Letters from the Dollar Pianist: January 2015

Friday, January 2, 2015

Did you say your name is 'Happy' ?? Are you Serious...

McDonald's in their new pursuit to connect to families with kids, introduced their all new mascot "Happy". The moments after its introduced to the world, all went wrong. Really? Are you calling him 'Happy'. He is Scary. Whoever came up with this design hasn't felt how odd it will look when you convert the McDonald's Trademark Yellow Arch as a devilish eye-brows for a Happy Meal Box, that came to life all of a sudden.

You really don't feel the connection. McDonald's idea of attracting children is never going to work, with those boomer hands and legs sticking out of the box, and that 'big mouth'... Wow, McDonald's had done a big favor to the society, by threatening children away from fast food.

And the 30 minutes commercial where more than 3 'Happy's jump and dance, is just reaching out to the threshold of 'will you switch the channel or I break the TV'.

Letters from who?

Making color stories on wall is so fun. but when I grew up I was given the editor-job of my school & later college mags, then editor of the music journal "McArn Times", then columnist for "Sangamam", written few blogs on music, jazz, spirituality and about my studio. But had a hollow feeling that I don’t write things I wanted to, Thus this blog!!

Manifestating my views and explorations of the world around me, in the eyes of art, multimedia and music that I always
loved to do. I named it "letters", since the notion of letters is fading, so I wanted to retain some memoirs of the letter writing days.

JAZZ BITES

"It's Only a Paper Moon"

The title track, "It’s Only a Paper Moon", begins with Dave Brubeck's piano, backed by the drummer's fast but light rhythm and the bassist's syncopated plucking. About forty seconds into the track the piano switches to stride style, and at 0:52 the saxophone enters on the melody as Dave Brubeck comps. At 2:38 Dave Brubeck begins his pianosolo using block chords. His solo continues until 3:31 when bass player Chris Brubeck, now on bass trombone, takes over. His improvisation dips into the lowest registers, giving the piece a fuller and rougher tone. His solo ends the piece with a repeat of the chorus