Oreo.

Oreo

Acrylic on Canvas

126 x 100.5 cm

© 1988 Jean-Michel Basquiat

Provenance:  Private Collection as of 2005.

One of my favourite pieces in the current Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibition at the AGO.  The reviewers in both the Globe and Mail and NOW magazine haven’t a fucking clue what they are talking about; certainly, in the case of the latter it is the sort of sly invidiousness that one can ever expect of Canadians in their cool animus towards Blacks and the Black artistic aesthetic.  Later for the likes of sphinctered, snow-driven dreck comme lui…

Of course, all that glorious fecund green serves as a good enough reason to say, Happy St. Patrick’s Day.  As James Joyce so deftly illustrated, we are all Irish for being possessed of imagination… we are all dreamers – I certainly am.  I love you more!

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© 2013-2026 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.

Exu.

Exu 1988

Acrylic, Oil Stick on Canvas

199.3 x 254 cm

© 1988 Jean-Michel Basquiat

Provenance: Private collection

Today, I shall see this show for the fifth time.

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© 2013-2026 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.

Night In Tunisia.

© 1953 Live The Quintet At Massey Hall, Toronto.

Night in Tunisia composed: Dizzy Gillespie & Chano Pozo.

Trumpet: Dizzy Gillespie

Alto Saxophone: Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker

Bass: Charles Mingus

Piano: Bud Powell

Drums: Max Roach.

It begins and ends with Dizzy!

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© 2013-2026 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.

Mood Indigo.

Duke Ellington and Orchestra.

Nothing like some Ellington after a truly sublime dream.  These are our high-priests.  Happy Black History Month!

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© 2013-2026 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved. 

Corner Pocket.

© 1962 Corner Pocket, Count Basie Orchestra Live Performance.

Various artists.  I dare you listen to this without hitting the repeat button at least twice.  Music is life – what in the hell do you know about living talking jive ’bout “Jazz has its roots in klezmer.”  Shit is so not cool!

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© 2013-2026 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.

Butterfly.

© 1974 Herbie Hancock, Butterfly, Thrust.  Columbia Records.

Fender Rhodes/Clavinet/Arp Synths: Herbie Hancock

Bass: Paul Jackson

Saxophone/Clarinet/Flute: Benny Maupin

Drums: Mike Clark

Percussion: Bill Summers

A brief lover of mine, in Vancouver, always played this album when he was in the mood.  Such memories!

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© 2013-2026 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.

Groovin’ High.

© 1953.  Groovin’ High, Live Performance, Verve Records

Alto Saxophone: Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker

Trumpet: Herbie Williams

Bass: Jimmy Woode

Piano: Rollins Griffith

Drums: Marquis Foster

Bebop is where it is at.  Bird knows how to fly-without-moving.

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© 2013-2026 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.

Maple Leaf Rag.

1899 Maple Leaf Rag, Scott Joplin

Piano: Scott Joplin.

This is such a favourite of mine.  I include here as it is not traditional Jazz; however, as Scott Joplin would be reincarnated and be even more famous, I have chosen to include him here.  That, of course, is because the reincarnated Scott Joplin is the performer, Prince with whom Merlin was completely and utterly besotted and obsessed – the only performer about whom he felt this way.  

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© 2013-2026 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.

Impressions.

© 1963 Impressions, John Coltrane Quartet, Impulse Records

Tenor Saxophone: John Coltrane

Piano: McCoy Tyner

Bass: Jimmy Garrison

Drums: Elvin Jones

Feature Portrait: David Lloyd Glover

Nothing beats ‘Trane’s focus!

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© 2013-2026 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.

Summertime.

© 1968 Ella Fitzgerald Live.

The gold Standard…  I can’t imagine a week without Ella’s shamanic beauty inspiring my soul.  Ella’s Michael Overleaves to follow and now to be found in the Michael Overleaves Appendix.

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Fitzgerald, Ella 1917<O>1996

This fragment is a fifth level mature artisan – second life at current level.  Ella was in the passion mode with a goal of growth.  An idealist, she was in the moving part of emotional centre.

Body type is Venus/Saturn.

Ella‘s primary chief feature was stubbornness and the secondary was self-deprecation.

Casting for Ella is fifth-cast in fifth cadence; she is a member of greater cadence four.  Ella’s entity is two, cadre six, greater cadre 7, pod 408.

Ella’s essence twin is an artisan and her task companion is a sage – both extant.

Ella’s three primary needs were: expression, security and power.

There are 11 past-life associations with Arvin, 4 with Merlin. 

This fragment has reincarnated and lives in an area of Chicago, is a one-year-old at this time (December 2013), female.

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© 2013-2026 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.