Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 24, 1995, Winnipeg, Manitoba Editor Morley 6977307 entertainment Winnipeg free press july extraterrestrials linked to recurring musical key Hairball yell a common cause i make this statement in Light of an article sent to me by Alert Reader Steve who found it in an academic journal called popular music and the written by a College professor named Cherrill is entitled air Ball spontaneous Large group precision the article concerns a phenomenon that often occurs at basketball games when a visiting player shoots an air Ball a shot that misses the in a sportsmanlike Effort to cause this player to commit will Start chanting who teaches English but is also interested in noticed an Odd thing about the air Ball chant the crowd members always seemed to Start at precisely the same and in perfect tune with each As any director of a Church choir or secular chorus Heaton getting a Mere 20 or 30 trained singers to sing or chant together and in tune is not always yet without thousands of strangers massed in indoor auditoriums and Arenas Are if stimulated by an air to chant air Ball in tonal and rhythmic but theres using his Heaton taped a Bunch of basketball games he discovered no matter where the games were almost All the crowds chanted air Ball in the same with the air being Sung on an f and the Ball on a d this is an amazing musical achievement for who Are not noted for their skill at singing in listen to a random group of americans attempting to sing Happy and you will note that at any Given moment they somehow manage to Emit More different than there Are group creating a droning sound such As might be created by severely asthmatic so that the birthday rather than feeling winds up weeping into the its even worse when americans at sporting events attempt to sing the Star spangled because not Only does this song contain an estimated but also the crowd has Only the vaguest notion of what the words so what you hear is a vaguely cattle like sound created by thousands of people murmuring in every conceivable about the ramparts red and yet according to somehow these same sports All Over the almost always spontaneously chant air Ball in the same i decided to Check he tons findings out for under the carefully controlled scientific conditions of my i chanted air Ball out loud several i then picked up my electric which i keep close to my computer for those occasions in the course of my i develop an urgent journalistic need to sing Mony using this i figured out which key i had chanted air Ball in it was still i called my office at the Miami the phone was answered in a spontaneous manner by a writer named i said i want you to do the chant that basketball fans do when a visiting player shoots an air and with no further said Nanny Nanny boo boo Meg is not a big basketball continuing my i called Charlie a professional sports columnist for the Detroit free who claims he has never Sung on key in his and who without chanted air Ball smack dab in then i called professional musician and basketball fan Al Kooper he not Only chanted air Ball in but also told me Back in the he used to spend hours eavesdropping on people and painstakingly writing Down the musical notes that they used in Ordinary Cool i what did you do with this information i lost he finally i decided to try the acid test i called my current and former Tom Shroder and Gene who Are the two least musically talented human beings on the face of the these Guys could not make a Teakettle whistle it would indicate that it was ready by holding up a Little sign that said because Tom and Gene Are severely rhythmically neither one could actually chant air Ball they both just nervously blurted it out a few times very and there was no Way to without sensitive if musical key they were but it could have been my research convinced me that Heaton is Correct something is causing americans to chant air Ball in but what 1 believe that the most logical explanation you probably thought of As you know if you watch the to documentary series the x when anything weird extraterrestrials Are almost always in this beings from another Galaxy Are probably trying to communicate with us by transmitting powerful radio beams that penetrate basketball fans brains and cause them to spontaneously chant in the key of i imagine that eventually the aliens will switch the fans to another such As and then maybe and so on until the aliens have musically spelled out some intergalactic message to such As face a dead or it could be something i have no idea what there trying to Tell us i just know wed better do what they and now if youll excuse in feeling an overpowering urge to do the Miami Herald Breau double cd Good Start to ambitious reissue series Lenny Breau with Dave at Bourbon guitar hives cd Genius guitarist Lenny breads musical legacy is expanding with the first doubled set of his work on Randy Bachman guitar hives the 1983 Toronto club Date was captured on tape by one of those flukes that takes on much greater meaning years do Ted Oreilly used the show to test a new digital tape recorder his radio Sta Tion had the reel Oreel copy he made of the master tape is one of the last recordings of Breau died in los Angeles in suspicious circumstances on at age he was found at the Bottom of a swimming Pool and an inquest showed he had been strangled before being rolled into the the Breau cd project has been in the works for about three years with former Winnipeg guitarist Danny Casavant doing the re search and tracking Down photos and other material associated with it is somehow fitting that breads music would be saved and pre jazz Chris Smith seated to a new audience by two of his former students Bachman and Casavant both took lessons from Breau As local theres a wealth of Casa vant said while in Winnipeg recently to promote the cd he has collected 70 hours of digital tape from his including session recordings Breau made in the when he was 15 or for event records in i just flipped when i heard the Casavant they include Solo acoustic duos with fid Dler sleepy Willis and group the material will Likely be the next cd set on Young Casavant even has tapes of his lessons with i was so in Awe of the Randy and i and every other guitar player that came across Lenny owe him a Bachman has set up a fund to share royalties from the cd sales with breads the music on these cd was recorded a year before he when he was he was still great to the Casavant his chops May have been better in but there was a maturity and depth to his playing Casavant this set with himself a former displays that depth and but there Are still enough chops left to prove Why Breau is a cult figure among guitar its easy to see Why Breau be came a favorite of guitarists his dexterity on his instrument in this Case electric seven string guitar is he played the Gui tar like a piano Melody with accompaniment played on the Low Casavant can be reached at Gui Box v7e 3e6 or at on the in information on Breau is available on the world wide web at guitar hives does not have a distribution Deal for this set yet so Casavant is doing the Early promo Tion until a Deal is in he got Good response from local record shops while in the he Johnny new Paris verve cd Tenor saxophonist Johnny grif Fin is celebrating 50 years in the music business this year and this cd Marks three periods in his Ca reer represented by the cities of the Chicago signifies the new York represents bebop and Paris covers the romantic Griffin is backed by two Excel bands one featuring Kenny Banon on Christian me Bride on Bass and Victor Lewis on Drums Roy Hargrove plays Trum pet or flugelhorn on three the other featuring Peter Martin on Rodney Whitaker on Bass and Gregory Hutchinson on Griffin and Barron make a Superb pairing on tunes like my Romance and the Bluesy leave me Griffins Ballad playing is on the James Are Griffin and Hargrove share Solo spots and Martin gets a Chance to show off his skill with the Griffin displays his abilities on All nine it is indeed a Celebration of a great jazz file photo guitarist Lenny Breau was regular Csc to Marsalis family patriarch gets a Little help from sons beginning sunday july the Winnipeg free press along with will be awarding weekend passes to Selkirk Sun country Jam every Day until August its e byte Blangger the Allentown morning Call parents usually try to make life easier for their off Ellis the i composer and patriarch of arguably the most famous family in has an opposite Story to Tell his children helped a conductor and Pian Points to the work of his two most famous Branford and Wynton when my sons went to new York in 1978 or was Able to do one half of a which was eventually released As fathers and sons the format was that the in this Case Chicago Tenor saxophonist von Alto saxophonist Jackie Mclean and would play with their saxophonist Chico pianist Rene and the two eldest Marsalis who Gener ally plays Tenor and the for some none of the Mclean material made it on the before the National spotlight be Gan to Trace his sons skyrocketing Marsalis want widely known outside of his Home town of new he didst help his own cause when he forgot to Complete a question which would have landed him a Brief biographical mention in the encyclopedia of jazz in the seven one of several books by jazz his Torian Leonard Leonard was a Friend of Marsalis said of the late jazz Histo Rian and los Angeles times jazz he sent me the but i never sent it i was Delin Marsalis career moves beyond the Crescent City were slow at about a year after Wynton Marsalis arrived in new he hired a Wynton asked do you want me to Book things gigs for you i said it was a kind of slow but every now and id get a Chance to do some a Job a Job but i Al ways tended to keep my skills Ellis Marsalis traditional part of the reason for the slow acclaim has to do with the new or leans jazz predominated by the More traditional jazz of the Early part of the 20th in 1970s new jazz really didst hit it especially the modernistic Wing of Marsalis the musicians were not really developing in the they we rent listening to Charlie Parker and Miles Davis and thelonious the older musicians were looking at it in a futile they would in driving a if were writing you get it and no one would practise working against considerable Marsalis formed a band of Young students from the new Orleans Centre for the creative the school All four Marsa Lis offspring would eventually at with a a a drummer and a latin percussion and Marsalis on the elder Marsalis began after years of music became fun again for Ellis Marsalis passed a sense of How important the right kind of Educa Tion can be on to his the advantage that they had that some kids didst get was that if their abilities were in the music i was always in a position to see they got Good a lot of kids get Lousy Marsalis when Wynton said he wanted to play the we went through five teachers before we found the person who was really going to help i see that All the Marsalis concerns about Educa Tion continues beyond the Field of he traces most of the prob lems to the bureaucracy that runs a school a bureaucracy is like a Jet plane going Miles an hour in the wrong it has to make a wide swing and go All around before it can change simply Call the Winnipeg free press contest line at to Register your name and to identify the qx104 pm Sun country song of the Calls will be taken from 7 am11 pm winners will be declared daily and notified by Telephone and All winners names will appear in the Winnipeg free press after the if you entries May be dropped off Between 9 am2 pm daily at the free press building in the Sun country contest leave your phone Date and song of the Day to be Call in contest grand prize four front Row grandstand seats for the Sun country Jam use of a Mot orho Courtesy of cd Library of your favorite country stars at the the Laring will be charged per Monuto on their phone listen Call As often 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