My Story
My name is John MacPherson, a one time business man from Revere MA. In the year 1990 my children gave me an alto saxophone for my 50th birthday. I left them the family business we were all working for at the time and headed for Key West to learn how to play the saxophone and live the life of a free spirit. It was there I met Joseph Bretton, aka Joey Picasso, a busker, aka street musician. After listening to his stories of playing the saxophone on the streets of Europe, Canada and the United States, I decided, "that's what I want to do." In 1996 I spent the winter/spring in New Orleans as a busker, aka street musician with my friend Trumpet Bob. Since then I have wandered the country busking wherever I could, wintering in Key West.
In the year 2011 I moved to Brattleboro VT to be closer to my family as my age and health were catching up with me. Here I have been doing a lot of composing and arranging in collaboration with my son Billy, something I enjoy very much. I will post recordings on the Jukebox page as they become available. You can e-mail me with comments at bluesmansweetmac@gmail.com.
I hope you will check out this site once in a while to follow the progress of my journey through the world of music.
Stay cool, Sweet Mac
Boys Be Boppin - Oil Painting by Mike Bottis
What is a Busker? Busking is the art of
street performance - an art form that is created and predicated upon
its direct relationship with its audience. Unlike any other performance
style, its primary source is the spontaneity and improvisation of the
moment.
Today's Word: Busk (Verb)
Pronunciation: ['bęsk]
Definition 1: To play music or entertain on the street for money.
Usage 1: Please don't confuse today's word with brux "to clench or
grind one's teeth." Walking by someone who busks badly might make you
brux, but the two words are very different. Those who busk are buskers,
noted for their busking.
Suggested Usage: Today's word can be used pejoratively, "I had no idea
Donny busked as a mime during lunch hour, or I would bring him
sandwiches in the public interest." But busking is, in fact, a proud
tradition in many European cities, and some fine music can be heard on
street corners and city centers across the continent: "Harry and
Harriet busked their way across Europe and returned home with enough
money left over to start their own nightclub."
Etymology: From the English busk "to be an itinerant performer," which
came from busk "to seek or cruise, as a pirate ship." Busk probably
comes from French busquer "to prowl," and the French comes from either
Italian buscare "to prowl" or Spanish buscar "to seek." (We perform our
Word of the Day for free and are generous in offering thanks to Burl
Hankinson of Tarpon Springs, Florida today.)
—Audra Himes, yourDictionary.com
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Busking
is the practice of doing live performances in public places to
entertain people, usually to solicit donations and tips. Those engaging
in this practice are called buskers. Busking is a British term and is
found throughout the world. In the United States the term busking is
not as widely known, and so buskers there are more commonly called
street performers or street musicians.
Benjamin Franklin was a busker of sorts.
He
composed songs, poetry and prose about the political situation and went
out in public and performed them. He would then sell printed copies of
them to the public. He was dissuaded from busking by his father who
convinced him the stigmas that some people attach to busking were not
worth it. It was this experience that helped form his beliefs in free
speech which he wrote about it in his journals.
That's Cool
Busking The Moon
Some Thoughts The essence of jazz is improvisation.
Improvisation! A way to let Go! A path to be Free! Dig It!
The essence of blues is soulfulness.
Soulfulness! A way to get down! Get way down low! Feel it!
Jazz cats say I play Blues. Blues cats say I play Jazz. Lost in between, had to wander alone. Played my sax on the street and found me a home.
I travel around from town to town, playing my sax for tips or a smile, hoping you dig the sound.
The listener walks by, the saxophone begins to groove, some dancers begin to move, the saxophone sings, the mood swings, Wail, Wail, let the sound be heard, we are dig'n some Street Magick.
Groove, move, to the rhythm of the soul, it soothes me. Groove, move, to the melody of the mind, it soothes me. Groove, move, to the song of the spirit, it soothes me.
I am one with natures life force, it empowers my being. It brings life and awareness to my body, mind and spirit.
Like sound and color, the universe vibrates. Add awareness and belief, the universe comes alive.
Matter is the data Time is the rhyme Space is the place
Happiness is available, Just help yourself.
Favorite Quotes
"A busker finds his niche,
and finds where he is supposed to be and he does what he is supposed to
be doing, and the universe takes care of him."
~Mustafa
"If we respected only what is inevitable and what has a right to be, music and poetry would resound along the streets."
~Henry David Thoreau
"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer."
~Henry David Thoreau
“This world is but a canvas to our imaginations.” ~Henry David Thoreau
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."
~Robert Frost
"If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed for."
~Chinese Proverb
"Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."
~Mark Twain
"Always tell the truth, that way you won't have to remember what you said."
~Mark Twain
"A free man is moral because he wants to be, not because he thinks he ought to be."
~Alan Watts
"As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler;
solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor
weakness weakness."
~Henry David Thoreau
" You may see a man on the street wearing a ripped poncho with broken
bloody feet. You may feel sympathy for that person. Yet, in his mind he
could be having the best life he ever dreamed of."
~ A.E. Mac
" However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and
call it hard names." "You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling,
glorious hours, even in a poor-house."
~Henry David Thoreau
" One who is cheerfully ready for anything and everything that comes escapes all pain, his cheerfullness acts as an anaesthetic"
~ Mahatma Gandhi
" The perfect way is without difficulty. Only when you stop liking and disliking, will all be clearly understood."
~ Old Zen Poem
"To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge."
~Confucius
"Yesterday is history, while tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift!"
~Tyga
"The real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth."
~Thich Nhat Hanh
"The core of our being is the act of perceiving, and the magic of our being is the act of awareness."
~Carlos Castaneda
"Forget the self and you will fear nothing"
~Carlos Castaneda
"When you get free from certain fixed concepts of the way the world is,
you find it is far more subtle, and far more miraculous than you
thought it was."
~Alan Watts
"We do not "come into" this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree." ~Alan Watts
"In separateness lies the world's great misery; in compassion lies the world's true strength."
~Buddha
"Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights."
~Henry David Thoreau
"While looking for the light you may suddenly be devoured by the darkness and find the true light"
~Kerouac
"I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I hope to god it's not a train."
~James Carville
"Spirit alone endures and continues to build upon itself through successive and endless incarnations as it works upward toward the light. What shall I be when I live again? I wonder. I wonder... ~Jack London
"Anything can happen"
~Murphy's Law
"Wherever you go . . .There you are!!"
~peoples guide
"The essence of jazz is improvisation."
~Sweet Mac
"Jazz is Freedom"
~Thelonious Monk
"Now's the time."
~Charlie Parker
"It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing."
~ Duke Ellington
"Remote for detachment, narrow for chosen company, winding for leisure,
lonely for contemplation, the Applachain Trail beckons not merely north
and south, but upward to the body, mind, and soul of man."
~Harold Allen
"We are all members of One Human Family"
~Truth
"If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich."
~John F. Kennedy
"Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for
the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all."
~John Maynard Keynes
"Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding."
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come."
~Carl Sandburg
"Peace begins when the hungry are fed."
~Anonymous
"You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist."
~Indira Gandhi
"I believe in compulsory cannibalism. If people were forced to eat what they killed there would be no more war."
~Abbie Hoffman
"Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but
also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man,
but you refuse to hate him."
~Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Always forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them more."
~Oscar Wilde
"If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner."
~Nelson Mandela
"You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom."
~Malcolm X
"If there is to be any peace it will come through being, not having."
~Henry Miller
"War does not determine who is right - only who is left."
~Bertrand Russell
"Instead of tug o' war, let's play hug o' war."
~Shel Silverstein
