Let's Do It Now

I’ve got some Donald Byrd on.  This is the Ethiopian Knights album he recorded in 1972 with Bobby Hutcherson and Harold Land. It all sounds like some rare attainment of funk that elevates the genre.  A jazzman’s decided appreciation for a groove he preferred to eventually err homeward toward.

“The Street Lady” album or whatever it’s called that’s release two years later is more familiar to me and is no less tremendously funky but the lyrics can be a mixed bag of hep shouts and mysogynist grunting.  This definitely has the same guitar player as that album who has a distinctly purposeful wah wah pedal playfulness.  (Note:  This software’s autocorrect function needs to back the fuck up. It has insisted three times in a row that I meant to write ‘was, was’ rather than the proper name of the pedal. )   A quick check on things confirms this axman must have been the one: David T Walker who still walks the earth.

I have no idea what the air quality is out there today?  But for the first time in a while I’d rate it between shitty and fucked.  You kinda want to take little baby breaths instead of hearty gulps when you can see the air out in front of you.  Beloved Beijing my counter-podal normal.  It helps that we’re going eight miles per hour behind a Porsche and a column of busses, coughing and roaring foul exhaust out their hulls and into this guy’s half opened windows.  

My young man at the helm is from Shaanxi.  I must confess, I don’t know the tonal difference between Shaanxi and Shanxi.  I must learn that.  Let’s do it now then.  OK.  This is something one can commit to memory.  Shaanxi (QSHD’s joint) is a third, dipping tone.  Shanxi a la Wutaishan and discredited coal barons, is first tone, first tone.  The effort I’ve invested will presumably save me in the future from the indignity I just waded through.  

Without knowing which of the two provinces it was I asked: “So that is near which city?” I asked, trying to be coy.  “Me?  I’m from . . . “ a two syllable coupling of some place that means nothing to me.  “Right.  And which big city is that near there in . . . ”  Hoping the gentleman would put me out of my misery and say Datong or Xian.  “Oh you know, it’s near  . . . “ meaningless-meaningless.  “I see.  Is that near the capital of the province?”  I say, because I can’t give away the wrong capital city name and divulge my ignorance.  Eventually he suggests the name Xian and I realize he is a dipping tone kinda guy.  

I’m committed now.  No more Shaanxi/Shanxi indignities.  Clarify with a dip.