Power and Money in the bathroom

The HB2 bathroom bill is crazy like a fox. part 1. is all about bathrooms. Ridiculous! Part 2. is all about money, compensation of labor and consolidation of government power. Our current General Assembly has not proven itself to be friendly to the people in it's brief past. ex. Did your state tax go up...a lot? Do you notice new fees? New taxes? I can’t see this working out well for people called employees (not contract labor). We are going to end up being better off with a 1099 life so to speak charging whatever you can get. That is what my whole life has been and it has worked out ok for me. That concept would probably play hell with worker scheduling, retention and reliability for employers. Plus government has to get the tax out of 1099’s too. A labor beat down will continue. After all labor is business expense number one. Cheaper labor, more jobs. Cheap labor is a freindly business environment. On and on.... My thought is part 1. will be repealed. Part 2. will stay and the mission will be accomplished.

Here is some of part two of House Bill 2

(b) The public policy of this State is declared as follows: The wage levels of employees, hours of labor, payment of earned wages, and the well-being of minors are subjects of concern requiring legislation to promote the general welfare of the people of the State without jeopardizing the competitive position of North Carolina business and industry. The General Assembly declares that the general welfare of the State requires the enactment of this law under the police power of the State.

(c) The provisions of this Article supersede and preempt any ordinance, regulation, resolution, or policy adopted or imposed by a unit of local government or other political subdivision of the State that regulates or imposes any requirement upon an employer pertaining to compensation of employees, such as the wage levels of employees, hours of labor, payment of earned wages, benefits, leave, or well-being of minors in the workforce.

Here is a link to the whole Bill.

http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2015E2/Bills/House/PDF/H2v1.pdf

"Well I don't miss it!" he said

I don't know why I thought of this today. Maybe because it's Labor Day. I'm going to write it down so I don't forget it.  I played a gig in Abingdon VA. Sept. 24, 2010. It was for the cocktail hour of a fundraiser for a new pharmacy school up there. The guest of honor and speaker was none other the George W. Bush. So we played our gig while all the folks drank and talked. The leader of the band was determined for us to get pictures with the President.
I was no fan of his but our trumpet player was a huge fan. So they took us to the library where photos were being taken. We were last. The six of us walked in and the trumpet player says to him, "I liked you, I'm a fan and I miss you." President Bush gets huffy and a little pissed and says in a sort of angry tone "well I don't miss it" I was staring at him. He shook his head and shifted his shoulders and said "ok now. He told us "I liked the music. I couldn't hear a lot. Too much chit chat" He shook all our hands. When he got to me he took a long look at my hair.

Tate's Keeps swinging

Tonight marks the start of our 4th year of Jazz Night at Tate's Bar in Winston-Salem. Jazz night is an open jazz night meaning people can sit in. The host group is me, Matt Kendrick on bass, John Wilson on drums and Ken Rhodes on piano. Tate's is a long narrow bar that serves good drinks. It is a bar which they allow us to turn into a Jazz spot once  a week. The audiences have been good in many ways. Good listeners, good people and good numbers. This enables the gig to continue. The people sitting in are very good. The level of musician is high. I'm amazed and very grateful for the scene that has developed here. We have a real piano and a small PA. Everything is pretty much acoustic. 

Come  by some Tuesday 8-11pm

 Tate’s Bar

279 West 4th Street

Winston-Salem, NC 27101         

336-692-9540 

www.tatesbar.com

Here is the trio w/ Chick Freeman on Alto Sax

  John Wislon-drums   Matt Kendrick-bass   Ken Rhodes-piano

 my bass

 view from the balcony

 Mike Kinchen-sax

Stone I.P.A.

View from the bar

 Cameron-trombone  Mike-sax  A.J.-Sax

                                                   Matt Kosma-tenor sax

Roberto Orihuela-vibes

Chic Freeman-sax   Joe Quinde-drums

the bar

Brian Miller-sax, Matt Kosma-sax, Chris Hankins-sax

BAM

Nicolas Payton being interviewed by Willard Jenkins.

Nicholas Payton is right on and makes sense. I would consider myself a BAM professor and Jazz specialist in academia. Great interview. Willard, as usual, does a great job. I would have to say in essence the term  BAM is academic. Could jazz be a subset of BAM? I have a little school show I do called "The Creators Of Jazz".  We cover: Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and John Coltrane. I have a power point going that has lots of pictures of the artists.  So they get the picture.  Teaching jazz is not really a classroom endeavor but more of a hang playing tunes. His thoughts on that are great. It's so true. I teach like I learned. We play tunes and lots of blues. I tell them if they don't listen to the music they'll never play it.

veto, neato and whatchamacallit.

I Found The Dead Sea Scrolls and heckled the band.

Sometimes gigs can get a little strange. I was playing The Big Chill a fund raiser for The Shalom Project in Winston-Salem, NC. We were playing in the Gazebo in Grace Court Park Sunday 7/18/10. I was playing with Ken Rhodes-piano, John Wilson-drum and Diana Tuffin-vocals.

Everything was going along fine. We were playing jazz standards and such. The weather was threatening in the West and then the threats were real. Rain and lighting, a big storm. We packed and were huddled in the middle of the Gazebo trying to stay dry and alive.

This fellow came running in from the rain. No problem. He took his shirt off and wrung it out. He was kind of talking low and I wasn't paying much attention. I kind of looked at him and he says, looking at me, in his British accent; "I found the Dead Sea Scrolls". I tried to be cool. I thought, OK, this will get interesting now. Then it starts:

"You Christians do not want to see the second coming of Christ. Oh No. Father Son and Holy Ghost. You do not want to see it." He went on about that for a while and then: "You need to play" I kind of looked up and waved my hand around. It was raining and lighting. He said "You need to play! Play! Play like an Englishman!" His voice was rising. "Play" he shouted "Play like the Englishmen on the Titanic did. Play!!" This goes on for a while. Then he walks swiftly and resolutely through the park shouting at us to "Play! Play like real Christians. Play!!" until he disappeared across 4th street heckling the band into the sunset.

Speakeasy Open Mic Night "Broadway"

This video is from 2005 or 6. It was an open mic night at The Speakeasy in Winston-Salem.

Sammy Anflick is playing drums. R.I.P. Sammy. Melva Houston is singing, Dave Fox is playing piano and Matt Kendrick , that's me, playng bass.