[Subject line from an Easter hymn by John MacLeod Campbell Crum (Singing the Living Tradition #266).]

Hello, all. The green blades are indeed riseth-ing where I live, and the flowering trees in glorious bloom -- so, it must be spring, even though my toes are freezing and I'm about to make myself a cup of cocoa.

We're not even going to talk about the eternally infernal to-do list. Which means not talking about most of my winter, but here are a handful of highlights:

(1) Speaking of literal highlights, I got my hair streaked viridian green on New Year's Day in New Orleans. Erac handled the initial bleaching-and-coloring, and Saz touched it up when she visited a month ago. It's fun: the Beautiful Young Man giggles when he sees me (I mean, he's usually laughing at me for something anyway, but there's now a distinct, "Hee! Your hair! It's green!" snurfle in the mix). Also, hearing about myself less as "the Asian lady who sings in the choir" and more as "the lady in the choir with green hair" suits me just fine.

(2) I'm now hiking and hitting the gym several times a week, and enjoying it. The gym has individual tv screens on its elliptical machines and stationary bikes, and it seems I will happily put in extra time on the machines in order to catch the end of Djokovic-Nadal and Iron Chef: Battle Goat.

(3) Some very short poems appeared at unFold (there's an index of sort here). There are pieces forthcoming at PicFic, 7x20, and elsewhere.

(4) I hosted several dinner parties. This salmon-potato galette was very well received, as was the pumpkin cream pie that followed it.

(5) I'm almost (finally!) done recording Nat Hentoff's At the Jazz Band Ball for the Nashville Talking Library. I may just stick with quoting sections from it and from Willie "the Lion" Smith's memoirs to you for the next six weeks. Starting with this bit by Jon Faddis (p. 186) -- I don't necessarily agree with it (speaking as a lifelong utility singer), but it's food for thought:

I think getting your own sound is not something that happens immediately, and I don't know whether it can be taught, but I do think that it's something that the younger musician has to want and they have to really strive to do that. But I think it's almost frivolous to try and do that before understanding other styles. I think they have to have the background of some Louis Armstrong, some Roy Eldridge, some Cootie Williams, some Rex Stewart. Even Harry James or Bunny Berigan. That singing, that cantabile style of trumpet playing. Some Dizzy, some Fats Waller, some Clifford Brown, some Miles. Then you have a foundation. And it's not so much that you want to sound like them, because one will only sound like one's self anyway. But it's that you want to have a foundation so that you can develop your own sound.