Belltown Bent

The lady gets around

Since the lovely yacht Laurel last graced the Bent's view of Elliott Bay, she has covered thousands of nautical miles visited glamorous ports of call.

Wherever she went, it seems, folks wanted to know more about her. Thanks to those who found posts about her here on the Bent, and the Ship's Blog, just up the bay in Shilshole Marina, we know some of the places she's been. You can probably use your imagination (and Google maps) to fill in the blanks in the itinerary. Really, let it run wild, I did:

Cabo San Lucas in late April; Ft. Lauderdale in early May; Amador, Panama (at the entrance to the canal) shortly thereafter; jump to Venice in late June; Split, Croatia in early July; Naxos, Rhodes, Lindos, and Symi, Greece through mid-August; Civitavecchia, Italy in late August; then back to Rybovich Marina in Riviera Beach, Florida the first week of December; St. Thomas V.I. by mid-month; then Falmouth Harbour, Antigua just after the new year. (Thanks, folks, for the comments. They make this whole thing work.)

But as beautiful as those destinations must be, Laurel couldn't have looked any more lovely anywhere than she did slowly cruising Alki on this rainy Saturday morning, before she anchored off Salty's. After a trip like that, the folks on board were probably ready to enjoy some Northwestern soul food and see what Sommelier Tim O'Brien (Washington Wine Commission's Sommelier of the Year 2006) was pouring for St. Patrick's Day.

Paternity TBD

Monday morning brought with it the joyous arrival of three little eaglets, nestled comfortably in their cozy nest, under the watchful gaze of their Eagle foster mother or father (Calder never really made that clear) in Belltown's Olympic Sculpture Park.

The eaglets' birth parent(s) - we'll assume father(s) - were nowhere to be found, leaving behind only a small sign which read Eaglets - Mixed Media - 2007 and the initials pdl, accompanied by the ASL symbols for each letter.  This stylized attribution leads the Bent to believe local performance art trio Jason Puccinelli, Jed Dunkerley, and Greg Lundgren, also known collectively as Vital 5 Productions, are responsible for this gift of life.

But one can't be sure. Just last week, the trio, decked out in berets, were in Tacoma impersonating collaborative artists SuttonBeresCuller as they anonymously installed their own Ship in A Bottle at TAM. But that's a different story.

Maybe.

It's entirely possible that SBC sired the Eaglets and are impersonating-in-absentia (is that possible?) the apparently attributed acronymic parents. DNA sampling doesn't quite work in this really-mixed-media world. Maybe we could check for paint chips under fingernails to find out who's parenting, or performing, whom.

UPDATE: PDL acknowledges paternity in Seattle PI

UPDATE: 02/20 - after being buffeted about and knocked from their nest by recent wind and rain, the eaglets have been moved indoors and are under the foster care of SAM conservators.

Black-tie optional

Floyd Standifer, a founding father of Seattle's jazz community, died on Monday night, at the age of 78. As Jessica Davis so wonderfully told the story back in 2002, it was over 60 years earlier, at the corner of 21st and Madison in Seattle, when he first heard the sound of bebop. He had come to Seattle to study physics a UW, but as he told Jessica, "Once I heard bebop, that was it. The importance of physics went out the window and in went Charlie Parker."

In the decades that followed, the relationship between Standifer and Seattle grew immeasurably. Musicians came to regard him as a teacher, a mentor, a musical father, a pillar of the jazz community, an icon. The city twice proclaimed Floyd Standifer days in 1996 and 2000, and he was honored by two Mayors for his stature as a jazz man, and his contributions to the city's scene.

And Standifer held Seattle in equally high regard. As jazz writer Paul DeBarros recalls, he "had a great affection for the natural beauty and laid-back lifestyle of Seattle." And in Floyd's own words, "... the first thing you were was a human being. And it's the last thing you're ever going to be. This town allows you to do that. All that other stuff in between is just stuff that you learn to do. You're looking for someplace where life can mean something, you come here."

I'm a relative newcomer to Seattle, but the natural beauty which surrounds us, and the thriving, multi-generational jazz scene which pulsates from within are two of the city's powerful draws. From the time I arrived in 1998, references to Floyd came from every direction. From my long-time friend (and jazz mentor) Robert Wade, in conversations with new jazz friends, in music columns in both dailies and weeklies, and from the musicians I eventually met.

While I never had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Standifer, I do want to share a personal aside in his memory. I photograph, on a volunteer basis, the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra, a fabulous cultural treasure of which he was a valued member. I donate images for a variety of purposes, including limited edition prints for donors and supporters. I never got to see, or photograph, Floyd playing with SRJO, in all their swinging, black-tie glory. But his picture was the one most requested by people who love their music. At last fall's Bumbershoot, not long before he had to put his horns down, I joined the crowd who packed in to see him at the Seattle Jazz Showcase. Clearly, Floyd Standifer didn't need a tux to personify class. Swing in peace.

What others had to say: Paul deBarros | Gene Stout | Doug Ramsey

Update: Jazz After Hours host Jim Wilke will devote his Jazz Northwest program (KPLU 98.5 FM) to music and memories of Floyd Standifer on Sunday, Januar 28th at 1PM PST. It will be available as a podcast after the broadcast at kplu.org.

Add people and stir

Tony Smith's Stinger (1967-68 1999) was installed in Seattle's Olympic Sculpture Park last summer, five months before next weekend's public opening. I wrote, back then, about all the elements which came into alignment to create the park, and the circumstances which contributed to Smith's becoming a great sculptor.

Stinger was named after the refreshing (and intoxicating) cocktail - a Bent second-set favorite. As is the case with many great cocktails, the last ingredient added can make all the difference. In the case of the Olympic Sculpture Park, the last, important element to be added is people. Art lovers, outdoors lovers, dog walkers, joggers, school groups, tourists, neighbors, or just folks trying to get across the tracks before an endless freight train clears the intersection at Broad and Alaskan.

The official opening is January 20th, but many pre-opening events are underway, including today's press preview, even as the amazing construction team battles storm after storm to finish the park. These folks, viewing Stinger from the inside out, were a small part of a large group which came through last weekend. From the Bent perspective, it was a transforming event. No hardhats and fluorescent vests, no all-black outfits, no camera crews. Just people following the paths, children running on the grass, pausing to take in the expansive views and consider the installed art. It's finally time to add the people and stir up this wonderful place, as the new banners proclaim, "where earth meets art".

More: pictures of this week's progress | SAM's latest update

At the window with Luke and Linnæus

It's difficult to pull away from the windows at the Bent, particularly when the sun is low and there are clouds in the sky. The winter light and the forms it reveals are almost beyond description. I constantly grab my camera in an effort to frame, capture and share mutable compositions which will never, ever, occur again.

On August 18th, 1783, overlooking the Windrush River in Oxfordshire, England, eleven-year-old Luke Howard stared into the evening sky. He was captivated by the dramatic palette of colors created by volcanic dust spewed into the atmosphere over much of the northern hemisphere by violent volcanic eruptions in Iceland and Japan, and the fiery flight of a meteor across the western European sky. His observations of this "constant fog" inspired a lifelong avocation of studying the skies, especially the constantly changing and little understood clouds.

Howard went on, as an amateur meteorologist, to be the first to study smog, the first to observer the "urban heat island" effect, and one of the first to understand the concept of weather fronts.  But, on the subject of clouds, not much had changed since 1600, when Shakespeare described them as creatures, morphing from one to another in the course of conversation.

Hamlet:    Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?
Polonius:   By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.
Hamlet:    Methinks it is like a weasel.
Polonius:   It is backed like a weasel.
Hamlet:    Or like a whale?
Polonius:   Very like a whale.
          - Hamlet, Act iii Scene 2.

Two hundred years later, most people still thought of clouds as "essences", short-lived, misunderstood, and difficult to describe. But Luke Howard was preparing to change that. In 1803, in a paper he presented to his fellow Askesian Society members in London, Luke introduced a lasting solution to the problem of naming these transformational mysteries. In a stroke of brilliance Luke followed the lead of  Swedish taxonomist Carl von Linné, better known as Linnæus. Yes, Luke applied a simple, structured nomenclature to confidently describe these constantly changing forms, and he chose Latin to do it, simply because, "the reasons for having recourse to a dead language for terms to be adopted by the learned of different nations are obvious". (I must refer you to the fascinating essay(s) by Hank Heatly, Linnæus, Son of No Man! or, this one. They both helped me understand.)

Ever since, all over the world, clouds have been named by Luke. Cumulus (Latin for 'heap'), Stratus ('layer'), Cirrus ('curl') and Nimbus ('rain'), or some combination, like cirro-cumulus, cirro-stratus, cumulo-stratus, have served us all well. But here at the Bent, despite his lasting contribution to describing the indescribable, going to the window with camera in hand will continue to be the best I can do.

Learn more: h2g2 | The Cloudman | Luke's drawings | The Weather Dr. |

Celebrating youth at 86

Clark Terry was carefully pushed through the crowd to the edge of the Jazz Alley stage in a wheelchair. From there he was helped, step by cautious step, to his stool at center stage. The audience cheered him as he climbed up, and settled in. He looked up, the crowd went quiet, and with a grin he said, "old age sucks."

We all laughed, relieved of our concern, charmed by the indomitable spirit of the man who has been climbing onto bandstands for more than 60 years, sharing them with the likes of Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Oscar Peterson, and influencing great players like Miles Davis and Quincy Jones, and so many more along the way.

He's been knighted in Germany, named to the French Order of Arts and Letters, recognized with a National Endowment of the Arts Jazz Master fellowship, received fifteen honorary doctorates, and was the first black musician at NBC leading to 10 years as a spot light musician in Johnny Carson's Tonight Show. The story goes on and on, just like Terry (I mean that in the most respectful way.)

He possesses an invaluable historic perspective on jazz, its culture, and its characters, and he shares it freely, like when he reminisced last December about Thelonious Monk at a Jazz Museum in Harlem speaker series. When NPR's Jacki Lynden asked how he kept going, he responded, "It's young people, they keep you honest, they're gonna ask you questions. You better have some answers." After the interview, he took the stage with young lion Roy Hargrove, a half-century his junior.

Today is Mr. Terry's 86th birthday, and thanks to him I'm quite convinced that old age can swing. Happy Birthday man! We'll see you at Jazz Alley in January.

More: Clark Terry | St. Louis Walk of Fame | 07 April 05 pictures - Jazz Alley

Red-eyed Canaries

These little "spear-bearers" - Aechmophorus occidentalis, from the Ancient Greek words aichme (spear) and phoros (one who bears something around) and the Latin occidentalis (western) - are commonly known as Western Grebes. Yes, they've got red eyes, but no, they aren't even distantly related to canaries. (Remarkably, two independent research teams found grebes to be the closest living relative to the flamingo. But that's another story.)

But just as canaries nodding out in their little cages alerted miners when there was too much carbon monoxide in their confined space, the Western Grebe, through its declining numbers, is telling us something is wrong with our ecology.

Since 1979, according to Puget Sound Action Team, 14 of 18 marine bird species have experienced 56% to 95% decline, and the total number of marine birds have dropped almost by half. Just check out filmmaker Kevin Probasco's documentary, Losing our Wings (25:07 requires realPlayer) which explores the decline through the work of Terry Wahl and Dr. John Bower, two of the regions foremost marine bird scientists.

I saw these two amongst a "water dance" of a hundred or so grebes (slight digression - see An "exaltation" of larks) near Pier 70 on the Belltown waterfront. I've become accustomed to seeing them every winter when they move from western* freshwater lakes to our coastal waters. Dave McBee, who was in the region long before the Bent,  recalls in Get Lost Magazine when tens of thousands would winter over in the region. But not anymore. Oddly enough, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources isn't too concerned, rating Aechmophorus occidentalis at Lower Risk/least concern on their Red List of Threatened Species™

The British mine industry stopped using canaries in 1979, only when technology made them redundant (that's nice). As recently as 2003, pigeons were used in Kuwait to warn of chemical or biological attack. The U.S. Marine Corp., apparently, put as much trust in the $60 bird (food and cage included) as in their $12,000 high-tech sensors.

We should pay as much attention, and put as much trust in our spear-bearing "red-eyed canaries".

Learn more: Bird Web | Cornell Lab of Orinthology | Puget Sound Nearshore Project

* Western means western, but these guys have occurred as far into the middle as Lake County, IL!

Birthday greetings, bottle of wine

Hard to say if he would've been out 'til quarter to three, but there's no doubt that I'd still love him if Jimi Hendrix had made sixty-four. Born November 27, 1942, today would have been that day.

Back in 1969, long before I'd heard of Belltown, or become quite so Bent, I was already very familiar with Seattle's favorite son. I took this picture of Jimi at the third of three shows he did at the Waikiki Shell in Honolulu, on June 1st of that year.

I went to the first show on Friday. He stopped playing after about 30 minutes or so because of a bad hum in his amp - some sort of electrical problem. I don't remember much about Saturday's show, but I'm pretty sure I was there. The third show, a make-good for Friday's buzz-out, was one of those nights. A big moon coming up over the Diamond Head crater, gates open to all comers, Jimi in all his glory, and I had my very first SLR and a cheap telephoto lens.

I thought today would be a good day to break out this old image and remember an extraordinary man who left us too soon. And, as Paul McCartney (the other left-handed cultural icon born in '42 - he turned 64 last June) suggested in his song*, we'll open a bottle of wine and remember Jimi on his birthday. Luckily, like Paul, we got older too.

*While this song, like most Beatles songs, is credited to Lennon and McCartney, When I'm Sixty-Four  was one of the first songs McCartney wrote, while he and John were still the Quarrymen.

Mountains, murmurations, and Mortimer

This flock of European starlings flying by the Bent one recent stormy dusk, might also be referred to as a "murmuration", should you have a particularly poetic or literary bent inclination. My friend, the County Clerk, told me so, and more. But he didn't tell me why.

It seems these birds have considerable vocalizing prowess. They don't have a particularly tuneful song of their own. But they manage to enhance their own clicking and shrieking with the songs of other birds, or, well, Belltown car alarms. Clever.

But folks had observed this hundreds of years before these birds shared the horizon with the Olympic Mountains, or any horizon on this continent, for that matter. In 1784, about the time he was writing his Piano Concerto in G major, K 453,  Mozart purchased a starling for a pet. Much to his pleasure, the bird learned to sing the Concerto's theme, although it has been said it tended to sharpen all the G naturals.

Nearly 200 years earlier, Shakespeare (who often cast birds in his plays) wrote a bit part for a starling in Henry IV, Part 1, Act 3 in which hot-headed Hotspur, forbidden by Henry to speak of Mortimer, threatens to train a starling to repeatedly murmur nothing but the man's name just to torque the King. And that, folks, is all he needed to write.

Three hundred years, and countless thousands of performances of the play, later,  it's 1890 in New York City's Central Park. An eccentric drug manufacturer and Shakespeare fan, Eugene Schieffelin, on a mission to introduce every old world bird the bard ever mentioned into the United States, releases 60 imported European starlings. The birds, unnaturally (and ironically) enough, took up residence in the eaves of the Museum of Natural History. The "murmuration" quickly outgrew the building, the park, and the state. They crossed the Mississippi by 1928, reached the west coast by 1942, and by the mid-80's some 200,000,000 starlings occupied every state but Hawaii.

This proliferation, some would say invasion, has caused many to mutter, much less murmur, some pretty nasty things about starlings. Farmers in particular, although I doubt they share Henry's disdain of Mortimer. I kind of like them, but I'm just a bent Belltowner watching them fly by the mountains. You can decide, or not, for yourself.

Learn more: Wikipedia | Humane Society | Cornell Lab of Orinthology | National Geographic | Starling Talk | Christian Science Monitor

Heaven Down Here

If you've followed The Bent for a year or more, or scanned through Musicians in Performance, you know how I feel about Tuck & Patti. A year ago I wrote about Tuck, the guitarist, but it was Patti who provided the context. In Tuck's words,

"When we are playing together, I play almost exclusively for Patti. It is as if nothing else exists. I have come to the conclusion that by doing so, I am properly playing for God and for the audience."

The result, for the audience, is transcendent. We are no longer in a night club, no longer watching a performance. We are with this man and woman, seeing into their hearts, feeling our own, basking in the glow of the love they share with each other, with God, and with us. They bring it to us.

"Heaven Down Here"

This morning my friend Hank, The County Clerk, wrote a warm remembrance for his friend Wendell Burgess. Wendell was a gardener. Or as he preferred to be called, a "yardener." Hank is also a man of the dirt. He hopes, for his friend's sake, folks "yarden" in heaven. Certainly, Wendell's seeds, humor, advice, and wisdom have already been cultivated in Hank's garden, and they will continue to bloom in Hank's heart, and garden, wherever he may plant them. Wendell may be "yardening" in heaven, but, like Tuck & Patti, he's already brought some heaven down here.

Tuck & Patti return to Seattle November 14-16 - a little bit of heaven at the end of an alley. Share their love.