From An Upbeat Rock Tune to a Jazz Standard in the Key of G

I am going completely off the top here with a goal of finding the right words to let the excitement for this life I have lived and am living, roar out louder than a lion in the Sinharaja Jungle in Sri Lanka. I will go as far as saying that the wellsprings of integrating my norm with experience has given me just a bit more modes of expression to work with. I won’t be stretched too thin trying to translate my words into a language that you can understand. Instead, I will use this point in my scribing as a key moment to let my thoughts unravel in such a way that they manifest a response to the topic at hand; my getting old. Hopefully someday we will be hanging in a village together near you to discuss it in person, but for now, I will try to let the words flow in the best manner that I can.

Who I Am

Through education, exploratory work and support, I have been able to maneuver through life in the time frame that was set for me by the person who custom created me to do so. I wish I had a handful of photos to prove it, though I am known to keep momentum of my journeys by taking selfies to post on Instagram in these exotic places I have discovered the harmonic depths of, but most of my memories which stemmed from these personal adventures, stay frozen in time in my mind and so I have the intimate agony of trying to let them flow out into your capture as sweet as the Kelimutu Crater Lake in Indonesia.

I was able to connect with cultures that were not exactly in my lane but I wanted to know more about what was beyond my picket fences. I Mean behind them was a great upbringing, quality education, culture, family and love. Beyond them was something quite different than what I had called home after I learned how to no longer crawl and walked right into the thing we call life. 

Some of my habits I encountered were as draining to them as theirs was to mine. Culture you call it. How can you extract someone out of their nature? Others will call ways that are different to them annoyances.  I wanted to experience life for myself anyway. I trusted my instincts and withstood the criticism while I tried my best to nip other people's  weirdnesses in the bud. I mean, I was having a good time, so why not?  I thought then that no one should ever wipe clean from their agenda, experiencing the vibrant hues of another cultural more if able to take in the goodness of it and allowing yourself to be exposed to other methods of getting through the days and nights. I have learned that with understanding comes tolerance and to let go of the blinding vision of just what I know and what I am told is important can be a good thing but then again, who said that other ways are better? Yet, you never know if you don't see for yourself.

As my age continues to rise to a climax, I look at all my striking features and see the past epochs of time deep in the abyss of my eyes. My smile shines like the brightness of heaven. I remember so many different events that made me transpose the version of me from who I was to who I have become. All the obstacles I had to overcome to get to this place makes the oasis in which I stand today, the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

I know that the world keeps on turning no matter what earthquakes come to bring turbulence into my life. I have a foot wedged into the door of tomorrow and yet, my head sometimes still faces yesterday as I revive old mistakes from the days of my youth. At some point, I will eventually spare myself the headache of stressing over what could have, should have, would have been because I know it is pointless. What is, is what matters the most.

Who I Was

My life was once an upbeat rock tune that was way too darn hot, with mature language and rated R. I had exterior perfection but what’s it all mean if you do not have presence of quality mind? I didn’t look at the world I inhabit as ambitiously as I do now though the rhythm of life in that particular moment was totally gnarly. But nothing changes if guilt does not gnaw at you sometimes. And that is when I knew that it was time to adjust my sails and simmer down the beat.

My Song and dance started to change for the better. I had the desire to know more about how I could revise my being and to make better decisions. Even the smallest effort could result in a monstrously big change. I learned Jeet Kun Do under the guidance of Bruce Lee, kicked my old torrent in the bud, increased my knowledge which made me change in direction and thought and social situations, and now I am a jazz standard with horn and piano solos in the key of G.

My senses have reconvened after all these years. Everything along the path that lead me to this cakewalk has facilitated my current stance. Life has been a constant giving of myself and taking pieces of who I never thought I would be.  I guess you can say, attitude sometimes can be like a Broadway play for the enjoyment of many. I can admit that I have extrapolated from the strings of a Marionette in many instances. I mean, we have all done things that we wish we didn’t do in the past because we didn’t have discernment to choose what was right. Or maybe we did, but we took a detour and then suddenly, reality came gushing at an alarming speed and it forced a shift in focus.

And Now For the Feature: Who I Am Becoming

Who said that there was an appropriate age to craft a new strategy? Who said we couldn’t react to our own messes and decide to clean them up? And who said, we couldn’t create our day around planting new seeds in the garden to flourish into the sun?

What I can say is, I have seen and done a wealth of things. I have been through much wear and tear and now I am trying to simply stay proactive while getting by in this world.

I was once addicted to pain, not letting go and pivoting back to all the hurts that I never forgave myself for. I lived like a talebearer reprising stories in my mind and letting my heart shatter countless times. But knowing that experience sprung from blood, sweat and tears are the mere fabric of life. I see all these greys on my head and I know that I have lived. Now I use my past encounters as inspiration.

I stand in the mirror looking at all the unique foundational elements of the woman God created in me. I am a person of poise. I have pride and belief in my own heritage. Blessings fall fresh on me like the therapeutic waters of Montecatini. I know for a fact that I am a multidimensional, complex character and I am okay with that. And I look at all my wrinkles and realize that I have come a long way. And I look at all my scars and am grateful that I have won victory over numerous battles. And today, I weep with joy as I thrust into my birthday week with nothing but history in front of me, songs to sing about it and a voice to let them ring.

A new age and a new purpose is about to be mine and I know age is nothing but a number but, I am talking about 1,229,904,000 seconds of breathing in life. Time has moved along fast. When a parent says their child is 4 going on 20, they are not kidding. Time waits for no one and if you do not pay attention, you will let it pass you by without even flinching. Every anniversary of my birth date makes me a little depressed as I think about the years of experimentation and atmospheric turbulence that preceded my today, but then it makes me realize that there has been so much more of the insanely stylish positives to fashion around my heart and a promising future to think about. 

So many breakthroughs and so much to be thankful for in this life that did not break me because God has always been there interceding for me. I am so loved and very thankful to sit in this iron throne of age coming to grace my life. 

Photos Singing "I'll Be There," Please Be There!

“For him and his brother, he now knew, 

that music was real. 

Because all you had to do, really, 

was be willing to use your imagination. 

And listen.” 

(Holly Goldberg Sloan)

http://www.facebook.com/jnotemusic

PLEASE BE THERE . . .

Wordless Wednesdays: Harmony

Harmony

Four Fives For Tuesday; Thoughts on Art & Music

Here we are! Another day, minute, hour and second of life that we were not promised and are very fortunate to see. What a blessing!

I am still amazed that the year is going by so quickly, that the weather in NYC has been so cold lately and that Thanksgiving is not only next week but, we have a little over 50 days until 2018 makes its welcome into our lives. How crazy is that? But thank God, for blessing us to see these exciting times.

And just as any other day, writing seems to just flow out of me like blood from a wound. Mama Kat posts these cool prompts every week on her website and I felt like joining in because it was an interesting one and hopefully you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed populating the information in this post which is like an introduction of sorts to who I am. Maybe some of these things will be similar to the way that you think. 

Five Things That You Might Not Know About Me

1. I love Shakespeare and everything he writes. I have loved him ever since a high school professor of mine made us memorize and recite a monologue from his play “Hamlet.” I loved him so much that I started to notice his language; so much that one day when reading the King James Bible, I noticed how Elizabethan the language in it was and after doing research, came to find out that Shakespeare was one of the translators of it. 

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Knickerbocker Classics)

I love "Romeo & Juliet," "Taming of the Shrew," still can recite the monologue from "Hamlet" word for word today and I consider his sonnets to be a template of how to write a song. The first 8 lines are the verse and the last two are the chorus. I love the way he wrote; beautiful works!  

2. Amel Larrieux has become my favorite singer. I love everything she sings and have every single one of her albums including from when she was in the group Groove Theory. I have seen her in concert four times and really enjoy the way she sings her songs. MY favorite song by her is “Even If” off of her first solo project Infinite Possibilties. There was a time when I would spend my evening singing all of her songs from every album to the four corners of my basement. Her sound is very unique and I love what she can do with her voice.

3. Aladdin is one of my favorite movies and though it is a cartoon movie, I can sit and watch it on any day or time, laugh, cry and sing along to every song that is featured in the movie. I never grow tired of it and watch it anytime it is on television and also have the DVD to it. Great classic animated film.

 

Aladdin (Two-Disc Set DVD, Special Edition,2004) English/French/Spanish

4. I was working as a choir director at Mt Moriah Baptist Church in Harlem, NY over the youth. It was interesting for me because I always wanted to work with kids and with music. The dilemma was reaching through to the kids. I came from a Roman Catholic background and I loved hymns. Still do. But, the kids did not like it so much. Every week I would come in with one of my favorite hymns and they said, “I don’t like that one miss Stephanie,” and every week I would leave crying. Then one week, I decided to no longer leave crying. I set a goal to create my own music to share with them and using Cakewalk Sonar software and my Korg Triton LE Music Workstation, I created my first ever collection of works of music. It was an album of Christian works featuring 14 tracks: intro, outro, two interludes and ten full length songs.

I Know is just one of them created for this project to teach the kids songs that I thought they’d like. Turned out that NYC bassist Ozzie Jones Jr liked my bass line on the song so much that he plugged into my system and did some live bass overdubs over it and the song was created. You can check out that tune here: https://soundcloud.com/stephanay-jnote/stephanay-jnotes-tracks-1

By the way, yes, I did meet my deadline and had a cd for every kid ready to give them with a bag of other goodies for Christmas. I worked night and day until the production was completed which was on Christmas eve of that year with cases, cd covers with photos, artwork on each cd and a track listing on the back. “I Know” is the only song I have shared publicly from it with anyone else.

5. I used to think that Miles Davis was mute because I saw this recording of a concert he did years ago and he did not speak to the crowd at all. He had his back turned to them most of the time. I didn’t understand his demeanor until when doing my college thesis and came across his autobiography where he spoke about being a student at Julliard and ideologies. I also read a few articles where he was interviewed and spoke about his views about society, jazz, racism and being accepted into segregated establishments only to provide a service.  Then I saw a video that was presented on Youtube of an interview where he actually had dialogue and that cleared up everything. I fell in love with who he was after reading his autobiography and he became one of my favorite jazz musicians of all times. I was excited to hear that there was a movie out about his life but decided not to see it because I was told that many of the aspects that I found interesting about him as an individual in this society that were featured in his autobiography were not included in the film and instead, the movie was based on the rumoresque side of his life.

 

Miles

Five Things I Am Knowledgeable About

1. Video Editing

2. Cakewalk Sonar

3. Live Musical Stage Performing

4. The Culture of Jazz

5. Composing

Five Things I Know Nothing About

1. Snapchat

2. House of Cards

3. Playing a horn

4. Driving in NYC without getting an attitude

5. Iphone 7 and up

Five Things I Believe

1. Christmas is the best holiday of the year and the best season is autumn because of all the beautiful colors and fashion designs made for it. 

2. A broken language does not mean that a people bastardized though they were forced to learn it. It means that they used their intellect to be able to effectively communicate in a language that was never theirs to begin with

3. Every hour of the day is rush hour because everybody has become so impatient lately. It seems like the more electronic and fast processing information becomes, the attention span of people and their ability to wait even for a second is too long. I think soon all positions where humans interact with each other personally will dwindle down and everything will be online without any real human interaction

4. God is the source of all my strength and the strength of all my life. Without him I’d be nothing. I can lean on him and through his faith, I do not have to worry about too much because he always provides a way; even out of no way.

5. I have a great library of music featured on Spotify that you definitely should check out and add to your music playlists here: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6WUF7BBajYlCVnn4phqIeU

Your Turn

Care to share? I would love to know some things about you that might be similar or different. What are five things that would surprise people to know about you?

Thank you for reading my post and thank you for sharing your thoughts. God bless! 

100 Different Songs by 100 Different Artists and a Potpourri of Styles and Genres From All Around the Globe

The idea of finding 100 different songs, each from different artists was not an easy challenge; but I like challenges and so, I did it.

Music Choices

How do you know if you like an artist if you never listen to their music? And how do you know which song is your favorite from the artist if you only listen to one song?  


And how do you know that you will not enjoy the quality of sound just because it is not on vinyl? And how do you know if you will not enjoy a genre of music if you never give it a chance?

ION Profile LP Vinyl-to-MP3 Turntable

I know a good amount of indie artists and that made the challenge to finish this newly created playlist a little bit easier because I got a chance to finally and completely indulge in their sounds; some of them for the first time and that was a joy to hear. But then there were some artists that I had never heard of and just came across on some of the social media networks and it was like opening up another world into music and I just loved it. Took a while to get to 100 but finally; I did it! 

My Top 100

So here it is, my Top 100. The challenge got me into listening to more music that was not already in my music library which is my usual thing and that was cool because it forced me to break out of the force field of routine.  You can check it out on spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/user/22hsqdduuzk6igxvrtw5l6iiq/playlist/3FFUhnNn9IAK2x2YBBEHdg

If you are looking for some new sounds to check out, put this playlist on and just let it play out. You’ll hear 100 different songs by 100 different artists and a potpourri of different styles and genres from all around the globe.

A Jamboree of Songs for the NYC Marathon Runners That Moved Me

Sunday, November 5^th, 2017 was the 47^th annual TCS NYC Marathon since it started in 1970. This year’s theme was “It Will Move You” and I have to say that, if you were one of the millions of spectators who gathered together to cheer the runners on from the sideline, some of the things that you saw would have really moved you in so many ways.

A medley of over 51,000 world citizens chose to fight to the finish line of this 26.2-mile journey in the misty cool temperatures from the starting line at the foot of the Verrazano Bridge in Staten Island all the way to the end at West Drive in Central Park near Tavern on the Green in Manhattan.  

This year was my fourth year straight rooting from the sidelines with a jamboree of songs and encouragement. Some of the teams that ran past my group as we sang to the melody of their feet hitting the pavement were Strides NYC, Harlem Run, Latin Runners Club, Willpower Fitness, Team for Kids, Black Girls Run, Black Men Run, Italian American Running Club and Front Runners NY, just to name a few. What I noticed was that there were more runners this year than I had ever seen in the past. And what a medley of them where you saw all types of people; big and chunky, small and lanky, lean and young, thick and gray, black people, white people and all types of men and women from all over the world all exhilarated to run, walk or get through the stretch in the best way that they could.

36-year-old Shalane Flanagan came in first place being the first American woman since 1977 to have won the NYC marathon. And the first man to cross the finish line was 24-year-old man from Kenya, Geoffrey Kamworo. And then in the wheelchair division the first woman to cross the finish line was Manuela Schar and the 1^st male to cross was Marcel Hug, both from Switzerland. But it wasn’t the fast runners with their collective energy that thrilled me the most, making me feel excited as we danced, sang, snapped selfies with some of the runners who stopped to thank us or give us a hi-five while encouraging the crowd of on viewers in Bay Ridge to make some noise for the runners.

It was the people who were in wheelchairs, those who were running with their trainers because they just got off of hip surgery but wanted to attempt the 26.2-mile run anyway, and the ones that were on crutches with one leg and still trying the run on for size anyway that made me feel overcome with emotion. As the slogan for this year said, I was really moved by them. I have walked 10.5 miles in about two and a half hours but that was it. I have never run 10 miles though. But these people who truly physically can't are thrusting through with  all the power God gave them to at least try and that is something. 

Sad to think of all the times that I complain about the little things like my train not stopping at my stop unexpectedly due to track repairs and having to walk a few extra blocks to get home with my two working legs and capable body, yet those without were able to put all their troubles aside to do something that seemed almost impossible without complaining and happy to take such a chance. Seeing them proved that nothing is impossible. I mean, in all honesty, would you attempt running a marathon after just one month of hip surgery? The courage it takes to be able to use the one working leg you have to run; I am amazed by that.

Check out a mini slideshow from where we were snuggly positioned from the sidelines in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, NY. You can watch it here: https://youtu.be/gdNCcSY4U0Q 

Congratulations to all of the runners and thank you for all of the inspiration that each and every one of you provide. 

Let's Talk About Driving Drowsy From Gigs

It’s nothing new under the sun that the tongue holds immense power. We speak and have the power to change people’s minds in either a positive or negative way. This week I want to use mine to talk about driving drowsy.

Driving drowsy is a passionate topic for me because a few years back, I happened to be driving drowsy. I had slept only but one hour the night before and spent the long day busy doing things, then went to a gig doing the very taxing thing of singing live only to drive home more exhausted than I should have been, and it took just one second of me closing my eyes while behind the wheel to have an accident that left bewildering hurt and altered my life in so many ways. How many times can I say that I have driven tired coming from late night gigs in the past with my eyes closing at traffic lights or stops and nothing as immense as this has ever happened. But it only takes one time and you just never know when it will be. 

I can’t even explain to you the mental calisthenics that I have been through ever since and though I survived it without a scratch on my body, I still muster sympathy for the fact that it happened. My car was nearly totaled but I was okay. If anything proved to me the power of faith and that God truly is love, it was the moment that I realized the precious cargo of the woman that he created in me's life was spared.




Thankful that God kept me and I’m still here to talk about my testimony. Unfortunately, it is not the same for many others.

“The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration conservatively estimates that 100,000 police reported crashes each year are caused primarily by drowsy driving and that such crashes result in more than 1,550 deaths, 71,000 injuries and $12.5 billion in monetary losses" (National Sleep Foundation). The numbers are quite alarming to me. I know that it is said that every 4th car on the road is under the influence but, who would have thought that this number would include being under the influence of tiredness? Be careful when coming home from gigs because after putting all that energy into giving a great performance or any job that requires lots of effort and energy, you just never know what the result could be while driving tired and with drowsiness. Please be safe on those roads. 

Driver fatigue drowsy driving Anti Sleep Alarm System

This week from November 5 to 12th celebrates Drowsy Driving Prevention Week and because this is a subject I am very passionate about, I will dedicate this week’s episode of my radio show Jazz on the JNote to discuss ways to prevent falling asleep behind the wheel while driving because there are many that can spare the lives of those busy people who have no choice but to drive under the influence of exhaustion. 

I will stress that my show is not a talk show. It is jazz based and the music is non-stop. However I will discuss ways to stay alert on the road such as chewing gum, or using your hands free device to have a conversation with a friend among other ways to prevent drowsy driving, while playing songs that stress on these ideas. 

Please tune in this Sunday evening, November 5, 2017 at 7PM EST for Jazz on the Jnote. You can tune in by visiting http://www.theenglishconnectionmedia.com or http://mixlr.com/the-english-connection-media/ to tune in.

It’s not what you do but how it’s done and because we are rational by design, let’s weigh in the decision to drive safely and if you are tired, make the healthy decision of not getting behind the wheel. Have a blessed and wonderful week and please stay safe on the roads. Your life depends on it and so does everybody else who is on the road. 

Blessings!