Pat Martino Live at Yoshi's was one of my favourite jazz guitar CD. He was playing with organist Joey DeFrancesco and drummer Billy Hart on that disc. Finally I have seen the "real" thing: Martino played at Yoshi's in a trio setting again this week. This time was in SF though. (The CD was recorded in Oakland in 2001. The SF branch didn't exist back then.) And the organist was Tony Monaco. I liked his playing so much that I bought his CD, A New Generation: Paesanos On the New B3, back in 2004. Interestly, that CD also featured Joey DeFrancesco as guest.
I don't need to sing more praises for Martino's playing. Just want to mention the story he told: back when he was 16 years old, he played in a club call Small's Paradise in Harlem (BTW, I just read from a biography of Jimi Hendrix that he has also played there before he was huge.) And there was another nearby club in Harlem called Count Basie's. Wes Montgomery was playing there. Martino was close to Les Paul then. He was a fatherly figure to Martino. Martino took Les Paul to Harlem to see Montgomery during his break at his gig at Small's Paradise. During Montgomery's break, he came over to Martino and Les Paul and introduced himself. He said his 2 biggest influence was Charlie Christian, and guess who else? None other than Les Paul! Les Paul stayed there the whole night and Martino got back to his gig. When he was done and back to Count Basie's, 5 guitarists were hanging out outside the club. Who are the other 2? George Benson and Grant Green!
Friday, June 04, 2010
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
Star of the day: Armando Galarraga
Let's all urge MLB to do the right thing and credit Armando Galarraga with the perfect game that he deserved. Detroit Tigers' Armando Galarraga pitched a perfect game against Cleveland Indian into the 9th inning with 2 outs. The 3rd one should have been an out too but the umpire screwed up the call (even he admitted it!)
I root for Galarraga especially because he was on my championship winning team in the fantasy league a few years ago (I picked him up as a free agent!) BTW, he is really a class act. He didn't even go into any heated argument with the umpire.
I root for Galarraga especially because he was on my championship winning team in the fantasy league a few years ago (I picked him up as a free agent!) BTW, he is really a class act. He didn't even go into any heated argument with the umpire.
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Sports highlights: UFC, F1 and mostly racing
It was Super 14's final last Sat. I couldn't watch the 2nd half but I guess I didn't miss much. The Bulls was leading at half time and went on to beat the Stormers and successfully defended their title. There won't be Super 14 next year as the league has expanded to 15.
The Rampage-Evans fight turned out to be not bad. Rampage looked passive in the beginning but he showed a bit of his old explosiveness at round 3. Evans did a great job trying to dominate.
The weekend was mainly about auto racing though: I watched both NASCAR races, Indy 500 and F1. I can't remember when was the last time the F1 race was actually more dramatic among all of them! I mean, the dominating driver in the beginning didn't win! The TV commentators mostly agreed that Vettel ruined teammate Webber's day but it wasn't so clear cut according to post-race analysis. After that crash, there was another close battle between teammates, Hamiton and Button. And that was just spectacular: Button passed the race leader Hamilton and the latter was able to regain his lead and went on to win. Another great finish I watched was the GT class of American Le Man Series at Laguna Seca Raceway at Monterrey. The Porsche passed the Bimmer at the final restart. These cars are more stock than those race for National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (yeah, that's NASCAR) and they didn't need double file restart to have exciting passes during restart! It deserved to be more popular than it currently does. The coverage was not typical (wasn't even live). Instead, it's more like a documentary, which served as a great introduction to uneducated fans like me. As predicted, hardcore fans didn't like it but I agree with the posters here that it would have got even fewer audiences if the full 6 hour race was broadcasted. Kudo to CBS for showing it.
Congrat to Danica Patrick for her 6th place finish at Indy 500. It was much better than expected!
The Rampage-Evans fight turned out to be not bad. Rampage looked passive in the beginning but he showed a bit of his old explosiveness at round 3. Evans did a great job trying to dominate.
The weekend was mainly about auto racing though: I watched both NASCAR races, Indy 500 and F1. I can't remember when was the last time the F1 race was actually more dramatic among all of them! I mean, the dominating driver in the beginning didn't win! The TV commentators mostly agreed that Vettel ruined teammate Webber's day but it wasn't so clear cut according to post-race analysis. After that crash, there was another close battle between teammates, Hamiton and Button. And that was just spectacular: Button passed the race leader Hamilton and the latter was able to regain his lead and went on to win. Another great finish I watched was the GT class of American Le Man Series at Laguna Seca Raceway at Monterrey. The Porsche passed the Bimmer at the final restart. These cars are more stock than those race for National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (yeah, that's NASCAR) and they didn't need double file restart to have exciting passes during restart! It deserved to be more popular than it currently does. The coverage was not typical (wasn't even live). Instead, it's more like a documentary, which served as a great introduction to uneducated fans like me. As predicted, hardcore fans didn't like it but I agree with the posters here that it would have got even fewer audiences if the full 6 hour race was broadcasted. Kudo to CBS for showing it.
Congrat to Danica Patrick for her 6th place finish at Indy 500. It was much better than expected!
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