Friday, December 02, 2011

Vince Guaraldi

I can't let the holiday season pass without a nod to the musician who may have provided many people's first exposure to jazz: Vince Guaraldi ( http://www.vinceguaraldi.com/home.htm ), who wrote and performed the whimsical jazz soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas (as well as 16 other Charlie Brown shows, and the hit tune Cast Your Fate To The Wind ). Vince split the scene far too early at age 47, but has influenced many pianists and composers.

Here's Vince with Bola Sete doing Star Song in 1963:


And here's a very rare film of Vince backing the incomparable Ben Webster:

Jazz Radio Stations

Don't forget the broadcast jazz radio stations (of which there are, sadly, fewer and fewer each year), starting with our own KMHD ( http://www.kmhd.org/ ).

New Jersey's oldest public radio station is WBGO ( http://www.wbgo.org/ ), with a full-time jazz format.  

WWOZ ( http://www.wwoz.org/ ) describes itself as "the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Station," but don't expect non-stop Dixieland; they have a varied and exciting playlist.

Jamie Collum and Clare Teal on BBC2

BBC Radio 2 has a couple of weekly 1-hour jazz shows that are well worth checking out.

Young British singer/pianist Jamie Collum has a weekly show ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rr86v ) where he displays his awesome knowledge of jazz history as well as his own eclectic tastes. You'll hear the best of the past, present, and future of jazz on his show.

Singer Clare Teal has a terrific show focused on big-band jazz ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00m62h5 ). BBC tends to keep these shows available online for only about a week.

Shared by June

Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz

Pianist Marian McPartland has been a force in jazz for more than 70 years. Her long-running weekly program on NPR, Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz ( http://www.npr.org/programs/piano-jazz/ ) has featured nearly every notable jazz musician, and quite a few talented newcomers on their way up. The show is about half chat and half live jamming, and is always a delight. At age 93, Marian can still "cut" most of the players who come on her show, but she is always generous and charming, and she makes sure her guests shine.

EJN Music Sampler

There is a story about Miles Davis – probably apocryphal, as many Miles stories are – that he once fired a sideman in the middle of a set, rasping into his ear, "Man, you played that same solo two weeks ago!" Jazz demands newness and continual rebirth, and one place to hear new jazz sounds is EJN Music Sampler ( http://ejnsampler.com ), About once a month they post new tracks by artists you may not have heard before. I'm always hearing something new and interesting there.

JazzRadio

For those who think jazz is just that Kenny G tune you hear while you're on hold with your insurance agent, I recommend you spend some time sampling the offerings at JazzRadio ( http://www.jazzradio.com ). There you will find 28 streaming channels, each devoted to a different sub-genre of jazz. You'll find channels for Bebop and Hard Bop; Latin Jazz and Bossa Nova, Big-Band, Avant-Garde, and Fusion. Like many free streaming services, they play commercials, which you can get rid of by subscribing.

Shared by June

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

BONUS: Debora Iyall and Romeo Void - 1981 (live video)

Once again, Wolfgang's Vault hauls out a terrific archival live video, this time of Debora Iyall and Romeo Void. Although the band broke up in the mid-80s, Debora has continued to live life on her own terms, and has remained active and highly creative with her music, art and poetry. More about Debora at http://www.deboraiyall.com.

Thursday, November 03, 2011

BONUS: Björk - Thunderbolt (music video)

Over at BoingBoing, they have an exclusive (for now) of a new Björk video, and it totally lives up to Björk's standards for musical creativity and pure strangeness. Check out her bigger-than-big hair and the tunable Tesla coils that are part of the song:

http://boingboing.net/2011/11/02/thunderbolt.html

Found at BoingBoing

Tuesday, November 01, 2011

BONUS: Instant Encore

Not quite in time for inclusion in my print column is Instant Encore http://www.instantencore.com, which features recordings and videos of classical music artists. Based on my initial listenings, the recordings and performances are generally of good quality, as are the videos (even though most are hosted through YouTube). One of the first performers I found there was Portland's own So Percussion ensemble, performing Reich's Music for Pieces of Wood.
Shared by Elise

St. Paul Chamber Orchestra

The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra http://www.thespco.org/ has one of the richest online archives of any American orchestra. They have now put 150 of their recent concert recordings – going back to 2007 – online. Moving a step ahead of many American orchestras, SPCO's archive is searchable by artist, conductor, or composer. On the SPCO website, select "Listening Library." According to an article in this month's Listen magazine http://www.listenmusicmag.com/, SPCO has also received a grant to preserve and restore their concert recordings going back to 1969. I look forward with great anticipation to hearing some of the older concerts which feature artists who are no longer with us.
Shared by June

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra http://cso.org tends to leave their shows online for up to six weeks, and they've also posted a number of terrific retrospective programs from previous seasons. For the audio streams, find their "Listen & Watch" menu and select "CSO Radio."
Shared by June

BONUS: Bernstein having a ball

I love this clip of Lenny conducting his own Candide Overture. He is clearly having the time of his life.

New York Philharmonic Orchestra

The New York Philharmonic Orchestra http://nyphil.org puts many concerts from the current and past seasons online, in their "Watch & Listen" section. Their shows tend to be available online for only a week or so, so check in frequently. NY Phil also sells each season's complete concert recordings on iTunes.

Another fascinating project of the NY Phil is their Digital Archives http://archives.nyphil.org/. Apparently they never threw anything away, and now they're putting a lot of their archival material online. This includes hi-res photos of more than a thousand scores (marked with hand-written notes by Leonard Bernstein and other great conductors), thousands of printed programs, and countless business documents relating to the business of running one of the world's great orchestras. Warning: this site can consume many hours of your life, particularly if you decide to listen to a recording of Bernstein conducting Mahler's Ninth, while following the score online with his own notes in the margins.
Shared by June

Los Angeles Philharmonic

The Los Angeles Philharmonic http://www.laphil.com/ led by wunderkind Gustavo Dudamel, have - at times - outsourced their online concert delivery to radio station KUSC http://www.kusc.org/. Look under their "Programs" menu for "LA Phil." All this summer, they streamed the LA Phil's Hollywood Bowl concerts (mostly without Dudamel, but featuring terrific soloists and guest conductors). Currently, weekly concerts by the excellent Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra are filling that program slot on KUSC. Concerts by the LA Phil are popping up on NPR and elsewhere. If they settle on a regular spot on the web for streaming, I'll announce it here in the blog
Shared by June

Sunday, October 16, 2011

BONUS: Joe Cocker at Woodstock - the real lyrics

For those of us old enough to remember Woodstock - and Joe Cocker - here's a clip that made me laugh more than anything I've seen in the last few months:

Saturday, October 01, 2011

Retro Cocktail Hour

A weekly treat from my former home state of Kansas is the (inaccurately-named) Retro Cocktail Hour http://www.kpr.ku.edu/retro/. This weekly two-hour radio show of "Space-age pop, bachelor pad music, exotica, lounge music, and cocktail jazz" is loads of fun. Dig that cocktail shaker out of the closet and make this the backdrop to your next tiki-themed party. The shows are usually available for streaming for about 6 weeks after their Saturday night broadcasts.

Montana Radio Cafe

In 2004, Scott Johnston went on the air from his 90-year old farmhouse near Creston, Montana. His 100-watt signal barely reaches his nearest neighbor, but his eclectic 21,000+ song library has attracted fans from around the web. I'd characterize his playlist as largely "American Roots" – Neil Young, Johnny Cash, Tish Hinojosa, John Mayall, BB King, the BoDeans, and Little Feat show up regularly, but many of the tracks will be ones you've never heard on the radio. The site streams 24/7, and is free, but has commercials for local home-town businesses. http://www.kxzi.com/. 

SoundCloud

An interesting website I've recently started visiting is SoundCloud http://soundcloud.com/. The site, which originated in Sweden in 2007, allows visitors to upload their own music, poetry readings, interviews, ambient recordings – really anything. Anyone can listen to and comment on the tracks at any point (there's a cute waveform display for each track), and a whole social network has emerged from this. I enjoy sticking a random word into their search engine – say, broccoli – and see what pops up.
Found via BoingBoing

The Retro Cocktail Hour

A weekly treat from my former home state of Kansas is the (inaccurately-named) Retro Cocktail Hour http://www.kpr.ku.edu/retro/. This weekly two-hour radio show of "Space-age pop, bachelor pad music, exotica, lounge music, and cocktail jazz" is loads of fun. Dig that cocktail shaker out of the closet and make this the backdrop to your next tiki-themed party. The shows are usually available for streaming for about 6 weeks after their Saturday night broadcasts.


Montana Radio Cafe


In 2004, Scott Johnston went on the air from his 90-year old farmhouse near Creston, Montana. His 100-watt signal barely reaches his nearest neighbor, but his eclectic 21,000+ song library has attracted fans from around the web. I'd characterize his playlist as largely "American Roots" – Neil Young, Johnny Cash, Tish Hinojosa, John Mayall, BB King, the BoDeans, and Little Feat show up regularly, but many of the tracks will be ones you've never heard on the radio. The site streams 24/7, and is free, but has commercials for local home-town businesses. http://www.kxzi.com/. 

Shared by June.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Clownbarf!

My color sense is practically non-existent. If I try to combine colors into a pleasant palette, it invariably ends up a disaster. I am forever grateful that the women in my life have exquisite taste in color.

Perhaps because of this, I've had a lifelong love for the variety of celluloid guitar pick called variously Confetti, Mix-up, or my favorite name for it -- Clownbarf. (Sometimes I've seen it called "clown vomit" but I find that a bit uglier.)

Here is an example of a vintage 1930s D'Andrea clownbarf pick I saw recently on eBay:


This aesthetic carries over into other areas -- I'm always looking for this kind of color mixing in other places:


Funkytown (detail), by Polly Apfelbaum

There is a type of gemstone called fordite that I like very much. To call it a gemstone is a bit of a stretch, though. What it is, is the built-up layers of paint from old-style (pre-robots) auto factory paint booths, hardened over the years by baking and age, then sliced to reveal the layers:


From the Fordite.com website


And just today, I discovered -- via a fine jeweler named Scott Schreiber -- that there is a clownbarf opal! OK, it's officially called Koroit Boulder Opal, but it sure looks like clownbarf to me!

Scott's chunk of Clownbarf Koroit Boulder Opal