I met Ira Ono when I first moved to Maui in 1974. We were all Maui Family in those days, but I soon discovered that Ira and I both had paternal grandfathers with the same last name, who came to New York City from the same area around Kiev before the turn of the century. So, we determined, we are cousins.
Ira Ono, artist Sally French, Alicia Bay Laurel, fiber artist Pam Barton
Ever graceful, gracious, grateful, Ira never loses his cool. And he is absolutely the first guy I EVER knew who shaved his whole head on purpose.
Ceramic masks on sticks for garden decor
Some artists have a single running signature through their art, but Ira has many. One is the long faced, decorated mask that he produces in raku-ware ceramic. Another is is Japanese paste paper, made from dollops of blended acrylic paint and wallpaper paste mushed around on paper and textured with combs made from discarded credit cards. Strips of this become backgrounds for his collages and elements in his array of gift items, including blank journals.
An elegant “feng shui compliant” collage.
Ira collects little things he calls “goo-gahs,” parts from board games, small toys, pieces of machines, spiritual icons, measuring tape ribbon, cookie fortunes, postage stamps, all of which become elements in his mysterious large shadow box collages. Ira uses gold and silver powder to stencil designs on his painted wooden gift items (dream boxes, rainbow man christmas decorations, dragonfly magnets, for example). And Ira is a master at displaying his work in stores, and in his own semi-open air gallery in Volcano, employing fabrics and props with panache. A professional dancer since his teens, Ira’s got all the moves, and, at 61, he photographs exquisitely.
Dream boxes stencilled with gold and silver powders.
Ira is legendary in Hawaii not only for his art but for his scintillating public personna. At the first
“Feast or Famine” all Maui juried art show at Hui Noeau Arts Center, Ira danced into the opening night festivities on a rope, wearing nothing but Speedos, catsup, mustard and chocolate sauce.
Bedecked in flower leis, Ira and his twin brother Billy celebrate their 60th birthday with sixty friends. Between them is Billy’s wife Andrea.
Yearly on Maui, Oahu and Hawaii islands, Ira juries his invention, the Trash Art Show, which touts the virtues of recycling and invention, while entertaining hilariously with a trash art fashion show on opening night. He’s still got one of the winning pieces in the kitchen of the studio – a naked man doll made entirely from bottle caps.
Decorated masks displayed with eyecatching fabric in the Ono style.
So, do you think Laura Bush would have any of Ira’s art? She does. Ira’s bird tree ornament (feathered with color copies of antique Hawaiian postage stamps) was selected to decorate the White House Christmas tree in 2003.
Another birthday, swathed in leis by loving friends in true Hawaiian style
Ira opened Volcano Garden Arts, his studio/gallery in Volcano Village on the Big Island in a historic estate, and you must visit it when you drive up to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. You never can tell what might be going on at Volcano Garden Arts. He hosted a couple of my music and storytelling shows there, and I gifted him on his 60th birthday with two hours of guitar music for his grand and memorable fete.
Ira’s a vegetarian, so, for Thanksgiving one year, he rescued a male and female turkey, and gave them the run of his lot. He complained that they were copulating constantly.
July 8, 2006. The legendary Preservation Hall Jazz Band from New Orleans played a set at Amoeba Music on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, and I was in the front row, laughing, dancing, clapping my hands and taking pictures.
Trombonist Frank Demond, clarinetist Ralph Johnson, with trumpeter John Brunious singing, and alto saxophonist Darrel Adams
Hundreds of Hollywood hipsters jammed the aisles of the record store, loving the music.
Each player solo’d beautifully, the shout choruses at the end of each song thrilled us, and three of the players sang as only old jazz musicians can sing.
Bass player Walter Payton sings
During the last song of the set, (“Saints,” of course) the store staff distributed Mardi Gras beads, horns and bells, and the four horn players lead us in a second line, dancing around the store.
I bought one of the band’s CDs. I asked trumpet player/vocalist John Brunious, which was their most recent recording. He said, “This is what you want (pointing to Shake That Thing), but THIS is what you need.” THIS turned out to be Sweet Emma and her Preservation Hall Jazz Band, a two-CD set of a remastered 1964 recording with an earlier line-up of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, featuring a 66 year old woman pianist/vocalist named Sweet Emma Barrett. Sweet, indeed!
Alicia having fun at Amoeba Music
I gave John a copy of What Living’s All About, and hoped he’d enjoy Floozy Tune, my trad jazz original that opens the CD. He was kind enough to write down the names of the players so I could share them with you on this post.
Front entrance. The store occupies an entire city block.
Amoeba Music’s wild success as an independent record store stems from the party atmosphere, the great concerts, the vast, yet well organized, array of new CDs and DVDs as well as cheap used CDs and videos, their purchasing department, which buys lots of used items, as well as new, but relatively unknown, indie CDs like mine, the amazing decor, and the knowledgable staff. They have only three stores (Berkeley, Haight Ashbury, and Hollywood), all in locations with very large creative communities. They are not shy about their politics, either. On the outside of the Hollywood store hangs a huge yellow banner reading, “Give Peace a Chance.”
This is a song about speaking truth to power—not only to despots, but to our own collective power. The operative lyric here is VOTE. If everyone who could vote actually did vote, we could elect representatives who would work with us to reverse the vast environmental, public health, diplomatic, and human rights problems we earth-dwellers face, and make this a sustainable, joyful world for all who live in it, now and in the future. To vote well, we need truthful media (for example Truthout.org or Commondreams.org.) Also, we vote daily with our money; we need to support businesses that further sustainability and social justice, and boycott the rest. We need elections with publicly-funded election campaigns and hand-countable paper audits. Thank you.
Katharine Lee Bates wrote the lyrics to American the Beautiful on July 4, 1893; the melody comes from the hymn Materna, composed by Samuel A. Ward in 1882. Ms. Bates, a professor of English literature at Wellesley College, prolific poet and author, and ardent feminist, lived openly as a lesbian with her lifelong partner, Katharine Coman, Dean and professor of economics at Wellesley.
Curiously, the lyrics to America the Blues also revealed themselves on July 4th, 2003, while I was registering voters for the 2004 presidential election.
Arranged by Alicia Bay Laurel and Ron Grant, Singing and Speaking Vocal, Rhythm Guitar: Alicia Bay Laurel, Speaking Vocals: Jody Ashworth and Jessica Williams, Vocal Harmonies: Alicia Bay Laurel, Ron Grant and Jody Ashworth, Electric Guitar: Nels Cline, Electronic Symphony Orchestra: Ron Grant, Upright Bass: John B.Williams, Drums: Enzo Tedesco
America, the beautiful,
You’re thorny as a rose:
Radiation, global warming
Poisoned food from GMOs.
Your poor die sick and hungry,
And your wealthy live tax-free,
While they murder ancient forests
The soil and the sea.
America, America,
Greed sheds disgrace on thee.
Vote corporations out of power;
Revive democracy
For future generations
And human decency.
America, don’t blow it
All to smithereens.
You don’t need nukes; you don’t need slaves,
And you don’t need gasoline.
What you do need is compassion,
And respect for human rights,
Permaculture, sustainable systems,
Mediation instead of fights.
America, don’t wave that flag
To con us with your jive.
If the multi-nationals have their way
Even rich folks won’t survive.
We’re all family here on this planet,
So lay down that smoking gun,
And start sharing with your neighbors;
There’s enough for everyone.
I pledge allegiance to the earth
In the myriad stars of the universe
And to all the beings who upon her stand
One family, indivisible,
With liberty and justice for all.
America, America,
Greed sheds disgrace on thee.
Vote corporations out of power,
Revive democracy
For future generations
And human decency.
Tonight I had dinner with my godmother, Godeane Eagle, an author, vocal coach and speech therapist, and a fine natural foods chef. Here’s what she made:
Spinach and Cabbage Salad A refreshing blend of sweet, pungent, acid, and slightly bitter flavors.
In each bowl, a couple handfulls of well-washed baby spinach leaves, and an equal amount of grated green cabbage, and one or two red radishes, with ends removed and cut into eighths.
Sprinkle with sliced almonds and raisins. Dress with fresh lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil.
Polenta with Scallions and Celery A very light, delicate, and flavorful polenta!
Remove roots and upper ends, and chop into 1/4 inch slices, two bunches of scallions and two celery stalks. Place one cup of polenta corn meal in a pan with four cups of pure water, bring to a boil, and reduce heat so that it simmers, and add the scallions and celery. Cook for thirty minutes, then pour out into a square sided baking pan and chill overnight so that it hardens.
Chicken or Chicken-style Seitan in Onion Sauce
Roast two chopped onions in a roasting pan. If you are an omnivore, roast them as the bed on which you are roasting a whole chicken, which yields a pan gravy. The pan gravy and the onions are chilled overnight and the hardened chicken fat skimmed off the next day. What remains is a chicken consomme with onions, which you place in a deep skillet, and inwhich you reheat the slices of polenta along with two uncooked chicken breast halves (cook them until they are white all the way through – no pink in the middle). If you are cooking vegan, make your consomme from boiling together one whole okra pod, one peeled garlic clove, and a sprig each of parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. The okra gels the broth. Strain and mix with the roasted onions, use this to heat slices of chicken-style seitan. Add salt if you must. Slices of fresh ripe apricot provide an excellent accompaniment to the chicken or seitan.
Adobe and sculpture at New Buffalo commune, Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico
New Buffalo Summer Solstice Gathering June 21, 2006 by Iris Claire Keltz Author and editor of Scrapbook of a Taos Hippie
The long languid lazy days of summer hold an amazing paradox: At the pinnacle of light and warmth the days begin to grow shorter, while on the darkest, often coldest day of winter the light begins to return to earth. The ancients were acutely aware of these celestial cycles as were the counter culture peoples of the sixties, who identified with and emulated indigenous cultures across the globe. This year thousands of revelers gathered at Stonehenge, England on the same day as we gathered at New Buffalo, in Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico to celebrate the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. New Buffalo, once a thriving 60’s commune and sanctuary to many, was the perfect place to rekindle dreams of youth and reflect on the blessing of family, friends of long standing and abundant gifts from earth. In the distance, a dramatic shale colored escarpment guides the Hondo River on its course to the Rio Grande. This piece of land is where I witnessed the journey of the sun on its northern and southernmost points. Eyes range unimpeded across the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in the east to the sloping west mesa that will eventually blanket the sun.
‘Welcome Home’, read the sign leaning into the wire fence at the beginning of the long rocky driveway. I return with my 29 year old daughter Minka, who has heard the hippie stories countless times and smiles patiently at her aging mom. New Buffalo was the commune where I lived in the late 60’s, a place where many of us hoped to spend the rest of our lives, to share everything, births, deaths, raising our children, building homes. We would live off the land. Bless the seedlings in the garden, the maturing crops, the birth of new animals. Comfort each other during times of hardship and tragedy. This is true social security. Even imagining that possibility makes me feel secure, less alone, more hopeful, making it easier to resist the fear being hurled at us these days, about terrorists, global warming, climate change, never ending wars and environmental degradation.
The original New Buffalo, 103 acres of sage and pinon, was purchased in the late ‘60’s by Rick Klein, a young poet from Pittsburgh who generously used his inheritance to start a commune and went on to build an organic looking adobe home for himself and his wife on Lama Mountain with western views to eternity.
Like butterflies and grasshoppers, we didn’t pay attention to the passing of time. Some of us didn’t stop to gather nuts or build winter shelters and were caught unprepared to sustain the dreams of youth. Idealistic they were. Practical they were not. We were young, on a chartless course, gloriously ignorant of the pitfalls and perils of communal life where anarchy was the accepted law with powerful personalities ruling the roost. We lost our way or got seduced back into a capitalistic system that offered many rewards. Max Feinstein, one of the original New Buffalo dwellers, commuted between Israel and New Mexico, getting disillusioned in one place and migrating to the other. But even the kibbutzim in Israel, supported by the government, could not stand against a relentless capitalism. These once socialistic communities have become profit making enterprises with expensive guest houses and tourist amenities. You can no longer drop in, find a home and help with the orange harvest as I once did.
But the dream survived the excesses of youth.
We have come from far and wide to be here. Some have not passed this way for a long time. Some never left this mountain valley and some are here for the first time, like a woman I met from Holland. Some could not face our youthful dreams without derision and cynicism. But for those of us who chose to share this moment of hope, we form a circle in the courtyard, like in times past, to hold hands and pray. We call out the names of those who have died and bless this most recent attempt to rekindle an old dream. There are cemeteries in New York filled with landslot, people who once lived together in villages in eastern Europe. Maybe there could be a cemetery at New Buffalo for us, to help future generations remember the dream we tried to do here.
The kitchen is still a place to quench one’s thirst and gather. My daughter helps the women working in the kitchen, just like I did so many years ago. A few hours later, she feels at home and understands something that my words could never convey. Shrieks of joy, laughter and tears, sounds of heatfelt reunions happening all around. Some were young children when they last met. Some barely recognize friends in our newly old bodies but we can still seduce each other with stories, dreams and memories. Graying, bald, overweight men and women, some using canes and walkers rise to the music that still excites us and gets us on our feet. Back then, the message was in the music. You didn’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blew. The times were changing cause the revolution was comin’ and we were going to get there on our horse with no name. We were and still are stardust, golden and trying to get ourselves back to the garden.
While not exactly lying fallow since the agrarian dream faded, New Buffalo has been through a variety of incarnations- as a private school and a bed and breakfast. Although he was never part of the counter-culture as a young man, the new New Buffalo Bob Fies, has put and put his fortune on the line to refurbish the crumbling buildings and to rekindle a dream because he understands that sustainable creative communities are the best antidote to gluttonous consumerism, alienation and fear that afflict modern American society. If this sounds familiar, it’s because we have been at this juncture before, only this time the stakes are higher. Whether you identify yourself as progressive, liberal, conservative, anarchist, Democrat, Republican, Green or other, there are basically two choices facing humankind- those who are trying to bring on Armageddon, end time, and leave no tree standing and those who understand that all life forms on this planet are sacred and have the right to life. Our Native Americans taught us that every decision and action we take affects seven generations.
We are faced with an “inconvenient truth” Al Gore’s film forces us to face. The frightening reality which we all share calls for nothing less than paradigm shift. No longer can we operate for profit only. No longer victors and victims, empires and subjects, exploiters and slaves. We enter the age of interdependence and sustainability. The resurgence of New Buffalo, and other intentional communities offer us a chance to re-create this movement in the quiet of our older years, through the lens of wisdom that has taken us a lifetime to garner. People still want to live in community and realize that rules protect as well as limit. To those who would scoff and call me naive, I ask you to consider that our youthful folly may be the compost that gives seed to sustainable forms of living together that enable us survive and thrive during the difficult days ahead.
To be or not to be was the ultimate existential question for our friend Hamlet. Those of us gathered here on this solstice might not have the luxury of that choice, for unless we ask ourselves how to be, we all might not be at all.
I’m going to give you my fajita recipe in both vegan and omnivore versions. It’s sort of a faux Mexican stir fry. The recipe serves two, but it cheerfully multiplies to feed an entire fiesta.
If you’re using free range/organic chicken or turkey breasts, bake them slightly (microwave two minutes or toaster oven bake 10 minutes) so you can easily slice them into quarter inch slices, and set them aside. Prepare one pound per two people. You can always eat the leftovers the next day.
Vegan options: seitan (wheat gluten protein) will probably come sliced already, but, if not, slice it in quarter inch slices. Again, one pound serves two. Or: slice extra-firm tofu, or Portabello mushrooms.
Slice thin: One large or two small onions per two people, and one red bell pepper and one green bell pepper (or yellow or orange or purple), per two people. Chop finely one peeled clove of garlic.
In a large skillet or wok over a hot flame, place two tablespoons of sesame oil. When a drop of water sizzles if dropped into the oil, add the garlic and stir briskly with a spatula so that it browns but doesn’t burn. When it’s brown, add the onion slices and stir them until they are soft and translucent. Then add the pepper slices and continue to stir/fry the vegetables another five minutes. Last add the fowl or seitan slices, and stir/fry until the chicken or turkey slices are white all the way through (no pink) or the seitan is just heated through. Add Bragg’s Liquid Aminos or pink Himalayan salt to taste.
I like to serve fajitas as part of a taco bar, which is a lovely party dinner menu when you have picky eaters (like me) coming, because people can eat only the ingredients they can bear and ignore the rest.
My taco bar layout generally consists of: freshly made tomato salsa, Amy’s Organic Refried Beans with Green Chile (or your own recipe for refried beans), grated cheese, corn and/or wheat tortillas warmed on an ungreased skilled and kept warm inside a clean dish towel between two plates, pitted black olives, cut up avocado (or guacamole), freshly washed and spun organic romaine lettuce cut into quarter inch strips, and the fajitas.
How to cut up an avocado: Press slightly on the sides of the avocado to ascertain whether it is ready to eat. It should give slightly. If it doesn’t, let it sit for another day or two. If it’s very soft, it’s probably overripe. (But cut it open and check it out before you throw it out.) Cut the avocado in half from the stem stub to the bottom of the fruit and back, and twist and separate the halves. If you are only going to use half, save the half with the seed in it in an airtight container in the refrigerator. If you are going to use the whole fruit, cut both halves in this way: score the flesh like a tic-tac-toe, then use a spoon to remove the pieces of avocado from the shell.
How to neatly remove the seed from the half avocado: insert a sharp knife deeply into the seed, then turn the knife clockwise. It should lift the seed from the avocado without leaving a mark on the flesh.
Cover painted, lettered and designed by Alicia Bay Laurel
PERFORMING SONGWRITER MAGAZINE, MAY 2007
TOP 12 DIY PICKS by Mare Wakefield, Indie Music Editor
What Living’s All About—a title that’s appropriate for a woman who has lived her life with such gusto. A Bohemian artist, Alicia Bay Laurel lived on a houseboat off Sausalito and a commune in Sonoma before spending 25 years on Maui. In addition to her music, she’s worked as a cook, collage artist, yoga instructor, wedding planner, underwater photographer and she’s the author of a New York Times bestseller, the whimsical Living on the Earth, first published in 1971.
The rich tapestry of her life translates to her music. In the Billie Holiday-esque “Floozy Tune,” Laurel plays the role of the Sunday School teacher turned barfly. In “America the Blues” she dishes out scathing political commentary to the tune of “America the Beautiful” (“America, America, greed sheds disgrace on thee / You don’t need nukes, you don’t need slaves, you don’t need gasoline”). She has fun with the smart “Aquarian Age Liberated Woman Blues” (“Seaweed for breakfast is good for you”) and the gospel-imbued “Doctor Sun and Nurse Water.” Laurel’s jazzy Earth-mother sound will seduce and inspire.
Just a quick note from London. I have reviewed your last CD at ejazznews.com. It is excellent. As I wrote in the review, by far one of the best for 2006.
I get close to 200 CDs a week sent to me, but yours stood out because of its transparently high level of musicianship and sincerity – qualities which are very rarely found combined these days.
Kind Regards,
John Stevenson
Alicia Bay Laurel: What Living’s All About, Jazz Blues & Other Moist Situations (IWS)
With a provocative title like this one, Ms. Laurel will certainly catch the attention of any reviewer! This is most certainly one of the most audacious, heartfelt and honest discs I’ve put in my CD player for the year. Alicia (who sounds like the artistic love child of Joan Baez and Tom Waits) brings a folk-singer’s sensibility to bear on jazz and pulls no punches: On America The Blues, she declaims: America, the beautiful/you’re thorny as a rose:/Radiation, global warming/Poisoned food from GMOs./ She also sings a delightful version of Eden Ahbez’s Nature Boy. The accompaniment from guitarist Nels Cline, bass player John B. Williams and pianist Rick Olson is divine.
* * * *
BLUES REVUE MAGAZINE January 2008 Tom Hyslop Blues Bites: Reviews in Brief
Alicia Bay Laurel conveys life’s sudden shifts and jarring juxtapositions on What Living’s All About (Indigo With Stars 003). Sandwiched between the opener, “Floozy Tune,” and “Aquarian Age Liberated Woman Blues,” two formally classic blues that could have come from Ma Rainey if not for the namechecks (belly dancing, astral projection, The I. Ching, bee pollen candy and natty dread), comes “America the Blues,” with strident references to economic inequality, environmental rapine, corporate greed, and political corruption. Laurel moves from girlish singing on the Twenties-style songs to this doomy incantation, the arrangement taking full advantage of the jaw-dropping talent of avant-guitarist Nels Cline (best known as Wilco’s secret weapon). With cuts such as “Doctor Sun and Nurse Water” (a gospel-drenched number with oddly matched lyrics), and the Fever tribute of the title track, Living will strike some as too California in its outlook. But lovely touches abound, such as the stately, quietly anthemic “Love, Understanding and Peace,” and Doug Webb’s beautiful alto work on “Zero Gravity.”
FEMINIST REVIEW, Friday, June 1, 2007 Alicia Bay Laurel – What Living’s All About
All would-be writers who have studied how to write know the rule: “show me don’t tell me.” Visual artists find this advice easy to do and musicians are, perhaps, the same way. When the creative instrument does not rely solely on words, showing is not too difficult.
Alicia Bay Laurel wrote Living on the Earth, a cult classic and the first paperback on the New York Times Bestseller List (spring 1971), which has sold over 350,000 copies. She has also written five other books. Laurel is a talented, trained musician. She grew up playing classical piano, switched to guitar in her teens and learned open tunings from legendary guitarist John Fahey, a family member. On this latest album, What Living’s All About, she works with some of the best musicians in the field, including avant garde guitar hero Nels Cline.
Alicia Bay Laurel tries to show and tell by weaving feelings, melody and an occasional diatribe word. She celebrates the Earth (nature) and embraces her sensuality. She also loudly laments the destruction of the environment, as in her song “America the Blues,” where the listing of our environmental sins drags a bit. At the same time, the song is strangely effective. The entwining hypnotic music ended with a smashing guitar rift, followed by a spine tingling sound of whale songs and a Native American Chant. This is an excellent protest song. Alicia Bay Laurel and Al Gore should be friends.
“Zero Gravity” is a haunting song about a city at night, reminiscent of Ground Zero in New York City where the Twin Towers used to be. Laurel talks about sex in this CD and does it with class, sometimes with gentle humor, like “Floozy Tune.” However, you won’t know what she’s talking about unless you listen closely. This blend of jazz, blues and gospel is a powerful feminist statement. It’s fantastic!
Review by Patricia Ethelwyn Lang
“Floozy Tune” Wins Song Contest 7/9/2007 4:38:10 PM “Floozy Tune” Status: Selected Congratulations, you have been selected as a Top 20 Finalist in the Jazz Category of the 11th Annual Unisong International Song contest. Results are at http://www.unisong.com/Winners11.aspx.
This year featured the highest overall quality of songs, lyrics, and writers ever submitted by far, with the most diverse and varied entries from a multitude of countries representing every continent on Earth except Antarctica (and songwriting penguins out there).
The judging therefore was extremely competitive and to be singled out anywhere in the top 15% of all songs submitted was no easy feat.
Review of What Living’s All About by psychedelic folk radio DJ, Gerald Van Waes. His show, Psyche Van Het Folk, is on Radio Centraal, Antwerp, Belgium.
Like one of my favourite heartfelt singer-songwriter singers (Heather McLeod with ‘Funny Thing’, 1997), also Alicia went to more towards (slightly standard) jazz territories, but as a former hippie, it is clear this is not done as a compromise to please/tease a public. Her interpretations (-most songs are self penned-) are with great feelings, and a certain light happiness beyond each other idea or emotion. She describes the style mix well on the cover as “jazz, blues and other moist situations”. With additionally a a bit of New Orleans influence on “Floozy Tune”, and a bit of gospel on “Doctor Sun and Nurse Water” (about what the environment of Hawaii did to her), she wrote inspired something between jazz and jazz-blues and something else soulful. I like the idea on “America the Blues” saying “America, don’t wave that flag to con us with your jive…”..”we’re all family on this planet”.. (Just imagine how America is built upon so many nationalities and bought talents from everywhere, unfortunately mostly still chosen from what are seen as the trustworthy countries and areas (so practically still excluding preferably the French, Spanish, and several Arab-speaking countries and native Indians for economic concurrence, racist, nowadays partly religious, and a few other reasons).. Potentionally I realize America still has all opportunities and a certain openness to experiment for those who succeed to start to participate in the system. This track, like a few tunes elsewhere has some, for me, rather amusing freaky electric avant-garde guitar by Nels Cline (Wilco,..). Alicia, for having experienced a certain earthbound process, matured, she still has the happiest aspects of the hippie; this sum must having benefited the soul and music of the singer, who on her recent photograph on the back cover still looks 25 or so, so I guess the message of this lies somewhere as a benefit hidden in the music. Rather brilliant as an interpretation I think is “Nature Boy” (originally by Nat King Cole, but also covered by Grace Slick), in an emotionally calm contrapoint-driven moody jazz style, with the help of John B. Williams on upright bass and Enzo Tedesco on other instruments. A really fine and enjoyable album.
Alicia is a self-proclaimed “hippie chick” who I met through (drummer) Joe Gallivan. She had a hit book back in the 60s called [stay tuned for title – forgot it], which she says “was in practically every hippie commune outhouse in the west” (no doubt right next to “Be Here Now”!). This is, I believe, self-released, and is quite an odd but strangely entertaining, original, and disarming recording. It has a some amazing L.A.-based session/jazz players like (saxophonist) Doug Webb, who reaches beyond his Coltrane-esque tenor to turn in some beautiful post-Desmond alto, brilliant drummer Kendall Kay, and bassist John B. Williams, whom many may remember as the Fender player on The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson for many years. There is a choir on here! The songs are sort of 1920s-30s era swing, acoustic swing blues, and… Well anyway, when someone like Alicia asks me to do tons of Hendrix-inspired shrieking and psych looping (“America The Blues”) or fuzzed out adversarial commentary (“It’s Not Fair”), I figure that when the disc comes out that the stuff will, as it usually is, be buried or cut out altogether. I was amazed when I heard this that Alicia REALLY WANTED these sounds and that THEY ARE REALLY LOUD! I don’t know what people who know my music will think of this, but there is something so wry and self-deprecatingly amusing about Alicia’s hippie anthems, protest songs, and tales of failed romance that I find myself grinning. Hmmmm….Oh yes, I also play slide, lap steel, and acoustic guitar on this. I’m on 4 or 5 tracks.
Review by Platinum-selling singer/songwriter Joe Dolce
I think this is a very creative record with a lot of wonderful ideas and performances and some pretty extraordinary playing, and endearing vocals all over the place. I like it a lot!! I liked all the songs much better on the second listen. A keeper. Good work.
The album is eclectic, diverse musical styles. Therefore, I can relate to it! What holds it altogether is Alicia’s musical ‘personae’ – the complex character she is creating, through her voice and ideas. As you get to know this character more and more, as the songs and ideas progress, you trust her more and it allows you to enter more easily into whatever type of musical style is coming next. (Also this trust is a reason to want to go back and listen again.) Also the IDEAS are clear. The lead vocals are strong with a lot of presence. The musicians are all brilliant and the soloing is tasteful and creative – no cliches or stumbling around musically anywhere to be found.
Re: “Nature Boy.” I believe that if you can take the listener to a unique Hilltop, and give them a view that they will never forget, even ONCE in a recording or performance, that is enough. One brilliant moment builds a bridge of trust between you and them that will allow them to be more open to whatever you do from then on, even if they don’t relate or understand it. (You may never be able to take them to that High Point again but it doesn’t matter – it’s like great sex or great playing- you may not be able to LIVE with that person, but you will NEVER forget that encounter.) This track took me to that Hill. I feel different now about the whole recording.
Re: “I Could Write a Book.” This track is the track where I first gasped: genius! What an amazing idea. A track like this makes me have to listen to the whole CD over again to see if I missed anything the first time around on those opening tracks. A totally inspir ed idea that works. No one else has ever done something like this with a standard. Perfect. I played this one for Lin. She liked it a lot, too. (She didn’t think her publisher would like it though! ha ha!) Joe Dolce Melbourne, Australia
Today I presided and sang at Kim and Richard’s wedding at the Velaslavasay Panorama Union Theatre in the West Adams District of Los Angeles, surrounded by dozens of their friends, all artists, writers, musicians, and their families. Kim and I go back 24 years. Richard designed this blogsite.
The appropriately titled marquee of the Union Theatre, an antique being gorgeously restored by Kim and Richard’s friend Sarah
Kim Cooper, a regal bride in her red sari
Everything about this wedding, from the movie poster invitation that Kim and Richard designed together, to the cakes each iced with rice paper prints of their favorite paintings, to the ceremony’s highly original writing, to the inclusion of a cat fortune reader and a psychedelic-painted bus, added up to a unique and memorable afternoon.
Mio the gypsy, with his fortune telling cat
The Party Bus, which conveyed celebrants from distant parking
Jasper Rose, professor of art history at UC Santa Cruz, had four favorite students, who he considered most gifted. Two, Kim and Richard, could not abide one another, but Jasper told Cathy, Kim’s roommate, best friend, and the third student of this group, that he thought Kim and Richard were soul mates. Eighteen years later they fell in love. So now, twenty years later, they are marrying, with Cathy as matron of honor and Nathan, the fourth, and most dramatic, member of this group, reading a wedding oratory sent by Jasper from England for the occasion.
Jasper Rose had compared the marrying process to baking a simnel cake:
“Well! There you have it. You must, long since, have realized that I was dealing in allegory. As in all allegories some bits fit perfectly. Trusty old baking tin—this handsome Gazebo. The cool fingered cook, our Queen of the Hippies, whose dextrous hands enable her to ride even a bad tempered giraffe, our presiding genius.
(Kim had described me to Jasper as the Queen of the Hippies, and he wrote it into the script!)
“INGREDIENTS: it is pretty obvious that Kim must be demerera sugar. But Richard—can he be that unsalted fresh Normandy butter that nonetheless needs a bit of warming? Or is he just stone ground flour—watch out for the lumps!
“And the saffron. What can that be that we have to be so beware of substitutes, imitations? You’ve guessed it: the ultimate spice, the overarching blessing—LOVE.”
Clarence Johnston, Jacob Johnston and Cal Bezemer cook up some jazz on the stage of the theatre. For Kim and Richard’s first dance, I sang with the trio “(Our) Love is Here to Stay.”
I am a huge fan of Living on the Earth, but after a recent post in your blog, I now have reasons to hunt for your other books!
I have a rather odd question, but I have been wondering: What do you do for fun, what brings you joy in your spare time, when you are not working on your book projects or making music?
Lots of love & light, Amy Durwaigh
Hi Amy!
Thanks so much for your sweet letter.
I am, as you might suspect, a nature freak. I love to walk around (or swim around, or dance around) looking at plants, animals, and geologic forms. I also love to applaud other artists doing their art, which means I like to read, see movies, attend performances, gaze at art and architecture, and listen to music. I call all of this “visiting shrines of nature and shrines of culture.”
I spent my entire walk today obsessing about who will win the Living on the Earth Award, and decided that, since I’m The Decider here at aliciabaylaurel.com, I’m going to award SEVEN Living on the Earth Awards!
The Living on the Earth Award for consciousness-raising filmmaking, inspiration to millions of children, and truly handmade animation goes to Karen Aqua! (a theatre full of applause!!!)
Ken Field and Karen Aqua
The Living on the Earth Award for performing and composing jazz, avant-garde, performance dance music, film music, and voodoo dance music, while also making a living, adoring his wife, and having a radio show, goes to Ken Field! (stomps, cheers and whistles!!!)
Ayala and Alicia
The Living on the Earth Award for actually living on the earth, and in the most creative and elegant manner possible, while also actually making a living as folk artist-entrepreneur, and while also doing community organizing, goes to Ayala Talpai! (a plethora of felted hats thrown into the air!!!)
The Living on the Earth Award for balls to the walls international and domestic political and environmental activism, while also making a living writing books and giving workshops, and while also promoting spirituality through her work, goes to Starhawk! (a volley of seedballs fly everywhere!!!)
Joe Dolce and Alicia
The Living on the Earth Award for outrageous songwriting, singing, guitar-playing, harmonica mastery, humor, cabaret theatre, newsletter writing, political activism and dada recipes, and making a living by doing all of these with panache, goes to Joe Dolce (a cacophony of screaming fans!!!)
Jeff Gere
The Living on the Earth Award for superb storytelling, story festival organizing, puppet theatre, storytelling radio, acting, dancing, enchanting children and adults wherever he performs, and making a living doing all of that at the same time as participating actively in politics, goes to Jeff Gere! (all kinds of funny sound effects and a sea of tiny hands clapping!!!)
The Living on the Earth Award for permaculture writing and teaching, producing that classic on the subject, Gaia’s Garden, and remaining active in his community as a voice for sustainability as well as being an example of it in his own life, goes to Toby Hemenway! (a gale of birds, the gurgle of a running brook, and a mighty roar of wind in the trees!!!)
Alicia Bay Laurel 
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