimy daughter found this in her Twitter feed……

This kitten loves his new rain coat! pic.twitter.com/BqB7JkSrwN

Ah, the world gets smaller and smaller!!

Christmas Tree Ornament

Speaking of Internet famous my wife’s handmade Christmas Ornaments like the one above should be famous, too! Check Out Her work at her Facebook Coventry Market Page here

R Carlos Nakai and Will Clipman Provide Some Relaxing Lunchtime Music

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Awakening the Fire

So yesterday I was all excited because I saw a R. Carlos Nakai and Will Clipman album that I had never seen before — Awakening the Fire. I downloaded it and gave it a listen last night and — like all of the work by these two masters — I loved it!

Nakai is a master of the Native American flute, and Clipman is an extraordinary percussionist. What I learned this afternoon is that the album is from 1995 — but hey, it’s new to me! And still absolutely great.

Here’s a little more about the album from Carlos’ website:

Grammy-nominees R. Carlos Nakai and Will Clipman delve into a primal sonic odyssey, channeling a sound that grounds each of us in the center of our being, a place where all cultures merge into the river of human existence. The ancient call of Native American cedar flute and the vibration of African, Native American and Asian rhythms connect to our innermost essence and finely tune the awakening energies inside each of us, nourishing inner balance and harmony.

Here’s some relaxing lunchtime music from Carlos and Will:


 

“Into the Morning” with blues from Kara Grainger!

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kARA gRAINGERAs I surfed around the Internet yesterday, I came across this great female blues artist!

A native of Australia, Kara Grainger draws inspiration from the blues of America. On Shiver & Sigh, her third solo album, the guitarist and singer/songwriter also incorporates elements of rhythm and blues and soul music in the mix.

I think Kara will have a place in my blues library! Let’s go “into the morning” watching her perform live!

Will Trent Collides with Grant Co in Unseen – by Karin Slaughter (Will Trent #7)

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Will Trent in Unseen by Karin Slaughter

September was a slow reading month (I listened to more music than mysteries. However, I’ve still been reading and yesterday finally finished Book 30 for the year Karin Slaughter’s latest Will Trent book Unseen.

Unseen is the seventh book in the Will Trent series couple that with the six books in the Grant County series and that makes a total of thirteen great books by Karin Slaughter!!

 

The Story

In  Unseen the  Grant County series and the Will Trent series continue their collision course, as Sara Litton and Lena Adams, come face to face for the first time since the surprising conclusion to the final book in the Grant County series. Beyond Reach.

The story opens with a deadly attack on Lena and her husband Jared in their Macon Georgia home. . Lena takes out two of the assailants and is stopped short of taking out a third by Wiil Trent a Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) agent working undercover in Macon. Jared is Sara’s stepson so she quickly heads to Macon at the request of Nell  Jared’s mother. Soon the lives of Sara, Will and Lena are entwining and creating havoc in all their lives!  The action careens through flashbacks from present events to a failed drug bust that Lena had headed!!

Final Thoughts

As always the story functions on two levels first on the events that occurred prior to and after the drug bust and the attack on Lena and Jared,and on the second level how the events affect the lives of Sara, Will and Lena. The case nearly destroy Will and Sara’s relationship, and forces both Lena and Sara to relive a period of their lives, that they would both rather forget!

Now the question is whether you can read this novel without having read any of Slaughter’s other works. Yes, you can but I don’t think you’ll enjoy it as much as you would if you had read Beyond Reach, So if you are new to Karin’s work do yourself a favor and read that one first. But at a minimum read at least one, then you’ll only have twelve more to go!!

Links

Author’s Website
Facebook
Save the Libraries
Amazon
Goodreads

About Karin Slaughter

Karin Slaughter (born January 6, 1971) is an American crime writer. She has written 25 novels, which have sold more than 40 million copies and have been published in 120 countries. Her first novel, Blindsighted (2001), was published in 27 language and made the Crime Writers’ Association’s Dagger Award shortlist for “Best Thriller Debut” of 2001. Wikipedia

 

Visit Karin Slaughter Page

Life’s Soundtrack – Running’s Easier with Blues from Lisa Mann’s Satisfied!!

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So I ran last night, but I didn’t write a post about the run. I ended up spending the evening  transferring my iTunes library from the desktop to my laptop, because I use the laptop more than the desktop now, while I watched the Phils lose, By the time I was ready to write, I was too tired! I think the trick is to write the post as soon after the run as possible!!

Anyway  I still am running a lot slower than I was in the  spring, but the run last night was the easiest since I’ve started up again. The proof of that is over the last two miles. Last Thursday the time for mile three was 10:47  and mile four was 11:34. Last night over the same course, mile three’s time was 10:24 and mile four’s was 10:50!! So there is improvement, no matter how small. The other good thing was that when I came home from work last night, I wanted to run, rather than feeling that know I should run- but !! I still feel like a slow jogger and not a runner yet!! There will hopefully come a time when I feel like I’m running and not plodding!

SatisfiedThe soundtrack for the run was Lisa Mann and her “Really Good Band’s new blues album Satisfied and I was more than Satisfied with the album and I think that her band is really good!!!

It didn’t take long for this album to hook me, on the first track “See you next Tuesday”,first there was Lisa’s vocal sounding really bluesy and then half way into the first song, what’s that I hear, oh boy, kick-ass organ and then a wailing guitar!!! The music stayed that way throughout the rest of the album, a great guitar riff here, a some organ or piano there, throw in some saxophone and harp’ and then a solid bass line and vocals that made it all hang together. And it hung together well through tracks like “Satisfied”, “Surrender to the Blues”, and two of my favorites “Till the Wheels Come Off” and “King of Black Coal”. Who am I kidding, I like them all!! Lisa Mann, who has been hidden away in the Pacific Northwest has earned a spot in my library, right along side musicians like Samantha Fish, JoAnne Shaw Taylor, and Laurie Morvan!!

Really good bandNow the folks in the Pacific Northwest have known about bassist Lisa and her band mates:  Jeff Knudson (Guitars, Backup Vocals, Co-Production), Michael Ballash (Drums, Backup Vocals and Bunny Wrangler??) and Brian Harris– (Keyboards, Organ and Backup Vocals) for a while now. In 2011, she and her Really Good Band represented the Cascade Blues Association (CBA) at the International Blues Challenge, where they made it to the semi-finals. From her website

.Lisa is a proud inductee into the Cascade Blues Association’s Hall of Fame after winning the Muddy Waters Award for Bass Player of the Year three times in a row. In Nov of 2012, Lisa took home the Muddy for Bass yet again, and to top that off, she took home Female Vocalist of the Year and her “Really Good Band” won Contemporary Blues Act of the Year.

Her latest CD, Satisfied, is currently the CBA’s choice for the Best Self-Produced CD competition through the Blues Foundation. Lisa also won the Portland Music Award for Outstanding Achievement in Blues in 2012. Read More

and if all that is not enough!

Lisa’s vocals appear on Canadian blues master Bill Johnson’s Juno Award nominated CD, Still Blue. (www.billjohnsonblues.com). She is also the voice of internationally acclaimed symphonic rock band Cry for Eden. (www.cryforeden.com)

Don’t some people just make you green with envy!! I listened to Cry for Eden’s album last night, a different genre and musical style and she nails the vocals on that album. too!! So check out Lisa Mann and her really good band!!! From the Blues Music Magazine Review of Satisfied!!

For the moment, Mann is mostly a Northwest regional secret, but I suspect that brighter days are within range for Mann, as she’s a talent to be reckoned with. With music that deserves to appear on North American radio charts, she should begin to receive an abundance of strong press reviews, and thus be in position to garner fans from coast to coast.

And I fully agree with that statement!!!  Here’s Lisa and the band tearing it up at the King of Beale competition in Memphis, TN. on Saturday, February 5, 2011!

Book 29 of 2013 – Caribbean Moon – Rick Murcer

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Caribbean MoonSo Rick Murcer‘s book Caribbean Moon, the first book in the Manny Williams series, has been on my Kindle and iPhone for a long while now. The other day (while I am in the middle of The Templar Salvation by Raymond Khoury) I started reading it and I didn’t put it down until it became book 29 for 2013. You can pickup the e-book at Amazon for 99 cents and I tell you it’s well worth it and a lot more! Murcer has nor always been a full-time writer’ He lost his job in 2008 due to the crashing of the economy. He then sent out over 600 resumes and still was unable to find employment. So  with unemployment benefits waning and savings nearly depleted he decided to become a full-time writer!! From his biography at his website:

I’m an older writer. I started about eight years ago and got the first story I ever wrote, Herb’s Home Run, published in Writer’s Journal. Since then, I’ve been hooked.

I lost my real job two years ago, and after 550 resumes with no luck, decided I was going to make it as a writer, and here I am. Caribbean Moon was a labor of love, and writing it taught me more about myself than I cared to know. (My wife thinks I should keep my mind a secret!)

 

In his quest to become a writer, he defied conventional wisdom about self publishing and took his work to Amazon in e-book form, and there he became a sensation!  Caribbean Moon, Deceitful Moon, and Emerald Moon sold more than 300,000 copies between April and October 2011. Two books  of the books were in Amazon’s top ten for many weeks. He has gone on to become both a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author! Way to go Rick!!

But back to Caribbean Moon  Manny Williams, a Lansing Michigan homicide detective, and a group of his associates, go on a cruise with the newly married son and daughter of his boss Gavin Crosby. But the cruise is anything but a honeymoon because bodies  soon start piling up on the ship, and around the Caribbean. The victims include two members of Manny’s group. The victims mostly women are in most cases are strangled  and their bodies are badly mutilated. The MO is similar to a serial killer, Robert Peppercorn, who the group sent to prison a while back. Can it be Peppercorn committing these heinous crimes? Wasn’t he reformed?? Manny and the gang have to act quickly to end this brutal murder spree and the question soon becomes:What is the objective of the murderer!

The book is a light quick read with enjoyable well-developed characters including: Manny, his partner Sylvia Lee the rest of his co-workers, and of course the killer!! So check it out – I’ve already started the second book Deceitful Moon, which costs a whole $2.99!!.

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Tess Gerritsen – The Silent Girl

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The Silent Girl

Note to Self: DO NOT PUT OFF READING TESS GERRITSEN BOOKS! Which is what I did with her book The Silent Girl, which sat on my bookshelf for a long time before it became Book 28 of 2013!

The Beginnings

I started reading Tess Gerritsen books back in 2003 with The Surgeon, which I absolutely loved!  I quickly went out and read two of her early medical thrillers and then The Apprentice (Rizzoli and Isles #2) another winner,

Since then I’ve read all the Rizzoli & Isles books. Why I put off reading The Silent Girl I can’t say, because once I started I became totally absorbed in the book and rarely put it down until I was finished.

The Story

This mystery involves Boston’s Chinatown, A severed hand is found in an alley, the body it was formerly attached to is found on the roof of the building next to the alley. The hand was attached to a red-haired woman dressed in black, her head nearly severed from her body.  Two strands of silver hair – not human – are found on her body. The murder pulls her into a mystery appears to revolve around a murder-suicide that occurred nineteen years earlier in a Chinatown restaurant. A cook in the restaurant inexplicably lost it murdering four patrons and a waiter at the restaurant James Fang, James’ wife Iris is a mysterious martial arts instructor who believes that the cook was innocent and now she may be the bait to draw the real killer out! Was that woman found on the roof of Iris; studio an assassin sent to kill Iris?? Jane and Maura set out to discover how all the pieces fit together and what really happened during the night of the murders. Along the way, they are aided by a new Detective Johnny Tam and confront the mysterious Monkey King of Chinese folklore!


My Thoughts

As always the characters are well-developed and believable  and the plot has lots of twists and turns that keep the pages turning. Side stories include an appearance by Julian “Rat” Jenkins  a teenager who had helped save Maura six months previously in the Wyoming mountains. “Rat” has come to spend the week with Maura and a new development in the relationship between Jane’s mom and Jane’s retired partner Vince Korsak! But the most intriguing character in the book may be martial arts teacher Iris Fang!

So check it out and I’ll leave you with these words from The Hartford Book Examiner:

The Silent Girl represents an author at the pinnacle of her storytelling abilities. Gerritsen’s plot is complex and flawlessly executed, with elements of fable ambitiously interlaced throughout. further, she explores her beloved characters in intriguing and meaningful ways. Combined with her trademark knowledge of forensics and razor-sharp dialogue, the result is a page-turner that delivers on style and substance.

Where is Tess’ latest – Last to Die: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel released in paperback in June!!

Post Update 2026

Breaking Point – C.J. Box – Joe Pickett # 13

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Breaking Point- C.J. Box

Book 25 for the year is Breaking Point, the 13 the in C.J.Box’s great series and it’s another good one. I had checked the book out a couple of weeks ago, but I got immersed in two other books and it sat on the shelf. Finally, a few nights ago I picked it up and I don’t think I set it down until I was done! Box can really tell a story with believable characters and suspense that doesn’t let up!

The Story

This story revolves around Butch and Pam Roberson, whose daughter Hannah is best friends with Joe’s daughter Lucy. Butch and Pam set out to build their dream house only to be sited by the EPA for illegally filling wetands, after a year-long battle and skyrocketing fines, two EPA agents set out from the Denver office to deliver a compliance letter to the Robersons, only to end up dead on the Robeson’s property and Butch is the only suspect!! Soon there is a manhunt of epic proportions for Butch who has taken flight to the rugged woods and mountains that surround his home. Joe’s official job is to lead the group chasing Butch, but Joe’s real job to save Butch’s life so he can find out the true story about what happened!!

My Thoughts

While the action and suspense was non-stop and I devoured the book super quickly, I did think that the portrayal of the EPA both from a compliance standpoint and the manhunt was a little over the top. As a wetlands delineator and having dealt with NJDEP for the last 25 years, I thought the whole EPA issue could have been handled quickly. But then again considering the other case The Sacketts cited in the book and the premise of this book is taken from a true story maybe not!! Either way the book is a fantastic read, so check it out!

Comparing Joe Picket to Cork O’Connor

Joe Pickett is one of my favorite characters. He reminds me a lot of Cork O’Connor in William Kent Krueger’s books. Both have been in law enforcement Joe is a Game Warden and Cork an ex-sheriff. Both are good honest men with families. Joe has a wife Marybeth, two natural daughters and one foster daughter. While Cork has two daughters and a son. Both have trusted friends that help them.  Joe’s friend Nate (who makes a small appearance in this book) /Romanowski is just a tad (said with heavy sarcasm) more violent than Cork’s spiritual guide Henry Meloux! Throughout both series the well-developed characters have evolved, the children have grown up,  the families have dealt with typical family problems, and both men have dealt with the gray areas involved in their pursuit of justice!

While I don’t think that you necessarily need to read the earlier books to enjoy this one, I think that once you read it you’ll want to find out more about Joe and his friends, particularly Nate,  Joe’s mother-in-law Missy and Joe’s problems with his vehicles!!! Enjoy!!

Farewell, Dorothy Parker, Hello old me? (Book 22 of 2013)

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Farewell Dorothy Parker

Once upon a time I knew a young man who was semi-literate. He read books by Alexander Solzhenisten, John Fowles, Norman Mailer and James Baldwin among others. He loved the Marx Brothers and read about George S Kauffman, Alexander Woolcott and the rest of the members of the Algonquin Wits, including Dorothy Parker. But through the years as that young man aged, he found escape from the drudgery of work not in great literature, but in mysteries and thrillers, not that they aren’t good reads, but hey, saving the world from serial killers and nuclear annihilation isn’t the same as questioning the meaning of life!

He did though along the way, find that the answer to life, the universe, and everything is _____.   You’ll have to find that out yourself!  So back to this aging man….. it seemed as though he was DE-evolving to the point where, his wife would tell his children that she “married him for his mind” and his children would laugh uncontrollably!  I assume that you probably surmised, fairly early in this post that the young man was me, and that the old Neanderthal, is also me….. I think a lot of my reverse evolution revolves around MY internal concept of who I am, which rather than revolving around my four great children, for which I give my wife most of the create, is based on my job. The problem is that I don’t see my job in a very good light for the last 30 years for the majority of th time I was digging holes and examining dirt, oops, soil throughout New Jersey for the purpose of designing in-ground sewage disposal systems. It’s tough sometimes to keep up a positive self-image when one of your bosses calls you “Eddie the Shit King”!  The rest of the time I was trudging through woods trying to define  that elusive line where wetlands turn to uplands so that somebody could build something!! Both of these roles while providing a steady income that almost got us by, I say almost because like most folks our credit debt has risen through the years, really weren’t what I set out to do with my life. So now I sit here reviewing my life and wondering, “Where do I go from here!”  Right now I don’t know  the answer, but I think to move forward in a positive direction, I need to go back and reconnect with that young man and while not recapturing that youth, take those values, ideals and intelligence (I know it’s still in there somewhere, I just forgot where I left it), and move them back to the forefront of  my life. So that as I move forward, I can travel in the right direction, or at least in one where I feel positive about myself!!

Now the reason, that I mention all this, including the Algonquin Wits is that Book 22 for 2013  Farewell, Dorothy Parker by Ellen Meister, as I wrote before an atypical book for me to read. While it may not have been the greatest literature it, did deal with life’s problems. The heroine, Violet Epps, had to deal with death – the loss of her sister and brother-in-law in a car accident that left her niece Delaney an orphan, and life, as Violet has to move forward and fight for custody of Delaney from her grandparents! Along the way, Violet gains strength and find her personal inner voice to match her professional movie critic voice, with the help from the spirit of Mrs. Dorothy Parker!! Violet discovers that Mrs. Parker’s spirit has never crossed over into the light, but still resides in the guest book of the Algonquin Hotel, and when the book is open she materializes. Violet discovers this when the book ends up in her bag and in her house after a hectic scene in the Hotel!  The book gives the reader some insight into the life of Mrs. Parker, including many of her caustic one-liners, as she humorously tries to help Violet, catch her man, win custody of her niece and find her lost inner voice!!

Parker Quote

All in all, it was a fast and funny read that brought back memories of those who sat around that table at the Algonquin Hotel and maybe just maybe will help me regain that inner me that I miss!