Hello readers. I hope you're ready for something new that happens to be old because we're about to try something a little different. Starting tomorrow, we will begin about a month of content devoted to the Velvet Underground. Read on for more details.
This installment of Label Year marks the first artist to have a second release in 2011. We are privileged with the chance to hear some more compelling music from Chilly Gonzales. His latest is called The Unspeakable Chilly Gonzales. Billed as "the first-ever all orchestral rap album," this is truly a unique listening experience not to be missed.
I have recently come across (or stumbled upon, as it were) this amazing video of 5,000+ citizens of Grand Rapids, Michigan performing a version of Don McLean's "American Pie." I dig it and think you really should check it out.
Some sad musical news today in a day filled with madness around the globe. Marshall Grant, bassist and the last surviving member of Johnny Cash's Tennessee Two passed away in Arkansas at the age of 83. As giant Cash fans, especially of his Sun Records days, we hope Cash and the boys are now jamming together again.
(Cheers to The Daily Swarm)
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Has it really been 6 weeks since the last Weekly Roundup?! ACK! Let's get right into the music then, shall we?
What can I say, deep down I'm really just a sap. Keith Jarrett always brings it out of me and his sparse and emotionally open arranagment of Somewhere Over the Rainbow will get me every time. The video is a performance from Tokyo in 1984. If once just insn't enough, the mp3 is his encore improvisation of the tune from his 1995 La Scala concert. You dig?
Keith Jarrett: Somewhere Over the Rainbow
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The Newport Folk Festival is an annual pilgrimage for lovers of this music. It is a magical weekend on the water were audiences are privy to legends like Pete Seeger and new generation masters like Chris Thile and Michael Daves. I lament that I am not there to partake this year, but NPR and the tech savvy crowd aren't leaving much to the imagination. This impromptu video of an impromptu performance is a choice example of the organic happenings that can happen there. The duo was joined by the Seeger Clogging Allstars in this performance of the Rocky Road Blues. Fun is the key word – fun for the musicians and fun for the crowd. It also doesn't hurt that the world's preeminent bluegrass mandolin player is there to throw down and make it look easy.
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A few days ago the musician/blogger Tiana Feng (Ride the Tempo) posted a musing on her personal blog (Teepoo's Scribbles) entitled, Sometimes You Need Time Apart From Something to Miss It. The basic gist of this piece was that she is a piano player who had taken a hiatus from the instrument and was now looking to dive back into things by learning some new repertoire. This is a simple enough concept and an experience every musician has felt at some point in their own lives.
Tiana's post, and our subsequent conversation about it, is the inspiration behind today's intsallment of the TWD series, Episodes in Virtuosity. For me, writting about classical music in this series has served as one of the catalysts I need as a classical guitarist to keep my own practice motivation up. Today's selected pieces are:
Pierre-Laurent Aimard: Allegro con Spirito – Musica Ricercata by Gyorgy Ligeti
Gerald Garcia: Alfonsina y el Mar by Ariel Rameriez
Le Grande Terrie – II Eclosion by Olivier Bensa
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Mayer Hawthorne's released a video for his single "A Long Time". The video is spliced together footage, YouTube style of a 1970's Detroit dance show. Mayer himself doesn't grace the screen, but his smooth jam syncs up great to the ridiculous (and ridiculously dressed) hip shakers.
(Via P4K)
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If you're a Beirut and Zach Condon junkie like we happen to be you'll be thrilled by the news that as of today Beirut's new album The Rip Tide is available digitally. I'm currently 1:05 into song two and I'm swooning like a high school girl who just talked to the cute quarterback. There's something deeply touching about Beirut's Eastern European jams and I can only imagine this album goes up from here. Download it. TWD guarantee.
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