The trouble with jazz

In the "insane far out crazy sh*t" category.

How come I never heard of this guy?

Chung! Chung chung!

The Daily WTF

For those who think they have seen everything: a german a capella metal group van Canto does Metallica.



Dennis Schunke - Lead Vocals
Inga Scharf - Lead Vocals
Stefan Schmidt – lower rakkatakka vocals, wahwah solo guitar vocals
Ross Thompson – higher rakkatakka vocals
Ingo Sterzinger – lowest dandan vocals
Dennis Strillinger - Drums

Their 2006 album A Storm To Come is available here or here

There is common repertoire for every instrument. Every brass player comes across Arban's Carnival of Venus, every alto saxophonist encounters Parker's licks. For some instruments - piano, guitar - the literature is so extensive that there may not really be anything common for two musicians to share. If you're into country blues or Segovia, you can play guitar for fifty years and never get to learn Purple Haze. On the other hand, every slide guitar player can play Rollin' and Tumblin'. For many other instruments, the book is pretty thin: every banjoist can pick Black Mountain Rag, French horn's got its Mozart Third Concerto and Wagner bits, for harmonica there's My Babe, bagpipers have a handful of Scottish/Irish tunes... and how much is written for gamelan or theremin? It takes a long, long time to build a literature for an instrument - which makes the euphonium situation all the more miraculous.

Euphonium is a wonderful but obscure instrument of the brass family (it's also got a twin brother called a baritone saxhorn - the difference is like trumpet and cornet, i.e. pretty much none). Looking like a dwarf tuba, it is a tenor-pitched instrument with a range similar to that of a trombone. I blame its obscurity on the fact that there was pretty much no repertoire for it - until recently. In the last decade or so, an interesting thing happened: euphonium book spontaneously expanded and engulfed a most unlikely style - the video game music. A cursory search on youtube reveals hundreds of young euphonists (euphonimists? euphists?) bashing out this or that Mario theme, Zelda's Ocarina Of Time etc.etc. It's not like there's a music school somewhere with a particularly geeky/open-minded low brass professor - the players are from all over, Europe, UK, US, wherever. It seems like the idea of picking out a videogame tune on a euphonium or tuba is the most natural one.
Hereby, I present my case:

A one-man brass orchestra:


A one-man euphonium trio:


Final Fantasy 6

Teeeetriiissss!!!!!


Here's one for three tubas

No less than five overdubbed euphonium parts - notice it's the same guy as the first video, euphonium07, Anthony Caillet - check out his youtube channel!



And this one must be the coolest videogame music interpretation ever - not on euphonium, though.

Una mas

FM Einheit jammin' with Django



Millie Small - My Boy Lollipop
Just a good song...



The common theme here would be Finland... The Millie Small clip is off Finnish TV, and the band in the first clip are finns.

I got a vote for more youtube

...so here's another one:
Sweet Emma Barrett at Preservation Hall, I Ain't Gonna Give Nobody None Of My Jellyroll, 1959



via Badger

A couple of youtube videos

I was reading a review for Billie Holiday and Lester Young - A Musical Romance the other day; here's a quote:

Like any good newsworthy event of the 20th century, one of the most touching pieces of jazz history happened in front of the television cameras. On 5 December 1957, CBS aired a jazz special, The Sound of Jazz, which brought together many of the living jazz superstars. Billie Holiday was to sing the song "Fine and Mellow" in a casual group setting. Holiday was close to death, though still one of the most attractive women in the world in her ponytail and plaid slacks. She had been courting a serious love affair with heroin for many years. Accompanying Holiday was a myriad of horn-playing legends. Of particular interest was the tenor sax section, which was comprised of Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, and Lester Young.
[...]
Prez, who had wrecked his body with alcohol, was in such ill health he couldn't stand for the duration of the six-minute song. Holiday launched into the song and each sax man took a turn. Gerry Mulligan was first and played a solo in double-time. Webster was next, blowing a beautiful, breathy chorus. And then it was time for Prez. When it was Young's turn he wearily stood up, and locked eyes with Holiday as she sang a song with lines like "Love is like a faucet / It turns off and on". As Lady Day sang, Prez hit every note exactly in time with her and they took off like two eagles riding an air current as they rose higher and higher, way out of that studio and those television sets, circling around each other, Prez blowing the notes that sustained her as if he was the body to her soul, and then they came together in mid-air, as mating eagles will, and plummeted hundreds of feet earthward together, before breaking off and flying their separate ways. People in the control booth had tears in their eyes. It was the swan song of a bittersweet affection. After the show, the two had some brief backstage conversation and then they bid goodbye. They each had less than two years to live. Prez would die alone in a New York hotel, his body finally calling it quits. Not long after that, Holiday would be arrested on her deathbed for heroin possession.

A beautiful description, although I suspect the author was writing from memory, and a very embellished one, too. Mulligan's solo is actually fourth, after Prez, and there's maybe one bar in double time out of two choruses. The brass section riffs behind her, but none of this interlocking duo "like mating eagles" ever actually happens. The performance is great, the writing is beautiful, it's a pity they don't quite match...

Billie Holiday - Fine and Mellow (1957)




T-Bone Walker w/ Jazz At The Philharmonic - Live in UK 1966, playing Woman, You Must Be Crazy and Goin' To Chicago Blues
Dizzy Gillespie - t, Clark Terry - t, Coleman Hawkins - ts, Zoot Sims - ts, Jimmy Moody - ts, Benny Carter - as, Teddy Wilson - p, Louis Bellson - d, and Bob Cranshaw - b.
It's Clark Terry taking a solo at 3:10 and he is playing a trumpet mouthpiece.

Muddy at Newport 1960

The guests in the order of appearance: Betty Jeannette, Sammy Price, Jimmy Rushing
The band: Francis Clay - Drums; James Cotton - Harmonica; Pat Hare - Guitar; Second Guitar - ?; Otis Spann - Piano; Andrew Stephenson - Bass.
Not sure who the dancing dudes are and who are the fiddle and guitar players sitting in front (and what are they doing there?).

MC Faza Nelly, Tanzania

The Roots of Chicha - Psychedelic Cumbias From Peru

Reviews: one, two, three, interview with the compiler.
Just wanted to bring this to your attention:

here or here
1. Los Mirios - Sonido Amazonico (2:35)
2. Juaneco Y Su Combo - Linda Nena (3:45)
3. Los Hijos Del Sola - Carinito (4:05)
4. Los Destellos - A Patricia (3:14)
5. Los Diablos Rojos - El Guapo (3:04)
6. Juaneco Y Su Combo - Ya Se Ha Muerto Mi Abuelo (4:09)
7. Los Mirios - El Milagro Verde (2:43)
8. Los Destellos - Para Elisa (2:46)
9. Los Hijos Del Sol - Linda Muсequita (4:44)
10. Los Mirios - Muchachita Del Oriente (3:19)
11. Los Destellos - Elisa (3:38)
12. Juaneco Y Su Combo - Vacilando Con Ayahuesca (3:31)
13. Los Diablos Rojos - Sacalo Sacalo (3:23)
14. Esuebio Y Su Banjo - Mi Morena Rebelde (3:21)
15. Los Hijos Del Sol - Si Me Quieres (3:09)
16. Juaneco Y Su Combo - Mi Robaron Mi Runa Mula (3:07)
17. Los Mirios - La Danza De Los Mirios (2:49)


Los Destellos