Skip to this...

Everyone has different triggers that make them feel... just right...at home and well, just plain aaaaaah.  I have a lot of these triggers, which is good because I've spent much of my life making homes everywhere except my own. Sometimes its a smell, a taste, and in this case, tunes.  

In my house growing up, no matter what was happening around us, there was music playing.  And it was always coming from the huge Hi-Fi speakers in my Pop's "den".  Usually, it was vinyl spinning on the carousel, although occasionally on our weekly trips to Tower Records, Pops would buy a CD... because, well, he needed to have whatever song he was hunting... no matter what (well, almost.  I don't really remember him buying tapes.... I can't imagine that the sound quality was good enough for his well tuned, engineer/audiophillac ears...).

The genres differed depending on what we were doing whilst listening.  If Pop was "doing the bills" - which to us always just looked like organized stacked piles of nondescript papers all over the floor, hugging my father who was their master.... while he rubbed his tired eyes and sighed... a lot, he would listen to his classical delights.  Each piece collected carefully over weeks of Sunday trips to Tower. He was always conducting his imaginary orchestra and drawing our attention to his fave parts with a "here it comes!!!"

If we were having company over, my Mother, a Spanish teacher and Ladino poetry scholar would choose something flamenco or Gypsy-ish, Manitas de Plata... anything gitana-esq. It put a spring in her step as she set the table and mixed sangria.

My favorite days were Jazz days.  The goal?  To be happy, dance, run in circles around the couch (To "fast jazz") or to sit down with Pops and eat scrambled eggs with cheese (the only dish in his culinary repertoire, well, aside from tuna salad).  That was the best!  Usually Dave Brubeck's Take 5 was first, followed by some Pres. Hall Jazz Band, Charlie Bird, Benny Goodman, Horace Silver, Louis, Ella....even some Lena Horn... Yeah, my Pop could swing it (still does!), and I'm so glad he gave me this education when I was young.  Now, I can feel at home anywhere I go, I can feel "right" no matter whats going on and I can help others feel those things too.  Because this love for music is the good kind of contagious.

Pop always says "Nerds rule the world".  I can't really disagree, but I will add, that audiophiles... music lovers and scholars have the ability to change and maybe fix the world. One tune at a time.  

So, come with me on a stroll down the intricate pathways of the musi-verse.  I am constantly on the hunt for musical excitement and adventure.  Some days its jazz that makes me swoon and others its indie-folk, or maybe its the blues... 

Whatever flavor of music (and sometimes dance) that I share... I hope it moves you the same way its moved me.  

All my love,

Ilana