Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
Thelonious Monk (1917-1982) is one of my favourite composers.
Ruby, My Dear has always been one of my favourite Monk ballads.
Among living pianists, Fred Hersch has, I think, proved the most consistently rewarding interpreter of Monk.
Until a few weeks ago, I had never heard Brian Landrus; I have heard literally thousands of Monk “covers”, but none lovelier than the one which concludes Brian’s new album.
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Photo (copyright Doug Spencer) taken just a few days before today’s winter solstice, in one of my favourite southwest Australian places.
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It is a great pleasure to encounter a non-gloating, happy person – one who appears comfortable in their own skin, who requires “no particular reason” to be happy, who radiates contentment, is fully alive, and not “on guard”.
Such encounters do not require a common language, nor any words to be spoken.
Typically, no commercial transaction is involved, no contest, no “big event”…
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A perfectly peaceful, spacious scene?
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These ferns were photographed on a spring afternoon in readily accessible rainforest, a short drive west from Apollo Bay, along the Great Ocean Road,
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Near the northern tip of New Zealand’s North Island is the so-called Ninety Mile Beach”.
It is no less magnificent for its actual length – “only” 88 kilometres.
Musically, today offers a sublime, spacious, shore-inspired instrumental solo, plus an also-spare song which depicts a lovely state of mind:
lost in a seagull’s flight
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The pictured twilight is in a beautiful part of Australia’s southwest – a so-called “valley” which many people repeatedly drive past without ever seeing, as they rush further “down south”…to “Marg’s”.
Mélodie au crépuscule is a beautiful composition which was NOT composed by Django Reinhardt.
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An attentive observer, watching a non-sleeping bird, will very rarely see a serene creature.
For most of their waking moments, most birds are obviously keenly aware of their vulnerability to predators, their opportunities as predators, and/or of how best to defend or advance their “place” within an ever-competitive hierarchy.
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This is a sequel to yesterday’s post, which addressed the very same tree and the same tune.
This post’s photo was taken a very few minutes after yesterday’s, in essentially the same conditions; “today’s” bark also sits on the lower trunk, and is less than a metre distant from “yesterday’s”.
The particular quartet responsible for “today’s” performance is a splendid foursome who never existed as a regular unit, nor ever made a studio album, as such.
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In one sense, absolutely nothing is timeless, most especially living things.
In another sense, however, many things are timeless – no matter how many times we see or hear or feel them, some things always reward our attention.
Today’s post and tomorrow’s post address the same, individual tree, and the same piece of music, with its composer present on both (different) occasions.
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