Different strokes

I was listening to a Getz/Gilberto CD yesterday while I was making lemon curd

(and by the way – why is it that half a pound of butter, five lemons and five eggs and an unhealthy amount of sugar will only make four jars of lemon curd?)

when Dave came in the kitchen, and questioned my choice of music (poor benighted guitarist that he is.) I believe the word “wallpaper” featured somewhere in our conversation and it wasn’t me who uttered it.

I explained that the sax playing is not only mellow and very skilled, but it makes me feel happy. Just like the backing on the Billie Holiday CD I listen to all the time in the car. The sax, trumpet, trombone and piano of the jazz backing lifts me. Yes, I can listen to Leonard Cohen and Natalie Merchant along with the rest of the misery gutses, but right now, I want uplifting music, music that feeds me.

Did you see that film Quartet, with Maggie Smith and Billy Connolly and a rather yummy version of Tom Courtenay? It was set in a home for retired musicians. There was a lot of classical music and singing, but what made my spirits soar was the muted trumpet backing of the number “Are you having any fun?”

I may think a lot, but I am still a deeply shallow person.

And while I am at it, I can’t stand opera, or that middle-class dark, dark 70% cocoa mass chocolate. Give me Cadbury’s Dairy Milk, or please don’t bother.

And now I am off to play Corcovado on my sax.