Gigging and...Pajamas?

The gig today went great! Photos coming soon!  I just had to put Louis Armstrong up there at the top because his gig playing and singing are legendary!

As for after my gig today, I changed out of my performing clothes--black velvet dress with feathers and five-inch heels--and put on the most comfortable pants I could find.  And then I realized I needed to get a few groceries and just didn't feel like changing again.

So, for the first time in my college life I went to the grocery store in exercise pants. Shocking, I know!  So uncharacteristic of me.

Even less characteristic is I was actually wearing my pajama pants aka exercise pants to everyone else in the world.  The great thing is no one ever knew I was actually wearing pajama pants.

Coincidentally, there is a song that mentions pajamas (in a completely non-sleezy way) in the lyrics.  This song plays with differing pronunciations of words to show why a relationship is strained and may possibly fail!  This may sound silly, but the song really connects with the listener!  So here's "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" sung by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong!

High Heels: Vacuuming, Mountain Climbing, and Dancing, Oh My!

I'm the kind of person who vacuums in high heels...okay, I rarely do that now, but it used to be a normal occurrence.  My sister would tease me every time she'd see me and say I reminded her of Barbara Billingsley's character June Cleaver on "Leave it to Beaver" vacuuming in high heels and pearls.  Some things about TV are just ridiculous.

Now I wear flats more often, but I do still love to wear heels (check out my heels blog entry.)  Sometimes they slow me down and they are definitely impractical for speedy hikes across campus but despite the possibility of sounding vain--heels just make every outfit look more awesome!

So I won't go mountain climbing, fishing, or running in heels but I might vacuum in them.  Long live the legacy of June Cleaver, no matter how ridiculous it seems!

I think I should also add that I do dance in heels.  That may seem like a silly thing to say, but I have observed that a lot of women take their heels off to dance at dances.  I learned ballroom and Latin dancing in real dance shoes with heels!  My advice: buy sole and heel gels for your high heels so your feet will not hurt the day AFTER you keep them on while you dance.

It really helps to buy shoes in the right size!  I know it's tempting to buy those cute on-sale heels that are a size too big or a size too small (I've been guilty of this) but trust me, you'll hate yourself when those blisters show up.  So be kind to your feet and wait until you get the right look, right size, and right gels all in the same heel.

So even though I won't be going mountain climbing, fishing, and dancing in high heels, here's one of my favorite songs that captures all three activities!  I've highlighted it before, but it deserves a look from a different perspective!  I love it.  Here's "Cheek to Cheek" sung by the irrepressible Frank Sinatra!

Performing and All That Jazz

Photo by Brett Bird

I love to perform.  You could say I live to perform.  I can't imagine my life without performing.

And besides the performing itself, I love to dress up.  By the time I was five, I had dressing up down to an art.  I changed outfits multiple times a day just for fun--leaving discarded outfits strewn on the floor of my room.  They eventually ended up filling laundry baskets.

Given the amount of laundry I produced, my mom could not keep up.  So she showed me how much work she had to do to provide clean clothes for me each day.  She suggested a ground rule for my daily dressing up.  I could lay out on my bed three outfits I could choose from during the day to change into, depending on my whims.  I could mix pants with dresses, frills with bathing suits, and wear in public whatever I chose to wear without her correcting me.

She was pretty smart to show the consequences that resulted in work for her, then suggest an alternative approach all the while limiting the number of outfits yet allowing me total latitude to wear whatever I wanted to wear regardless where I would be seen wearing totally incongruent combinations.  My strong sense of self-identity revealed itself from a very young age!

One of my favorite outfits was a pastel yellow, blue, and pink ruffled shirt paired with a brown corduroy skirt.  Another outfit was a pink one-piece bathing suit with a toucan bird on the front with a parasol and pink winter boots.  Sometimes I wore a skirt or shorts over the bathing suit.  Ah, to be a child again!  My fashion sense has, fortunately, improved.

Now I love black velvet and feathers.  I just love stylish ensembles!  I love hats and very high heels.  I love jewelry and make-up.  And every time I perform it feels like it is dress-up time when I was a little girl asserting my identity and individuality.  Except now I look more presentable!

Maybe that's another reason I love jazz so much.  As a "girl singer" I'm allowed, even expected, to be more dressy as a performer.

But at the heart of performing is the music.  And what amazing music it is!

Here's one of my favorite songs--and it will be on my jazz standards CD this summer--"Can't We Be Friends" sung by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong.

I'm Dreaming of a White Birthday...

I really can't believe it just keeps snowing...and snowing...and snowing!  It snowed again today!

I grew up in Iowa and got quite used to having snow on my birthday.  I loved it--except in Kindergarten.

That year, school was cancelled on my birthday and I couldn't take my class treat--cupcakes--to school.  Sure, I took the cupcakes the next day, but it just wasn't the same.  And neither were the cupcakes, for that matter.

Plus, I had to wait ALL day for my dad to get home from work so I could open my presents.  Apparently, dads go to work even when school is cancelled.  Talk about torture for a six-year-old.  Life doesn't get much harder than resisting the desire to open presents until 5:00 p.m.

Back to today's snow, it actually was rain earlier today.  I thought dressy heels would be okay in the rain in the church parking lot, but I kept slipping and sliding.  Fortunately, I never actually fell, but the slipping did cause me to re-evaluate my decision to wear the dressy heels...but risking life and limb for fashion is sometimes a necessity.

So maybe snow isn't quite a birthday tradition, but I definitely associate snow with my birthday.  Except for the three years I lived in Georgia.  It didn't snow on those birthdays.  Ever.

So here's to hoping I have a white birthday.  I do think I need a song with a color in the title...I've already highlighted "Blue Skies."

Okay, I give in.  Today's song is "White Christmas" sung by, of course, Bing Crosby.

And here's a heads-up surprise:  I'm releasing my version of "White Christmas" later this year on Jazzy Christmas to You III.

The Quest for the Perfect Pair of Heels

One of my favorite pairs of dressy heels

I love to wear heels!  I absolutely, positively LOVE to wear heels.  Yes, I know the strain on my knees is there but I love to wear heels and I do so with wisdom.

Anyway, I've got a problem.  I have my dressy heels and then I always have a pair of "everyday" heels.  My everyday heels have given their all and they won't last much longer.  And I simply can't find another pair to replace them!

I've looked everywhere and either the heels are too thin (not good for everyday walking) or the angle hurts my knees or the heels are just plain ugly.  I would never wear an ugly shoe, so ugly heels are just out of the equation.

So I continue my quest for the perfect pair of everyday heels.  Until then, I'm resigned to wearing flats--albeit very cute flats--but they just don't have the same pizazz that a good pair of heels has.

To con-"sole" (he he) myself as I wear the flats while shopping for my perfect heels, I think about how noble my quest is...okay, it's not noble at all.  But, I do like noble quests, and because I like noble quests I enjoy the song "The Impossible Dream (The Quest)."  Here's my version from my album As American As Jazz.