Wednesday was a double-header for me, weatherly speaking. Round one took the form of a reporter from Grand Rapids Magazine, who came over to interview me about storm chasing. It was fun, but I”m afraid I may have overwhelmed Tom with my ramblings. I fell victim to the loose firehose syndrome: too much to say, and it all came cascading out in a torrent of technical information, chase anecdotes, radar and forecast model demos, names of fellow chasers, random chasing insights, blah, blah, all thrashing around in different, loosely connected directions. I hope Tom is able to make sense out of it all.\r\n\r\nWith the interview over, I left to go practice what I had just finished preaching. Michigan lay under a light risk area, and the radar showed storms firing to the north along a stationary front, and a squall line blowing in across Lake Michigan from Wisconsin. I called my buddy Kurt Hulst, and we hooked up and took off for the Lake Michigan shoreline south of Douglas. The storms weren”t particularly severe, but they were breathtakingly photogenic, and in addition to some great shots of a spectacular arcus cloud, I got some of my first captures of lightning with my new camera.\r\n\r\nEnough talk. Here are some images. Pardon the tilted horizon line in the last two. I didn”t know the lake could slant like that; no doubt it has something to do with the gravitational influence of the moon. Some may suggest that the photographer was the root cause. Don”t make me laugh! How on earth can little old me create a seiche of that magnitude in one of the Great Lakes? No, the more I think of it, the more certain I am it was the moon.\r\n\r\n

\r\nShelf cloud over Lake Michigan south of Douglas\r\n\r\n

\r\nA minute later\r\n\r\n

\r\nView to the northeast\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\nChaotic skies behind the gust front\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\nLooking south along the shoreline\r\n\r\n

\r\nLightning over Lake Michigan

Jethro Tull ROCKS!\r\n\r\nHeeeeey…what kind of thing is that to say on a jazz saxophone blog?\r\n\r\nSorry, all you purists in the crowd, but I unabashedly admit that I cut my teeth on rock and roll back in high school, and I”m a Jethro Tull devotee of long standing.\r\n\r\nA couple nights ago, I kicked back and treated myself to a smorgasborg of old Tull performances on YouTube. With years of music under my belt, I am more impressed than ever with the musical sophistication and excellence of vocalist/songwriter/flautist/accoustical guitarist Ian Anderson and his band of merry men.\r\n\r\nThis band could–and still can–play their butts off. And the songs! Tull”s music is inventive, wonderfully arranged, marked by literate and evocative lyrics and an eclectic approach that employs unusual and colorful instrumentations, polyrhythms, time changes, artful motifs, beautifully textured counterpoint, and other musical nuances, all covering the spectrum from tender lyricism to relentless, driving rock, often in the same song (e.g. the Tull classics “Locomotive Breath” and “Aqualung”). Particularly impressive is the fact that these guys were only in their twenties at the time.\r\n\r\nI submit as a case in point this 1975 performance of “The Minstrel in the Gallery.” With the wild-eyed, gesticulating Anderson in the forefront, this tune covers the gamut. I love how the lyrical introduction featuring Anderson alone on his guitar segues into the main body of the tune through a chaotic instrumental transition. Beginning with a sequence of descending arpeggios by lead guitarist Martin Barre, this section is well-knit, meticulously rehearsed pandemonium. But the payoff is still to come: the hard-driving main body of “Minstrel,” with Anderson”s nasal, piratical vocals–I”ve always admired the man”s unique song styling–weaving a story punctuated with bursts of the tune”s silvery flute motif.\r\n\r\nJethro Tull–here on a jazz website? You bet! Good music is good music, and Tull is multifaceted minstrelsy at its best.