“Tutti Frutti,” 1956 (screen test, The Girl Can’t Help It)
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“Long Tall Sally,” 1956 (Don’t Knock the Rock)
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“Good Golly, Miss Molly,” 1958
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“Rip It Up,” early 1960s
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“Lucille,” 1973
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When you look at today’s Grammy winners – God bless them – half of them were discovered when they were 10 years old, were groomed, and had managers and publicists. Little Richard just clawed his way to the top at a very early age with nothing except a tremendous amount of talent and gumption.
—David Kirby, author of Little Richard: The Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll (2009)
I’ve tried listening to his recordings while doing something else, but that hasn’t worked. Whatever else I was doing, I just put aside. If it was nighttime, I turned off the light. Some music occupies every available inch of space—there isn’t room for anything else.
Alfred Cortot: Frederic Chopin, “Farewell” (Waltz in A-flat major, Op. 69, No. 1 [excerpt]); Robert Schumann, “Der Dichter Spricht” (Op. 15, No. 13 in G major [excerpt])
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lagniappe
Cortot looked for the opium in music.
—Daniel Barenboim
(Originally posted 7/13/10.)
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If you want to stay right where you are, don’t even bother with this clip. But if, instead, you’d like to go somewhere you may never have been before, well, this might be just the ticket.
Gyorgy Ligeti (1923-2006), Three Etudes, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano
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lagniappe
I listen to all kinds of music—new music, old music, music of my colleagues, everything.
—Gyorgy Ligeti (whose influences included not only the usual suspects [Chopin, Debussy, etal.] but also Thelonious Monk and Bill Evans and the Rainforest Pygmies and fractal geometry)
(Originally posted 10/6/09.)
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Want a break from music that’s busy, busy, busy, busy, busy?
To almost everyone’s surprise but his own, he [Morton Feldman] turned out to be one of the major composers of the twentieth century, a sovereign artist who opened up vast, quiet, agonizingly beautiful worlds of sound . . . . In the noisiest century in history, Feldman chose to be glacially slow and snowily soft.—Alex Ross
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Earlier in my life there seemed to be unlimited possibilities, but my mind was closed. Now, years later and with an open mind, possibilities no longer interest me. I seem content to be continually rearranging the same furniture in the same room.—Morton Feldman
(Originally posted 11/7/09.)
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mail, etc.
Congratulations on your 500th post. I don’t know how you do it but I’m definitely looking forward to receiving your next 500 posts. Thanks for exposing me to so many great artists. Keep the music coming and thanks for what you do.
music clip of the day 