A day-ful of Ingrid Jensen

It's the international women's day so it's perfect time to play music from female jazz musicians. I prefer instrumental music and one of the biggest name in big band yet I seldom listen to is Maria Schneider (she decided not to license her music to streaming/download services)

Found this video of her band performing Ivan Lins' composition, Lembra de Mim
The first horn soloist appeared in the video was Ingrid Jensen. I actually first learned about her today! And coincidentally the local jazz station KCSM played a few tunes she played on, including Vernal Fields from her album with the same title at 11:51AM, and Hope Springs Eternally from Helen Sung's album Anthem for a new day at 5:14PM. (KCSM also played an Ivan Lins' tune Comecar De Novo from the album Juntos at 12:40PM too. Things certainly came full circle today!)

Data Cruncher Uses Code to Solve NYC’s Problems

I read this article from the Wired magazine while having my froyo break. I was fairly impressed even though there wasn't much detail about what that female programmer did exactly. In any case, it was a good thing done by our profession and definitely deserved some credits. I guess I'm really easy to please 'coz judging from the comments on the linked articles, a lot of readers were not impressed. I do agree with one of them: some mission critical systems (like the ones used in hospital) could be so buggy that a whole team of programmers are dedicated to fixing bugs and basically performing the heroics mentioned in the article all the time!

現今的地下黨員應汗顏

蒲開油麻地的朋友可能見過「實用書局」的名字，原來創辦人龍良臣上世紀三十年代已支持共產主義，被指為共產黨地下黨員，他開辦書局賣共產書籍，又將大宅改建學校貢獻社會，當然不容於當時執政的國民黨，其後南下香港，1947年在廣東道創立「求實出版社」，五十年代遷至當時書局林立的西洋菜南街易名「實用書局」，他在書店開闢小室，供書生住宿，方便寫作又印書，30年前遷至油麻地彌敦道麗星大廈的樓上舖，可惜近年生意慘淡，今年六月將結業。

龍良臣及「實用書局」的故事十分具傳奇性。他比起今時今日的親共媚共或所謂地下黨員只知揾著數，人格高尚得多。

Links: 1, 2

劉星中阮

為打發時間上討論區，讀的十之八九為無聊帖，不過偶爾也會因此讀到一些好文，得到一點有用資訊知識，也就不算浪費了時間。有個很少上的中樂版，有名為HKCO（莫非HK Chinese Orchesra官方?）的版友常常發帖連結到相關文章，例如這篇提到以中阮作品《雲南隨想》聞名的作曲家劉星改編自己作品所面對的挑戰，實在有趣。其實中阮這件彈撥樂器可算冷門（和二胡琵琶等相比），著名作品當然不多，自不然就想到劉星。最後，發表原文的頭條日報值得一讚。

旺角行人專用區與街頭文化

旺角女人街一帶是我從中學年代開始已經常蒲的地方，熟悉有感情，從來都是人頭湧湧。成為行人專用區早期，更覺那裡好行。之後由週末擴展至七天，但隨著易拉架推銷黨、影相黨及各樂隊樂團入侵佔領，反而變得嘈吵又難行，非常擾民，最近當局終於取消該區七天行人專用，只餘週末，又成為一個具爭議性的話題。

趕絕推銷及影相黨相信反對意見不多，剩下來值得討論的，是應否支持樂隊樂團？作為業餘音樂人，我也感到有點矛盾。我親身及在網上電視聽過看過不少他們的演出，有些唱老餅國語歌，有些翻唱廣東流行曲，例如SMS樂隊唱Beyond名曲，算是頗有名氣；都不覺得怎樣出色，對於老餅歌有大班粉絲更是不以為然。（BTW，看過電視節目訪問成員威哥才知SMS是解作Sing My Songs，可是只見到他們唱別人的歌！可能也有原創作品只是無人留意？）但那只是個人主觀意見，坦白說沒有甚麼準則，若說翻玩別人作品我不支持，也不成立，皆因如果有Flamenco結他手或中樂團表演傳統樂曲，我必定舉腳贊成。

講到尾，這個層次的音樂，縱然稱不上藝術，也總算是街頭文化，在音量不至擾民的情況下，警方也無謂太過打壓。希望他們能找到一個平衡點，玩的有得玩，聽者有得聽，居民有得耳根清淨，那就皆大歡喜。