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“Exotic”/ “commonplace” (#16 in “a shining moment” series)

To an Australian, peacocks are fabulously “exotic”, but this post’s peacocks were in their own land, where they are an “everyday” sight.

Indian peafowl live in most of the Indian subcontinent’s non-alpine regions.

So, many an Indian human pays them little attention.

To most non-Australians, a kangaroo is a fabulously exotic creature, but many Australians are not the least excited by ‘roos.

(photo, copyright Doug Spencer, taken 03 February 2020, Uttar Pradesh, India)

Too many of us – of whatever nationality – simply fail to appreciate how wonderful and/or singular is a particular species, simply because we encounter that species so very often, so easily.

A suggestion: the next time you see a kangaroo, or what Australians call “magpies”, or a galah, or literally any “common” plant, or the moon, or the late afternoon light, or whatever… slow down, pay attention, have a good look, and perhaps a good listen, too.

This just may reawaken your sense of wonder!

I have seen kangaroos on thousands of occasions, and I have encountered magpies on rather more than half of my life’s days.

Kangaroos and magpies still delight me, and each encounter is at least a little “singular”.

You don’t need to be a foreigner in a strange land in order to be thrilled by that place’s inhabitants!

Discover more about India’s National Bird here, and click this to learn a whole lot more about peafowls/peacocks, and their cultural significance to our own species.

Jimmy Rowles (1918-1996, his birth name was James George Hunter) reputedly knew more tunes than did any other jazz pianist.

For much of his life, he enjoyed a much lower public profile than did not a few jazz pianists of lesser musical note.

This was in part because Rowles was “a musicians musician”, mostly present on stages as an almost proverbially-sensitive accompanist.

He appeared content to let the spotlight focus on whichever singer he happened to be making sound better than they otherwise would have.

Tenor saxophonist Stan Getz was one of Rowles’ many higher-profile admirers.

In the 1970s Getz decided to use his own profile to lift that of some of his favourite “obscure” musicians, via a series of Stan Getz presents albums.

I think just the one album in fact eventuated, but it is a classic.

Recorded in 1975, issued in 1977, (Stan Getz Presents) Jimmy Rowles: The Peacocks was named for this shimmering Rowles original:

 

 

The Peacocks’ titlepiece has long since become a “standard”.

This is particularly beautiful:

 

 

Published in 'western' musics Americas and Eurasia and Africa instrumental music nature and travel photographs