Guitar

| July 14, 2018

So….this happened. Sam and Mark are going to take guitar lessons together! Mark really wants her to try music in some way, and Sam has mentioned trying guitar, so off they went to the music store so she could look at some instruments. Guitar it is! They are signed up for 3 months of weekly lessons. Here we go!

Our future rock star. 🙂

Sauce day tunes!

| September 7, 2009

Today was sauce day in the Myers household. Every few months we carry on Grandma Mancini’s tradition of making homemade tomato sauce. We have have two ridiculously large 32 quart pots in which we slow cook sauce all day. We normally get about 20 dinners worth of sauce (around 16 gallons / 60.5 liters) with meatballs and sausage that we freeze so we can make quick pasta dinners whenever the mood strikes. Our recipe is largely based on my Grandma’s but we adopted a few tips from my mom and Pam’s mom as well. I really like sauce day; it gives me a sense of carrying on those traditions that were important to the Mancini family.

Since we have to stay all day to watch the sauce it gives a us a great opportunity to play lots of music. Today we played Buddy Defranco and Oscar Peterson “Play George Gershwin”, Frank Sinatra “A Swingin’ Affair”, Depeche Mode “Music the Masses”, Frank Sinatra “Come Fly with Me”, Mose Allison “Best Of Mose Allison”, Enya “Watermark”, and Jane Monheit “Taking a Chance on Love”.

Last night we played Frank Sinatra “Point of No Return” and Julie London “By Myself” both of which which Muffin really liked.

Lots of music for Sam lately

| August 15, 2009

The last couple of weekends we have been playing a lot of music for little Sam. Last week we played a lot of jazz including Lee Morgan “Leeway”, Curtis Fuller “Imagination” (my favorite trombone player), and Helen Merill “Helen Merill with Clifford Brown”. We also got some classic rock albums in including Pink Floyd “Wish You Were Here” and Bad Company “Bad Company”.

Tonight Pam wanted to cuddle up and relax on the couch with Muffin so we have been spinning Julie London all night. She is our favorite torch singer. We listened to “Julie is Her Name” and “Sophisticated Lady”. I wanted to play more but Pam kept falling asleep so I sent her off to bed!

We also recently put a nice little CD player in Sam’s room so we can play music for her. We were testing it out with some Anonymous 4  who is a choral group that we have liked for a long time. They are a quartet who reconstruct and sing  medieval music in various languages like Old English, Latin, Gaelic, and so on. They sing beautiful music and Pam and I both agreed that it would be perfect to soothe little Sam. They tour reguarly and every Christmas they come to St. Mark’s Church in Philadelphia. Pam and I always go; we hope they keep touring so we can bring Sam there one day to hear them!

More tunes for Sam

| July 22, 2009

We’ve been pretty busy lately getting ready for the shower but have found time to play some new music for Sam. I finally got around to playing an album for her from my favorite band Morphine,  “Cure for Pain.” Recently I have been playing David Gilmour “On an Island” a lot. We both like the Smithereens so we played “11” and “Green Thoughts” a few times.

Like I guess most Americans, the passing of Michael Jackson reminded me just how good some of his records are; we listened to a new copy of the Thriller album which sounded just fantastic.  Last night we played Led Zepplin records which Muffin really enjoyed. A lot of nights when I get home before Pam I will slip on some Stevie Ray Vaughan records while I am getting dinner ready, namely “Texas Flood”, “Couldn’t Stand the Wether” and “In Step”.  For some reason which I cannot fathom, Pam doesn’t like SRV but that won’t stop me from playing him for Sam! There was one SRV song she recently admitted liking (Riviera Paradise) so maybe he is growing on her 🙂

Father’s Day 2009

| June 21, 2009

ella_gershwinToday was a very special father’s day for me. The prospect of Sam being born in only a few short months is tremendously exciting. I was blessed to have wonderful grandfathers and the best father a son could ever have. Through their teaching and examples I feel that I am as well prepared as I could ever be to finally be a father myself and I can’t wait to get started!

Pam made the day special as well for me. She got me a very special gift that I have been looking for unsuccessfully for some time. I’ve mentioned before that our favorite recordings are the Ella Fitzgerald songbooks. We bought them on CD years ago but I always wanted them on vinyl. Recently we have been buying individual records that were re-isussed by an audiophile label  a few years ago. We were able to get mot of them but were not able to find our favorite one anywhere. It is Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Gershwin Songbooks and is a large vinyl record set with some of the best versions of Gershwin tunes ever recorded. The songs were arranged by Nelson Riddle who is my favorite arranger and the recordings are simply fantastic. The vinyl box set of Ella singing the Gershwin songbooks is very rare but Pam tracked down a new one and bought it for me! It is a beautiful set of wonderful music, six albums in all. Thanks hon, I will treasure it! We already listened to most of the records this weekend.