Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Stanley Turrentine - Fried Pies

(Three posts smushed into one today - so you can get the FULL "brownie" effect.)

I can’t find an MP3 link for him playing this song, but I did find the “Rick Stone All-stars with Barry Harris

When I heard this song over the weekend, I had no idea I’d really NEED to talk about food on Monday morning. But, you know. Me, food. Sometimes not the best laid plans.

Last week was Hot-Sauce’s b’day. His favorite dessert is Brownies, so I offered to make some and bring them in to work on Monday since I had so much going on last week. Fine plan. Not much planned for last weekend. AND – I was totally going to make them out of a box. Because, the guys in the office? Could care less about how much time/effort I spend on cooking.

Sunday night AFTER I’d been to the grocery store to get dinner stuff (because at 5:30 I decided I wasn’t going to do my “full weeks” shopping) … I realized NO EGGS.

I went to be early – thinking I’d just go to the store first thing. BUT NO! I got up early – read the paper – ate breakfast – and decided to call my neighbor. (and wake her up) and then felt stupid and apologized 101 times AND – ended up going to the store after all. *sigh*

I got home, dribbled chocolate on my work clothes, couldn’t find my 9x13 pan, mixed up the brownies and put them in the oven and set the timer.

It smelled REALLY chocolately – and even kind of “done” before the time was up. I decided to go check. Top was done, bottom wasn’t. Hmmm – that’s kind of strange. Until I looked more closely at the oven knobs and realized I had the BROILER ON.

Lord knews I had know idea how they’d taste/turn out. I was not proud of them. Briefly, I wondered, "If I FRIED them, would they’d be better?" (‘cause frying makes everything better, right?).

So - after I brought them to work - I noticed the top kind of LOOKED like it'd been broiled. Not wanting my mistake to be so noticable at lunch time went and bought some vanilla ice cream. I spread it over the top – then froze them. They were like brownie sandwiches.

Now on to Stanley who was Monday's Musical Moment. He’s a tenor saxophonist (be still my heart). He comes from a musical family – his father as a saxophonist and his mother played stride piano. Here’s the NPR tribute from his death in 2000. He was amazingly prolific in his career. Here’s his discography.

So on TUESDAY I wrote about Lee Ritenour & Brian Bromberg - Stolen Moments

This is yet another jazz standard. And one of my favorites. Stolen Moments was Composed by Oliver Nelson – and first performed by Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis in 1960.

In 1978 singer Mark Murphy added lyrics.

Stolen moments...

If I told you I love you, pretty baby,

Would it make up for what they say?

If I hold you and shield you, darlin`,

Will you linger awhile today?

If I hold you and hug you,

My kissin` won`t bug you,

The gossips won`t hurt you,

I`ll never desert you,

And someday will find us

Where people won`t bind us

To the hands of time.

I can use more than moments, pretty baby,

And I know where you steal them from.

There are so many things I’ll teach you,

And they call me a useless bum.

They just chatter and clatter

And patter and matter,

They titter and twitter,

Their glitter gets bitter,

But we`re here,

I steered here,

It`s weird here,

Those beards, dear,

Watch the pantomime.

Watch the pantomime.

Later – other lyrics were written by Ann Fischer with the alternative title “You Belong to Her” and recorded by Carmen McRae-Betty Carter.

It’s also been preformed by the following artists. One or two of these names should be familiar to you. Quincy Jones, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Mark Murphy, Carmen McRae, Betty Carter, Kenny Burrell, Ahmad Jamal, Grover Washington, Jr., New York Voices, Jimmy Smith, Milt Jackson/Ray Brown, Frank Zappa, Turtle Island String Quartet, Caribbean Jazz Project, Sonny Criss, Joyce DiCamillo, Booker Ervin, Freddie Hubbard, J.J. Johnson, Stanley Jordan, Oliver Lake, Andy LaVerne, Lorne Lofsky, Herbie Mann, Jon Mayer, One For All, Jimmy Raney, Lee Ritenour, Hilton Ruiz, Andy Summers, Billy Taylor, Sadao Watanabe, Phil Woods.

So – here’s the outcome of Monday’s Brownie Coverup - which I'm sure relates to "Stolen Moments" somehow. Either me reading instead of cooking - or links to the words "bitter" in the lyrics.

The ice cream did a great job of disguising the broiled appearance on the top of the brownies. However … it didn’t do such a good job of hiding the goopy center. However – these boys aren’t picky – and they were all happy to dig in. In fact – Hot Sauce said I shouldn’t have even mentioned it. He thought I just tried to combine “cakey” and “fudgy” in the same pan.

No more baking early in the morning for me.

Which you might hope would be the end of the brownies - but TODAY, Wednesday, there is still MORE to tell. (who knew brownies could be serialized or made into a saga?)

Today's Magical Musical Moment is on Vincent Grardner and "African Queen".

Vincent is a trombonist. How many trombonists get written about? My high school friend, Eric, might be able to name a few off the top of his head, but I’m thinkin’ the rest of us would come up empty.

The African Queen is off his album called “The Good Book – Chapter One”. The music honors the compositions of Frank Foster and Horace Silver. Both men have ties to Gardner’s family. Here’s the original composition by Silver. It came from the album The Cape Verdean Blues produced in 1965. The players are part of today’s best known luminaries; Horace Silver on the piano, Woody Shaw on trumpet and Joe Henderson on tenor sax.

Garnder is part of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra (and can I just say? When/if I get to New York – this is a “must” on my list.) And he’s one of the young up and coming artist of today. Here’s a clip of him talking about the premier of his composition “Jessie B. Semple” which combined tap-dancers Jared Grimes and Dewitt Fleming as part of the rhythm section.

One last note about the brownie saga – then I PROMISE I’ll stop. Clearly it wasn’t bad. Yesterday afternoon – the office had “snack and a video time”. The GM totally went for the center part that was all gooey.

I’m also happy to announce that this third video is the best so far. My skills are better – plus I think it’s an easier topic. The Seafood Manager wants them done by July 20th (which isn’t happening) – so they’re now going to add two other people to try and create them. We still won’t have them done by the 20th. But I’m not worried at all. When I put together the production schedule in March I pointed out we’d never get them done before the end of September. I feel I’ve documented well the process and the timeline and so far it’s turning out to be realistic/overly ambitious.

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