jazz

*Back cover (aka tray card) for What Living’s All About. Photo of Alicia by portrait photographer Nils Juul-Hansen in 1999.*

Alicia Bay Laurel created What Living’s All About: Jazz, Blues and Other Moist Situations as the third in her CD series. In 2000, Alicia recorded Music From Living on the Earth: Free-spirited Original Songs for Voice and Guitar from the Late ‘60s and Early ‘70s, playing open-tuned guitar in the John Fahey style, followed in 2001 by Living In Hawaii Style: Original and Historic Hawaiian Songs, Sung With Slack Key Guitar, featuring Hawaiian spiritualist/chanter Lei’ohu Ryder and jazz guitarist/vocalist Sam Ahia. Alicia is best known for her 1970 best-selling hand-written back-to-nature manual Living on the Earth, now in its fifth edition in English, and in print since 1974 in Japanese.

Rights

All songs (music and lyrics) by Alicia Bay Laurel (c) 2006, and published by Bay Tree Music (ASCAP), except “I Could Write A Book” (music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Lorenz Hart) (c) 1940, and published by Williamson Music Company and Chappell & Company, and “Nature Boy” (music and lyrics by Eden Ahbez) (c) 1948, and published by Golden World.The spoken words on “I Could Write A Book” are quoted from How To Write A Book Proposal, Third Edition, (c) 2003 by renowned literary agent Michael Larsen. They are used with the kind permission of Writer’s Digest Books, a division of F+W Publications, Inc., Cincinnati, Ohio. All rights reserved. If you could write a book, you need to read this one. The spoken words on “Love, Understanding and Peace” are quoted from the Bible, New Testament, Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 13, and are in public domain. The powwow chanting and drumming at the end of “America The Blues” is from Honor The Earth Powwow: Songs of the Great Lakes Indians, recorded by Mickey Hart and Dr. Thomas Vennum, Jr. of the Smithsonian, and originally released by Rykodisc in 1991. The humpback whale song after the powwow is a sample I found on findsounds.com, but not even the webmaster of the website from which it originated was able to tell me from whence it came.

Credits

Tray card photo of Alicia by portrait photographer Nils Juul-Hansen

Manufactured by A to Z Media for Indigo With Stars, Inc. (Alicia Bay Laurel’s art, music and literary business)

Executive Producer (the person who paid for everything): Alicia Bay Laurel.

Producers (the people who decided together which instruments and singers went on which song, and how to arrange the songs): Oscar-and Emmy Award-winning film composer Ron Grant, and Alicia Bay Laurel.

Recording: The original sketch for the project was recorded in August 2005 at Seawest Studios, in Pahoa, Hawaii, with Hoku Award-winning owner/engineer Rick Asher Keefer (who recorded Alicia’s first two CDs). All of Alicia’s guitar parts and her vocal on Best of the Rest of You are from those sessions. Ron Grant recorded in his own studio some of the vocal parts for “America the Blues” and “Love, Understanding and Peace,” and created the electronic symphony on “America the Blues.” All of the other recording, mixing and mastering was accomplished in November and December 2005 and January and February 2006 at the studio of Scott Fraser in Los Angeles. Scott is the recording engineer and live sound technician for the Kronos Quartet’s recordings and performances, and was nominated for a Grammy Award for You’ve Stolen My Heart, a collaboration of the Kronos Quartet and East Indian pop superstar Asha Bhosle, which he co-produced.

Musicians: My heartfelt thanks to all of the superb players who participated in recording this CD, including avant-garde guitar hero Nels Cline (who plays with his own ensembles, as well as with the band Wilco), jazz upright bass legend John B. Williams (Nancy Wilson, Manhattan Transfer, Arsenio Hall Show Band, Tonight Show Big Band) and his red hot R & B vocalist wife Jessica Williams, who forms the gospel choir along with her daughter Vetia Richardson, and her friend Irene Cathaway (with whom she sings backup for Connie Stevens), gospel keyboardist Reverend Harold Pittman (Minister of Music at the Greater Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church in South Central Los Angeles), woodwind wizard Doug Webb (who totally smokes on a different instrument on each of four songs), three fabulous top flight drummers: David Anderson, Kendall Kay, and Enzo Tedesco, fluid and cool jazz pianist Rick Olson, two rock-solid, multi-talented bassists: Kevin O’Neal and Chris Conner, versatile actor/vocalist Jody Ashworth, and soulful Liberian gospel singer Francis Nyaforh.

Acknowledgments:

Nudging, kibbitzing, hand-holding and divine guidance: Ron Grant, Scott Fraser and Rick Asher Keefer (see above), improvisational music legend Joe Gallivan, jazz pianist Theo Saunders and his actress/artist wife Susan Heldfond Saunders, music producer Stan Goldstein (the first Woodstock began as a synapse firing in his brain), jazz vocalist Ruthie Ristich (who coached me), vocalist/ songwriter/ actress/ dancer/ novelist Sierra Faith (who coached me), speech therapist and singing teacher (and godmother) Godeane Eagle (who coached me), artist Tracy Dove (who never stops nudging me to do more art), singer/songwriter Joe Dolce (a shining example), electronic music pioneer and enlightenment wonk Ramon Sender (for funny faces and wise words), guitarist Joe Marquand (who wanted me to record these songs so much he volunteered to play on my sketch sessions for free), journalist Koki Aso (who, while interviewing me for Be Pal magazine, wished mightily for a CD of my jazz and blues songs), record producer Koki Emura (who released my first two CDs in Japan in September 2005 on his label, EM Records), and vocalist/ songwriter/ bassist Sachiho Kudomi, who says now that I have three CDs released in Japan, I should come on the road with her. Big love and big thanks to you each and all!

The friends who sheltered me the year I got this CD together: Composer Ron Grant and artist Benida Solow, vocalist and community organizer Lyndia Lowy, architect Walt Bell and artist Norma Bell, surgeon and community leader Barry Blum and playwright and educator Gloria Blum, Professor of Sociology and activist Noelie Rodriguez and Hawaii County Planning Director Chris Yuen, artist Tracy Dove and mechanical genius Ralph Coppen. How can you tell if hippies have been staying at your house? They’re still there. Thank you for your generous hospitality and over-the-top friendship!

Other friends I’d like to thank: Internet promotion mavens Kim Cooper (editrix of Scram Magazine, Lost in the Grooves, The 1947 Project and Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth) and computer wizard Richard Schave, television sound engineer Bill Daly and event organizer Lihau Daly, attorneys Mark and Marissa Batt (who was nominated for an Edgar Award for her first true crime book Ready for the People in 2005), luthier Dennis Lake (for blessing my guitars with his care), luthier David Santo (I’m playing a guitar he built for me in 1976 on this CD), and, of course, my mom, artist Verna Lebow Norman. Thank you all for your help. I am blessed you are in my life!

The Songs:

Floozy Tune

Beloved by Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, my grandmother Anna Lebow (1894-1990), and 20-year-old actress Ali Grant, Floozy Tune should have been written in 1920, when women got the vote and got rid of their corsets. However, I didn’t get around to it until 1982.

Arranged by Alicia Bay Laurel and Ron Grant, Vocal: Alicia Bay Laurel, Piano: Rick Olson, Clarinet: Doug Webb, Bass: Chris Conner, Drums: Kendall Kay

Mr. Nightlife, Mr. Cool, how could you make me such a goddamn fool?

I was made to sing church songs, but what did I know

‘Til I went out to your nightclub show?

Girls like me never laugh ‘til dawn;

We know too well where the lines are drawn.

So, why do I want to do what I do not do?

I want to sit on your piano and sing you a floozy tune.

Mr. Jazzfingers, Mr. Blues, how could you offer what I can’t refuse?

I was made to be married to some Mr. Right,

‘Til I got enlightened last Saturday night.

I danced and sang and I laughed ‘til dawn;

Fell in your arms when the shades were drawn,

And found I could do with you what I do not do,

So I’ll sit your piano and sing you a floozy tune.

They’re gonna lose their Sunday school teacher, their volunteer librarian.

My mama’s gonna have conniption fits, but it’s time that I had some fun.

Mr. Jazzfingers, Mr. Blues, the Sunday soprano is a sweet chanteuse

Touring the country with a reprobate band,

Reputation lost to a piano man.

Rise at sunset and sleep at dawn,

Deep in your arms when the shades are drawn.

I knew I could do with you what I do not do.

So, I’ll sit on your piano and sing you a floozy tune.

America The Blues

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 state-financed candidates 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, 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.

Don’t wave that flag at me;

Try human decency.

Aquarian Age Liberated Woman Blues

I still can’t believe how much fun I had in the ’60’s, even if the guys wouldn’t commit.

Arranged by Alicia Bay Laurel and Ron Grant, Vocal and rhythm guitar: Alicia Bay Laurel, Lap steel and acoustic lead guitar: Nels Cline, Bass: John B. Williams, Drums: Enzo Tedesco

Sprouts in a jar, stash in a can, a twenty-pound backpack, and a Volkswagen van,