Most songs that aren't jump-rope songs, or lullabies, are cautionary tales or goodbye songs and road songs…" Given the insistently improvised and homemade texture of his music, it is tempting to think Waits spends a good deal of his time out here in the sticks tinkering with farm machinery in his yard or fixing his truck.
The average tour is $20 and takes nearly two hours, but he gave us the improvised 45-minute version since our sidetracks to Banera and Imitation Stonehenge dragged out our plans a bit.
Jazz musicians had performed with string accompaniment before, but rarely if ever in a setting like this, in which the string players were an equal part of the ensemble and were given the opportunity to improvise.
This may not seem all that unusual given the need to improvise because of the shape of today's withering music business.
"We shook hands, I was given the general chords, and improvised the intro to "Hometown Glory" on the piano, which is now endlessly used in the sad bit on American Idol.
In return for gratuitous meals or lodging he has been giving out improvised checks in the amount ranging from $1000 to $270,000.
Their directness and intensity occasionally give the choreography a nicely improvised look.
The foster mother told investigators she gave the dehydrated child an improvised enema -- soapy warm water to drink.
Perhaps it's all a bit too much, and perhaps it doesn't add up, but the loose ends give the picture a jaunty, improvised feeling that, while it leads to some confusion, is ultimately part of its whimsical charm.
"Perhaps it's all a bit too much, and perhaps it doesn't add up," A. O. Scott wrote in The New York Times, "but the loose ends give the picture a jaunty, improvised feeling," which, he concluded, "is ultimately part of its whimsical charm".
