Japanese beatboxer Aibo

I'm not a huge fan of the musical form known as beatboxing, but this is pretty awesome:

Josh Ritter's "Love Is Making Its Way Back Home"

Here is a very sweet video, done in a remarkably low-tech style:



For a little more background on the making of this video, go to the original article on the Atlantic's website.

Shared by June

Wolfgang

On January 8, 1931, Wolodia Grajonca was born in Berlin. His father died two days later. His family and friends called him Wolfgang. It was not a particularly good time to be a Jewish boy in Germany. After Kristallnacht, his mother sent Wolfgang to an orphanage to protect him. As the Nazis grew stronger and advanced, he was sent first to France, then to Casablanca, then to Dakar, and finally, to New York City, sleeping on the deck of an ocean liner for nearly three weeks. On the streets of New York City he worked hard to learn English and exchanged his German accent for a perfect New York accent. He also learned to hustle, to work the angles – he became the cliché of "street smart."

Young Wolfgang Grajonca found that Americans didn't much care for the name "Wolfgang" and couldn't pronounce "Grajonca." More or less at random, he changed his first name to "Bill" and picked the name "Graham" out of the phone book because it was close to "Grajonca" alphabetically.

After a stint in the army during the Korean War, Bill Graham drifted from job to job and back and forth between New York and California. He tried acting, but when he became the business manager for the San Francisco Mime Troupe, he started on the path that would shape not only his own life , but those of a generation of musicians and performers.

When the Mime Troupe was busted for "obscenity", Bill put on a fund-raiser for their defense, featuring performers like Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the Fugs, Allen Ginsberg, and Jefferson Airplane. This went so well that Bill did another fund-raiser for the Troupe, then started putting together more and bigger concerts at other venues, eventually owning the legendary Fillmore Auditorium. You hadn't really made it as a rock artist until you played the Fillmore. And they all did, from the Beach Boys to Frank Zappa and everyone in between. He treated the performers with respect – sometimes more than they deserved – and treated his concertgoers as valued guests.

Graham also gained a reputation as a fierce competitor, employing strong-arm tactics and engaging in business practices that bordered on monopolistic.

A classic Fillmore concert poster

Graham always insisted on having top-quality sound and lighting for his concerts. He hired budding psychedelic artists to create posters for his concerts (frequently overprinting them with an entrepreneurial eye to the future). Graham saved absolutely everything. He recorded nearly every concert given at his venues, using the best sound equipment available at the time. Unused posters were stashed away. Ephemera of every kind was locked away in storage lockers and vaults.

In 1991, Graham was flying home from a concert in his private helicopter when a sudden storm drove it into power lines, where it exploded, killing Graham, his girlfriend, and the pilot. An estimated 300,000 people attended a memorial concert for Graham in Golden Gate Park.

Oh, and all that stuff Graham saved? Through a series of deals and swaps and buyouts too complex to even begin to detail, it all ended up being owned by a fellow named Bill Sagan, who created a company called "Wolfgang's Vault" to curate and – unlimately – to merchandise the vast collection.

If you are a fan of rock'n'roll – particularly LIVE rock'n'roll, you must get on the Wolfgang's Vault mailing list! Every week brings new links to stream wonderfully recorded live performances of every significant rock artist from the '60s through the current era. Original posters and photos are available, too. Just browsing the samples brings back great memories.

http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/

Last Call

I have mixed feelings about this month's Omen column. I'm sad when I look back at 2011 and note the musical artists who have gone on to what Pink Floyd called the “great gig in the sky” during the past year. On the other hand, this occasion gives me a good reason to revisit the lives and work of some truly great artists -- those who lived fully in what Leonard Cohen calls "the tower of song."

You've read the big names in other publications: Amy Winehouse – a wonderful singer who often seemed to be channeling Janis Joplin in more ways than one – joined Janis in the “27 Club” in July. Clarence Clemons – often the most entertaining person at a Springsteen concert – split about the same time.

I don't have the space for a terribly long list here, but here are some of the people whose passing June and I noted this year:

Paul Motian was the drummer in the legendary jazz trio that included Bill Evans and Scott LaFaro. His playing was innovative, yet often so subtle and supportive, audiences didn't notice him. Unlike most drummers, he seldom took a solo. Paul had a long career with many of the most important figures in jazz: Keith Jarrett, Miles Davis, Lee Konitz, Stan Getz, Monk. Here he is with Keith Jarrett and Charlie Haden in 1972, including a rare Paul Motion drum solo:





Two very interesting and influential composers set down their pens for the last time in 2011: Milton Babbitt and Peter Lieberson.

Milton Babbitt's compositions are gloriously complex. He liked to call himself a “maximalist” to highlight the contrast between his music and that of minimalists like his contemporaries Phillip Glass and John Adams. His titles alone make fun reading: Septet, But Equal; The Joy of More Sextets; Sheer Pluck (a piece for guitar); Whirled Series. You may not find his brand of serialism to your taste, but you might enjoy this documentary about Babbitt:



Peter Lieberson was a student of Babbitt's and began his career as a composer in very much the same vein as Babbitt – highly structured, programmatic pieces which were highly regarded in the musical community. In the early 1970s he was drawn to Buddhism and studied under the tutelage of the eccentric Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. His Buddhist practice had a strong influence on his compositional techniques; his compositions became fresh and emotional, and far more accessible for most of us than those of his old mentor Babbitt. Lieberson wrote an article for Shambala Sun in 1977 which describes his journey: http://bit.ly/zu5U1N. A nice remembrance of Lieberson – which includes a recording of a poignant performance of his "My love, if I die and you don't," performed by his wife Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who preceded him in death – is on Alex Ross's blog: http://bit.ly/eybsHb.

Other people we should have listened to more when we could:

Tom “T-Bone” Wolk, bassist and guitarist with Hall & Oates for 30 years. Here's a sweet tribute from H&O, where they simply intercut old video of Tom with a tune they are doing after his passing:






Montserrat Figueras, Soprano and co-founder (along with her husband Jordi Favall) of the Hesperion XX early-music ensemble:





Phoebe Snow, singer, who chose to care for her disabled daughter rather than pursue her career:





Gil Scott-Heron, poet and musician (was his funeral televised?):





Poly Styrene, punk diva:




Nickolas Ashford, songwriter (with Valerie Simpson) and singer, owner of the Sugar Bar in NY City:




Jerry Leiber, co-writer with Mike Stoller and others of some of your favorite songs, including "Kansas City", "Stand By Me", "On Broadway", and “Is That All There Is?”




George Shearing, pianist and composer of “Lullaby of Birdland”:





Pinetop Perkins, legendary blues pianist:




Ferlin Husky, singer:




Wilma Lee Cooper, singer who popularized “Big Midnight Special”:

The War Tuba

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Exotic instruments: Serpent, Baryton, Mandobass, Marine Trumpet

Check out these videos of wonderful and exotic instruments: 

The serpent:

The baryton:

The mandolin family – including mandola, mandocello, and – oh, how I want one of these – mandobass:

Perhaps the most annoying musical instrument ever invented is the marine trumpet:

The Theorbo

I love big instruments that make low notes, so it is perhaps inevitable that I'd be attracted to the theorbo. This instrument is essentially a lute with a long extension to its neck to which is attached a number of bass strings. 

Here's a video of Daniel Zapico playing the theorbo in a trio setting:

The Kora

Probably my favorite African instrument is the kora - a west African harp-like instrument with 21 strings. Each kora player typically builds his own instrument from a calabash gourd (often decorated on the inside with magical incantations and formulas), wood, and fishing line for strings. A Malian kora player named Toumani Diabaté ( http://www.toumani-diabate.com/ ) is considered by many to be the master of this beautiful instrument. 

Find out more about the kora at Kora Jaliya ( http://www.kora-music.com/ ).

The Organ

I love the pipe organ for its musical power and the sheer size and complexity of its workings (which can put the piano's 10,000 parts to shame). June found two organ-related shows that we now listen to every week: Pipe Dreams ( http://pipedreams.publicradio.org/ ) is a weekly two-hour show on many U.S. public radio stations, devoted to mostly classical pieces performed on “the king of instruments.” 

Popular music and interviews with organists (recently including Rick Wakeman of the bands Yes and The Strawbs) are the mainstays of the 30-minute program The Organist Entertains ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006wr9w ) on BBC2. As always with BBC, the shows are only kept online for about a week.

Shared by June

The Piano

Are you a fan of the piano, that grand 88-keyed black and white monster that fills many a parlor and concert stage? Perhaps you'd enjoy a tour of the Steinway factory narrated by John Steinway himself:

Some of the footage in that video seems to have come from Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037 ( http://notebynotethemovie.com/ ). It's good movie to rent or download; you'll meet the fascinating and diverse group of people who create the world's greatest pianos in an unassuming factory in New York City. Did you know that a full-sized grand piano can have up to 10,000 moving parts?

If you'd like to add some beautiful piano recordings to your iTunes library, Piano Society ( http://pianosociety.com ) has an excellent website, with over 5,000 high-quality piano recordings available for free download.