What Are You Listening To (Non-Jazz) 2013

[walkin]

[walkin]

Mike Watt`s thoughts on jazz are always interesting

http://thebadpennyblog.com/2010/10/0...s-sun-ra-more/

[Jackie P]

I love to hear these Jamaican Jazzmen play.......



Presenting Don Drummond - The Skatalites

[walkin]

[OutofTune]

Albert King with Stevie Ray Vaughan: In Session

Talent, chops, talent, chops.... repeat!

[walkin]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uNn2TDDru0

[Alypius]

Nick Waterhouse, Time's All Gone (Innovative Leisure, 2012)



The best retro revival of 50s / 60s R&B music I've heard -- in fact, the studio engineers put some rough edges in the sound quality so that it sounds a bit like it was recorded decades ago. For those who enjoy Amy Winehouse, or Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings, I'll think you'll enjoy this. I've heard a track from this on one of those car commercials. Here's the opening track on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQdmJ91_jCk

[Vaughan]

Vaughan, You said you ordered the J. Peter Burkholder / Donald Jay Grout, History of Western Music. How's it going? I found a copy in the university's library and am (re-)reading it (I had worked through a much earlier edition back in the 1980s).

I am working my way through it. It's a daunting tome, for sure. Weighs a lot too! At times it's still too technical, but I'm fighting upstream!



I've been playing so much rock lately. Right now though Armenian folk songs played by the string quartet, Brooklyn Rider. If you don't know BR, you should. I have each of their seven or so albums, and they just get better and better. Wonderful stuff.

[Alypius]

Vaughan, Yeah, it's a weighty tome, but it's packed with lots of info -- biographical, historical, and musicological. Actually now that so much has been posted on YouTube, you can go and listen to the pieces that he's talking about there. (In fact, some of the YouTube videos of classical works have the score posted on the screen and turn the pages for you). Actually this latest edition is more reader-friendly than the one I used in my Music History classes in the 80s -- which had a lot fewer visuals and a lot of more text. Keep plugging away. No one has a better survey and he really does pull out all the key works by the major composers and gives at least something of a thumbnail analysis. I'm afraid that I've been reading the somewhat more technical "Cambridge Companion" series: e.g. The Cambridge Companion to Haydn, The Cambridge Companion to the String Quartet, The Cambridge Companion to Bartok, etc.

Current focus: Franz Schubert's piano works. I've recommended Paul Lewis' performances of Beethoven. Well, I need to add his performances of Schubert's Piano Sonatas, especially, Sonatas #18, #20, #21, as well as the two collections of Impromptus, D.899 & D.935:



Also the magnificent piano works of Isaac Albeniz, especially Iberia. Albeniz is a rough contemporary of Debussy. Most people know Albeniz's work as they have been transcribed for classical guitar. Two recommended performances: the classic one by Alicia de Larrocha; and more recently by the one who, in my view, is the greatest piano virtuoso working today, Marc-Andre Hamelin:



Speaking of solo piano, I've got on order a new performance of Mussorgsky's famous Pictures at an Exhibition. The pianist is Steven Osborne. It's on Hyperion Records, which I find is consistently got amazingly high quality sound. It is to be released Feb. 12:



Thanks for the Brooklyn Rider recommendation. I spotted one of their recent releases at a local store. I'll explore further. I believe that record is on New Amsterdam (the same label with Darcy James Argue's Secret Society & the NOW Ensemble & other groups that sit in that frontier land between contemporary classical and jazz).

[Jackie P]

Last Train To Skaville / Jackie Mittoo & The Soul Brothers

[Vaughan]

I will keep plugging away, for sure!

Musically I'm still deep into rock music at the moment. It's sometimes strange how focus changes. Not so long ago I'd have questioned if I'd ever play rock again - and now here I am, just immersed. The difference this time around if that I'm listening to the pick of my life's exposure, rather than delving into new artists.

Right now it's:



It's been a Richard day, this is my third CD in a row, and each is magic (Across a Crowded Room, and Mirror Blue being the others). His new CD arrives next week, so I want to be back up to speed when it does. It's also worth mentioning that you van buy some Thompson live recordings - on his own label - from his web site for a very reasonable price. You don't generally find them on amazon etc. - and if you do people want silly money for them. So buying directly from the web site is the way to go.

What with Bowie's album nearing release, I guess this rock thing is going to carry on for a bit.

You know, the older you get, the more you can extract from good music. I guess that's why we keep on listening.....

[HutchFan]

Originally Posted by Alypius

Also the magnificent piano works of Isaac Albeniz, especially Iberia. Albeniz is a rough contemporary of Debussy. Most people know Albeniz's work as they have been transcribed for classical guitar. Two recommended performances: the classic one by Alicia de Larrocha; and more recently by the one who, in my view, is the greatest piano virtuoso working today, Marc-Andre Hamelin.

I second the vote on de Larrocha's Albeniz recordings. Magnificent!

I need to check out that Hamelin disc. I haven't heard it, and it looks great.

[Jackie P]

So happy to hear Hot Tuna's debut album again (this time on CD).
It really is a wonderful 1969 live acoustic blues recording and it sounds just
as fresh now as it did when originally issued.


Hot Tuna ~ Hot Tuna

with

Jorma Kaukonen (Acoustic Guitar), Jack Casady (Bass) Will Scarlett (Harmonica)

[walkin]

[Jackie P]

Fillmore West 1969 - Grateful Dead