Category: Music

Rodrigo y Gabriela

From a review of their album at allmusic:

He was able to help them record a studio album that captured the sheer orgiastic excitement of their live gigs, hence this self-titled puppy that debuted in the Irish charts at number one. Uh-huh. It’s true that Ireland’s not a big place, but when, when, have you ever heard of an instrumental recording by a Mexican duo hitting the number one spot in such a place? What’s more, the disc has a buzz on Yank shores as well and with good reason. These nine cuts have nothing to do with nuevo flamenco or any of that new agey stuff: this is smoke and fire music, it burns across genres and traditions like a demented passion spirit that takes no prisoners–and we can thank the gods for heavy metal in this instance at least. This set slashes like a stiletto; it’s fine and precise; it leaves no scars. The dynamic range of this music is startling. It is both ancient and futuristic, carnally frenetic and romantically seductive, artfully — and even spiritually — played yet drenched in the vulgarity of street life. It is the work of two young masters who are still striving to learn and incorporate more without sacrificing beauty, pathos, and tradition.

iTunes album link. Or get it at Amazon for $9.99, I did. Rodrigo y Gabriela (with Bonus DVD)

The 2007 Pulitzer Prizes for Letters, Drama and Music

FICTION: The Road by Cormac McCarthy (Alfred A. Knopf)
The subject of Cormac McCarthy’s new novel is as big as it gets: the end of the civilized world, the dying of life on the planet and the spectacle of it all.

DRAMA: Rabbit Hole by David Lindsay-Abaire
This wrenching play by David Lindsay-Abaire includes some of the most revealingly nuanced acting to be seen on a stage or screen this year.

HISTORY: The Race Beat by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff (Alfred A. Knopf)
After ignoring the story for years, the news media came to play a major role in the struggle for civil rights.

BIOGRAPHY: The Most Famous Man in America by Debby Applegate (Doubleday)
The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, an eloquent champion of abolition and woman suffrage, became a celebrity of a far less exalted kind as a result of a sex scandal.

POETRY: Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey (Houghton Mifflin)
In her introduction to Trethewey’s book “Domestic Work,” Rita Dove said, “Trethewey eschews the Polaroid instant, choosing to render the unsuspecting yearnings and tremulous hopes that accompany our most private thoughts.” (poets.org)

GENERAL NONFICTION: The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright (Alfred A. Knopf)
Lawrence Wright offers a detailed, heart-stopping account of the events leading up to 9/11, carried along by villains and heroes that only a crime novelist could dream up.

MUSIC: Sound Grammar by Ornette Coleman
This breathtaking concert recording captures the alto saxophonist and his quartet at the height of their humanistic powers.

Summaries from The New York Times.

And here’s the winning breaking news photo:

Pulitzer Prize

Oded Balilty of The Associated Press: “For his powerful photograph of a lone Jewish woman defying Israeli security forces as they remove illegal settlers in the West Bank.”

The Essential Bessie Smith

April 15th is the birthday of Bessie Smith. This from a review of The Essential Bessie Smith.

. . . Bessie could sing it all, from the lowdown moan of “St. Louis Blues” and “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out” to her torch treatment of the jazz standard “After You’ve Gone” to the downright salaciousness of “Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl.” Covering a time span from her first recordings in 1923 to her final session in 1933, this is the perfect entry-level set to go with. Utilizing the latest in remastering technology, these recordings have never sounded quite this clear and full, and the selection — collecting her best-known sides and collaborations with jazz giants like Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, and Benny Goodman — is first-rate. If you’ve never experienced the genius of Bessie Smith, pick this one up and prepare yourself to be devastated.

allmusic

There are no lyrics today that surpass “Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl” for sexual imagery.

In listening to the earliest recordings, keep in mind there were no microphones until 1925. The artists sang or played and the sound was recorded acoustically.

Bessie Smith

Bessie Smith

. . . was born on this date in 1894.

Bessie Smith earned the title of “Empress of the Blues” by virtue of her forceful vocal delivery and command of the genre. Her singing displayed a soulfully phrased, boldly delivered and nearly definitive grasp of the blues. In addition, she was an all-around entertainer who danced, acted and performed comedy routines with her touring company. She was the highest-paid black performer of her day and arguably reached a level of success greater than that of any African-American entertainer before her.
. . .

Some of her better-known sides from the Twenties include “Backwater Blues,” “Taint Nobody’s Bizness If I Do,” “St. Louis Blues” (recorded with Louis Armstrong), and “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out.” The Depression dealt her career a blow, but Smith changed with the times by adapting a more up-to-date look and revised repertoire that incorporated Tin Pan Alley tunes like “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.” On the verge of the Swing Era, Smith died from injuries sustained in an automobile accident outside Clarksdale, Mississippi, in September 1937. She left behind a rich, influential legacy of 160 recordings cut between 1923 and 1933. Some of the great vocal divas who owe a debt to Smith include Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin. In Joplin’s own words of tribute, “She showed me the air and taught me how to fill it.”

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Ruination Day!

Stephen W. Terrell reminds us:

Yes, today is the anniversary of the assassination of President Lincoln, the sinking of the Titanic and the Great Dust Storm of 1935 — as lamented in those mysterious songs by Gillian Welch I played in my set on The Santa Fe Opry last night . . .

Ruination Day Set
April the 14th Part 1 by Gillian Welch
The Great Dust Storm (Dust Storm Diaster) by Woody Guthrie
The Titantic by Bessie Jones, Hobart Smith & The Georgia Sea Island Singers
Booth Killed Lincoln by Bascom Lamar Lunsford
Lincoln and Liberty by Oscar Brand
Waltzing on the Titantic by Lonesome Bob
My Heart Will Go On (Theme from Titanic) by Los Straitjackets
Ruination Day Part 2 by Gillian Welch

Mozart doesn’t make you smarter

News item:

Passively listening to Mozart — or indeed any other music you enjoy — does not make you smarter. But more studies should be done to find out whether music lessons could raise your child’s IQ in the long term, concludes a report analysing all the scientific literature on music and intelligence, which was published last week by the German research ministry.

news @ nature.com

Mozart makes you feel better, though. And, NewMexiKen learned in This Is Your Brain on Music that listening to many types of music in early childhood is a key to enjoying and appreciating music more later in life.

Fascinating

Simply fascinating.

The poet Billy Collins once laughingly observed that all babies are born with a knowledge of poetry, because the lub-dub of the mother’s heart is in iambic meter. Then, Collins said, life slowly starts to choke the poetry out of us. It may be true with music, too.

There was no ethnic or demographic pattern to distinguish the people who stayed to watch Bell, or the ones who gave money, from that vast majority who hurried on past, unheeding. Whites, blacks and Asians, young and old, men and women, were represented in all three groups. But the behavior of one demographic remained absolutely consistent. Every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop and watch. And every single time, a parent scooted the kid away.

March 27th is also the birthday

. . . of Maria Schneider. She’d be having that “Last Tango in Paris” at 55 now. She was 20 then.

. . . of Mariah Carey. She’s 37.

. . . of Fergie. No, not that Fergie. The singer. She’s 32.

Three-time Oscar nominee for best actress Gloria Swanson was born on this date in 1897. She’s best known for Sunset Blvd., which was made in 1950, and was only her second film since 1934. She’s perhaps even better known for an affair with Joseph P. Kennedy. Ms. Swanson died in 1983.

Sarah Vaughan

. . . was born on this date in 1924. The PBS web site for American Masters profiles Miss Vaughan, who died in 1990:

Jazz critic Leonard Feather called her “the most important singer to emerge from the bop era.” Ella Fitzgerald called her the world’s “greatest singing talent.” During the course of a career that spanned nearly fifty years, she was the singer’s singer, influencing everyone from Mel Torme to Anita Baker. She was among the musical elite identified by their first names. She was Sarah, Sassy — the incomparable Sarah Vaughan.

This Is Your Brain on Music

Back during the Great New Year’s Weekend Snowstorm NewMexiKen mentioned This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession.

I’ve just finished the book, which I found interesting but a struggle. I have a difficult time understanding music theory and an even more difficult time understanding neuroscience. I don’t think my limitations were the main problem, though. I think the real problem was with the author who, in this reader’s mind at least, exhibited no sense of structure or organization in how the material was presented. Well, “no” is too strong; let’s say limited structure. The discussion always left me fuddled.

Nonetheless the book was interesting because the two subjects themselves are so fascinating.

Two factoids:

Apparently EMI (the music conglomerate) invented magnetic resonance imaging, investing their music profits into the research. Next time you get an MRI you have the Beatles to thank.

And this:

The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert—in anything. In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again. Ten thousand hours is equivalent to roughly three hours a day, or twenty hours a week, of practice over ten years. Of course, this doesn’t address why some people don’t seem to get anywhere when they practice, and why some people get more out of their practice sessions than others. But no one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.

Still Sweet, Not So Baby James

James Taylor is 59 today.

Liza Minnelli is 61.

Jon Provost is 57. Who? Timmy on Lassie.

Courtney B. Vance is 47.

Dave Eggers is 37. The Writer’s Almanac has an interesting essay today about Eggers.

Jean-Louise Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, on this date in 1922.

He grew up speaking French, and couldn’t speak English fluently until junior high. He was a football star in high school and got an athletic scholarship to Columbia University. It was there that he became friends with Allen Ginsberg.

In 1951 he sat at his kitchen table, taped sheets of Chinese art paper together to make a long roll, and wrote the story of the cross-country road trips he took with Neal Cassady. It had no paragraphs and very little punctuation and Allen Ginsberg called it ”a magnificent single paragraph several blocks long, rolling, like the road itself.” And that became Kerouac’s novel On the Road (1957).

The Writer’s Almanac

Best lyric of the day, so far

‘Twas Halloween and the ghosts were out,
And everywhere they’d go, they shout,
And though I covered my eyes I knew,
They’d go away.

But fear’s the only thing I saw,
And three days later ’twas clear to all,
That nothing is as scary as election day.

Norah Jones, “My Dear Country”

America the Beautiful

Elsewhere, TheSonoranSon, official youngest brother of NewMexiKen, suggests that “America the Beautiful” would be better than “The Star-Spangled Banner” as a national anthem. NewMexiKen agrees.

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

The lyrics (above is just the first stanza) were originally written as a poem by Katharine Lee Bates after a trip to Pikes Peak. The poem was first published in 1895 and for years sung to various melodies, most notably “Auld Lang Syne.” In 1910 the lyric was published with the music for “Materna,” composed by Samuel A. Ward in 1882.

Of course, in a perfect world our national anthem would be Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land.”

This land is your land This land is my land
From California to the New York island;
From the red wood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and Me.

As I was walking that ribbon of highway,
I saw above me that endless skyway:
I saw below me that golden valley:
This land was made for you and me.

I’ve roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts;
And all around me a voice was sounding:
This land was made for you and me.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling,
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling,
As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting:
This land was made for you and me.

As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.”
But on the other side it didn’t say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?

Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.

Harry Belafonte

… is 80 today. Here is what Bob Dylan wrote about Belafonte in Chronicles:

Harry [Belafonte] was the best balladeer in the land and everybody knew it. He was a fantastic artist, sang about lovers and slaves—chain gang workers, saints and sinners and children. His repertoire was full of old folk songs like “Jerry the Mule,” “Tol’ My Captain,” “Darlin’ Cora,” “John Henry,” “Sinner’s Prayer” and also a lot of Caribbean folk songs all arranged in a way that appealed to a wide audience, much wider than The Kingston Trio. Harry had learned songs directly from Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie. Belafonte recorded for RCA and one of his records, Belafonte Sings of the Caribbean, had even sold a million copies. He was a movie star, too, but not like Elvis. Harry was an authentic tough guy, not unlike Brando or Rod Steiger. He was dramatic and intense on the screen, had a boyish smile and a hard-core hostility. In the movie Odds Against Tomorrow, you forget he’s an actor, you forget he’s Harry Belafonte. His presence and magnitude was so wide. Harry was like Valentino. As a performer, he broke all attendance records. He could play to a packed house at Carnegie Hall and then the next day he might appear at a garment center union rally. To Harry, it didn’t make any difference. People were people. He had ideals and made you feel you’re a part of the human race. There never was a performer who crossed so many lines as Harry. He appealed to everybody, whether they were steelworkers or symphony patrons or bobby-soxers, even children—everybody. He had that rare ability. Somewhere he had said that he didn’t like to go on television, because he didn’t think his music could be represented well on a small screen, and he was probably right. Everything about him was gigantic. The folk purists had a problem with him, but Harry—who could have kicked the shit out of all of them—couldn’t be bothered, said that all folksingers were interpreters, said it in a public way as if someone had summoned him to set the record straight. He even said he hated pop songs, thought they were junk. I could identify with Harry in all kinds of ways. Sometime in the past, he had been barred from the door of the world famous nightclub the Copacabana because of his color, and then later he’d be headlining the joint. You’ve got to wonder how that would make somebody feel emotionally. Astoundingly and as unbelievable as it might have seemed, I’d be making my professional recording debut with Harry, playing harmonica on one of his albums called Midnight Special. Strangely enough, this was the only one memorable recording date that would stand out in my mind for years to come. Even my own sessions would become lost in abstractions. With Belafonte I felt like I’d become anointed in some kind of way. … Harry was that rare type of character that radiates greatness, and you hope that some of it rubs off on you. The man commands respect. You know he never took the easy path, though he could have.

February 19th is the birthday

… of William “Smokey” Robinson, born in Detroit on this date in 1940.

Some Smokey Robinson trivia:

  • The nickname Smokey was given him as a child by an uncle.
  • The Robinsons were neighbors of the Franklins; Smokey is two years older than Aretha.
  • They both attended Detroit’s Northern Senior High School (as did NewMexiKen’s mom).
  • Smokey wrote both “My Guy” and “My Girl.”
  • Bob Dylan called Smokey “America’s greatest living poet.”
  • Smokey has written more than 4,000 songs.

… of author Amy Tan, 55 today.

… of Jeff Daniels, 52. Daniels has been nominated for several acting awards, most recently for The Squid and the Whale.

… of “Family Ties” actress Justine Bateman. Mallory Keaton is 41.

… of Benicio Del Toro. The supporting actor Oscar winner, for Traffic, is 40. Del Toro was nominated for the supporting actor Oscar again for 21 Grams.

Author Carson McCullers was born on in Columbus, Georgia, on this date in 1917.

Her most famous novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, published in 1940, delves into the “lonely hearts” of four individuals—an adolescent girl, an embittered radical, a black physician, and a widower who owns a cafe—struggling to find their way in a Southern mill town during the Great Depression. (Library of Congress)

One of his 1,093 patents

Thomas Edison received a patent for the phonograph on this date in 1878.

The phonograph was developed as a result of Thomas Edison’s work on two other inventions, the telegraph and the telephone. In 1877, Edison was working on a machine that would transcribe telegraphic messages through indentations on paper tape…This development led Edison to speculate that a telephone message could also be recorded in a similar fashion. He experimented with a diaphragm which had an embossing point and was held against rapidly-moving paraffin paper. The speaking vibrations made indentations in the paper. Edison later changed the paper to a metal cylinder with tin foil wrapped around it. The machine had two diaphragm-and-needle units, one for recording, and one for playback. When one would speak into a mouthpiece, the sound vibrations would be indented onto the cylinder by the recording needle in a vertical (or hill and dale) groove pattern. Edison gave a sketch of the machine to his mechanic, John Kreusi, to build, which Kreusi supposedly did within 30 hours. Edison immediately tested the machine by speaking the nursery rhyme into the mouthpiece, “Mary had a little lamb.” To his amazement, the machine played his words back to him. …

The invention was highly original. The only other recorded evidence of such an invention was in a paper by French scientist Charles Cros, written on April 18, 1877. There were some differences, however, between the two men’s ideas, and Cros’s work remained only a theory, since he did not produce a working model of it.

Source: Library of Congress

Didn’t look much like an iPod.

Harold Arlen

… was born Hyman Arluck in Buffalo, New York, on this date in 1905.

A short list from the more than 400 tunes written by Harold Arlen:

  • Ac-cent-tchu-ate The Positive
  • Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea
  • Come Rain Or Come Shine
  • Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead
  • Hooray For Love
  • It’s Only A Paper Moon
  • I’ve Got the World on A String
  • One For My Baby
  • Over The Rainbow
  • Stormy Weather
  • That Old Black Magic

Arlen worked with many lyricists through the years, most notably Ira Gershwin, Yip Harburg, Johnny Mercer and even Truman Capote. Harburg, for example, wrote the lyrics for the Wizard of Oz songs. Though it’s the lyrics we most remember, it’s the melody that makes a song memorable. That was Arlen.

The Day the Music Died

One day in early February 1959, a 13-year-old in New Rochelle, New York, cut open the stack of newspapers he was about to deliver and read that three rock ’n’ roll stars, Buddy Holly, J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, and Ritchie Valens, had died in a plane crash in Iowa. The boy later said he felt “like someone had punched me in the face.” It was a feeling shared by many in America and around the world. Years later, in 1971, that paperboy, Don McLean, would write the song “American Pie,” which gave an enduring name to the event: the Day the Music Died.

Right up there with other “where were you when you heard” events for those of us of a certain age. Read all about it at AmericanHeritage.com.