April 18ths

4/18/1998

Miles From Mars description: accidental space jazz. When I composed it, it started out as neither space nor jazz, but it sort of evolved into it. The genesis was the “boinky” percussion sound in the background that can be an irritant if you listen to it alone, but it seems to work with the piece as a whole.

4/18/2001

Photographer who took the famous photo of gunman and Elian Gonzales wins Pulitzer Prize. He said that the photo accurately captures the emotion of the moment. (Can we always assume that snapshots in time define the complete flavor of the moment?) 

4/18/2025: History rhymes but not every time. Other times make different rhymes].

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4/18/2024

An abstracted lyric from 4/18 entries. This is the prose approach to lyrics, where there is very little rhyming, but can be put in later in other verses.

Miles From Mars
Neither space nor jazz
Data Smog
Elian Gonzales
Facing the rear of the train
Gives me a sinking feeling
Of going home in reverse

 

Dickey Betts was from the Silent Generation, which explains the musical parentage. If you were just learning guitar in 1960, your heroes wouldn’t have included Jimmy Page or Jeff Beck and were probably Chet Atkins and Les Paul. Also back then most aspiring musicians probably had some musical training, such as piano lessons. It’s interesting how young musicians emulate players they admire, and they do so with the extant culture and technology. For Ellington, it was watching piano rolls.