KVARESTO8
Walking Projects
Fairfax Cross County Trail, 41 miles: completed 2 July 2010.
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Category Archives: Music
Skronk
Via Greater Greater Washington, a lovely podcast episode by Sam Greenspan and Roman Mars about the music of Metro escalators in need of lubrication.
… if you’re going to be subjected to some kind of sensory experience, of which you have no control every single day, then it’s to your benefit… Why not try to enjoy something? Because there’s enough things in life to be stressed out about.
Happy holidays
Handel’s ditty gets the “Subterranean Homesick Blues” treatment by the fifth grade class of Kuinerrarmiut Elitnaurviat school in Quinhagak, Alaska, and it’s adorable.
(I agree with Bas Bleu to overlook the greengrocer’s apostrophes.)
Bessie’s revenge
My maternal grandmother was an insane fan of Ruth Lyons, Ohio television personality of the 50s and 60s. Grandma would no sooner miss a 12 noon episode of The 50/50 Club than she would skip serving her overcooked gray chicken for Sunday dinner. So, come the winter holiday season, we would hear Ruby Wright with Cliff Lash’s band singing “Merry, Merry, Merry, Merry Xmas.” A lot.
It’s been, oh, 45, going on 50 years since I heard that song. (Unless I actually saw Female Trouble—I don’t remember.) And I was OK with that.
What’s that you’re calling obsolete?
I once used a line printer that I swear was playing the bass line to the Smithereens’ “Blood and Roses,” but it is no match for BD594′s collection of instruments. Kasia Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg tees up this version of the Animals’ “House of the Rising Sun.”
Advice to the players
Via A Blog Supreme, two pages from Thelonious Monk’s notebook from 1960:
Don’t play everything (or everytime); let some things go by.
Some links: 55
- I was looking for packing material at my cousin’s place and came across a Saturday edition obit for Jerry Ragovoy; otherwise I would have missed it altogether. Ragovoy co-wrote “Piece of My Heart,” which was recorded in a wrenching live performance by Janis Joplin and later, more regrettably, by a country pop singer.
- Linda Himelstein reports on research that looks at how dyslexics master syllable-based writing systems (and their languages) as opposed to character-based system.
- Alan Feuer filed a fine report on the natural areas of Jamaica Bay, still the only National Wildlife Refuge that you can get to via subway. Mylan Cannon adds a great photograph of conservationist Don Riepe, an Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) on a ground-level nest, and a passenger jet in the background.
Jamaica Bay’s conservationists — fishermen and firefighters, limousine drivers and owners of small boats — are not your typical tree-hugging types, not “Upper West Side, Park Slope, brownstone Brooklyn people,” as Mr. Riepe put it. They are people like Mr. Lewandowski from the canoe club, a transit official…
Cole Porter in Japanese
Is it an opera or a musical? Anthony Tommasini offers a distinction that might settle the argument discussion that Leta and I regularly have:
Both genres seek to combine words and music in dynamic, felicitous and, to invoke that all-purpose term, artistic ways. But in opera, music is the driving force; in musical theater, words come first.
This explains why for centuries opera-goers have revered works written in languages they do not speak. Though supertitles have revolutionized the art form, many buffs grew up without this innovation and loved opera anyway.
Hard to keep up
When I hear on the radio the voice of an artist that I haven’t heard in a long time, it’s rarely happy news. And so it is with the passing of Phoebe Snow, who died last week after a long illness, as Tom Cole and Neda Ulaby report. “No Regrets,” from the Second Childhood album (1976) is a shimmering three minutes of new swing that will always be with me.
Totally serial
Composer of the avant garde Milton Babbitt has died at the age of 94. I dabbled in Babbitt in my salad days but I never quite became a fan. Audio clips of many of his pieces and a video interview from 2001 (in which he favorably compares art music composition to microbrewing) are at NewMusicBox.
Missing the 70s
Winter is now a little quieter: NPR reports that Gerry Rafferty has died. Just the other day, I was just listening to City to City on my walk.
To be free
A slightly belated tribute to Billy Taylor, who passed away this week after a long long career, as reported by A Blog Supreme. Several years ago, I attended a series of “jazz appreciation 101″ talks by Dr. Taylor, given in Kennedy Center rehearsal space. He was a welcoming, generous teacher. One of the things I remember is his observation that you can learn a lot about jazz harmony just by mastering Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life.”
Some quizzes: 2
With just a little guessing, I scored a semi-respectable 18 of 25 on the 10-minute drop-the-needle challenge to identify jazz classics. Which means I missed some really easy ones. But I’m not man enough to take the full 111-song challenge.
(Link, and a hint, via A Blog Supreme.)
Some links: 48
Another option for DIY sound designers looking for scene transition music: Rumblefish’s Music Licensing Store. I haven’t priced the fees, but the prospect of pre-cleared music “for any project” would benefit community theater directors looking to take a play into the competitive festival circuit.
Bloomsday: 2010
In honor of Mr. Bloom’s walk, a link to notes on Luciano Berio’s Thema (Omaggio a Joyce), spoken-word electronica from 1958 that uses the text of the overture to the “Sirens” chapter. Alas, no licit streams or MP3s of the piece appear to be available.
Muscial necrophilia
Via Aaron Cohen, guest blogging at kottke.org, a delicious diatribe that I’d found and lost and now find again: Pat Metheny critiques Kenny G:
…he did show a knack for connecting to the basest impulses of the large crowd by deploying his two or three most effective licks (holding long notes and playing fast runs —never mind that there were lots of harmonic clams in them)…
