You Make Me Feel So Young

This tune is called 'You Make Me Feel So Young' and it is from the album...

Wait for it..............Yep...

It Could happen to You. Kenny Drew was the piano player on this August afternoon date in New York City in 1958.

I sat down to work on this tune Monday September 14th. I remember the date because it was the day after we got home from our trip out West. Man, what a trip. Colorado

Rocky Mountains

Two panhandles: Texas and Oklahoma

and...

Wyoming. Big deal? You bet. Know why?

Cuz before i got there, i seriously doubted its existence. I know it sounds goofy. But it's true. I figured i hadn't been there, so what the hell do i know. I mean i hadn't been anywhere out West for years and years, well into my fifth decade. And what the hell do i know about anything that i haven't seen with my own eyes? Hence, Wyoming, a big hunk of a cattle-driving state, without benefit of my senses, who knows?

But now i know. i know because i've sat at a table in Cheyenne. I drank a Wyoming beer. I drove down a road with a big sign on its grey shoulder that read WELCOME TO WYOMING.

So there you have it.

all right so i went to wyoming. good for me. what matters here is: i came back to austin and took up this project where i left off.

again. good for me.

But it wasn't easy. really. Predictably it was a slow day. i felt deflated. i was quiet. i was lonely.

I meditated for awhile, not because i thought i should. but because i was taking care of myself. i knew what i wanted, what was going to make myself feel better. so i sat for a while (in the garage on account of it wasn't hot, which was absolutely euphoric) then did two loads of laundry because it needed to be done and doing so made me feel like i was doing something useful, then i opened the computer...and nearly lost it.

Bullshit. Just Bullshit. That's what the computer had for me yesterday.

Bullshit comes in many flavors: financial, relationships, work, not-work, business and business-related. Especially this last one. Business.

Bullshit tasted like business yesterday. Bills, returns not credited, emails not answered and on and on and on. The bullshit supply is inexhaustible. The list stretches from the tip of one's nose to the top of the Eiffel Tower. And back.

Yeah so enough about this non-music mental paraphernalia.

I decided to run this particular tune because, well because it was the first one that came to mind as i made my way to the piano. yeah. that's how it happens. i wish i could say it was something else, a well-thought-out design borne of Conservatory-trained mental prowess perhaps. But no, not so much.

I just pick these tunes out of a hat so to speak. Oh well.

So i picked 'You Make Me Feel So Young.' And i thought, "i know this tune; i've listened to it a zillion times. i know it sounds trite. but you gotta understand; these tunes, all of them, are like my little cousins; i know how they wipe their noses on their sleeves, what kind of candy they hide in the cuffs of their bluejeans.

But once again, i am surprised at my inability to translate this intimacy to musical language. music is a mystery. the more i learn the more i don't know.

Jesus I hate that.

But i digress.

I begin. I read the chart. I see the changes. I see the chord changes and try to envision how this all works. How does Kenny Drew work this shit? How does he comp in such a way as to compliment Chet. How does he outline the chords rhythmically as well as harmonically? How the hell?

So what the hell. So i practice the changes, moving through them, figuring out inversions that permit fluid movement from one to the next.

I play through the changes, fingering each one and the best i can. I try to make sense out of the three or four notes in each one as they pass by at 165 MM.

It's not easy. At all. But after maybe half a dozen passes they start coming easier. I begin knowing what's coming next. And so i keep trying. Time after time i train wreck. Train wreck. A musical yard sale.

But i keep setting it up. And getting back up when it knocks me down. Such is life right?

And now that i've talked about everything BUT the tune, I feel myself too tired to continue this tonight. It's almost 11 and i gotta get some shut-eye.

Cheers.