On the eve of my 30th birthday, I began rendering "automatic" "enhancements" of only the most salient points of the pop music of my youth; a line, bar, or fragment of a particular song (after being heard out in "the wild" in the present; akin to running into an old friend on the street) was chosen based on how much my nostalgic recollection of it differed from its contemporary reality. Each was played back at exactly half-speed, then run through a series of time- and gain-based processes that slowly and meticulously chewed through the audio, revealing hidden layers of content, context, and temporal/spectral production details…shining a flashlight into the dark corners of each selection, revealing the ghosts lurking within.
Interesting, although I confess I am unlikely to listen to the whole nearly 12 hours of it.
At least the hooks don't get stuck in your head.
Mike (via Bob Burnett)
Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
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Ahem: "There is a rather amazing 'Symphonies of the Planets' 5-CD package, done by NASA. Truly unique sounds recorded and generated from various space-y sources, resulting in truly beautiful and haunting ambient soundscapes. Not sure if it's still available, though."
Following on to the vintage audio post: it's disappointing, but here is really all you need for quite good reproduced sound in a small to medium-sized room, assuming you a) are willing to forego nostalgia, b) are not a nut about stuff, and c) find yourself as yet unafflicted by audiophilia nervosa:
Your usual i-device of choice as a source (iPod, iPhone, or iPad);
A NuForce iDo
or some other good iPod dock with a DAC in it (ye don't want to be stuck with the wee dackish thing in the iPod, Pilgrim, heed me);
and
A pair of my fave baby speaks, the self-powered (i.e., amps on board) AudioEngine A5+. (They really do sound good, and I am picky.)
That's it.
That will get some really good music out into the air. It will be better than 97% of anything you could find that's as small or as cheap or as handy. It really doesn't even leave a whole lot of space left over for angst 'n' agonizing. Music—no fuss, no muss, 21st-century style.
Note that the i-word doesn't mean you need to listen to MP3's necessarily. You can put AAC, Apple Lossless, WAV, or AIFF files on your iPhone or iPod too. Only up to CD res, but you'll be all right with that.
The speakers have their own volume control.
All you have to do is make sure you get a dock with the same connector as your phone or iPod. The NuForce iDo comes with a pigtail to connect to most earlier i-devices, and your latest iPhone 5 or whatever comes with a device-to-USB cable that you can use. The speakers come with all the wires you need.
And the NuForce is a great headphone amp too. Doth your cup runneth over?
Rejoice: you can spend much more money, much more time, and a great deal more effort and energy putting together a vintage or an audiophile stereo system, and I wouldn't want to discourage you from having so much fun. It's just that you don't have to.
Mike
Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
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John King: "Good recommendation Mike.
I can vouch for the fine audio quality from both those companies. I have
the 50% less expensive models from three years ago (uDAC +
Audioengine2) handling music files from my computer. They are musical,
they don't fatigue the ears and they don't make me wish I was in the
other room where the high end gear lives."
Bryan Willman: "For those who don't want to deal with an 'iSomething' you can get a similar excellent effect with:
a) your windows machine of choice;
b) a DAC1 pre with USB [the current product is the DAC1-HDR —Ed.]; and
c) a pair of powered monitor speakers (mine happen to be KRKs).
Good DAC, external volume that can't be hacked or stalled, speakers that are fine for where I actually listen."
Avi Joshi: "I purchased the A5+ based on your glowing review from a while back and
have to say I'm absolutely thrilled. For non-audiophiles like me,
hooking its two inputs to the TV/AppleTV and an airport express has
meant blissful wireless convenience in my tiny apartment. One other
thing I did was program a universal remote to control the
TV/Cablebox/A5. I kept losing that little remote that came with the
speakers."
Michael Wollny and Heinz Sauer. Photo courtesy ACT / Grosse Geldermann
Best Jazz Records of 2012
• Not Getting Behind is the New Getting Ahead, Charlie Hunter and Scott Amendola. Charlie Hunter Music. You know you're in for some fun with tracks titled "There Used to Be a Nightclub There" and "Those Desks Aren't Going to Clean Themselves." Track to sample: "Assessing the Assessors, an Assessor's Assessment."
• Four MFs Playin' Tunes, Branford Marsalis Quartet. Marsalis Music. Anyone who can quit a gig as juicy as the bandleader on "The Tonight Show" is perpetually all right with me. Branford Marsalis plays in the same straight-up boppish tradition as his more famous bro Wynton, but he's not as doctrinaire about it. Track to sample: "Teo."
• Mischief and Mayhem, Jenny Scheinman. If you're getting the idea that I like a bit o' rhythm in my modden jazz, you've got that right. Violinist Jenny is a collaborator of Bill Frisell and Ani DiFranco among others and is joined here by Wilco guitarist Nels Cline. Track to sample: "Ali Farka Touche."
Jenny Scheinman. Photo by Michael Wilson.
• Bright Light in Winter, Jeff Parker Trio. Delmark Records. One for guitar heads. Clean and spare, like, well, bright light in winter. Somethingelsereviews says "Parker's pillowy soft guitar tone permeates the record and his
steady-tempered jazzy lines never go past 4 on the adrenaline knob," not exactly what you'd expect on the first record in seven years from this veteran of the Chicago Underground Orchestra and Tortoise. A friendly, flowing record. Track to sample: "Mainz."
• Wasted & Wanted, Michael Wollny's [em]. ACT. From Germany, with love. Wollny is a rising European star with a darkish ethos who claims inspiration from literature, films and painting as well as from music. Wasted & Wanted bends genres but without making a big thing out of it. Track to sample: "Metall."
• Live at Kitano, Frank Kimbrough Trio. A classic piano trio. Fred Kaplan wrote that this lush recording of quiet jazz "is for late nights and close listening," and so it is. Track to sample: "Single Petal of a Rose."
• Black Radio, Robert Glasper. Blue Note has come a long way, baby...this might be too "crossover" for some tastes, with flavorings of everything from rap to the Isley Brothers. Glasper, his guests, and the Experiment Band create a fascinating soundworld that sounds like cities late at night, from the streets to the bars to the penthouses. Featuring Erika Badu and Lalah Hathaway (and Mos Def, as yasiin bey). And covers of Sade and Nirvana. You can argue that it's not jazz, but it's lovely. Track to sample: "Smells Like Teen Spirit."
• Bending Bridges, Mary Halvorson Quintet. I got a little obsessed with Mary Halvorson's Dragon's Head after my friend Bob Burnett turned me on to it. Gassy and noisy on first listens, its originality and quirky, spiky odd turns begin to delight deeply on repeat visits. I still don't know if I like Mary Halvorson, but I listen to her a lot. Track to sample: "The Periphery of Scandal."
• • •
Honorable mentions: Alexander Hawkins Ensemble, All There, Ever Out; Vijay Iyer Trio, Accelerando (this makes everybody's best of 2012 lists, better not leave it off mine); Lee Ritenour, Rhythm Sessions (with plenitudinous guest stars). Best Band name: Snarky Puppy. Yes, Snarky Puppy. Best album concept: The Atheist Gospel Trombone album (Jacob Garchik). I'm still waiting for the Acid Jazz Trip-Hop Accordion album, but maybe next year.
Best historical reissue: Thelonious Monk, Complete Albums Collection. The box set features all six of Thelonious Monk's Columbia album with Charlie Rouse: Monk's Dream (1962), Criss Cross (1962), It's Monk's Time (1964), Monk (1964), Straight, No Chaser (1966) and Underground (1967). (Criss Cross and Straight, No Chaser are among my favorites). No to-do is made about the remastering, but it's remarkable—the sound quality is stellar, the best ever. For this set you want to buy the physical CDs, since the box features the nifty booklet with lots of archive photos. Being a super-duper screaming great deal ($4.85 per CD, the box for less than $30) doesn't hurt anything, either.
I'm not an expert on jazz by any stretch, especially contemporary jazz, so I'm more than open to being corrected....
Mike
"Open Mike," frequently wandering off topic, scats past on Sundays here at TOP.
Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. A book of interest today:
(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.) Featured Comments from:
Dana: "...Hey Mike...I am going to narrow this down a bit and give you my jazz single of the year: Ahmad Jamal's 'Blue Moon.' At 81 years old this amazing musician produces and plays an absolute masterpiece. Listen once and you will be hooked."
Howard French: "This is one of my favorite features on this site, and I love the modesty of spirit reflected in the concluding comment: 'I'm no expert on Jazz...' I've been listening intently to the music all my life, and think you've got a first class sensibility and exquisite taste. Many of the past recommendations, mostly involving older music (Ellington, Wes Montgomery, Dexter Gordon, Hank Mobley, Archie Shepp etc., etc.) have been truly first rate. Now to Amazon to check some of this stuff out."
Mike replies: Thanks Howard. Posting this as a featured comment might contradict your point about my modesty, but since only about 38 readers have read this post down this far....[g]
Jamie Pillers: "Wha...?? Mike, what were you thinking? Christmas is gone, man. Now I have to put these on my wish list for next year!!"
Mike replies: Naw, music is more like food...a consumable necessary for survival. For all year 'round, not just for special occasions.
Dave: "Thanks for the ideas. I always want to get more into jazz but don't know where to start—just added Jazz 101 to my amazon shopping cart. Also, I added some of your recommended albums to my Spotify playlist. For those of you that don't know about Spotify this is the perfect opportunity to try out their service. Most of these albums are available on Spotify. It's free on your computer."
Mike replies: These aren't horribly "out there" or avant-garde as new jazz goes, but they're probably not the place to start for people who just want to "get more into jazz." For that, I'd recommend my Jazz Starter Kit. But by all means explore on Spotify as you like.
A modern console stereo from Symbol Audio, $26,000.
Looks like this is "Off-Topic" week at TOP. Ctein's writing about tea again (see below); I've been deeply troubled by, and preoccupied with, the Massacre of the Innocents in Connecticut, and had to write about it twice (and I want to write about it again, but am going to refrain); and then, in the comments to the "Geeky Tweaker" post, Nigel had to go and ask this question:
Tell me, Mike. Do amazing hi-fi systems sound better than real
instruments? If you had an acoustic guitarist in your living room would
it blow your hi-fi away? If one goes to a concert, say an acoustic one,
and hears a trio play, is it better than the most expensive hi-fi (like
the one in the picture)? I don't mean to be sarcastic, but I am
interested in the subjective pleasure of wonderfully reproduced music in
a room.
This is the sort of question I'm powerless to not answer. Tiny claxons go off in the nearly empty corridors of my brain; audio question! Must be addressed!
Sigh.
The answer, Nigel, is that a stereo system, at its best, will most likely be an adequate simulacrum (especially with acoustic guitar music, which is relatively easy to reproduce well)—but the real thing, while it won't "blow your hi-fi away," will sound better.
The difference—and it's a large one—is that with the stereo system, I can listen to Andres Segovia, Leo Kottke, Chet Atkins, Robert Johnson, and Wes Montgomery in my living room, whereas the best I could theoretically do with a live guitarist would probably be a neighbor or relative who plays a bit, or a local guitar teacher who's available for hire. It's a big difference. Music first, sound second.
Beyond that, I can't fit a symphony orchestra in my living room, and some musical performances were never played live, from "I Am the Walrus" to 32-track electronica to Glenn Gould.
There's a huge body of conventional wisdom—conventional sanctimony might be more like it—which holds that live music is always better. That it's "the absolute sound," the reference to which reproduced music should aspire. Not to me. I've heard just as many poor-sounding live performances as I've heard poor stereos. Great-sounding music is rare—and just as rare either live or reproduced.
Live music might sound more realistic at best. But...
The performances might not be the ones I want to hear: for instance, I once paid previously perfectly good money to see Neil Young perform one of his greatest guitar anthems, "Like a Hurricane," on solo organ. Right guy, right song, wrong night.
The performers might be having an off night. I once went to see the great flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal, who insisted on conducting—badly—for half the concert. It was only slightly more relevant than watching him paint a house.
The performers might be impaired. I had the misfortune to see the Pogues live once, and Shane McGowan was so blindly drunk he wouldn't stop raving into the microphone...and you were sorry when he did. The experience was such torture I haven't willingly listened to the band or the singer since.
I might be uncomfortable in my seat or find the surroundings offensive: I saw the blues legend Freddy King once, while I was sitting next to a large table of very drunk, very loud servicemen who seemed to have been placed there by Satan specifically for the purpose of ruining everyone else's evening. And...
Yes, the sound quality might be bad. I heard Dizzy Gillespie in a 40-table jazz club, and he had the trumpet and the drums miked.
It was physically painful. Anyone who can't hear an unmiked trumpet and
full drum kit in a room the size of a large living room really doesn't
deserve to hear them, if you ask me. I actually complained directly to Dizzy about it, face to face, in person. My brushes with greatness are usually not what such encounters are meant to be, unfortunately. Big sigh.
That's not to say it's not worthwhile to hear real musicians playing
live. It certainly can be. I stopped going to most concerts years ago
because the music is too loud to hear, but I still go hear classical
music or acoustic jazz from time to time. Occasionally, live
performances can be transcendent—I got to see Lynyrd Skynryd play a
15-minute version of "Free Bird" in concert, before the plane crash, and that was fun. Sometimes
you get lucky. And sometimes you just need to get out of the house.
For better or worse, though, recordings
are the main form that music performance takes in our culture. It's the best way to listen to music, in my opinion.
Live
music can be nice...but it's often just no substitute for the real thing.
Mike
Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.) Featured Comments from:
John MacKechnie: "That band may suck on Floyd, but I hear they do an Amazing 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps.'"
HT: "I discovered this far too late, but your typical rock shows are much
more enjoyable when wearing earplugs. I know it sounds
counter-intuitive. But as you point out, popular music concerts have
the volume turned up way too loud anyway. Quieter volume would be
ideal, but the next best thing is to wear earplugs. Rock show decibels
will exhaust your ear after a few minutes but wearing earplugs will let
you enjoy the show in its entirety and, yes, you'll still hear the music
just fine. The only thing that will truly be muffled is the crowd
noise of those nearest to you. (And that's a good thing.)"
Ed Kirkpatrick: "I have been to my last rock concert.
"I am a huge Mark Knopfler fan. I consider him a fabulous guitarist and songwriter, I have everything he ever released. I wanted to see him for years. So when he brought his show to Wolf Trap Park at the Filene Center a few years ago we paid a lot of money for great seats. A nice part about an evening at this venue is that you can bring a picnic and enjoy food and drink before the show at many lovely spots in this outdoor park so lots of people pay to lay around on the lawn area and party, me included. However, as soon as the music started the behavior of the audience just ruined it for me. Drunk fans in the house seats and the lawn area continuously hooted and shouted, some people in front of us decided it would be fun to stand up and dance and sing and we had to stand just to see the show. The lighting engineers blasted extremely bright lights called blinders directly at the audience and it did literally, if temporarily, blind us. I have been told by some who know that this is done to defeat unauthorized video recording. What the whole experience did for me is convince me to just stay home and listen to good music on my system. So I agree that recorded sound is better than live, at least in the rock concert world.
"Oh and the beer is a lot cheaper!"
Son of Tarzan: "Having had the truly distinct pleasure of hearing three of the acoustic guitarists you mentioned above about 30–40 years ago, Segovia...concert hall, Atkins...small club venue in Chicago, and Kottke in a coffee house in Milwaukee, I can attest to the fact that there is no comparison to the feel of live music.
"When you are caught up in the sights and sounds of the live experience, sound quality is but one of multiple sensory stimulation one enjoys. In the confines of your own 'listening chamber,' no matter the price of the equipment, the media, or the construction of the room, lacking the peripheral parts of the performance, people, place, and presence can not compare.
"I listen to the three artists listed above and many other types of music that I have experienced in person quite often on my 15+-year-old system, sometimes from vinyl, sometimes from CD or even sometimes in the car. The detail of the sound is still not the driving factor in my enjoyment. Especially now, decades after seeing and hearing them in person, the most important part of the experience is the memory of the event."
Dennis: "Amen. Amen. I couldn't agree more. Live shows (rock at least) tend to be
over-the-top loud now and you get the feeling that the performer is
just running through the material. I too saw Lynyrd Skynyrd
appproximately six months before the crash. That and the Who (with Keith
Moon) and will cherish those memories until my dying day. There was
something special there that doesn't come 'round anymore. Better the
controlled environment of my living room, with DTS and HD video."
Joe: "I grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania, and though my father loved classical music (especially Stravinsky), I never heard a live orchestra until I was away at college. My father did have a terrific stereo, and a great record collection, so I did grow up familiar with many great orchestral pieces.
"Then during my first year off at college, I went to see a performance one of my favorites, Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, my first time hearing a live orchestra. And I was totally blown away. I had never heard what real violins sound like, and it was like night and day. It was as if the instruments were breathing, like they were alive. I'll never forget it.
"On the other hand, I've had the opposite experience, like Mike describes. Hot Tuna played so loud it was painful. I've gone to see Keith Jarrett play solo improvisations at Carnegie Hall three times and one of those times he was in such a foul mood that I wish I'd stayed home. (The other times, though, were transcendent, and have not been released as recordings.)
"What can you do? You pays your money and you takes you chances."
Norm Snyder: "Growing up in Detroit, in the 'sixties, a close friend's dad owned a club called Baker's Keyboard Lounge, which only held about 110 people. There were a lot of great jazz musicians to be heard on their tiny stage. A few times, if an act had cancelled, my friend's dad would turn to his son and any friends who happened to be hanging around in their living room and say, 'Who would you guys like to hear?'—meaning, he'd see if he could book them. That's how we all heard Mose Allison, live, for the first time. Sonically, the club was great, but I also have recordings of his from that period and later that are good quality, and a pretty good system at home. Nothing can compare to the experience of being in the room, as the music was created. The phrase 'You had to be there' really applies.
"I think that's as true of recently enjoyed live performances by jazz and other musicians, as it was (admittedly in my memory) with Mose Allison that weekend long ago. Being in a small club, with live instruments/musicians involved a kind of participation and sharing of an energy that recordings can't ever really capture."
Mike replies: Norm, I hear you (maybe this post should have been titled "Live Music is Not Necessarily Better"), but you were luckier than most. Then, too, there's live and then there's live. In high school I used to travel to Chicago to hear music at the blues clubs, and enjoyed it hugely.
One of the most raucous and most fun was a wild set by Otis Rush, in a small club where the audience was in very high spirits and completely into the music. Otis chicken-walked the bar with his guitar, to great applause. Cut to college, when I was on a committee to bring concert artists to the 3,000-seat auditorium. We booked Otis Rush and his band, paid extra for their travel expenses. I was greatly looking forward to the event.
But apparently no one else was. Otis and his ensemble set up in the middle of the much-too-big stage looking like a small island in a big sea, and played to a house that was about one-third filled. Nobody sat in the front rows. And most people were sitting there quietly with an arms-crossed, "show me" attitude. No energy from the audience at all. The band clearly was not enjoying the experience either, although they tried their best.
Really taught me a thing or two about "music."
Jim Hart: "The Keyboard is still there, still operating. It is now the 'World's Oldest Jazz Club,' having first opened in 1934."
GH: "Live music is amplified and mic'ed in completely different ways than recorded music, so you're really at the mercy of the room and the engineers every night. I played in bands in Los Angeles for 10 years in just about every club around, and I don't ever recall the music sounding as good as a recording. Some rooms, like the Viper Room, tend to do a better job than others, but it's hard to replicate an album recording, especially if there are several members in the band. I'd say that seeing live music is about the energy and experience, but recorded music generally 'sounds' better."
Poagao: "I was fortunate enough to see Ennio Morricone direct music that he composed for films, and that sent a shiver down my spine. Yet even that shiver derived from hearing the same pieces played by cheap Italian orchestras on tinny TV speakers when I was a kid."
Player: "Recorded music is the idealized version of how the artist wants the
music to sound; live performance tries to match that ideal but falls
short. Recorded music is the standard; live performance is the reality."
Dave Brubeck just died. I grew up on rock and came to jazz late, like a longtime Catholic converting to Buddhism, so Brubeck is still relatively new to me. If you don't know him, try this
if you can get it in the next 37 nanoseconds before it sells out. CDs of five of his best records for what amounts to shipping cost. My favorite is Time Further Out, but all five are excellent.
Or if you'd rather not, try this—a quick taste, suggested by Steve Gilbert. The laugh at the end is the drummer, Joe Morello, reportedly relieved that he got through it.
Mike (Thanks to Steve, Michel, and others)
Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. A book of interest today:
(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.) Featured Comments from:
Paul De Zan: "I have very little in common with my father, except for the LP
collection he assembled in the '50s and early '60s, before he started to
lose interest in absolutely everything around age 35; an unhappy
marriage and innate overcautiousness will do that to you. When I was
small, the music in our house came from tinny AM radio, which I ignored,
and from dad's kit-assembled Harman-Kardon Citation V tube-fired
amplifier. And the music was Dave Brubeck's music, a bit of Ellington,
later Stan Getz, never Miles, but a lot of Dave Brubeck. Brubeck wasn't
jazz to me, he was music to me for the first 10–12 years I was on this
rock. Paul Desmond was the first musician whose death I grieved. Dave's
is just the latest. Sic transit gloria mundi."
Sal Santamaura (partial comment): "To get a sense of the man's true greatness, watch this short video segment."
Steve Biro: "I am 55 years old now, which means I was about five when Time Out featuring 'Take Five' was issued by Columbia. Perhaps it was exposure since (and probably before) birth to my parents' swing records that prepared me (I really enjoyed Benny Goodman as a child). But even at that young age, I was hooked instantly. I honestly cannot remember a time when I did not love both the album and song. It kicked off a lifelong love affair with jazz and the broader world of music. Sure, like most people my age I loved the Beatles and all that came after them. But jazz was and remains my musical center. And I owe it to Dave Brubeck. We are all very fortunate to have had him with us for so long. God speed, Dave. And thank you."
If anybody out there loves classic jazz (there went 93% of you) and still listens to vinyl (there went 87% of those remaining), check out popmarket.com sometime within the next sixteen hours and nine minutes.
(I need Ctein to tell me what 13% of 7% is. On the good side, at least I'm not an elector in Miami-Dade.)
Mike
Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. A book of interest today:
(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.) Featured Comments from:
Jeff: "I've spent many nights looking at jazz photo books while listening to
various Blue Note vinyl and re-issues, mono and stereo, with a nice
glass of wine. Almost as good as being in a live club. Ah, so nic(h)e."
Russell: "Hey! I qualify as one of the 1% (13% of 7%)! That is a great set of
recordings. Now I still have the question to answer that has plagued me
for the past 45 years or so...do I spend my hard earned cash on vinyl
or more Tri-X?"
Mike replies: What is that, a Zen koan? [g]
Rob: "Oooh, I actually saw a large print of the Dexter Gordon photo in the
Andrew Smith Gallery in Santa Fe not too long ago. I immediately fell
in love with it but did not purchase it, because I was in a frugal state
of mind. But damn, it's a great image."
Bob Rosinsky: "I saw an exhibit of Herman Leonard photographs at our little art museum in Lakeland, Fla. The photos were stunning. He photographed all of the straight-ahead jazz greats using strobes in the '40s and '50s. The generators/packs probably weighed at least forty pounds. The prints at the exhibition were scanned from the original negatives, enhanced in Photoshop, printed onto transparency film with an Epson, and then the big Epson films were used to make stupendous contact prints on traditional silver gelatin paper.
"I got to meet him. He struck me as being a modest and genuinely nice person. He told me that Miles Davis always gave him access to photograph him. Herman said that there was no way a good photographer could take a bad picture of Miles.
Billy Gibbons in Finland, 2010. Photo by Antti Salonen.
Remember my post in 2010 about cover songs? I've got another one for you covers mavens—Bill Gibbons of ZZ Top performing a cover of the 1969 Fleetwood Mac hit "Oh Well" off a new Fleetwood Mac tribute album called "Just Tell Me That You Want Me." ("Oh Well" was from the old Peter Green Fleetwood Mac, not the Stevie Nicks / Lindsey Buckingham radio pop band of later days. I wish Jack White would cover it too.)
Unfortunately (and annoyingly), you can't buy the single track from iTunes, but you can stream it here, among other places. I am not recommending the whole album, let's be clear about that.
Mike
UPDATE: Curiously, none of the early Fleetwood Mac studio stuff is on iTunes, but I found the original "real" Peter Green version of "Oh Well" on YouTube. And realized I hadn't heard it in years. Many, many years. Strangely I guess, it sounds too fast to me now, when, in its era, it was daringly slow for radio, about as slow as it could be.
P.S. About the footer link: Richter doing the Schumann Fantasy is...wow.
Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. A recording of interest:
(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.) Featured Comments from:
Jim Simmons: "Always tickled to see pictures of hairy Billy. My best concert experience ever—1971, sitting on the floor of the Fayetteville Arkansas Roller Rink, 20 feet from Billy and pals playing for three straight hours. Ratty amps, ripped clothes, boots taped together with duct tape. And Billy with very short hair and of course beardless. My girlfriend was from Houston and knew the guys a bit, said Billy had just had a weekend stay with Houston cops and for fun the cops gave him a haircut. He kept reflexively reaching up to pull the hair off of his face, but there was no hair there. They were hot that night, although that could have something in the air other than the music!"
Tom Kwas: "My Mom, who died last year at 88 years old, liked ZZ Top, and actually
went to a concert a while back. This posting reminds me of that, and
her...."
Charlie Haden and Hank Jones at the "Come Sunday" sessions. Photo courtesy Emarcy Records.
I love music listening—that's all I do, by intent, listen—and I've been an "audiophile" (for some definition of that contentious term) for most of my life—all of my adult life. I'm not a nut about it. Every seven to fifteen years, finances and patience permitting, I revamp my stereo system into something a bit more tolerable than it was, then I fuggedabboudit. When I lived in Woodstock in the late '90s, I actually took out a bank loan to buy a new stereo. It's that important to me.
I've been in the midst of that periodic upgrade recently, and I'm pleased to say it's been going well. I had a great room in Woodstock (best ever) and I have a bad room now, but I've been hearing better sound recently than I've ever had before.
What touched this all off is that my previous system had two sources, one old and one new: vinyl and computer USB audio. But the bare-bones approach I used—it was based around a headphone amplifier as a preamp—was limited to CD-quality resolution for the computer audio. And I wanted to experiment with HD audio.
Surprisingly, perhaps, one of the best upgrades in this whole process has been one of the cheapest. Accordingly, I have a recommendation for you, but I have to warn you, it comes at the end of this post, and it's a bit of a trek to get there...
If you're a critic—especially an amateur critic—especially making "best of" or "ten best" lists—especially on the internet—you have to be consonant with what I call "the ludicrous intensifier." Human beings—big, dear apes—are much susceptible to intimations of glory, and ludicrous intensifiers can make us thrill to our master-species greatness like Taber, Christopher Lloyd's character in the movie version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, seized by a sudden rush of awe.
The most common ludicrous intensifiers are in recorded history, as in "the ten best symphonies in recorded history," or that money can buy, as in "currently the most awesome 911 that money can buy," or in the world (now more popularly on the planet), as in "the hottest new soap star on the planet." (Note that "star" itself is, or was originally, a ludicrous intensifier.) Ludicrous intensifiers are more nicely ludicrous when they're used with things that are by definition geographically or temporally limited. Take for instance "one of the most awesome dunks of all time." When you think of it, that doesn't quite make sense, does it, in that basketball has only been played for 121 years and dunking has only been popular for part of that time. And the writer can't possibly have seen all of the awesome dunk contenders. Or consider "the ten best Southern rock bands on the planet"—as if there were Southern rock bands in the Philippines or coastal Madagascar that, when stacked against the power of Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top, just plain don't make the cut.
I like ludicrous intensifiers—they seem so indicative of human nature. And writers tend to sprinkle them about indiscriminately, which can lead to some delightfully thoughtless constructions; a particularly nice one I ran across once was a list called "The best '70s sitcoms of all time." Yeah!
I also like it when somebody figures out that "on the planet" is needlessly limited, and works it out that a category could be extended to the rest of the Solar System without challenge, or indeed that nobody could prove them wrong if they claimed dominance of the entire Universe. That gives us gems such as "the best hair band in the known Universe." Although that last leaves a door open, you perceive—there might be a hair band way, way out there that we don't know about yet.
So: "The ultimate The Smiths remasters collection." ("Ultimate" as an intensifier has an edge of dismay: you sure there will never be a better one, at any point in the future? Before the sun expands and becomes a red giant? This is the peak? It's all downhill from here?) All eight CDs have "been taken back to original tape sources and remastered by master-engineer Frank Arkwright, assisted by Johnny Marr at the world famous Metropolis Studios in London. Each album packaged in a mini-LP replica sleeve complete with the original artwork, including gatefolds and inner sleeves where relevant."
And who were The Smiths? Only the best '80s alt band of all time, and the greatest indie pop band from Manchester U.K. in the entire Universe.
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Featured Comment by Mark Roberts: "I find 'ultimate' to be a particularly annoying intensifier when misused. Near where I lived in Pittsburgh there was a place that billed itself as 'the ultimate retirement home.' Every time I walked by I expected to see a funeral parlor...."
Mike replies:Yeowch! That's a good one. Or bad, depending on your perspective.
A year and a half ago I realized I was going to have to replace my only TV. The 26" Sony CRT we'd been using for 16 years was getting wonky. So I went shopping, and bought...nothing. Couldn't pull the trigger.
I was completely unfamiliar with the current state of the TV market, and it took me a while to understand my objection to today's TVs: they look great, but they sound bad. And, it turns out, there's a sensible reason for that: most people who buy flatscreen TVs hook them up to multi-channel receivers to create "home theater" systems. Since nobody uses the built-in speakers, naturally they're a perfect place for the manufacturers to cut costs.
So when the old TV appeared to die a number of weeks ago, off I went to the local Best Buy, where I chose a 36" LED Samsung. But there was still that problem of the sound. Sound quality is always important to me—a baseline need. Living with the harsh, bass-less sound of the built-in speakers was not making me happy, so I had to do something.
Happy Friday the Thirteenth! That's the name of the old Thelonious Monk composition that first appeared in 1954 on the great album Thelonious Monk & Sonny Rollins and that has been covered many times. This is the Steve Lacy version, with Roswell Rudd wah-wah-ing away, from the 1982 album Regeneration that All Music Guide to Jazz calls "the consensus album of the year in 1983." I assume they just mean jazz albums, because of course Neil Young and the Shocking Pinks came out that year. The CD isn't available new, but the album is available at the iTunes store for $5.94. Bob Burnett had this waiting in my inbox this morning, making a perfect start to the day.
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Featured Comment by Wm. Mitchell: "Thank you for sharing. This made my afternoon! This is my first comment on your blog, but I am a longtime reader. I have the Monk and Rollins version on LP and CD and had not heard this recording. I feel refreshed."
Featured Comment by Paul Van: "It's bad luck to be superstitious."
Featured Comment by Pascal Suavé: "First time hearing that song. It's a brilliantly arranged dissonant piece but I'm still chuckling hours later since it kinda sounds like a really drunk New Orleans orchestra playing 'moody' music for yet another Twilight movie. P.S. Love the really blatty trombone—hilarious."
Reblogged*. If you're a visual person, which I was certainly born as, all manner of visual things matter to you. Art, the world, animals and people, on and on, can't escape it.
Here's the link—it's on Brightest Young Things and was written by John Foster of Bad People Good Things, and comes to me via my eFriend-I've-Never-Met Bob Burnett of GVI.
It's indulgent to criticize the worst of things and more difficult to showcase the best—but still fun. Shown up top is, well (damn), the winner. We all love Kate Bush, and we're happy she's back once again, and I admire the chutzpah of a comeback album on which the shortest cut times in at 6:48 (the longest is 13:32—Kate's recent influences must include Joanna Newsom's ya-love-it-or-ya-hate-it "Ys" [which has a great album cover—fits the music perfectly]. Talk about your meanders.) But a half-snowman/half-man eating the face of a supplicating female rendered in snow has got to take the palm for most excruciating idea in music graphic arts for 2011, and possibly a handful of years on either side. I mean, can we give it the Worst of 2012 and 2013 award too? One can but hope.
eFriend Bobby B. is never not interesting. Merry merry, spry young atheist.
Two perfect piano sonatas Having stayed up way too late last night making close comparisons of numerous Beethoven piano sonatas (not a usual preoccupation for me, although I've been listening to classical piano music for many years now), I thought I might take a moment, while we're on "music notes," to add a recommendation for two of the most dazzling, transcendent Beethoven sonata recordings ever made. Two that no one should miss. Might be useful to people who don't normally listen to Beethoven. Or classical music.
The first is Emil Gilels' "Waldstein" sonata. Just one of the most amazing piano performances ever caught on tape. I don't really like the other two performances on the record—Gilels' Appassionata is a bit suspect, almost ugly in places—but if there was ever a more flowing, virtuosic Waldstein, I have yet to hear it.
Now that's a great record cover**.
The second is Alfred Brendel's "Pathétique" sonata. Brendel is not the first pianist one thinks of as a Beethovenian, I realize. And Beethoven's piano music has been described as "better music than can be played***," which I think is just another way of saying it doesn't really lend itself to being played well. Sample a whole bunch of recordings by various candidates, and that becomes obvious. When a great pianist judges it just right—and it happens all too rarely—is when the magic in the art is revealed.
I should add that while I know there are great historical performances of both of these sonatas, I just prefer to listen to good modern recordings of piano sound—old, scratchy, distant, fluttery transfers from shellacs or whatever just don't do it for me, no matter how allegedly important the performance. There, predudice confessed.
Both are also available on iTunes, and probably elsewhere as well.
Mike
*The only word in English uglier than "blog."
**That picture says, "world-renowned artist—or the sketchy quiet guy who lives in the basement apartment two doors down?"
***Which might be literally true of the "Appassionata" sonata.
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In the Great Digitization, it's become commonplace for great treasures from the vinyl age to suddenly appear naked and vulnerable to purchase by the blithest neophyte. Scratching the surface, here are just a few little-acknowledged masterpieces that once were the venerated objects of search crusades by those deep in the know but can now be downloaded for a mere few bucks by anybody.
Feel free to add to the list if you have your own candidates.
The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band: Will the Circle Be Unbroken. A seminal masterpiece of country rock, the real thing compared to the bands that merely used country to inflect their pop-rock, "May The Circle Be Unbroken" is the document of a legitimate summit—an attempt at reconciliation between younger bluegrass and country musicians soaked in the revolutionary hippie ethos and older, more traditional musicians who were conservative by nature and deeply suspecious of anyone with long hair. Originally a triple album on vinyl, the record documents a week-long meeting to make music, and most of the tracks were recorded on the first or second take on two-track, with no overdubs or splices. The two "sides" never really get over their mistrust, but they make great music together. Featuring Merle Travis, Vassar Clements, Roy Acuff, Jimmy Martin, Brother Oswald, Doc Watson, and Mother Maybelle Carter. The mountain inflections are real, and the music has an authenticity that "country" music (which now mainly means "whites-only pop") now sorely lacks. At a time when the deepest rifts in America were generational, it was the first real country music that many younger rock fans had ever heard. Just as the once-popular vinyl was becoming really rare, the album made its way on to CD in 2002. You can find it here.
Track to sample: "Dark as a Dungeon" (Merle Travis).
Can, Tago Mago. Holger Czukay's experimental German avant-garde band Can was never easy to find "on this side of the pond" as they say. My friend Kim, a legendary late-night dj on D.C.'s once-underground WHFS, introduced to me to this as he has introduced me to so much else. "Tago Mago" is Can's third album and one of its most accessible. Uncomfortably pigeonholed as part of the "krautrock" genre exemplified by early electronica bands such as Kraftwerk and Amon Düül II, Can never really fit the slot: their music is improvisatory, hallucinatory, atmospheric, constructed, always adventurous and probing. "Tago Mago" was influential on a wide variety of bands from The Sex Pistols to Radiohead, and yet might be more listenable now than it was back when it was hard to find. Note that the 40th Anniversary Edition of the CD is a deluxe production with many extras (including, unfortunately, a poorly recorded live CD you should ignore).
Track to sample: "Bring Me Coffee or Tea."
Sonny Stitt with Barry Harris, Tune Up! + Constellation (okay, this one's not actually on iTunes—I just thought it was—but it's on CD, and can be purchased here. I have the Gambit / Fresh Sounds Records reissue). To be controversial, I sometimes rate Sonny Stitt higher than John Coltrane in the pantheon of jazz saxophonists. There's a glint of truth behind that. Coltrane's vaunted "sheets of sound" never particularly moved me (I know it thrills some people to the bone), and I've never been 100% convinced by his tone. Stitt has nowhere near the reputation and rates a weak flicker on the cool-O-meter by comparison, but to me he's the true heir of Charlie Parker. The two Cobblestone records, "Tune Up!" and "Constellation," recorded late in his life and career, were a refreshing blast of "roots" bebop from a time when most jazz musicians, drowning under the rock tsunami, were trying anything to accommodate. These were once so rare that aficionados would spend years tracking them down.
Track to sample: "A Ghost of a Chance."
Sviatoslav Richter in the 1950s, volume 1. The great Richter has always had an elusive, legendary numen, despite being a protean recording artist, probably because he made such an impression when his recordings first emerged into the West from behind the Iron Curtain in the 1950s—and because he disliked to travel. At his death perhaps no pianist had more artistic authority associated to his name. I can't speak for real classical collectors here, but before the rare Parnassus set came out in the 1990s, it was difficult for civilians to find an early recording of Richter playing the Seventh Sonata of Sergei Prokofiev, which Prokofiev wrote for Richter. Now? Anybody can click on it in iTunes. It's not even expensive, which seems just...wrong, somehow. The CD costs two and a half times as much.
Track to sample: the first (the Quarrel from Cinderella).
Neil Young, On the Beach. Neil Young is nothing if not quirky. For reasons that as far as I know have never been explained, for many, many years he refused to release "On the Beach"—one of the greatest albums of his early, depressive period and possibly the best single album of his career (the album is the middle of the so-called "Ditch Trilogy")—on CD. Some people have forgotten (and younger people may not know) how conventional it was in the early days of digital music, when CDs were still scarce, for people to say they wouldn't switch to CDs because "most of the music I listen to will never be available on CD." The opposite has generally been closer to the truth—CD, and now downloads, have rescued from the fathomless depths of record company vaults tens of thousands of recordings that would have gone in and out of print on vinyl only to become rare and sought after and fought over for years by the indefatigable collector. In this one case, however, the early vinylist was right. For twenty years, collectors hoped in vain to get this in digital form, and furtively traded bootlegs recorded from vinyl and encoded on homemade CD-Rs. Now? Available at a click on iTunes for eight dollars. Not even full price. You can get the CD, too. Of course, don't go looking for "Time Fades Away," another Neil Young standout from the same period that will never make it into digital form—Neil has bad memories from the tour it originated from, and, yep, refuses to rerelease it.
Track to sample: "On the Beach."
Tortoise, A Lazarus Taxon. Sometimes tiny, gem-hard kernals of criticism can be so true that you can never forget them again. Aforementioned friend Kim once said in passing that a band was essentially done by the time the first "greatest hits" album came out. I've never been able to forget that whenever I see a greatest hits package. Well, "A Lazarus Taxon" is Tortoise-speak for "greatest hits"—except it all hangs together surprisingly well; nobody does jazz-inflected experimental soundscape instrumentals more gorgeously than the Chicago-based Tortoise. So why does it belong on this list? Because it contains the entire "Rhythms, Resolutions & Clusters," the band's out-of-print and hard-to-find 1995 release. The CD box is superbly done, includes a DVD, and as a bonus features photographs by Arnold Odermatt, whose book Karambolage we featured in these pages a few years ago. Of course both of those are out of print now.
But you can still find the music on iTunes. Sort of takes the fun out of the hunt, dunnit?
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Featured Comment by Martin Sharman: "Not only are these once rare albums available for purchase on CD or download—all except Tortoise and some of the Richter are available for immediate stream on Spotify U.K.
"Despite a CD collection bordering on four figures, and less numerous but physically larger racks of vinyl, as soon as I took out a Spotify subscription, my listening and purchasing habits were changed forever. I haven’t bought a CD since. I really would never have believed it, but the whole concept of buying music to keep is starting to appear very old fashioned.
"The utter delight of being able to read a superbly-written article recommending great music (such as this one, or any quality printed music magazine), and be able to instantly stream it into my consciousness, even as I read, is unquantifiable. My listening has become far broader and my musical knowledge has never been increasing at such a rate.
"Given that one has access to a reasonably comprehensive streaming library, why would I wait a few days for my CD order from Amazon to ship when I can listen immediately? And paying for permanent downloads makes even less sense, given the inherently time-limited nature of digital formats and storage media.
"(The only format still worth bothering with is vinyl, especially now all switched-on labels offer free digital downloads with each vinyl purchase. A carefully-manufactured vinyl record can deliver a genuinely valuable ownership experience, and can increase in value in a way digital never will. It has to be admitted that the fact that entry into the vinyl-owning and -playing world is relatively inconvenient and expensive only increases its cachet as the format of choice for the serious collector.)
"However, I do sometimes worry about the transience of digital and its effect on my music consumption.
"Never again will I experience that thrill of Saturday afternoon record shopping; of having awaited a release from a favourite band and queueing to purchase; of having a shortlist of potential buying material in mind and browsing the racks, examining the cover, reading the liner notes, sometimes even asking for a sneak preview on the shop CD player before deciding, there and then in the shop, which to buy. How less romantic it seems to be able instantly to play each album in the comfort of one’s home; and when the decision has been made which of the shortlisted albums is the best—what then? No purchase necessary, just press play again.
"There is something about investing in a band with one’s own money that gives a psychological link; a virtual piece of ownership that a streaming service will never provide. And I do have qualms that my money isn’t being fairly distributed to the artists I listen to: the royalties per play are simply too small. But I won’t give it up. How else could I have drifted off to sleep last night with the dulcet tone of Stitt washing over me?"
My friend Lely Constantinople has been telling me for years about a trove of work she discovered in the basement archives of her then-boss, D.C. photographer Lucian Perkins, who documented the emerging D.C. punk scene at the beginning of his career. She was very excited about it then and now, and has long had the idea of trying to help set the work loose in the world.
Lucian is a two-time Pulitzer-Prizewinning Post photographer who was Newspaper Photographer of the Year in 1994 and won the World Press Photo of the Year in '96. But all his photographs of bands like Bad Brains, Trenchmouth, Teen Idles, the Untouchables, and the Slickee Boys were taken before he was known for anything. Lely's husband Alec MacKaye was there for a lot of it. (He's also the brother of Ian MacKaye, frontman of the Dischord band Fugazi.) When she found the negatives, Lely recongized Alec, then her boyfriend, in the contacts.
Lucian, with Jayme McLellan, who is director of Civilian Art Projects in D.C., Lely, and Alec are taking the next step to try to get the work seen and published by launching a Kickstarter campaign. They have an exhibition planned for D.C. in November which will travel to New Orleans and Austin, and hope to publish a book.
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Note: Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. More... Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.
Featured Comment by charlie: "I saw them 22 times and met them all at least once. I can not tell you how pleased I am that they have moved on and will not end up a sad and pathetic sideshow of what once was a great band. RIP but you will hear more music from most of them independent of REM and can already. They did everything about as good as a rock band ever could, and walk off heads held high with no drama."
Featured Comment by Mark M.: "Don't forget their song 'Camera' from the 1984 album 'Reckoning.'"
I had digitized all 500 licorice pizzas and saved the resulting WAV files to duplicate external hard drives. Unfortunately, because of hardware/software glitches and ticks and pops in the records, I really had to listen to every transcription all the way through to make sure it was okay before I got rid of the record.
I like listening to music when I'm pixel-pushing on the computer. It turned out, pleasant surprise, that I still like 98% of what I bought decades ago. Newer tastes have expanded my musical enjoyment, but they haven't evicted the old ones. And, of course, much of the music had pleasant memory associations. Listening to 300+ hours of records took time, but it wasn't onerous.
What was onerous was doing the audio cleanup. Most of the albums were in pretty good shape, with only a handful of transients. When I would hear a tick or pop, I'd switch from Photoshop to Audacity, zoom in on the defective waveform and use the fabulous Repair tool to make it go away. Those little interruptions added about a third to the actual listening time; not a big deal.
Sadly, many albums had a lot more than a handful of problems. By way of example, here's an especially bad track (note: the wav files are about 60 MB each). Some were just inherently noisy, some had acquired too many scratches over the years. Whatever the reason, when there are dozens or hundreds of audio defects to repair, it becomes unreasonably time-consuming. Also not something I can do as a background task; the interruptions to work come too fast and furiously.
Consequently, after over two years I still had almost half the files to clean up and they were worse than what I'd completed. I was feeling frustrated. All the cheap/bundled-in click and pop filters I tried worked like they were running a lawnmower over the waveforms, chopping off peaks. They don't actually remove the noise they find, and at sensitivity settings high enough to be useful, they do major damage to the sound quality. They suck.
For all those who say all my off-topic posts are about cars and horse racing, take this.
Today's subject: classical music. A subject I know nothing about. I went through a "classical period" that lasted well over ten years, but I mainly experienced the music rather than learning much about it. That period began in the '80s, preceding, just slightly, the introduction of the CD.
First item of business, the world's best music book title—I saw this last night in the bookstore and had to stifle a laugh. They nailed that.
Following the advice of wise friends, I am saving both Alaska and opera for my old age. (In case you're just skimming casually, that's another way of saying I've never been to Alaska and don't listen to opera.)
Control and perfection Anybody have a favorite quartet? ("Quartet" as in the group, I mean.) Like I said, I don't have any knowledge of, or training in, classical music or stringed instruments, so I don't know where I get off pretending I can tell the difference. But I've always had favorites anyway. My latest infatuation is for the Verdi Quartet (Susanne Rabenschlag and Peter Stein, violins; Karin Wolf, viola; and Didier Poskin, 'cello). Apparently they've been around for a good long while, not that I knew. They have a light hand, a singing tone, and a gentle way in Schubert. Try their Quintet in C on Hänssler Classics—Martin Lovett joining in on the second 'cello. The music is a great masterpiece that everyone knows, or should. I suppose the Verdi's is not as good a version as the wonderful (and far more famous) older version on EMI by the Alban Berg Quartet and Heinrich Schiff, notable for its rapt control and almost otherwordly perfection. I made many great prints to that disc in darkrooms in years gone by. (I found I needed music without words to print by.) Nothing like it on headphones, either, when you can really concentrate on listening.
(As an aside, anyone who loves Schubert will get a kick out of Too Beautiful for You [Trop Belle Pour Toi ], the Bertrand Blier comedy with Gérard Depardieu.)
Of course the big problem with bowed stringed instruments is that they never sound quite as good in recordings as they do in real life. It's the opposite of what they lately call "classic rock," where the recording is typically articulate and communicative and the live performances thrashy and dinny and too loud to hear. Hearing a live string quartet is an experience worth seeking out.
Hungarian violinist Vilmos Tátrai, of the eponymous quartet
Papa Haydn Of course you can't listen live to the ones that are gone. By far my favorite quartet of all time is the Tatrai, from Hungary. I love the Haydn string quartets above all others, and have ever since I started listening to classical in 1982 or so. I've got two complete sets, neither of which I've listened to completely. The versions I've listened to most intently (and repeatedly) are by the Tatrai. But I've never bought more than the odd disk here and there of the Tatrai's traversal, because it was always too expensive—these recordings have never not been expensive, virtually since they came out on vinyl. The personnel changed with the music, but as far as I know the Haydn band typically included Vilmos Tátrai and István Várkonyi, violins; György Konrád, viola; and Ede Banda on 'cello.
The quartets are available on iTunes now, for what seem like the most reasonable prices I've ever seen—generally $19.99 for six quartets. Try the "Erdody" Quartets Opus 76 if you want a place to start. I've been immersed in the Op. 54/55, amazed all over again at the brilliance and beauty of this nearly ideal matching of music and musicians. And don't make the mistake of hitting the go button and letting it run; I'd recommend listening to one quartet by itself several times before moving on to the next one. It's not actually background music.
Music of the thunderstorm And lastly, a plug for what I think is one of the greatest classical music pieces ever: Bach's BWV 1052. I have a deathless love for this piece, and (despite buying yet another version last week) have never found a better rendition than Trevor Pinnock's. Roiling skies and the thunder of the gods. One of the greatest of the great masterpieces; Robert Schumann, who was a music critic as well as a composer, thought so. If you don't know it yet, a download will be the best $2.97 you'll spend this week.
So much to enjoy.
Mike
"Open Mike" is a series of off-topic posts that appear on Sundays.
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Featured [partial] Comment by patrick: "Very Funny—I just spent a month in Alaska while my wife sang with the opera company there...."
Featured Comment by Erlik: "The best summation of opera ever:
'"Well, basically there are two sorts of opera,' said Nanny, who also had the true witch's ability to be confidently expert on the basis of no experience whatsoever. 'There's your heavy opera, where basically people sing foreign and it goes like "Oh oh oh, I am dyin', oh, I am dyin', oh, oh, oh, that's what I'm doin," and there's your light opera, where they sing in foreign and it basically goes "Beer! Beer! Beer! Beer! I like to drink lots of beer!," although sometimes they drink champagne instead. That's basically all of opera, reely.' (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade.)"
Featured [partial] Comment by Hugh Crawford: "You don't listen to the opera , you go to the opera. It's like the difference between sushi and fishsticks. Attending the opera is transcendent, listening to recordings of opera is kind of annoying. A soprano friend of my wife had to take martial arts training for one of her roles where she literally got thrown across the stage while singing, and last year at the Met the chorus was performing a cavalry battle while rappelling down a stage filling video screen showing the battle field from overhead. A couple years before that I saw Placido Domingo in "Girl of the Golden West" staged with real horses one of which he was riding while singing.
"Opera is a lot closer to say Iggy Pop than you might imagine."
Today is Dylan's birthday. He's now (get ready to feel old) 70.
The question is, which song to listen to to celebrate? "Forever Young" is way too obvious.
Guess I'll go listen to J. J. Cale's "The Old Man and Me" from Okie.
The old man he catches the fish in the morning He rides the river every day I sit on the bank and I holler when he passes Hey old man, are they biting today?
I wake up in the morning thinking 'bout my troubles I go down to the water and they pass away And when the old man comes a-floating down the river Hey old man, are they biting today?
Now here we've got a thing that keeps on rolling It ain't heavy, don't take it that way The old man and me, we got a good thing going He gets his fish, and I sit all day He gets his fish, and I sit all day
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Featured Comment by Rick Petersen: "When that album first came out, my girlfriend at the time had given it to me saying 'this guy is the next big thing.' My mother heard me playing it over and over in my room. She came in and said 'Who's that? He sounds terrible. He can't sing and he'll never last.' Come to think of it, she didn't like my girlfriend much either."
Featured Comment by Dale: "Hey Mike, interesting selection of the song. A few years ago when Arlo was doing his 25th anniversary of the Alice's Restaurant massacree tour. He was telling how writing songs was a lot like fishing.... Sometimes you don't get anything, sometimes just a nibble. Sometimes you get a hook into something and can play it into a successful landing. He then said that his problem is that he has been fishing downstream of Bob Dylan all his life!"
A jazz cut to download: "Hittin' the Jug" by Gene Ammons, a rich, slow, bluesy rainy-day number that shows off Ammons' famous burnished tone. Two of the three places on iTunes this cut is listed are marked "View," for "view album" or "album only," meaning you can only get the cut if you buy the whole album. But if you search under the song name, or go to the album called "Blue Ammons," you can buy the eight-and-a-half minute piece for 99¢. Try it, see if you like it.
If you want an album around it, I suggest "Boss Tenor," a quintet session from 1960 and probably the best Gene Ammons album. Which is saying something.
Recorded by Rudy Van Gelder, and part of the Prestige 50th Anniversary Commemorative series.
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Featured Comment by Anthony Miller: "Great track—excellent intro and comping from Tommy Flanagan on piano. Looking forward to 'Jazz Appreciation Month.'"
Mike replies:The intro was the reason I chose it—Jug's entrance is a nice moment I never get tired of. And Tommy Flanagan is underrated, isn't he?
Featured Comment by Will Whitaker: "Ammons sure got a large format sound out of a medium format instrument."
Everybody loves jazz. It's just that nobody listens to it.
For months—okay, years—I've been threatening to write an "Introduction to Jazz" post. This is a little worse than quixotic: I'm not a musician, not a music critic, certainly not any kind of an expert on any kind of music. I'm a member of "Generation Jones" (Google it—post or very late Baby Boom generation) who grew up with what's now called "Classic Rock" in the air. My brother Scott turned me on to jazz in the late '80s—dragged me along rather unwillingly at first—and I've been getting more and more into it ever since—especially over the last four or five years, during which time I've been on a "jazz kick" that doesn't seem to want to end.
But I'm just a Listener. Capital "L," though. When I was a teenager, courtesy of my father, I took a fascinating three-day battery of aptitude tests at the Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation in Washington, D.C. I scored in the 90–95 percentile range on all the musical aptitudes*, which by their reckoning was very high—but, critically, not as high as musicians score. According to them, people who score in the 95–100 percentile range for the musical aptitudes literally must be musicans, or they won't be happy—that is, they have so much musical ability they won't be satisfied in life if they're not putting their musical abilities to use in some way. I was told that I don't quite have the aptitude to succeed in a music-related career, but that I have enough aptitude for music that it would always be a very important part of my life. But I was advised to be an appreciator of music—part of the audience, an active listener. And so I have always been. It was great advice, because they were right. Being a committed listener is just the right situation for me, and I'm happy with where I stand. I don't regret not being a musician. Neither could I imagine my life without music.
This is written for people who don't listen to jazz, but are curious about it, or who would like to try it. And it's just one guy's suggestions, nothing more. There might, however, be a sort of hidden benefit in my lack of expertise: being just an average person makes it easy for me to know what other average people go through when trying to expand their musical horizons. That's my story, anyway, and I think I'll stick with it.
or some other good iPod dock with a DAC in it (ye don't want to be stuck with the wee dackish thing in the iPod, Pilgrim, heed me);
—Ed.]; and
c) a pair of powered monitor speakers (mine happen to be KRKs).
Good DAC, external volume that can't be hacked or stalled, speakers that are fine for where I actually listen."
. The box set features all six of Thelonious Monk's Columbia album with Charlie Rouse: Monk's Dream (1962), Criss Cross (1962), It's Monk's Time (1964), Monk (1964), Straight, No Chaser (1966) and Underground (1967). (Criss Cross and Straight, No Chaser are among my favorites). No to-do is made about the remastering, but it's remarkable—the sound quality is stellar, the best ever. For this set you want to buy the physical CDs, since the box features the nifty booklet with lots of archive photos. Being a super-duper screaming great deal ($4.85 per CD, the box for less than $30) doesn't hurt anything, either.
if you can get it in the next 37 nanoseconds before it sells out. CDs of five of his best records for what amounts to shipping cost. My favorite is Time Further Out, but all five are excellent.
and that has been covered many times. This is the Steve Lacy version, with Roswell Rudd wah-wah-ing away, from the 1982 album Regeneration that 
calls "the consensus album of the year in 1983." I assume they just mean jazz albums, because of course Neil Young and the Shocking Pinks came out that year. The CD isn't available new, but the album is available at the iTunes store for $5.94. Bob Burnett had this waiting in my inbox this morning, making a perfect start to the day.
. Just one of the most amazing piano performances ever caught on tape. I don't really like the other two performances on the record—Gilels' Appassionata is a bit suspect, almost ugly in places—but if there was ever a more flowing, virtuosic Waldstein, I have yet to hear it.
. Brendel is not the first pianist one thinks of as a Beethovenian, I realize. And Beethoven's piano music has been described as "better music than can be played***," which I think is just another way of saying it doesn't really lend itself to being played well. Sample a whole bunch of recordings by various candidates, and that becomes obvious. When a great pianist judges it just right—and it happens all too rarely—is when the magic in the art is revealed.
. 
is a deluxe production with many extras (including, unfortunately, a poorly recorded live CD you should ignore).
). To be controversial, I sometimes rate Sonny Stitt higher than John Coltrane in the pantheon of jazz saxophonists. There's a glint of truth behind that. Coltrane's vaunted "sheets of sound" never particularly moved me (I know it thrills some people to the bone), and I've never been 100% convinced by his tone. Stitt has nowhere near the reputation and rates a weak flicker on the cool-O-meter by comparison, but to me he's the true heir of Charlie Parker. The two Cobblestone records, "Tune Up!" and "Constellation," recorded late in his life and career, were a refreshing blast of "roots" bebop from a time when most jazz musicians, drowning under the rock tsunami, were trying anything to accommodate. These were once so rare that aficionados would spend years tracking them down.
costs two and a half times as much.
, too. Of course, don't go looking for "Time Fades Away," another Neil Young standout from the same period that will never make it into digital form—Neil has bad memories from the tour it originated from, and, yep, refuses to rerelease it.
is superbly done, includes a DVD, and as a bonus features photographs by Arnold Odermatt, whose book 
we featured in these pages a few years ago. Of course both of those are out of print now.
—I saw this last night in the bookstore and had to stifle a laugh. They nailed that.
on Hänssler Classics—Martin Lovett joining in on the second 'cello. The music is a great masterpiece that everyone knows, or should. I suppose the Verdi's is not as good a version as 
by the Alban Berg Quartet and Heinrich Schiff, notable for its rapt control and almost otherwordly perfection. I made many great prints to that disc in darkrooms in years gone by. (I found I needed music without words to print by.) Nothing like it on headphones, either, when you can really concentrate on listening.
[Trop Belle Pour Toi ], the Bertrand Blier comedy with Gérard Depardieu.)
. I have a deathless love for this piece, and (despite buying yet another version last week) have never found a better rendition than Trevor Pinnock's. Roiling skies and the thunder of the gods. One of the greatest of the great masterpieces; Robert Schumann, who was a music critic as well as a composer, thought so. If you don't know it yet, a download will be the best $2.97 you'll spend this week.
.)"
," a quintet session from 1960 and probably the best Gene Ammons album. Which is saying something.
