The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation did none of us classical music fans any favors when it ditched most of their classical music shows on its FM network and replaced them dreck - although Tom Allen’s show in the morning drive-time slot is still pretty good. But, if you have a fast internet connection, you can still get your classical music fix with the Ceeb’s internet stream. Go to the CBC Radio website and click on “classical”. It is also an iTunes radio station under the “Classical” category.
I just finished The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society which I found so absorbing I read it in one sitting. The Society was a spur-of-the-moment invention by residents of Guernsey to cover up activities forbidden by their German occupiers during World War II. The book is set as a series of letters between the islanders and an author who decides to write about the hardships, deprivations and moments of heroic self-sacrifice during the occupation. At once funny, sad and touching, I highly recommend this book.
I love my digital music collection. I love the fact that I have 374 albums, 5117 tracks, 599 artists and 13.7 days of music on my iPod (about half my CD collection) that I can take with me wherever I go.
But I am rediscovering the joys of vinyl. My dad, who passed away in 2006, had an extensive collection of LPs and 78s. He was a classically trained organist and opera buff, so his collection was top-heavy with organ and opera recordings. But he had a number of other recordings as well, mostly classical, but also Broadway and jazz. My mom, looking to clean out her basement, told my siblings and me to take what we wanted and she would get rid of the rest.
Looking through the collection was like rediscovering old friends. I had grown up listening these records so memories of my childhood came flooding back as I looked through them. Many of them are out of print and were never reissued on CD, so they are irreplaceable. Of course, I branched out into soul, R&B, pop and rock in my teenage years, and I still have those records somewhere, but I replaced many of them with CDs.
There is something about holding an LP in your hands, reading the liner notes, looking at the sometimes beautiful and sometimes awful cover art that can’t be duplicated with MP3s. Though digital sound has come a very long way from the original brittle, almost artificial sound of the original CDs, the best vinyl pressings still sound better, to my ears at least, then the best digital has to offer.
The LP above, one my very favorites, is from a series of LPs done by the brilliant Brazilian guitarist Laurindo Almeida. As far as I can tell, these LPs are out of print and never issued on CD, so I am happy to have them. Almeida was equally at home with classical, jazz and native Brazilian forms. This is his rendering of Debussey’s Claire de Lune.
So I recently picked up an Apple iPhone 3G, and for the most part I really like the phone. It does many things well, but some things it does badly, and some things are downright ugly. For most of the bad and the ugly, there are workarounds.
I took a short vacation last week to Boston and New York for no other reason other than to get away for a few days. My friends Cheryl and Joe, their daughter Katherine, and another friend of ours, Tess, were taking a car vacation through the northeast and I joined them in Boston for a few days. Another friend of ours, Jim, was to have joined us in Boston, and then Jim and I were going to take the train from Boston to New York where Jim lives. The plan was for me to stay with him in his apartment in Astoria, Queens. However, Jim’s work schedule clobbered that idea and he wound up in Michigan the week I was in Boston and New York. But, Jim graciously gave me the keys to his apartment before I left so I didn’t have to sleep under a bridge or someplace when I got to NYC.
This was the first time I had been to Boston and had some time to properly see it as previous visits were business trips with no time for anything but work. A couple of things stood out. First, it is fairly compact and easy to get around either on foot or by public transit. Second, the city has made a real effort to preserve old buildings and architecture while adapting them for modern uses with things like air conditioning, good lighting, etc. I liked Boston a lot. Continue Reading »
Hollywood descended upon Ann Arbor, if only briefly, these past couple of weeks. It was in town filming Youth in Revolt, starring actors you have actually heard of: Michael Cera, Justin Long (Mac in those Apple commercials), Steve Buscemi, Ray Liotta, and others. This was a direct result of a package of incentives offered by the State of Michigan to woo film productions, which includes rebating up 40% of the business taxes paid by the studios, plus an additional 2% if the production is filmed in any of over 100 “core communities”, of which Ann Arbor is one. Your tax dollars at work, subsidizing some millionaire actor’s payday.
Scenes from the movie were being shot just a block from my office, but the streets were blocked off and it was difficult to see what they were doing much of the time. Mostly it seemed like a lot of people standing around all day. A lot of security was provided by the Ann Arbor police, plus a lot of rent-a-cops. They also completely took over one parking lot and much of another, making parking even more difficult than it normally is.
Yesterday, they burned a travel trailer, causing much excitement for passers-by. The picture at the top is the end of the fire, the picture below is off the Ann Arbor Fire Department mopping up.
Tis a map showing the generic names for soft drinks by area. Interesting that “soda” is bi-coastal, but not much used in the interior.
I once visited a client in New Jersey who asked me what I wanted to drink. I told her I wanted a pop, which prompted her to ask me if I was from Kalamazoo. Apparently in her experience only people from Kalamazoo called it “pop”.
The group I sing with is leaving shortly to perform JS Bach’s Mass in B Minor with the Wilmington, NC Symphony, so we are in heavy rehearsals to prepare. In the bass sectional today the song Fly Me to the Moon came up (don’t ask), and our director remarked that it was originally written in 3 but most arrangements are in 4. I remarked that I have a copy of Astrud Gilberto doing it in 3, but discovered to my embarrassment that she did it in 4 as well. Still, it is a nice arrangement. Naturally, someone has posted it on YouTube.
Peter Neubäcker, who developed Melodyne, the premier pitch-correction program, has new software out which can take a music recording of, say, a piano or string quartet, separate out the individual notes in all the chords, and allow you to change them at will. Want to change a major chord to a minor? No problem. This is a video of him demoing the software at Musikmesse Frankfurt. This is incredible stuff.
Steve Novick, a junior high dropout who enrolled in the Harvard Law School at age 18, is running for Senate in the state of Oregon. He has the most, umm, startling political ad I have ever seen. Take a look:
One of my favorite musicians, Jeff Healey, died yesterday of cancer. Healey, blind from the age on one, had a unique style of playing the guitar with the instrument flat on his lap. He spent his childhoood in Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada, and his adult life in Toronto. He was discovered by Stevie Ray Vaughan who gave him international exposure. His only real American hit was Angel Eyes, released in 1988 on the album “See The Light”, but he was always very popular in Canada.
He had a club in Toronto called Jeff Healey’s Roadhouse, which was a mandatory stop for me whenever I was in that city.
The guy could flat-out play. Here is a live version of the title track from “See The Light”. I have no idea where or when this vid was taped, but Mac Rebennack (Dr. John) (!) is playing the piano.
Update: I figured out where this vid is from. It is from a show called Sunday Night, later Night Music, hosted by David Sanborn and Jools Holland. This was an extremely eclectic show, featuring artists from all types of jazz, pop, rock, blues, etc. backgrounds. It was a great show and it is too bad it lasted only two seasons.
Sunday I drove out to Ohio to visit my friends Ken and Trudy, who live about 40 minutes outside Cleveland, and with them hear the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra in the visuallly stunning and acoustically perfect Severance Hall. The concert was conducted by the CSO’s Music Director, Franz Welser-Möst.
The first work on the program was by the Austrian composer Johannes Maria Staud. Called Apeiron, it is scored for a massive orchestra of 101 musicians. In the program notes, Staud says “… what I attempted was to bring the ‘unlimited’ (an infinity comprised solely of the combinatorial possibilities afforded by a large orchestra) and the ‘determinate’ (derivation from a few basic building blocks, plus a clear formal construction based on the simplest of arithmetical relationships) into a harmonious relationship with each other.” I have no idea what the hell that means, and after listening to the 20-minute work, I still don’t.
The problem that my friends and I had was that we couldn’t discern any organizing principle around which to make sense of the sounds the orchestra was making. There was no underlying rythmic structure that I could make out. Much of it was atonal. There were stretches of tonalilty, but the tonal passages seemed unrelated to each other. The orchestra played it vigorously and apparently with a lot of enthusiasm, so maybe they had it figured out.
The next work was Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3, Alfred Brendel, piano. Brendel, who is retiring from public performance this year, gave a very thoughtful and moving reading of the piece. He is not a showy player, but is economical in his gestures and concise in his playing. The orchestra and soloist complemented each other very well.
The final work was Brahm’s Fourth Symphony, again played really well by the CSO. The CSO is a terrific band, with a rich, highly polished sound, and a flawless sense of ensemble, so this type of repertoire suits them well.
If I had to choose my favorite female pop or jazz singer, it would be a toss-up between Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughn. Ella was the perfect interpreter - she knew exactly how to sing a song to bring out its emotional content. Sarah simply breaks my heart. Here she is singing The Nearness of You. The sound is pretty crappy, but Sarah’s vulnerability and underlying sadness shines right through.
The Australian government has some scary advice for Aussies traveling to Canada, including:
Alberta and British Columbia are also subject to avalanches.
I guess that’s why Vancouver and Edmonton are such ghost towns.
Bush and forest fires can occur any time in Canada.
Why yes, Toronto was, like, totally leveled by the last one.
My favorite piece of advice is:
Australians are advised to maintain a safe and legal distance when observing wildlife, including marine animals and birds. You should only use reputable and professional guides or tour operators and closely follow park regulations and wardens’ advice.
So if you see a red-red-red robin come bob-bob-bobbin’ along in a Windsor park, you better duck into a shelter until a warden tells you it is safe.
I have been across the border countless times and I had no idea I was in such danger!
Every thousand years or so the Grammy people shock the world by giving the Album of the Year award to one that actually deserves the honor. Herbie Hancock’s River: The Joni Letters was named Album of the Year for 2007, making this year was one of those millenial events. River is an album of songs by Joni Mitchell, arranged by Hancock and played by his band and guests. One of the stronger tracks - they are all strong - is “Edith and the Kingpin” with Tina Turner. Tina justs nails it.
(This is a funny commentary on the usual Grammy stupidity.)
