Indian Music Festival, part 2 Nikhil Banerjee, sitar With Zakir Hussain (tabla), live ***** Raga Bhimpalasi (Alap [opening section]) ***** Raga Bhairavi ***** Raga Manj Khammaj, with Ali Akbar Khan (sarod) Part 1 *** Part 2 ********** lagniappe In my own listening, I have sometimes felt that a raga symbolizes the states of a person’s [...]
Archive for March 2010
Monday, 3/29/10
03/29/2010This guy, like Captain Beefheart, studied at the Howlin’ Wolf School of Vocal Alchemy. Tom Waits, “Make It Rain,” live (TV broadcast), 2004 ********** lagniappe More on William Eggleston and Alex Chilton Yesterday, while at the Art Institute, I stopped again at the William Eggleston exhibit (previously mentioned here and here), which runs through May [...]
Sunday, 3/28/10
03/28/2010Rough. Grainy. Insistent. Long after a song has ended, you still hear that voice. Dorothy Love Coates & the Gospel Harmonettes “They Won’t Believe,” live (TV broadcast) ***** “That’s Alright With Me” ***** “I’m Just Holding On,” live (TV broadcast) ********** lagniappe Were gospel to be more publicly acclaimed, she [Dorothy Love Coates] might have [...]
Saturday, 3/27/10
03/27/2010Here’s more from my favorite 101-year-old composer. Elliott Carter, Two Diversions for Piano (2) (1999)/Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano Want more Elliott Carter? Here. Here. More Pierre-Laurent Aimard? Here. ********** lagniappe I used to write these gigantic pieces that were very complex and took a long time to compose, if not to play. I am now much [...]
Friday, 3/26/10
03/26/2010Last night, drifting off to sleep, I heard (or dreamed) a commercial for a new cable TV channel: The Jackie Wilson Channel All Jackie, All the Time Jackie Wilson, “Baby, Work Out” (AKA “Baby Workout”), live (TV broadcast), 1963 Want more? Here. Here. ********** lagniappe reading table I threw a party, wore a very sharp [...]
Thursday, 3/25/10
03/25/2010street music Dublin On Grafton Street
Wednesday, 3/24/10
03/23/2010Unlike Aretha Franklin, she doesn’t have a big, commanding voice. But just as some actors are able to do as much (or more) with less, so, too, with singers. And when it comes to expressing heartache and vulnerability, a voice that’s smaller, less powerful isn’t necessarily a liability—it can be a strength. Ann Peebles “(You [...]
Tuesday, 3/23/10
03/23/2010looking back Today, celebrating our 200th post, we revisit a few favorites. ********** 9/14/09 If I didn’t have kids, would my ears be stuck, forever, on “repeat”? Here’s something my younger son Luke, who just started college, played for me recently, after first pronouncing it, with quiet but absolute authority, the best thing this guy [...]
Monday, 3/22/10
03/22/2010Trying to capture jazz in standard notation can be like trying to translate poetry into another language—what you wind up with is everything but the poetry. So composer/trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith (who, like many of his peers, eschews “jazz” as a label for his music) invented his own system of graphic notation. *************** Wadada Leo [...]
