Birthday Edition: My Darling Coffee

Energy. We all crave it. A good night's sleep, exercise, oxygen. . .all these are important. In college, I discovered that coffee is also important to me. During freshman year, to recharge, I got into the habit of drinking some coffee in the morning, and taking a nap at 3 PM. Well, the naps went away b/c unlike in certain countries, the siesta is not generally part of the commercial fabric of U.S. life. Ah, but employers in the U.S. recognize coffee's productivity benefits, and many provide free coffee so as to save time. I've found myself more productive, and more creative, under the influence of coffee, as long as I don't have too much.

Here's a live recording from college (May 1999) of me playing my ode to this wonderful drink, "My Darling Coffee." From the album "Lee Istrail - LIVE (Vol. I), and the recording engineer was Brent Morrison. Brent did a great job of capturing the music and crowd in high quality.
http://amiestreet.com/listen/song/shareListen/1210431/

Blue Rain

Hey, cool cats! "Blue Rain" is an acoustic blues groove from high school. My friend Ian backed me up on flute. Ian and I played a lot of concerts my junior year of high school; he was my key collaborator at the time. He lent just the right aura of serious concentration to this pensive tune.

http://amiestreet.com/listen/song/shareListen/1210503/

(from the album, "Jazz & Blues")

Lee's Jazz Thing

"Lee's Jazz Thing" is a half-hour electric guitar piece from high school, from the album, "Jazz & Blues." I started off on a basic theme and improvised the rest. This tune says, "In a complex world, there is a place for simplicity. Lighten up." Listen to it and you'll soon be in a good mood, guaranteed.

http://amiestreet.com/listen/song/shareListen/1210505/

Keryn

Now on to the jazz side. I wrote "Keryn" about a girl I'd met at camp. This was during high school, when I lived in Albuquerque, NM. One day I arranged to visit her in Santa Fe, about an hour away. Her mom was there to chaperone. But we went for an unsupervised walk in the neighborhood, then came back to the house. I then noticed she had a piano. Sitting down at the bench, I told her, "I wrote this song about you" and played. Then, no reaction. Lee thought to himself, "Woman, how canst thou listen with such indifference? Art thou made of ice?"

So I moved on, and recorded the song in a few different versions. On the version you will hear, I recruited my trumpet-playing buddy Mel.

Dig my most popular song on Amie Street so far (from the album "Jazz & Blues"):
http://amiestreet.com/listen/song/shareListen/1210501/