Voyage to Scorpion Island

     A first foray into Exotica -- a form of tropical jazz popularized by Les Baxter, Martin Denny, Arthur Lyman, and others in the 1950's and 1960's -- "Voyage to Scorpion Island" was written in Chapala, Mexico this past winter.   It features field recordings from beneath the Orozco murals in the Cabanas Cultural Institute in Guadalajara, birds from the actual Scorpion Island on Lake Chapala, nods to Antônio Carlos Jobim, Love, Vince Guaraldi, and the loose vibe that visits Chapala around Christmastime. 

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LYON - Croix-Rousse

     In Lyon I would walk down Rue Pierre Corneille and across Place du Maréchal-Lyautey where there were often men playing bocce, down Rue Godefrey to the back entrance of a building, up an old-fashioned paternoster lift elevator situated in the middle of a courtyard, out into cool air over stone steps, and finally through a stout, wooden door into my sister's apartment overlooking Croix-Rousse – a stunning hilly neighborhood that rises from the Rhône to a plateau at the city's highest point.  Lyon is intricate in this way, with secret passages and rooms within even older rooms within even older buildings.  I sometimes wonder about places that went undiscovered though right under my nose, and others that were never even on the verge of being discovered.  On walks home, the red glow emanating from a third floor apartment window on Rue Godefrey would distill that sense of mystery into one image.

Romain passa sous la fenêtre de Carla sans voir la main tendue et le rideau blanc.