Dinner @ JT's

Another dinner at JT's Urban Italian Restaurant on Elmwood Ave. It's one of our regular dinner places along with being one of the restaurants we take out of town folks for a nice dinner in Buffalo.

It was a great night in the restaurant. The bar was full and there were plenty of tables in use. A nice Thursday night. We had 6 pm reservations and we left around 7:30. We had a wonderful time. Service was great as usual and we took a couple of boxes home of some serious leftovers for dinner tomorrow.

I had rigatoni bolognese and Becky had a chicken parmesan cutlet. I also had some Tuscan Blend and a Peroni draft beer.

Overall we had a very nice evening at one of our favorite restaurants.

John Burdett - Authors List

John Burdett - Authors List. I've read 6 of his novels and all part of the Sonchai Jitpleecheep Bangkok detective murder mystery series. Burdett is an English crime novelist who has mostly lived in France and Thailand and writes about the collisions of Western and Asian norms and morality from the perspective of a part Thai and American outsider working as a detective in Bangkok. I found his novels to be fascinating and bizarre almost to an extreme but also very entertaining.

I read the first four books rather quickly one after another in 2011 and then the fifth book several years later. I always had it in the back of my mind to get to that last book that came out in 2015 but it took me over ten years. I've only just read the last book of the series and finished it today. It only took me a week to read it.

John Burdett books I've read:

• Bangkok 8, 2003 - Jun 2011
• Bangkok Tattoo, 2006 - Aug 2011
• Bangkok Haunts, 2007 - Sep 2011
• The Godfather of Katmandu, 2010 - Dec 2011
• Vulture Peak, 2012 - May 2015
• Bangkok Asset, 2015 - Apr 2026

The Meters - Kitchen Listening

Listening to The Meters. Some New Orleans style funky music with a two and a half hour set of their first four albums. These early albums were mostly instrumentals with some occasional funky singing thrown in. Toe tappin' and chair dancin'.

I saw them perform during Mardi Gras week down in New Orleans in 1974. 

• The Meters, 1969
• Look-Ka Py Py, 1969
• Struttin', 1970
• Cabbage Island, 1972

Next Season - Buffalo Chamber Music

Last night we got the flyers announcing the line-up for next season's 8 concerts of the Buffalo Chamber Music series. 

• Jupiter Quartet - Oct 7
• Poiesis Quartet - Nov 10
• YCA on Tour Piano Trio - Dec 15
• Quatuor Diotima - Jan 26
• Brentano Quartet - Feb 9
• Isidore String Quartet - Mar 30
• Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center - Apr 26

Looking forward to another season after a six month break.

More Miles - Kitchen Listening

Kitchen Listening this morning with more Miles Davis from the time period covered in the jazz book I just read. This time a little more quieter and with a thoughtful laid back groove. Sounded nice especially after that wonderful string quartet concert last night.

• Sketches of Spain, 1960
• Porgy and Bess, 1959
• Quiet Nights, 1963
• Seven Steps To Heaven, 1963

Chamber Music Concert - The Jerusalem Quartet

We had a very nice time last night in the Mary Seton Room at Kleinhans Music Hall listening and experiencing The Jerusalem Quartet from Israel. Another great night of fantastic musicians and some interesting selections of music to play. This was also the last concert of the season.

They played the String Quartet in F major by Ravel then the String Quartet No. 4 - Betwixt and Between by Shulamit Ran that was commissioned and composed for the Jerusalem Quartet in 2025. After the intermission they played Beethoven's String Quartet in B flat, Op. 130 and the Op. 133.

The concert ran a little longer than usual and we didn't get home until a little after 10pm. Driving back on Elmwood Avenue we saw lots of bars packed with folks watching the Sabres game which was tied 1-1 at the time. We were able to watch the overtime period when we got home which the Sabres lost 2-1. 

Theodore H. White - Authors List

Theodore H. White - Authors List. 6 books by this political writer. Around the time of Richard Nixon's  Watergate scandal and his resignation from the presidency I started reading this series of books about the presidential campaigns and elections of 1960 to 1972 written by White. 

The 1972 election between Richard Nixon and George McGovern was the first one where I could vote. Of course I voted for McGovern who lost in a landslide victory for Nixon who won about 61% of the popular vote and carrying 49 states. I voted by mail from a ship at sea.

This experience made me interested in the presidential campaign process and then there was Watergate which made people think of the possibility of election fraud. Later on I would read several books about Watergate and Nixon including another book by this author.

Theodore H. White books I've read:

• The Making of the President 1960: Inside the Kennedy-Nixon Presidential Campaign, 1961 - Aug 1974
• The Making of the President 1964: LBJ, Goldwater and the Campaign Battle That Reshaped American Politics, 1965 - Sep 1974
• The Making of the President 1968: Nixon's Election, Kennedy's Assassination and a Nation Divided, 1969 - Oct 1974
• The Making of the President 1972: Richard Nixon's Campaign and Historic Landslide, 1973 - Nov 1974
• Breach of Faith: The Fall of Richard Nixon, 1975 - Dec 1977
• In Search of History: A Personal Adventure, 1978 - Jul 1984

John Coltrane - Kitchen Listening

Listened to some early John Coltrane from the years 1958 to 1962 after reading James Kaplan's 3 Shades of Blue. A relaxing three hour set of Coltrane from four of his albums in my collection. Plenty more where these cams from.

I could listen to his incredible sax playing all day... every day.

• Soultrane, 1958
• Blue Train, 1958
• Giant Steps, 1960
• Coltrane Plays the Blues, 1962

Jules Verne - Authors List

Jules Verne - Authors List with 6 books read. Four of these science fiction adventure novels I read as a teenager after seeing the movies that had come out in the 1950's and early 60's. Then I read them all again in the early 1970's while I was doing my own journeys around the world. Just last year I read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea again for a third time.

Jules Verne is considered the father of science fiction and he along with H.G. Wells and the Tom Swift Jr. series got me interested in the genre at an early age.

Jules Verne books I've read:

• Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1867 - May 1970
• 20,000 Thousands Leagues Under the Sea, 1871 - Jun 1970
• Around the World in 80 Days, 1873 - Dec 1970
• The Mysterious Island, 1875 - Sep 1971
• From the Earth to the Moon, 1868 - Jan 1973
• The Lighthouse at the End of the World, 1905 - Apr 1973

3 Shades of Blue

3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans and the Lost Empire of Cool by James Kaplan, 2025.

Becky got me this book for Christmas and I loved it. I took my time reading it in small segments rather than going through it like a mystery novel page-turner and enjoyed every bit of it over the course of four months. 

The main focus of the book was the year 1959 and the making of the album Kind of Blue which is often considered the greatest jazz album of all time and one of my favorites. The book then followed those three giant jazz musicians through the next few years of their accomplishments and struggles.

I have also been doing lots of kitchen listening to the music discussed in the book. Great albums from Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Thelonious Monk, Cannonball Adderley, Sonny Rollins, Ornette Coleman, Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus and so many more.

Over the years I've read several other books about Miles Davis and John Coltrane.