Not all Swifts can sing but this one certainly can. At age 23, Veronica Swift is now being recognized as one of the top young jazz singers on the scene. Not only is she a fine singer she is reviving the 'lost art' of scat singing (originating in vocal jazz, scat singing or scatting is vocal improvisation with wordless vocables, nonsense syllables or without words at all. In scat singing, the singer improvises melodies and rhythms using the voice solely as an instrument.)
Her parents are renowned jazz pianist Hod O’Brien and celebrated jazz singer and educator/author Stephanie Nakasian. She has appeared on stage with Jon Hendricks, Annie Ross, Esperanza Spalding, Joe Lovano, Bob Dorough, Kim Nazarian, Danilo Perez, and others. With her family she has appeared at The Great Waters Music Festival in NH, Blues Alley Jazz Club in DC, the Jazz Standard in NYC, the Jazz Cruise, and for the New Jersey and Hilton Head Jazz Societies.
(There are not many good quality videos so this is but a small selection and as Wiggia has already noted she needs to find better backing musicians although in the last video below she shares the stage with Wynton Marsalis and he looks suitably impressed by her performance.)
At Last - Live at the Strathmore (A Glenn Miller Swing Celebration) Ft. Veronica Swift
Veronica Swift - Moanin'
Veronica Swift sings "This Bitter Earth" at the 2023 SFJAZZ Gala
Veronica Swift 'Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me' Blue Note NYC [Night 3]
"I Just Found Out About Love" Veronica Swift and the SC Jazz Masterworks Ensemble
Véronica Swift & Wynton Marsalis "Cherokee" @Jazz_in_Marciac 2019
Chris Spheeris is a Greek-American composer of instrumental music. He is a producer, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist.
Chris Spheeris has created some of the most enchanting instrumental music of this era. It has earned him platinum, gold, and Emmy awards. His music has been heard in Olympic skating championships, Miss Universe pageants, documentary films, daytime television dramas, and countless commercials.
'Out of my perversity I'd try to drive Mike mad. I'd be late, I'd love it when he would lose his temper and dominate me. I'd start to purr because he'd won.'
Lindsay Hoyle has with his change of rules stepped over the line, yet this is not the most pressing part of the shambles in parliament; “the worst scenes I have seen in parliament in the last fifty years” said one journalist.
Like most things exaggeration comes easily to British journalists, this was hardly a kin to the all out fighting seen in some countries when things go wrong:
Cries of ‘order order’ would have proved less than useless in those situations. The speaker was heckled, rightly, and a few people walked out in an orderly fashion, it was all very British.
What was wrong was the proposed debate in the first place, the assumption that if our MPs got together and said 'stop that Israel' would take any notice of a washed-up world power is laughable. I have even heard the word ‘insist’ used in the same context!
One has to ask why is this fervour directed at Israel and Gaza when thousands are dying in Ukraine and after two years of fighting and billions shovelled Zelensky’s way, demands for a ceasefire are not forthcoming in that region?
I would suggest it is partly because this is election year and the muslim vote, ever more important in certain areas, is uppermost in many MPs' minds. Long-term this is a lost cause as the demographics will determine that Islam-based parties will emerge; they already have with Aspire in Tower Hamlets showing the way.
The electoral commission has not allowed the first of the Islam-based parties to be established……
New ‘Party of Islam’ rejected by Electoral Commission over compliance with election law
The Express first reported on the party's attempted registration this weekend.
Anyone believing that is the end of it is living in a bubble. There will be a more normal approach that disguises the belief system that underpins these type of parties and once they have momentum the Islam factor will emerge.
So what did the shenanigans in Parliament achieve, apart from the remote chance the Speaker will join Bercow in hall of shame? Nothing at all: it will fill headlines for a couple of days, Cameron will resume his world tour and make more unaccountable statements to an empty room and all will carry on the same.
Still it’s good to know the new intake of MPs has such a caring and thoughtful and intelligent addition to its ranks…..
Bandwagon beckons….
Just one thing to add, there was no vote, good start though.
The Speakeasies' Swing Band! are a seven piece Swing/Jazz band based in Thessaloniki, Greece. The line up features Caterina Sisinni (vocals), Panos Karnoutsos (Electric Guitar), Manolis Stamatiadis (Piano), Panos Voularakis (Upright Bass), Giannis Ntalianis (Acoustic Guitar), Christos El. Papadopoulos (Clarinet) and Grigoris Oikonomou (drums). The Speakeasies' Swing Band! formed in 2010. The band's preview Extended play, Bathtub Gun, was released in 2012 and their debut album Land Of Plenty in 2015
The UK’s Office of National Statistics (ONS) has changed the way it calculates ‘excess deaths’ i.e. whether weekly recorded deaths are more (or less) than expected. The methodology had remained the same for at least half a century: to compare latest data with the average of the previous five years - a simple arithmetical task. Now a new system is used, weighting various factors and interpreting the results with statistical analyses that are far beyond the layperson’s grasp.
The change has been noted with suspicion by (for instance) Youtube commentators Simon Webb and Katie Hopkins. They and others think the government is keen to play down the figures because of the potential for public criticism. The inquiry into Covid and official actions taken started in 2022 and is still ongoing; will it be a face-saving whitewash?
Popular theories abound to explain the apparently anomalous increase in mortality. One, it’s fair to say, is the subject of systematic suppression in the media: the idea that the mRNA vaccines have adversely affected many people, sometimes fatally.
Other reasons are already provisionally accepted: that the lockdowns and other methods of social isolation led to delays in diagnosing and treating cancer, and to ‘deaths of despair’ as people harmed their health with overindulgence in alcohol and drugs. There was also the disastrous decision to ‘clear the decks’ in hospitals by moving elderly patients into care homes where they might infect others and where staff were afraid to look after them appropriately.
However there are a few additional possible reasons why the raw data for deaths in this country might have changed and will continue to change. You may be able to think of more.
The population is ageing
The real number of people living in the UK may be higher than the official estimates. Indirect evidence may come from supermarket purchases or even Facebook usage
Economic inequality is increasing and poorer people live less long, for various reasons. The statistics vary around regions of the country
For 2020-2022, male deaths outstripped female - the first time since 1981. Does this indicate that men, traditionally family providers, feel greater pressure and sense of failure in a declining economy and use less approprate coping strategies?
The NHS is failing, especially in the provision of GP services. The contract agreed under the Brown premiership released GPs from the obligation to provide evening and weekend cover and there is an increasing tendency for them to deal with queries remotely - that’s if one can get through on the phone in a reasonable time.
Not all of the above would explain the recent spikes, but it is clear that a subtler analysis is needed.
Blogger is acting oddly and I recall that MS Word has been censoring drafts for a year or two. Are Gates' myrmidons interfering here? So I submit this again in the hope that everything can go through as intended.
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The energy that is being expended by the Conservative party in a vain attempt to stave off political annihilation in the forthcoming general election is but a sideshow in their path to oblivion. I could be wrong but even Lazarus would be hard pushed to save the day such is their state.
Should we care?
“An unelected body like the WHO, controlled and run by multibillionaires, should never be allowed to act in place of a democratically elected government."
I cannot remember a similar disclaimer such as the following on the government’s petition site, not exactly inspiring confidence in support of the sovereign nation over a signed treaty with an organisation that again is elected by no-one but sponsored largely by Bill Gates!
“The UK Government will not end our WHO membership. We are committed to working with the WHO to tackle the world’s health issues. We do not and will never cede sovereign powers through our partnership.”
If the UK signs an international treaty with the WHO then we will cede all sovereign claims as we do with so much else when international law is quoted.
IN OTHER NEWS…
Netherlands:
After the Upper Chamber fraction of the Conservative party (VVD) voted this week IN FAVOUR of compelling all local authorities to accommodate set quotas of asylum seekers (flying in the face of its own election manifesto policy and its Lower Chamber fraction's vote AGAINST this), the latest polling shows Geert Wilder's Freedom Party (PVV) would now gain 49 seats in Lower Chamber elections.
This is an increase of 12 seats since the election last November, all taken from the VVD, which now would only have 12; making the PVV fraction four times larger (!) than the VVD, which was the dominant party in the outgoing coalition ... Coalition formations talks due to continue tomorrow.
This poll result will only strengthen Geert's position.
Decarbonisation:
Still at least the march towards Net Zero is going well, alongside having to pay for gas and nuclear to be on standby for when the sun does not shine and wind does not blow, examples ad nauseam. We now have from the horse’s mouth so to speak another reason not to want to go the net zero route.
Energy bills must rise to pay for net zero, says Siemens Energy boss
"The WEF is a fanatical political organisation that uses fear and manipulation, like Covid hysteria, like the hoax of global warming, to really facilitate people thinking that somehow they're the saviours, but really all you're doing is helping them accomplish their goal, which really is a global public-private fascist movement, and fusion of big government, big tech [and] big money, to create a technocratic ruling elite, which conveniently is them."
"They want to create feudalism 2.0, in which we are serfs, and they are the lords ruling over us… That's what they're aiming for."
Enoch Powell on the Dick Cavett show in 1971, predicting the future:
"Large parts of parts of our cities will by the beginning of the next century will be occupied by a population which has nothing in common with the people of this country."
The strange and dangerous WEF is a magnet for the elite who spout endless garbage about how to run the world, every year virtually all the western leaders make a pilgrimage to Davos to mix with like minds, the WEF is an unelected forum with ever increasing influence, nobody voted for any of its members yet western leaders flock to Davos despite the nonsensical and elitist statements that emerge.
Why? We left the EU because those that voted leave wanted out of an over ruling self appointed body that gives itself ever more powers, why would we want to take notice of a world wide organisation or at least a western world one after having left a similar body, what is behind it all.
The same can be said of the WHO, run by a man associated with terrorists in his past it has no more justification than the WEF to exist, yet again we are in danger of signing up to treaties that are binding.
Where is the push back to all this, there is none and the pressure for changes that affect us all grows, just this week a couple of ‘elites’ made statements under the banner of the WEF…
Jane Goodall thinks the world would be better if the population were reduced by 90%.
Klaus Schwab says the world will no longer be run by superpowers like America… it will be run by the World Economic Forum stakeholders, such as BlackRock and Bill Gates.
A comment from elsewhere sums up the lack of true democratic rule.
“The Biden farrago only further exposes how the USA has silently reverted to a monarchical system.
Biden has no power, but the position of President does. Those powers are exercised in the name of the President by an inner coterie that includes officials and elected representatives using Presidential Executive Orders.
In Britain it is called the Royal Prerogative and Privvy Council using Statutory Instruments.
They live in a Republic, we live in a Monarchy. Neither of us live in a democracy.
It matters not whether the President is a drooling senile geriatric, or that the King is on his deathbed. They decide nothing and need to be capable only of breathing as everything is decided in their name.
The EU doesn’t even pretend that it’s a democracy.”
In many ways it all gives the impression that the elites have handed over power to a higher authority. Judging by recent events they can’t even be bothered to go through the motions of governance.
It has all become too easy. Layer upon layer of authority is created and ‘friends’ get the opportunity to suck at the taxpayer’s teat without ever putting in a shift. Grift at all levels becomes the norm.
We are insulted with appointments of people we would not in the real world have running a whelk stall. David Cameron, yes he of the ‘I will implement the result of the referendum post haste’ who then immediately resigned has returned as Foreign Secretary. He who had to start a war to cement his legacy alongside his idol Blair is now thought to be ‘the man’ to do deals to cement peace. He is already acting as though he never went away and this piece of largesse from a country in deep poo monetarily will shoulder the cost. He even has eyes on the NHS helping Gazans with flying in children for treatment.
Cameron - "We have found homes for 300,000 Ukrainians and a solid future for them in the UK"
We were told they would only be here temporarily. These homes could have gone to our thousands of homeless people.
As if the NHS has time on its hands not enough people to treat! Of course all MPs will back any measures of this type, but then they all have private medical insurance.
A short aside about the NHS: while waiting in the GPs surgery for my wife to be assessed I was drawn to the TV screen above the reception area that showed an endless series of slides on how to help the NHS by basically not using it or save it money by buying your own medication over the counter.
It finished with two slides telling non-nationals and immigrants that they can sign on here and it is not a problem. The second slide showed two documents crossed out and the words “If you have no documents you can still sign on and access NHS services it is not a problem.” Occasionally you really could not make it up.
The list of failure and false claims for improvement in society and the general population grows daily and all the time the antisemitic party waits in the wings to take over. Is this the best the country or any other of the major powers can do, or are we just going to succumb to the inevitable?
I see nothing that would make my cross on a piece of paper worth the effort to make the trip to a polling station. The third rate occupiers of the green benches don’t deserve to be there and at least I can take the George Carlin attitude to it all.
Editor’s note: the results of this week’s two by-elections seem to show no significant increase in support for Labour; instead there was a big stay-away by disillusioned Conservative voters. Analaysis by veteran journalist Richard North here. A friend recently surprised me when he said he thought Labour could lose the next General Election.
