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Day 153. Some folk / blues collections and some Mozart.

Thursday, September 30th, 2010

Tonight was some folk / blues and Mozart. Mostly a few collections (including some old Tower Records samplers and the ‘O Brother Where Art Thou’ soundtrack) and the Muddy Waters Chess compilation, and the Mozart discs were made up of the Piano Quartets and his six quartets for Haydn. The folk and blues compilation ripping though was inspired by an assembly held for the student’s at Celia’s school. Every month, a few students from each K-2 grade classes are chosen to be honored students. All the other students in the class get to put together a list of why the honored students are people they like, the teacher adds something, and then the principal of the school gives each kid a little certificate with the list. During the assembly, the list is read, and parents are invited to attend. It is really very sweet, and Celia was in the first group of honored students for this school year. Tamiko and I made it to the assembly and were just so impressed with how this school teaches kids about what recognition is and how this sort of thing really makes them feel welcome in these first few years of school. And there was lots of positive reenforcement for good behavior with the kids (which is pretty impressive considering that there were 150 or so kids under the age of 8 in one room… they were all great, and they were told so).

Seeing Celia get her certificate was great. She stood with her classmates, waved at friends and blew kisses. She waved at me, Tamiko and Mira, and didn’t hide her head when the principal read about her. It’s amazing to see my little girl adapting to this new environment so quickly and so well. There are, of course, tons of challenges ahead but so far, she seems to be enjoying herself and learning so much.

My next favorite part of all this though we the fact that the music teacher was an important part of the assembly. Once things officially started, all the students stood up, turned towards the parents and sang a song together. This wasn’t a concert, no one was dressed up or told what was going to be performed ahead of time. The principal mentioned a song, and the kids sang it. What made it so special for me was the sense that it wasn’t special – it was just part of their day.

Even more amazing to me though was what happened before anything officially began. The music teacher started to play a relaxed waltz, then suddenly half the kids began to sing ‘Goodnight Irene’. Some very sweet music (recorded by Alan Lomax in the 40s with Leadbelly singing) makes its way to into my kid’s assembly. There was no verbal announcement, but at the same time, the music teacher playing this waltz was recognized by most of the students and they just started to sing. It blew me away… what lucky kids to have this be such an important part of their school.

So – I had to find my Alan Lomax discs with Leadbelly which led to a few other discs and a couple blues discs. I get so caught up in the centuries of music history from western Europe that when I realize the rich musical heritage my own country has created I find myself surprised over and over again. Part of me is a little ashamed of this, that this music isn’t just more of a part of my life (especially since I enjoy it so much), but I am also realizing that is part of what having kids is about. Celia and Mira have reminded me so much already about things that I have forgotten about, and part the excitement for me of Celia heading off to school is that I get to learn so many things again. What surprised me the other day is that for some reason I didn’t think music was going to part of that reminding. I’m excited now that it is.

Tags: Alan Lomax, Leadbelly, Mozart
Posted in Celia, Classical, Folk / Blues / Country, Mira | No Comments »

Day 152. Tchaikovsky, Telemann and Tallis.

Monday, September 27th, 2010

After a few nights finishing up some Mozart, I get back to some new music tonight. A stack of Tchaikovsky, some Telemann and Tallis. The Telemann is a disc of Keyboard Fantasias played by John Butt. I actually had the chance to see Prof. Butt play these live once, and the week before the concert I found a Dover edition of these pieces. When I got to the concert (a Wednesday noon concert at UC Berkeley) I saw him sit down with the same Dover edition. I’m not positive, but he may have been picking and choosing what pieces to play as he went along. He is an amazing harpsichord player, and part of me wonders if he did the same thing for the recording session of this disc.

Most of the Tchaikovsky is chamber music (and the six disc Haitink orchestral works set). But the first thing I listened to tonight was the first string quartet and a common-tone chromatic third related chord immediately jumped out (the beginning is in D-major, and the phrase has settled onto an A triad that is decorated with an F-major chord for part of a beat). I forget how refreshing this harmonic trick is. I haven’t listened to much later romantic music lately (and while these relationships show up in Beethoven and Schubert they usually become a new key area rather then a momentary highlighting kind of effect). The place where I usually hear this now is in a Radiohead song every now and then and while it is surprising in that context also, Tchaikovsky knew how to use it to wake up the listener. That chord appear just a few moments after an F-sharp minor chord which fits in well with its surroundings. But that sudden F major chord seems to come out of almost nowhere harmonically.

Now, it’s not that this kind of harmonic writing is daring or risky. No one risks death here, and if someone gets up and leaves an audience upon hearing something like this then there just aren’t enough worries in that persons life. So I don’t like using words like daring or risky to describe that kind of composing. But when I heard it just now the first thing that came to my mind was ‘Damn… Tchaikovsky is quite the badass”. And really, he was. Not just for that chord, but for some very dramatic and elegant and beautiful music that he put down on paper. And when I heard it, it made me think that it has been some time since there is something I had put down on paper that really surprised me, and I think it is time to make that a goal again. I need to do some things in my music that surprises me again.

Tags: Tallis, Tchaikovsky, Telemann
Posted in Classical | No Comments »

Day 151. Wagner, Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald.

Sunday, September 19th, 2010

Mira again spotted the box-set operas tonight, and then she noticed that four of the double discs sets were actually in a single box… excitedly, she jumped at the shelf yelling ‘Daddy!!! big one big one BIG ONE!!!!’. Little does she know that in that box is the music that she already will recognize as ‘Kiwl the Wabbit’. Of course, it is none other then Wagner’s Ring.

I have the Karl Böhm Bayreuth Festival recordings from 1967. Buying a complete Ring cycle is a special thing… costly on the one hand, and on the other there isn’t a perfect one you can find. Now, I would certainly look for it on DVD, but fifteen years ago a CD set was still the way to go. I researched for a good few months and asked numerous people what they thought, and eventually chose this set for two reasons… it was a live recording, shaped by a masterful conductor, and Birgit Nilsson’s ‘throat of steel’ was singing Brünnhilde. I’ve listened to this set twice, and the coughing and ambient audience noise really doesn’t bother me. The performance is great, and doesn’t feel as flat to me as the Solti studio recordings do (which seems to miss the overall arch at times… I believe these are more production errors then Solti’s, but the problem is still there).

While I am sure I will probably spend the next week going through these recordings again, I am also thinking it might be time to go through the process again and see what else I should listen to and to see what is available these days on DVD. I can’t imagine just playing these pieces straight through for the girls to hear for instance. More and more I regret spending so much money on opera CDs and wish that opera DVDs had been around in the mid-90s (or even DVDs really for that matter), but I think that is especially the case with The Ring. On top of that, though I don’t watch much TV I don’t think our little tube will cut it for watching The Ring. So I probably really just need to wait a little longer until we can afford something a little bigger and for BluRay to really take off. I just need patience… Wagner isn’t going anywhere.

Celia finally got into the box set act tonight as well, and pointed to the Ella Fitzgerald / Duke Ellington ‘Côte d’Azur’ eight disc set. A wedding present from our friends Bryn and Colin, this CD out of all our discs may be the one I will miss the packaging of the most. There are 4 two disc sets in jewel cases with different bright colors, and imprinted on the clear cases and the CDs underneath are male and female figures that, when aligned, embrace each other. The box itself is slightly off-white and doesn’t let on to art underneath. And as beautiful as the packaging is, the music in the set is even more beautiful. I probably won’t get to rip it tonight (I am ALMOST done with ‘Götterdämmerung’) but I look forward to playing it over the next couple nights after we get home with the girls.

Tags: Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Richard Wagner
Posted in Celia, Classical, Jazz, Mira | No Comments »

Day 150. Prince and Nirvana.

Friday, September 17th, 2010

Finished up my Nirvana discs tonight, and grabbed a stack of Prince as well (or, as CDDB craftily called him 0(+> ). I only have a few Prince CDs but unlike other artists where I have a more complete collection on LP, most of my other Prince is on cassette and therefore dead to me.

The Hits/B-Sides collections are respectable, and I also have the New Power Generation CDs (including the special limited edition of ‘Gold’ that I still think is sooooo cool). Couldn’t find ‘Diamonds and Pearls’ and its holographic cover last night though, so I’ll need to dig a bit for that. Just throwing on the collections last night though then the first few tracks of ‘Gold’ put me in a good mood last night. While ‘Sexy M.F.’ has its place on a mix disc on my computer (so I hear it a little more often) I hadn’t heard ‘My Name Is Prince’ or ‘7’ for quite some time. And with the greatest hits discs, so much of the stuff from the 80’s has stood up incredibly well. Where the synthesizers and kind-of jazz stuff on parts of the ‘Gold’ album sound a little more dated to me (in that ‘an R&B record from a genius like Prince in the 90’s has to have Funk, Soul, Jazz and Hip-Hop influences all included’ feel to it), the stuff off ‘Purple Rain’, ‘Sign O’ The Times’ and the other albums from that time seem to show off the best of what could be done in the 80’s. Prince, I imagine, was a monster in the recording studio and like Miles Davis he has always had a knack for finding some of the best musicians available at any given time that may not have big names for themselves yet. And the energy in the 80’s was also more urgent, almost frantic. The 90’s tracks are more mature, smoother and generally slicker. But put on ‘Let’s Go Crazy’ and the tempo and energy of the song builds up to that first guitar solo… then just keeps amping up. And you get a few glimpses into the kind of guitar player Prince is, which is some of my favorite parts of this song.

‘Sexy M.F.’ is Prince saying I’m a badass and can do pretty much anything I want to at this point in my career. The song is great, even if I don’t think I can put it on and sing along with Celia in the room. The drums, horns, keyboards and bass are all extremely tight as well. I can almost imagine that if the lyrics were actually being sung that this is the song that James Brown may of wished he had done. Except that the hardest working man in show business would never do something that could alienate an audience or prevent airplay. But the generation that let James Brown sing about feeling like a Sex Machine probably wouldn’t have stood for James Brown feeling like a mother-fucking Sex Machine. But the sense of control that James Brown wanted from his band and the competing layers of sound is all there and I could surely see James Brown signing and dancing to it on stage (especially over the last couple minutes of the song). Prince wasn’t worried about it though. He released it as a single knowing there was no way it was going to get airplay, and when the single showed up at Tower I remember thinking ‘this thing is going to see like crazy even if you can’t put it on the radio’. Hell, we couldn’t even play it in the store (though it started a number of times, there always seemed to be JUST enough time for a supervisor or manager to run to the front of the store to hit the |>>| button on the CD player before anyone could really be offended). Still, it did sell well, and my guess is that most people who know Prince know this song.

With my Nirvana discs, I listened to just a couple tracks off ‘Nevermind’ last night (‘Lounge Act’, ‘Lithium’ then ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’) before moving on to ‘Bleach’ and the ‘MTV Unplugged’ discs. What surprised me was how slick and well produced ‘Nevermind’ now sounded. This is the ‘grunge’ sound? I remember how gritty it sounded in the early 90’s, but listening to it now it surprises me how polished it feels. Don’t get me wrong, I still think it is a great album (and ‘Lounge Act’ is surely in my top 100 songs list) but it is strange to get such a different impression of an album that I feel like I know so well. So I put on ‘Bleach’ to see if my impression of it had changed at all, and luckily it hasn’t. It still feels quite rough and edgy and has a much more DIY feel (even if the evidence of studio production is still found in the recordings). And when I put on the ‘Unplugged’ disc, I was amazed at how much this band did in such a short time. And how amazing Kurt Cobain performs on this disc. While calling it ‘Unplugged’ seems a stretch to me, the smaller and quieter setting allows for an amazing range for him and the band. And actually, I think the music and his voice is actually at its most powerful on this disc. Amazing that it is with stripped down amplification that this happens.

My friend Kyle (who I know from the bus rides between Tacoma and Seattle) and I met up this morning as I was starting to write this post. Kyle is a blast to talk to and is as deeply into listening and finding new music to listen to as I am. Our conversations almost always get around to ‘what have you heard lately’ and between the two of us there will be a power group or two, some obscure jazz or out there rock. It’s always a blast to talk to him and we often pass headphones back and forth to give tastes of something. Anyways, as I start typing this post today I see him at the back of the downtown bus when ‘Love Buzz’ comes on. I stride back laptop in hand and hold my headphones out just as looks up. He puts the headphones on and within a couple moments of each other, both of us have had a flashback to 20 years ago. He gives me a fist bump. I think both of us had just had our mornings made for us… then we go on and talk about how amazing Nirvana was.

But the point that we both agree quite heartily on is the opinion that as amazing as Nirvana was, neither of us realized at the time that the guy sitting behind Kurt was the genius Dave Grohl. As Dave takes his post-Nirvana career higher and higher (Foo Fighters and no Them Crooked Vultures where he get to play with JOHN PAUL JONES!) you see how the strung out grungy look of Nirvana led to Kurt’s success and fall. While the smiling face of Dave Grohl may not inspire sales to depressed teenage kids, I think Dave got it right. I imagine he is thrilled with the career he has had and who he has been able to play with. And he got to be part of a scene-changing band without it destroying him. Kurt might be the legend, but Dave is definitely my kind of musician. More about this when I get to those Foo Fighters discs …

Tags: Nirvana, Prince
Posted in Rock / Pop | 1 Comment »

Day 149. Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman and Great Pianists!

Tuesday, September 14th, 2010

Mira pointed to a Glenn Miller collection, and Celia wanted more piano music for her room. I went ahead and grabbed a Benny Goodman disc as well, and for Celia grabbed my little selection of the Phillips ‘Great Pianists of the 20th Century’. Tonight, Celia went to sleep with Rosalyn Tureck playing Bach Partitas.

Big Band music has a special place in my heart… when high school marching band would finally slow down in Fall, concert and jazz band took on a focus. Midway through freshman year, I FINALLY got to switch to saxophone, and we got to play ‘Sing, Sing, Sing’ (a la Benny Goodman rather then Louis Prima). After years of playing clarinet I was finally playing sax, and when I hear ‘Sing, Sing, Sing’ I immediately go out and buy a Benny Goodman record and hear … his clarinet. And I suddenly realize how cool clarinet could have been. I sold the instrument short. I remember thinking ‘I should go back to it!’ but then I hear John Coltrane shortly afterwards and am hooked on sax. So while I stuck with the saxophone (and still get my alto out every now and then) it was that first year of jazz band that finally made me appreciate the clarinet, and it is still one of my favorite instruments. And it works so well in modern music as well… such an amazing range of timbre within single notes, and across the whole instrument.

All this of course reminds me when I first started learning how to play in instrument in 6th grade. I’d had a guitar for some time, but never learned how to play it really. And when there were music classes in 6th grade, I really wanted to play alto sax. I wanted to play ‘Tequila’ like the 6th graders the year before me did… but the school didn’t have any left. My parents took me to the local music store, and again, no alto saxes were left. ‘But we do have clarinets’ said the clerk at the store, an guy in his 60s or so. I came wanting an alto sax, and a guy in his 60s tells me all they have is clarinet… I go from thinking I can get a cool alto sax to a stodgy clarinet. Well, that was just how my 6th grade mind thought. Still, I learned how to read music and learned how to play well with others. By the next year in junior high I auditioned into the second best band in the school, and was set to be in the top band the next year when we moved. By that time, I had started to learn guitar as well and I was hooked. Not having a band at the K-8 school I moved into when I moved to Roseville didn’t stop me, and I kept practicing on my own because I really enjoyed it.

I am often asked by other music friends when we are going to start music lessons for Celia (or, a few times, I receive looks of shocked horror that Celia isn’t already in lessons). I don’t think it was my parents intentions to not force lessons on me so I would enjoy making music more, but that is how it worked out. In the over twenty years of playing music, I have always enjoyed it. I’m sure I could be a better musician in many ways (especially a better instrumentalist) but I don’t know what the price I would have had to pay is. What I do know is, right now, Celia is listening to a wonderful pianist play Bach in her room as she goes to sleep. She will probably listen to this CD for a number of weeks, or switch back to Beethoven or Miles Davis. During the day, her and Mira want music on so they can dance. They have instruments all around them. They play on toy pianos and real pianos. Celia has bowed my violin while I practice cello, and has sung along with her toy accordion. If she asks for lessons, we’ll find a way to get them for her. And if Celia or Mira DO play instruments later in life, I look forward to practicing scales with them, then playing duets or trios. But for now, no pressure. Just lots of good music playing in the house.

Posted in Celia, Classical, Jazz, Mira | No Comments »

Day 148. Dizzy Gillespie, New Order, ‘Next Stop Wonderland’.

Monday, September 13th, 2010

Again, I made the choices a couple night’s ago and just finished them up today… I’ll get back to letting the girl’s pick things again tonight, but there were a few things I just really wanted to hear.

First, I had ‘Temptation’ by New Order stuck in my head the other day and just had to hear it. I have a couple things by New Order on LP, but the only CD I have is ‘Substance’. ‘Substance’ really is a about one of the best greatest hits packages that a band AND fans could hope for. The hits are on there, as well as some notable B-sides from the heyday of the 12” single, and they didn’t throw radio edits onto the discs (instead opting for a two disc collection that really earns its keep). And as much as I love New Order, their albums rarely carried ‘great album’ status in my opinion, so this collection keeps me covered for the most part… and the way I know? When I put it on, even if I didn’t think I was in the mood for New Order, it only takes a couple of seconds to get into the groove of things and I will play at least on of the discs from start to finish quite happily. What will be interesting to see (to me at least) is how I will treat these discs now that they exist together on the server. Will I play both discs back to back? Or start getting choosier about which tracks I hear off one or the other? Who know, but I do think it is time for the girls to start dancing to ‘Perfect Kiss’ and ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’ before they are quick enough to parse the lyrics.

The other discs I ripped were what I would best categorize as mellow night time music. The ‘Next Stop Wonderland’ easily makes my top 10 soundtracks list, and is probably in the top 3 if I were to make a list (up there with ‘Singles’ and ‘In The Mood For Love’). Filled with Bossa Nova and Samba, the whole disc flows beautifully. It would also be THE disc I would give to someone who has never heard South American influenced jazz before. You get a nice mix of ‘authentic’ and ‘influenced’ with Astrud Gilberto, Marcos Valles, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Coleman Hawkins rounding out the disc. It is also one of mine and Tamiko’s favorite movies (one that we need to get on DVD… we haven’t seen it for some time). The quirkiness and mood of the movie goes wonderfully with the music, a wonderful example of the music enhancing the movie, and vice versa.

Finally, the last set I ripped last night is kind of a self-compiled one. Back when I was working at Tower, there was a week where a single disc titled ‘Jazz for a Sunday Afternoon: Live at the Village Vanguard’ and a live Dizzy Gillespie disc came out at the same time. The first one had a young Chick Corea on it and while 1970s Chick Corea (or worse, 1980s Chick Corea) never really hit it for me, I was curious to hear his early playing so I grabbed it. The Dizzy Gillespie disc (a live double disc) just looked good. So I took them home and discovered, while reading the liner notes, that these two discs came from concerts on the same day. The first was basically the opening act, and a few of the players stuck around to play with Dizzy Gillespie for his show. There were no marketing materials that linked these discs together, and I have no idea how many other people have all three of these discs and have brought them together, but what you get is about three hours of great jazz that represents a night at the Village Vanguard in the ‘60s. I pretty much kept these three discs together (fitting the opening group’s disc into the Dizzy Gillespie case since it had open slots) and have usually been able to put them out and listen to all three straight through.

I went ahead and labelled stored them under Dizzy Gillespie on the server so I could have them all grouped together. Once again, another instance where the new server based music system is going to work out better then the old CD based one (I never bought a CD changer since… they couldn’t play five discs at once, so I never really saw the use). There is some fine, fine playing in the opening groups set, and I can honestly say that some of Chick Corea’s playing gave me a huge appreciation of him. But what really stands out for me in this set is the instrumentation at the beginning of Dizzy Gillespie’s set… in addition to his trumpet and a standard rhythm section, there is also baritone sax, violin and trombone. And the violin mostly plays in its lower register. The result almost feels like a jazz ensemble influenced by Morphine … lots of lows, lots of sliding around and lots of gritty playing. The version of ‘Birk’s Works’ on here is amazing, and the concert ending ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’ closes out the whole night very nicely. Lots of energy with a bit of Dixieland influence, with an amazingly nimble baritone sax solo that gets things going after the head.

Looking forward to seeing what the girls pick out tonight though… I’m guessing Mira goes for more opera… we’ll see.

Tags: 'Next Stop Wonderland', Dizzy Gillespie, New Order
Posted in Jazz, Rock / Pop, Tamiko | No Comments »

Day 147. Django Reinhardt, Charlie Parker and a box with a picture of Dizzy Gillespie on the cover.

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

I had some Charlie Christian and Benny Goodman on earlier tonight, and it had both Mira and Celia dancing in their seats during dinner. And hearing Charlie Christian made me want to hear some Django Reinhardt, so I went downstairs and grabbed two JSP boxes that were hiding in the back shelves.

JSP (and in some ways, Properbox as well) have taken advantage of recordings going out of copyright, or of licensing recordings as they get ready to go out of copyright, and what this has meant to those of us who like early jazz is usually some pretty cheap box sets of music where the recordings have been cleaned up a bit. The Django boxes are generally well done. No documentation really (basically an article and personnel listings when possible) but packed CDs of music. In the early ‘90s, I had bought a 10 CD Django Reinhardt box-set that was an import distributed by Cema Distribution… the box was great, and I sold it to a friend (for pretty cheap) when he was having a rough time. I figured it would turn up again and I could re-purchase it, but it never happened. The two JSP boxes clock in at 9 CDs, and while it isn’t everything that was on that import box-set, it’s pretty close… and I’m sure it was a third the original boxes price.

Properbox has done an interesting job as well putting together some nice collections for around $30. I have a 4 CD Charlie Parker set to rip tonight (if I get to it) as well as a set called ‘BeBop Spoken Here’. Another set I previously ripped was a Lester Young collection that I enjoy quite a bit. These are old mono recordings, often transferred from disc. They will never sound great, but the performances are well worth having, and it is nice to see the label going to a large volume of sales rather then gouging the rare performance collector that would probably plop down serious cash for some of these recordings. Both of these labels have appeared in the waning days of the record store (or more precisely, the waning days of the CD). I imagine the parties putting these together see this, at least in some way, as a labor of love. These recordings won’t survive well in the MP3 age (they are too noisy and will just sound worse)… but in 5-10 years, when lossless recordings finally kill lossy formats.

We’ll see if the girls groove as much tomorrow night… I imagine they will.

Tags: Charlie Parker, Django Reinhardt
Posted in Celia, Jazz, Mira | No Comments »

Day 146. Nina Simone and John Coltrane.

Tuesday, September 7th, 2010

Today’s rips stem mostly from an assignment in Tamiko’s class on literature and music tomorrow. She is teaching Nina Simone’s ‘Mississippi Goddamn!’ and I found a compilation on eMusic called the ‘Protest Anthology’. The Birmingham church bombing is an important part of the song and her lecture tomorrow, which reminded me about ‘Alabama’ by John Coltrane, and I realized that with Mira’s love of boxsets, that there is a lot of John Coltrane I still had to rip. I grabbed a handful this morning (mostly Impulse! recordings) and worked through most of them tonight.

Right now, the version of ‘Afro Blue’ on ‘One Up, One Down: Live at the Half Note’ is playing … and it just cut off. This recording is from a live broadcast, and ends after almost thirteen minutes in the middle of one of Coltrane’s amazing solos. Who knows how much longer it went on for, but I do know that it is a crime that this is lost. Not that I can’t just put on the thirty-five minute version of ‘Afro Blue’ on the ‘Live in Seattle’ disc, but as with the eight minute version on the album ‘Afro Blue’ or the three or four other versions I have, I know that these aren’t other performances of the same song. They start out with the melody they need to, and usually move into a McCoy Tyner solo, but after that it really is anybody’s guess, and it is always different and just as amazing. I understand that for some people jazz can be a cacophony, and that Coltrane can be seen as the epitome of that ‘problem’. But once you know get a sliver of an appreciation for what he is doing, there is so magic in these recordings. So much virtuosity, and so much invention. Coltrane might be one of the only artists that could have gotten by in his career playing only one song for the rest of his life, taking the song into forty minutes plus, and saying something new with it every time. So it is really hard to hear one of these performances cut off in the middle. It is like listening to the first two movements of Beethoven’s 5th, and knowing the 3rd and 4th should come next, but you aren’t going to get them.

Anyways – back to Nina Simone and actually how Coltrane fits into this. Some of this can easily be called the soundtrack of the Civil Rights movement. ‘Mississippi Goddamn’ was sung to audiences of whites and at marches where police surrounded everyone. I once heard a quote about people hearing Coltrane play for forty minutes or more during this time, and that hearing someone do that was the sound of freedom. Coltrane, when he was playing music like this, was doing “what a free man could do”. When I listen to this music, I can’t possibly understand what it took for these artists to create this work. My life doesn’t have a parallel to that fight. So while I listen to this music because I love it and enjoy it, I also appreciate the history lesson it provides. And I mourn the bits that are lost because it didn’t fit into a radio broadcast schedule.

Tags: John Coltrane, Nina Simone
Posted in Jazz | No Comments »

Day 145. Schumann, Allegri and Sciarrino.

Sunday, September 5th, 2010

Quick post tonight… following the big chunk of Brahms last night is a four disc set of Schumann’s piano music played by Wilhelm Kempff. Also in the stack was a disc of Sciarrino’s violin caprices and a disc of Allegri’s vocal music.

I have the op. 17 Fantasie on right now. It is a piece I just love, and don’t get to hear often enough. Kempff’s recording is quite good (though there is a recording with Richter that I like a little more). Whenever I hear it, it makes me want to be a better piano player. It is a piece I would really like to be able to play one day. And while I don’t think I’m too late, I do think that to play this piece (and really, most of the great literature) you need to be able to play it and sit with it for decades. And sooner or later, there just won’t be decades left for me to spend on these pieces. I haven’t been playing enough recently. I need to figure out a way to start making it part of a daily routine again.

The part of this piece that I think can make or break a performance is the last measures of the first movement, the silence between movements one and two, and the the first chords of the second. The relationships of dynamics, breath and tone seems to be so difficult to achieve in this piece… end the first movement too loudly, and you are stuck. The second movement needs to start brilliantly, but not bombastically, and if you end the first movement too loudly you would have to pound the keys for the second which would ruin those initial chords. Come in too soon, and you are a runner not pacing themselves. How can you learn the exact touch, timing and feeling needed to do this in a week? Or a year? It needs time for you, as a player, to mess it up again and again so you can figure out how it needs to be done. And once you’ve found that it needs to set into your bones and age with you.

Tags: Allegri, schumann, Sciarrino
Posted in Classical | No Comments »

Day 144. Brahms.

Saturday, September 4th, 2010

Tonight Celia grabbed a box set that was hiding in the back of the shelves of the complete Brahms chamber music. The box is an 11 CD set put out by Philips, and has some very nice recordings on it. Performances are by the Beaux Arts Trio, Janos Starker, Quartetto Italiano and Arthur Grumiaux. Mostly analog recordings from the 60’s and 70’s, which I am perfectly fine with (I still think this period represents a prime time for classical recordings, both technically and performer wise).

Funny thing is, I think I forgot I had this set. I probably moved it to the back because I do have other recordings of the Piano Quintet, Cello Sonatas and Violin Sonatas that I like quite a bit. And in general, though I am familiar with Brahms’ chamber music, it never quite grabbed me in the same way that Beethoven’s did (or Dvorak or Tchaikovsky for that matter). The textures often feel heavy handed to me, a little trying on my ears. However I realize that this is more the memory of someone in his mid-20s (and still discovering classical music) then it is my current ears. So as I saw Celia grab this set tonight I told myself that I would sit down with the scores and go through most of these pieces again. I’m curious to see how my perception of them has changed. I have the C minor Piano Quartet on right now, and I can already tell that I’m hearing things differently. And a big part of this project as a whole was rediscovering and revisiting music that I have. I think I have a weekend of Brahms ahead of me.

And regarding the picture above… I totally would have had coffee with him.

Posted in Celia, Classical, DAC Project | 1 Comment »

Archive for September, 2010

Day 153. Some folk / blues collections and some Mozart.

Day 152. Tchaikovsky, Telemann and Tallis.

Day 151. Wagner, Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald.

Day 150. Prince and Nirvana.

Day 149. Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman and Great Pianists!

Day 148. Dizzy Gillespie, New Order, ‘Next Stop Wonderland’.

Day 147. Django Reinhardt, Charlie Parker and a box with a picture of Dizzy Gillespie on the cover.

Day 146. Nina Simone and John Coltrane.

Day 145. Schumann, Allegri and Sciarrino.

Day 144. Brahms.

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