Say Do You Remember Dancing in September?

Say Do You Remember Dancing in September? 

"Do you remember the 21st night of September?

Love was changing the minds of pretenders

while chasing the clouds away, our hearts were ringing

in the key that our souls were singing. 

As we danced in the night, remember how the stars stole the night away."

-  September, Lyrics by Maurice White, Charles Stemney and Verdine White (Earth, Wind & Fire)

August opened with a performance at Chester’s Bayview Cafe, Berkeley, CA, on August 2^nd.  This was a special evening where we experimented with presenting American Indian song and poetry as a mini-set within our regular music set of original songs and standards. One of Dave’s American Indian poems, Sky Gods are Weaving a Basket of Light, also included some Native-style singing with Chappell accompanying him on guitar.

We invited Nanette Deetz, Cherokee/Dakota poet, to read in English and also from the translations she has done in the Dakota language. She joined Chappell and Dave on drum as we sang the Chippewa Praise Song together (music collected by Frances Densmore, lyric by Dave Holt). Bob Loomis accompanied both poets with soulful performances on his Native American flutes (Bob performs with six different types of Native flutes). Bob also read his poetry. The show was very well received especially by local Berkeley poets who attended: John Rowe, President of BAPC, and Jan Dederick of Poetalk magazine (published by BAPC).

We will be returning to Chester’s Bayview Cafe on Sunday September 16. Dave will also be playing piano for the Unity Church, Center of Walnut Creek on Sunday, September 9. If you need some spiritual recharging, Unity Church offers an inviting, supportive and open community for individuals to freely pursue their own spiritual path. It is also a place of worship that values music highly. They have a fine choir, and an experienced band of musicians, Scott Towne on drums, Neill Castro on bass, budget permitting. 

We returned to Coffee Katz, Sebastopol, on August 26. We used this local coffeehouse hangout for our photo shoot because of the beautiful baby grand piano lit by an overhanging chandelier. Our daughter Kelsey was able to get some wonderful pictures. We had the additional delight of a soft afternoon Sonoma County light. It came in through the paned glass windows to add a wine country, honey chardonnay, hue to our photos. Those of you who follow our Facebook news have already been enjoying the ones we chose for new profile and cover pictures.

Bob Loomis stopped in to Coffee Katz on his way back from the California Bluegrass Association’s Golden Old Time Music gathering and campout at Lake Sonoma (http://www.cbaontheweb.org/). Bob is a very versatile musician and he played some decidedly non-bluegrass style flute with us on Horace Silver’s Doodlin’, Ellington’s In a Mellotone and others (see photo).

Happy Birthday to Jon Hendricks! Jon is a vocalese lyricist, composer of the song lyrics I mentioned above, and master jazz singer, former  member of Lambert, Hendricks and Ross!  He will be 91 this month, September 16th. (See our blog item on August 15th about Jon).