Into the Night with Gary Stroutsos and his Native American flute!

So this morning I needed to do some writing at work so out came some Native American flute music. It came from an artist that I have never heard before Gary Stroutsos and his 2011 release Inside Tutka Bay and I am a fan! Additionally I have a lot of catching up to do because his career started with Native American music in 1994 when he moved from Washington to North Dakota and includes a gazillion albums! Stroutsos started his musical career after being in awe of Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull while at Grand Valley State College in Allendale, Michigan….

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Prog-Rock Exploration leads to the Ruhr Area of Germany and InVertigo!

  I guess Andrew started it with his Prog-Rock playlist for Father’s Day and the morning roots remembering continued it and over the last few days I’ve been listening to a lot of Prog-Rock. I’ve already written about one of the bands Dreamscape and today I’ve been listening to another InVertigo. Over the last two days I’e been listening to both of their albums Next Stop Veritgo and their latest release Veritas and I have enjoyed them both. InVertigo is a five man band from the Ruhr area of Germany composed of: Sebastian Brennert – Vocals, Keys, Matthias Hommel –…

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Into the Night with Kenny Burrell on his 81st Birthday!

So after I read this morning that it wasKenny Burrell’s birthday, I listened to a mix of his guitar work this morning and as always it was great! Burrell was born in Detroit, Michigan to a musical family and began playing guitar at the age of 12. From his biography  Kenny, who credits Charlie Christian, Oscar Moore, and Django Reinhardt as influences, as well as such bluesmen as T-Bone Walker and Muddy Waters, played on his first major recording session in Detroit in 1951 with a Dizzy Gillespie combo that included John Coltrane, Milt Jackson, and Percy Heath. Not bad for…

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Life’s Soundtrack – A tough run made better by Dreamscape!

The Run Well, if long slow running is good for you I did well tonight, at least the slow part! Since it wasn’t blazingly hot today,  and my legs didn’t feel bad, I thought  it was a good night to run.  I was right as far as the temperature, it did got hot in the sun and was ok in the shade, and my legs felt ok throughout, but I was damn slow, at least over the last couple of miles. Overall I completed the 3. mile run averaging 10:47 per mile-ouch!  But hell, I think I’ve run two times over…

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Musical Roots – Happy Birthday, Buddy Guy!

So today is the birthday of one of the Blues Legends George “Buddy” Guy was born July 30, 1936. Now for some reason I never got into Guy’s music until the last few years but his 2010 release Living Proof was of of my favorites that year. I guess I was too busy listening to the guys he influenced like Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan. From Wikipedia: Buddy Guy In the 1960s Guy was a member of Muddy Waters’ band and as a house guitarist at Chess Records. He can be heard on Howlin’ Wolf’s ‘Killing Floor’…

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Into the Night with Booker T.: Road From Memphis and “Born Under a Bad Sign”

So thoughts of Booker T & the MGs sent me to the iPod this afternoon to listen to The Road from Memphis Booker’s latest release, which in fact won a Grammy for Best Pop – Instrumental Performance. So let’s go into the night with a track from that album T, “The Bronx” featuring Lou Reed! and as a bonus here’s the classic “Born Under A Bad Sign” music by Booker T Jones, lyrics by William Bell, made famous by many people!!

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Lunchtime Jazz – John Coltrane (1926-1967)

I mentioned this morning that today is the day that John Coltrane passed away in 1967 from Wikipedia: John William Coltrane (also known as “Trane”; September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967[1]) was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz. He organized at least fifty recording sessions as a leader during his recording career, and appeared as a sideman on many other albums, notably with trumpeter Miles Davis and pianist Thelonious…

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Life’s Soundtrack – A good run with Zac Harmon’s Music is Medicine!

So after last night’s and this morning’s rain the temperatures today were fairly moderate, so I knew I could run this afternoon. This is really the first week in a long time that I’ve gotten three runs in, so I plotted out a flat course that was approximately 5 miles long, but I made it so that if I wanted to cut it short I could. My legs felt pretty good throughout the run and over the first 3 miles I ran at about a 9:50 pace, but on the fourth mile I was gassed so I figured that instead…

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Morning Music and last night’s run with Steve Strongman!

So Wednesday night I was going to run, but it was hot and I decided to eat first and then run, mistake! While it was cooler at 7:45, my old body had shut down by that time and really didn’t feel like starting again. So last night after work it seemed ok, pretty good when the sun was behind the clouds, hot when it was blazing. So I checked the cloud cover which seemed pretty large so I took off! legs seemed really good, not perfect but the best they’ve been in a long while! Thankfully the sun stayed behind…

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Nighttime Jazz- Mike Freeman , Zonavibe “The Vibesman”

So this afternoon I was doing some work in the office so I turned to some jazz on the iPod. Last week I had added a  jazz vibes player Mike Freeman Zonavibe The Vibesman to the iPod so that was what I turned on. Once again if you’ve read any of my past posts you know that vibes are one of my favorite instruments, making Gary Burton and  Milt Jackson among others favorite artists, and now I may have to add Mike Freeman to the list!. Mike is known for his recordings of original music (ranging from jazz, Latinjazz, salsa, Brazilian,…

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