2021
Rayne's Park Blues , a.k.a. Max's Tune, was written by Max Middleton and performed on Jeff Beck's seminal album, Rough and Ready. An acoustic guitar arrangement of a piano idea.
Most commonly known as the first movement of The Moonlight Sonata, this moniker was attached long after Beethoven's death. The piece was actually written as a wedding song for his upcoming, but never to be, wedding. The bride's father doused the plan, and Ludwig was left with this. When viewed as a wedding song it makes much more sense to me.
This was actually a homework assignment! To write and perform a piece within a month. It was also the first video I submitted to any festival, and the one that got the ball rolling. The plot is a spoof on homework, hence, the reference to Bertrand Russel's "In Praise of Idleness" in the first few frames. Why kids don't want to do it. Why they would rather be outside, playing. The joke is, that although our hero has been discarding his studies on the history of Australia, the chemical composition of Mescaline, and other important stuff, he gets the job done in the end figuring out the solution to the differential equation.
Moral of the story: Give 'em a break.
A tribute to saxophonist Lester Young, featuring Tawone Jamison as Lester Young