The reason I wasn't writing here much in the past year is that my musical interests have shifted once again, going rather beyond the scope of this website. I still want some place to write down my little musical observations, so I guess the scope of this website will have to expand, as well.
I am generally more interested in what in jazz is called a combo and in the classical lingo chamber music. So in my recent explorations of classical I came across the Hindemith's sonatas for piano-and-every-orchestral-instrument-there-is; many of them staples of educational repertoire.
So I spent about a week trying to get my head around his music - specifically, the trumpet and piano sonata of 1939, and the horn sonatas. The first few times had me rather baffled. Last night I listened to it again with scores in my hands and finally found a point of reference I could grab onto. He sounds to me a lot like Ornette Coleman. Incidentally, it looks like I might be the first person ever to use the names of Ornette Coleman and Paul Hindemith in one sentence.
I think there are two main points of similarity, the very ones that made Ornette's music so distinctive and controversial. Firstly, it's the rhythm. Both Coleman and Hindemith are melodists, with their compositions hung on melodic lines that run through the pieces, giving them inner logic and consistency. However, the melodies conform neither to the 4-bar/8-bar length, nor even to a steady time signature. By ear, it sounds like a player is adding or subtracting beats at will to underscore or enhance a certain melodic point, to make it more expressive. On paper, these jumps and skips have to be notated by shifting from 4/4 to 3/2 to 12/8 and back. Ornette's themes are built on the very same logic. Strictly speaking, that approach is nothing new and is used by solo performers from just about any folk tradition - most visibly to an american listener, by Charlie Patton and Robert Johnson, or a tune like King Bee. Coleman was controversial not for inventing it, but for placing it into the context of a jazz combo.
Secondly, it's the harmony - the pliable, fluid harmonic development that follows not the conventional rules, but the melodic line. A lot of times piano accompaniment in the sonatas is primarily textural, not so much harmonic - a feature Ornette would've appreciated.
As before, it is worth noting that these are the case of the opposites converging. Hindemith is a highly schooled composer from the Western classical tradition who chose to speak through the medium of written music. Ornette Coleman comes from the aural/oral African-American folk tradition and to my knowledge he was musically illiterate. I guess the biologists would call it convergent evolution.
Here are some sounds to sample:
Sonata for Trumpet and Piano played by Thomas Stevens, on mediafire
It seems that classical music is best perceived in small amounts - preferably, is chunks intended by the composer. The CD this came from contains more stuff, none of it relevant to today's post and thus omitted.
Nonetheless, the completists might be interested in the Complete Works for Brass as performed by the Summit Brass and available on megaupload, 192mb, high VBR
Outside link:
Horn and Piano Sonatas at the most excellent Closet of Curiosities
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Arranger/composer special pt.1: Johnny Richards, Gigi Gryce, Quincy Jones
In the heyday of swing a lot of the bands had similar repertoire - the tunes the public wanted to hear. What made a band stand out was how they played it. It was not the star soloist that made the band, but the person who put the spotlight on the soloist: the composer and the arranger. Really? - you say, - the arranger? who cares about the arranger? Look at Ellington's orchestra. After going solo, none of his former stars - Johnny Hodges, Bubber Miley, Cootie Williams, - ever achieved artistic heights comparable to their work in the Duke's orchestra. Duke's (and Strayhorn's) writing highlighted their special talents and hid their shortcomings.
In the search for the ever-smoother, most commercial sound, a lot of swing music became completely scripted. That prompted the backlash of bop and the following styles that focused more on the improvised, spontaneous communal music creation. The pendulum swung back, and some say it went too far: the music industry found it easy to package and sell the myth of the dissipated genius (Bird), the lonely visionary (Trane), the jazz version of a rock star (Miles) - each image quite fascinating, but still incidental to the music itself. Of course, our celebrity-centered culture swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. The idea of superiority of improvisation over anything and everything else gradually spread from the recording company promos to the listening public to the musicians and jazz educators, and lead to the stagnation of the style. A million young musicians in a hundred thousand jazz classes play the same Real Book tunes in the same head-solo-solo-solo-trade fours-head format as they played forty years ago.
However, there was a time before jazz got run over by the thousand little Coltranes, a time when the pendulum stood just right, a time of bold experiments that fell through the cracks. Fifties were the time when that perfect balance between writing and improvisation was briefly found again. I would like to present today two artifacts from that era, two albums that put the improvising virtuoso's wild flights of fancy within a framework of carefully thought-out, painstakingly constructed arrangements, two collaborations between a writer and an interpreter, each greater than the sum of the parts.
The star soloist on the first one is Art Farmer, one of my favorite trumpet players. While writing this post, I realized that a lot of his best work were collaborations with master writers/arrangers - see his Jazztet LPs with Benny Golson or his Baroque Sketches album (+ +). As the name suggests, here he "Plays the Arrangements and Compositions of Gigi Gryce and Quincy Jones." From liners:
Quincy went on to fame and fortune in Hollywood while Gigi dropped out to anonymity of the Long Island education system before he died in his native Florida in 1983.
Art Farmer Plays the Arrangements and Compositions of Gigi Gryce and Quincy Jones [1954]
With Charlie Rouse, Quincy Jones, Horace Silver, Percy Heath, Art Taylor, and others.
320kbps, 84mb on depositfiles
1. Mau Mau
2. Work of Art
3. The Little Bandmaster
4. Up in Quincy's Room
5. Wildwood
6. Evening in Paris
7. Elephant Walk
8. Tiajuana
9. When Your Lover Has Gone
Another pairing of a brilliant soloist with a great writer is an album of Sonny Stitt playing Johnny Richards, profiled here before. The sound is a bit muddy, but the music is fascinating.
Sonny Stitt Playing Arrangements From The Pen Of Johnny Richards [1953]
With Kai Winding, Horace Silver, Charles Mingus, Jo Jones, Don Elliott, and others.
320kbps, 52mb on depositfiles
1. Sancho Panza
2. Sweet And Lovely
3. If I Could Be With You
4. Hooke's Tours
5. Loose Walk
6. Pink Satin
7. Shine On Harvest Moon
8. Opus 202
PS I am introducing two new tags.
composer+arranger is for albums that either are an original work of a single composer (Mary Lou Williams, Lalo Schifrin, Moacir Santos, Bob Graettinger) or bands focusing on the work of a certain composer (Pixinguinha, AR Rahman, Mancini, Carl Stalling).
I also realized I have Art Farmer on a few of the albums posted here, and a few more are coming up, so there's a label just for him.
In the search for the ever-smoother, most commercial sound, a lot of swing music became completely scripted. That prompted the backlash of bop and the following styles that focused more on the improvised, spontaneous communal music creation. The pendulum swung back, and some say it went too far: the music industry found it easy to package and sell the myth of the dissipated genius (Bird), the lonely visionary (Trane), the jazz version of a rock star (Miles) - each image quite fascinating, but still incidental to the music itself. Of course, our celebrity-centered culture swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. The idea of superiority of improvisation over anything and everything else gradually spread from the recording company promos to the listening public to the musicians and jazz educators, and lead to the stagnation of the style. A million young musicians in a hundred thousand jazz classes play the same Real Book tunes in the same head-solo-solo-solo-trade fours-head format as they played forty years ago.
However, there was a time before jazz got run over by the thousand little Coltranes, a time when the pendulum stood just right, a time of bold experiments that fell through the cracks. Fifties were the time when that perfect balance between writing and improvisation was briefly found again. I would like to present today two artifacts from that era, two albums that put the improvising virtuoso's wild flights of fancy within a framework of carefully thought-out, painstakingly constructed arrangements, two collaborations between a writer and an interpreter, each greater than the sum of the parts.
The star soloist on the first one is Art Farmer, one of my favorite trumpet players. While writing this post, I realized that a lot of his best work were collaborations with master writers/arrangers - see his Jazztet LPs with Benny Golson or his Baroque Sketches album (+ +). As the name suggests, here he "Plays the Arrangements and Compositions of Gigi Gryce and Quincy Jones." From liners:
Quincy went on to fame and fortune in Hollywood while Gigi dropped out to anonymity of the Long Island education system before he died in his native Florida in 1983.
Art Farmer Plays the Arrangements and Compositions of Gigi Gryce and Quincy Jones [1954]
With Charlie Rouse, Quincy Jones, Horace Silver, Percy Heath, Art Taylor, and others.
320kbps, 84mb on depositfiles
1. Mau Mau
2. Work of Art
3. The Little Bandmaster
4. Up in Quincy's Room
5. Wildwood
6. Evening in Paris
7. Elephant Walk
8. Tiajuana
9. When Your Lover Has Gone
Another pairing of a brilliant soloist with a great writer is an album of Sonny Stitt playing Johnny Richards, profiled here before. The sound is a bit muddy, but the music is fascinating.
Sonny Stitt Playing Arrangements From The Pen Of Johnny Richards [1953]
With Kai Winding, Horace Silver, Charles Mingus, Jo Jones, Don Elliott, and others.
320kbps, 52mb on depositfiles
1. Sancho Panza
2. Sweet And Lovely
3. If I Could Be With You
4. Hooke's Tours
5. Loose Walk
6. Pink Satin
7. Shine On Harvest Moon
8. Opus 202
PS I am introducing two new tags.
composer+arranger is for albums that either are an original work of a single composer (Mary Lou Williams, Lalo Schifrin, Moacir Santos, Bob Graettinger) or bands focusing on the work of a certain composer (Pixinguinha, AR Rahman, Mancini, Carl Stalling).
I also realized I have Art Farmer on a few of the albums posted here, and a few more are coming up, so there's a label just for him.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Zé da Velha & Silvério Pontes - Só Pixinguinha (2006)
Choro is one of my favorite Brazilian music styles. The stuff I posted here before (1, 2) is all original, historical choro from the early XXth century. But the style - now over a century old - is still going strong. The modern performers have the same problem as the jazz musicians in US - how do you stay true to the spirit of the music without falling into cliches? There is a modern duo that does so successfully: Zé da Velha (trombone) and Silvério Pontes (trumpet/flugelhorn). They found the right balance between respect for tradition - after all, this album is all out of Pixinguinha's songbook - and bringing jazz and samba elements to the mix.
Zé da Velha & Silvério Pontes - Só Pixinguinha (2006)
ul.oz or zippyshare
1. Já te Digo
2. Carinhoso
3. Diplomata
4. Chorei
5. Sensível
6. Cascatinha
7. Desprezado
8. Ainda Me Recordo
9. Ingênuo
10. Trombone Atrevido
11. Os Oito Batutas
12. Sedutor
Zé da Velha & Silvério Pontes - Só Pixinguinha (2006)
ul.oz or zippyshare
1. Já te Digo
2. Carinhoso
3. Diplomata
4. Chorei
5. Sensível
6. Cascatinha
7. Desprezado
8. Ainda Me Recordo
9. Ingênuo
10. Trombone Atrevido
11. Os Oito Batutas
12. Sedutor
Thursday, December 2, 2010
QotD - Hesse on recorded music
And in fact, to my indescribable astonishment and horror, the devilish tin trumpet spat out, without more ado, a mixture of bronchial slime and chewed rubber; that noise that owners of gramophones and radios have agreed to call music. And behind the slime and the croaking there was, sure enough, like an old master beneath a layer of dirt, the noble outline of that divine music. [...] Observe how this crazy funnel apparently does the most stupid, the most useless and the most damnable thing in the world. It takes hold of some music played where you please, without distinction, stupid and coarse, lamentably distorted, to boot, and chucks it into space to land where it has no business to be; and yet after all this it cannot destroy the original spirit of the music; it can only demonstrate its own senseless mechanism, its inane meddling and marring. - Herman Hesse, Steppenwolf
Is that poetic or what? "Bronchial slime and chewed rubber," that's a great name for a music blog.
Is that poetic or what? "Bronchial slime and chewed rubber," that's a great name for a music blog.
QotD - Sleazy on CDs
I would have thought that CDs were things that homeless people hang on their super market shopping carts to make them look less depressing but apparently some Americans still buy them for the data they contain. - The late Sleazy of Throbbing Gristle and Coil
Monday, November 29, 2010
Edison Machado É Samba Novo (1964)
until today the single most important Brazilian instrumental music album ever released.
This one is widely available elsewhere on the web, but it seems to only be known among brasileiros. I believe it deserves wider recognition.
Firstly, the all-star cast. Edison Machado, the drummer and bandleader, is truly a towering figure of the Brazilian musical scene; he played with everyone and then some, defined the whole bossa drumming style etc.etc. Meirelles on the winds, a composer and leader of seminal samba-jazz band Meirelles e os Copa 5; he wrote five tracks on this album. Raulzinho - trombonist, composer and future bandleader, "the Hendrix of trombone". Tenorio Jr., the legendary piano player. But the magic touch that turned this into gold came from Moacir Santos, of whom I was raving before; he was the mastermind, arranger and producer on these sessions and there are three of his tunes on here.
Secondly, the tunes are really strong - ALL of them. There's not a single weak track; not only the solos are rippin', but the writing is very melodic and catchy and the arrangements are inventive - unlike a lot of post-50s jazz.
Finally, the album came in that brief moment when the musicians were ready to make Great Art, but the record execs still wanted pop music. So while their North American contemporaries were putting out album-long epics, here the Art is pressure-packed in two-and-a-half minute bits that explode with intensity. The whole album is one second short of half an hour, which is just the right length to leave you wanting more... Whenever I put it on, I usually listen to the whole thing straight through - and it happens often! I've had it for about three years, and it's showing no signs of getting old.
Edison Machado É Samba Novo (1964)
Edison Machado - drums
Tenorio Jr - piano
Sebastião Neto - bass
Paulo Moura - alto sax
Pedro Paulo - trumpet
Edson Maciel - slide trombone
Raul de Souza - valve trombone
J. T. Meirelles - tenor sax
55mb on depositfiles
Large back cover scan with liner notes etc.
01 - Nanã (Moacir Santos / Clóvis Mello)
02 - Só Por Amor (Baden Powell / Vinicius de Moraes)
03 - Aboio (J. T. Meirelles)
04 - Tristeza Vai Embora (Baden Powell / Mário Telles)
05 - Miragem (J. T. Meirelles)
06 - Quintessência (J. T. Meirelles)
07 - Se Você Disser Que Sim (Moacir Santos / Vinicius de Moraes)
08 - Coisa Nº 1 (Moacir Santos / Clóvis Mello)
09 - Solo (J. T. Meirelles)
10 - Você (Rildo Hora / Clóvis Mello)
11 - Menino Travesso (Moacir Santos / Vinicius de Moraes)
This one is widely available elsewhere on the web, but it seems to only be known among brasileiros. I believe it deserves wider recognition.
Firstly, the all-star cast. Edison Machado, the drummer and bandleader, is truly a towering figure of the Brazilian musical scene; he played with everyone and then some, defined the whole bossa drumming style etc.etc. Meirelles on the winds, a composer and leader of seminal samba-jazz band Meirelles e os Copa 5; he wrote five tracks on this album. Raulzinho - trombonist, composer and future bandleader, "the Hendrix of trombone". Tenorio Jr., the legendary piano player. But the magic touch that turned this into gold came from Moacir Santos, of whom I was raving before; he was the mastermind, arranger and producer on these sessions and there are three of his tunes on here.
Secondly, the tunes are really strong - ALL of them. There's not a single weak track; not only the solos are rippin', but the writing is very melodic and catchy and the arrangements are inventive - unlike a lot of post-50s jazz.
Finally, the album came in that brief moment when the musicians were ready to make Great Art, but the record execs still wanted pop music. So while their North American contemporaries were putting out album-long epics, here the Art is pressure-packed in two-and-a-half minute bits that explode with intensity. The whole album is one second short of half an hour, which is just the right length to leave you wanting more... Whenever I put it on, I usually listen to the whole thing straight through - and it happens often! I've had it for about three years, and it's showing no signs of getting old.
Edison Machado É Samba Novo (1964)
Edison Machado - drums
Tenorio Jr - piano
Sebastião Neto - bass
Paulo Moura - alto sax
Pedro Paulo - trumpet
Edson Maciel - slide trombone
Raul de Souza - valve trombone
J. T. Meirelles - tenor sax
55mb on depositfiles
Large back cover scan with liner notes etc.
01 - Nanã (Moacir Santos / Clóvis Mello)
02 - Só Por Amor (Baden Powell / Vinicius de Moraes)
03 - Aboio (J. T. Meirelles)
04 - Tristeza Vai Embora (Baden Powell / Mário Telles)
05 - Miragem (J. T. Meirelles)
06 - Quintessência (J. T. Meirelles)
07 - Se Você Disser Que Sim (Moacir Santos / Vinicius de Moraes)
08 - Coisa Nº 1 (Moacir Santos / Clóvis Mello)
09 - Solo (J. T. Meirelles)
10 - Você (Rildo Hora / Clóvis Mello)
11 - Menino Travesso (Moacir Santos / Vinicius de Moraes)
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Lord Kitchener - Klassic Kitchener Vol.1-3
Lord Kitchener - Klassic Kitchener Vol.1-3
REUP: 192kbps, 242mb on depositfiles
When A Man Is Poor
Nora
Trouble In Arima
Tie Tounge Mopsy
Cricket Champions
Old Lady Walk A Mile & A Half
Chinese Never Had A VJ Day
Steel Band Music
If You're Brown
Doctor Kitch
Batty Mamselle
Law And Order
My Pussin
Flag Woman
One To Hang
PP99
Panorama Night
Take Yuh Meat Out Muh Rice
No More Calypsong
Handy Man
No Melda
Love In The Cemetery
Mama Dis Is Mas
The Road
Miss Tourist
67
Magie
Jerico
Pan In A-Minor
Pan In Harmony
Fever
Sugar Bum Bum
Symphony In G
The Symptoms Of Carnival
The Bees Melody
Gimme The Ting
The Spirit
Pan In The 21st Century
Jaws
Curfew Time
Rain-O-Rama
Tribute To Spree Simon
REUP: 192kbps, 242mb on depositfiles
When A Man Is Poor
Nora
Trouble In Arima
Tie Tounge Mopsy
Cricket Champions
Old Lady Walk A Mile & A Half
Chinese Never Had A VJ Day
Steel Band Music
If You're Brown
Doctor Kitch
Batty Mamselle
Law And Order
My Pussin
Flag Woman
One To Hang
PP99
Panorama Night
Take Yuh Meat Out Muh Rice
No More Calypsong
Handy Man
No Melda
Love In The Cemetery
Mama Dis Is Mas
The Road
Miss Tourist
67
Magie
Jerico
Pan In A-Minor
Pan In Harmony
Fever
Sugar Bum Bum
Symphony In G
The Symptoms Of Carnival
The Bees Melody
Gimme The Ting
The Spirit
Pan In The 21st Century
Jaws
Curfew Time
Rain-O-Rama
Tribute To Spree Simon
Calypso
A few albums I uploaded for a fellow calypso fan, might as well share the links here.
A Guide to the Real Calypso
A CD that came with a japanese book of the same name.
VBR, 86mb on zippyshare
1. Atilla & The Huns – West Indian Rhythm
2. Gerald Clark And His Caribbean Serenaders – Flores De Trinidad
3. Atilla & The Huns – Man Man Biscoe
4. Atilla & The Huns – Women Will Rule The World
5. The Executor – Three Friend's Advice
6. Lion – Ugly Woman
7. Sam Manning – Medley Of West Indian Song
8. Wilmoth Houdini – He Had It Coming
9. King Radio – Chip Chip Water
10. The Caresser – Ah Gertie
11. Tiger – Next Door Neighbor
12. Mighty Destroyer – Mother's Love
13. Lord Invader – The Sport Pool
14. Lord Beginner – Norah The War Is Over
15. Duke Of Iron – Box Car Shorty
16. Macbeth The Great – Old Man
17. Trinidad Blues-Calypso – Lord Biginner
18. Lord Kitchener – Is Trouble
19. Mighty Terror – Calypso War
20. Wonder – Follow Me Children
21. King Fighter – The Two Old Lovers
22. Lord Melody – Mama Look A Boo-Boo
23. Mighty Sparrow – Simpson
Duke of Iron - "Calypso!" (1957) in 320kbps and "Duke of Iron Sings Calypso" (incomplete)
118mb on mediafire or megaupload
Man Smart, Woman Smarter
Music Lesson
Meringue Jenny
Creole Girl
Last Train
Coconut
Last Watch
Loving Woman Is A Waste Of Time
Man Is Easy Fish
Mambo Calypso
Clear De Road
West Indies Serenade
+
Duke of Iron Sings Calypso
I Left Her Behind For You
A Better Woman Than You
Fifty Cents
Katie
Vitalogy
The Walking Department Store
Calypsonian Invasion
It's The Rhythm We Want
Pepper Sauce Milly
A Guide to the Real Calypso
A CD that came with a japanese book of the same name.
VBR, 86mb on zippyshare
1. Atilla & The Huns – West Indian Rhythm
2. Gerald Clark And His Caribbean Serenaders – Flores De Trinidad
3. Atilla & The Huns – Man Man Biscoe
4. Atilla & The Huns – Women Will Rule The World
5. The Executor – Three Friend's Advice
6. Lion – Ugly Woman
7. Sam Manning – Medley Of West Indian Song
8. Wilmoth Houdini – He Had It Coming
9. King Radio – Chip Chip Water
10. The Caresser – Ah Gertie
11. Tiger – Next Door Neighbor
12. Mighty Destroyer – Mother's Love
13. Lord Invader – The Sport Pool
14. Lord Beginner – Norah The War Is Over
15. Duke Of Iron – Box Car Shorty
16. Macbeth The Great – Old Man
17. Trinidad Blues-Calypso – Lord Biginner
18. Lord Kitchener – Is Trouble
19. Mighty Terror – Calypso War
20. Wonder – Follow Me Children
21. King Fighter – The Two Old Lovers
22. Lord Melody – Mama Look A Boo-Boo
23. Mighty Sparrow – Simpson
Duke of Iron - "Calypso!" (1957) in 320kbps and "Duke of Iron Sings Calypso" (incomplete)
118mb on mediafire or megaupload
Man Smart, Woman Smarter
Music Lesson
Meringue Jenny
Creole Girl
Last Train
Coconut
Last Watch
Loving Woman Is A Waste Of Time
Man Is Easy Fish
Mambo Calypso
Clear De Road
West Indies Serenade
+
Duke of Iron Sings Calypso
I Left Her Behind For You
A Better Woman Than You
Fifty Cents
Katie
Vitalogy
The Walking Department Store
Calypsonian Invasion
It's The Rhythm We Want
Pepper Sauce Milly
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Max Roach - Award-Winning Drummer (1958)
I said before that I consider the Clifford Brown/Max Roach group to be the pinnacle of jazz (one of many, yes). They left behind many excellent recordings - B&R On Basin Street, Brown and Roach Inc., Study in Brown - but not enough: Brown's death in a car crash in 1956 terminated this tandem. However, Roach moved on to more great things - after Brown's passing, he again hooked up with a trumpeter who also was a prodigy, a legend in his own time, and also was to die young: Booker Little. The brass section on this album is also powered by George Coleman on tenor sax, who went on to greater fame with Miles' "Second Quintet" and Herbie Hancock group, and Ray Draper on tuba, in a league with such jazz mavericks as Julius Watkins (french horn) and Don Elliott (mellophone). Also notable is the absence of piano: a setup that seemed groundbreaking when pioneered by Mulligan in the early 50s, it was becoming accepted, and then even preferred for the harmonic freedom it allowed - especially by the new generation of the free jazz players. This group exploits the flexibility fully, with rhythmic shifts and turns and the tuba alternating between the role of the third horn and a third rhythm player.
Same lineup also recorded another excellent album, Deeds Not Words, available here (notice the password) or here.
Max Roach - Award-Winning Drummer (1958)
Max Roach (drums)
Booker Little (trumpet)
George Coleman (tenor sax)
Ray Draper (tuba)
Art Davis (bass)
320kbps, 85mb on depositfiles
1. Tuba de Nod
2. Milano
3. Variations on the Scene
4. Pies of Quincy
5. Old Folks
6. Sadiga
7. Gandolfo's Bounce
Same lineup also recorded another excellent album, Deeds Not Words, available here (notice the password) or here.
Max Roach - Award-Winning Drummer (1958)
Max Roach (drums)
Booker Little (trumpet)
George Coleman (tenor sax)
Ray Draper (tuba)
Art Davis (bass)
320kbps, 85mb on depositfiles
1. Tuba de Nod
2. Milano
3. Variations on the Scene
4. Pies of Quincy
5. Old Folks
6. Sadiga
7. Gandolfo's Bounce
Finger Poppin' And Stompin' Feet - 20 Classic Allen Toussaint Productions For Minit Records 1960-1962
This blog has been semi-dormant lately. I might post a few things in the near future but the text would be brief.
Here's a compilation of Allen Toissaint's songwriting/producing work from the early 60s - that great New Orleans sound on the crossroads of blues, soul, girl-group pop, R'n'B, early funk... He is the great unknown figure behind the scene. I knew a few hours' worth of his songs before I first heard his name: "Ooh Poo Pah Doo" as covered by Ike and Tina Turner, "A Certain Girl" (Yardbirds), "Pain in My Heart" (Otis Redding), The Stones' version of "Fortune Teller," several covers of "Get Out of My Life, Woman", "Lady Marmalade" which I actually played in one of my bands, several superb tracks by Irma Thomas (It's Raining, Take a Look, Cry On) etc.etc.
AMG review: Allen Toussaint is a giant of American popular music, but his work was primarily behind the scenes as a songwriter, producer, arranger, and sessionman. Even as a leader, his songs and recordings became better-known through interpretations and assimilations from such artists as Glen Campbell, Lowell George, and Bonnie Raitt, instead of his darkly sensual, funky records of the '70s. That's why a collection like Finger Poppin' and Stompin' Feet: 20 Classic Allen Toussaint Productions is so welcome -- it shines a spotlight on Toussaint's most influential work as a producer and songwriter, all from the vaults of Minit Records. This is hardly the totality of Toussaint's contributions -- not only are his solo recordings nowhere to be seen, such brilliant work as his collaborations with Lee Dorsey are nowhere to be heard on this disc -- but it's an exuberant celebration of a musician at the top of his game. Plus, it's just a hell of a good listen, nearly a greatest-hits collection of New Orleans R&B as a whole, thanks to such classics as the Showmen's "It Will Stand"; Ernie K-Doe's "Mother-in-Law," "A Certain Girl," and "I Cried My Last Tear"; Aaron Neville's "Over You"; Jessie Hill's "Ooh Poo Pah Doo, Pt. 1"; Benny Spellman's "Fortune Teller" and "Lipstick Traces (On a Cigarette)"; and Irma Thomas' "Ruler of My Heart" and "It's Raining." In addition to those, there are lesser-known gems from the same artists, plus cult artists like the Del Royals and Allen Orange, which add seasoning to a collection already bursting with flavor. Even if you already know Allen Toussaint's work and reputation, it's a revelation and a joyous listen. And, needless to say, it's also essential to any pop or R&B collection.
Finger Poppin' And Stompin' Feet
20 Classic Allen Toussaint Productions For Minit Records 1960-1962
REUP: 320kbps, 94mb on mediafire
1. The Showmen – It Will Stand
2. Ernie K-Doe – Mother-In-Law
3. Aaron Neville – Over You
4. Allen & Allen – Heavenly Baby
5. Jessie Hill – Ooh Poo Pah Doo, Pt. 1
6. Ernie K-Doe – Tain't It The Truth
7. Irma Thomas – Cry On
8. Allen Orange – True Love Never Dies
9. Aaron Neville – Let's Live
10. Ernie K-Doe – Te-Ta-Te-Ta-Ta
11. Jessie Hill – Whip It On Me
12. Benny Spellman – Fortune Teller
13. Ernie K-Doe – I Cried My Last Tear
14. Benny Spellman – Lipstick Traces (On A Cigarette)
15. The Del-Royals – Always Naggin' (Grumblin' Fussin' Nag Nag)
16. Irma Thomas – It's Raining
17. Ernie K-Doe – A Certain Girl
18. The Showmen – 39-21-46
19. Irma Thomas – Ruler Of My Heart
20. Jessie Hill – Ooh Poo Pah Doo, Pt. 2
Here's a compilation of Allen Toissaint's songwriting/producing work from the early 60s - that great New Orleans sound on the crossroads of blues, soul, girl-group pop, R'n'B, early funk... He is the great unknown figure behind the scene. I knew a few hours' worth of his songs before I first heard his name: "Ooh Poo Pah Doo" as covered by Ike and Tina Turner, "A Certain Girl" (Yardbirds), "Pain in My Heart" (Otis Redding), The Stones' version of "Fortune Teller," several covers of "Get Out of My Life, Woman", "Lady Marmalade" which I actually played in one of my bands, several superb tracks by Irma Thomas (It's Raining, Take a Look, Cry On) etc.etc.
AMG review: Allen Toussaint is a giant of American popular music, but his work was primarily behind the scenes as a songwriter, producer, arranger, and sessionman. Even as a leader, his songs and recordings became better-known through interpretations and assimilations from such artists as Glen Campbell, Lowell George, and Bonnie Raitt, instead of his darkly sensual, funky records of the '70s. That's why a collection like Finger Poppin' and Stompin' Feet: 20 Classic Allen Toussaint Productions is so welcome -- it shines a spotlight on Toussaint's most influential work as a producer and songwriter, all from the vaults of Minit Records. This is hardly the totality of Toussaint's contributions -- not only are his solo recordings nowhere to be seen, such brilliant work as his collaborations with Lee Dorsey are nowhere to be heard on this disc -- but it's an exuberant celebration of a musician at the top of his game. Plus, it's just a hell of a good listen, nearly a greatest-hits collection of New Orleans R&B as a whole, thanks to such classics as the Showmen's "It Will Stand"; Ernie K-Doe's "Mother-in-Law," "A Certain Girl," and "I Cried My Last Tear"; Aaron Neville's "Over You"; Jessie Hill's "Ooh Poo Pah Doo, Pt. 1"; Benny Spellman's "Fortune Teller" and "Lipstick Traces (On a Cigarette)"; and Irma Thomas' "Ruler of My Heart" and "It's Raining." In addition to those, there are lesser-known gems from the same artists, plus cult artists like the Del Royals and Allen Orange, which add seasoning to a collection already bursting with flavor. Even if you already know Allen Toussaint's work and reputation, it's a revelation and a joyous listen. And, needless to say, it's also essential to any pop or R&B collection.
Finger Poppin' And Stompin' Feet
20 Classic Allen Toussaint Productions For Minit Records 1960-1962
REUP: 320kbps, 94mb on mediafire
1. The Showmen – It Will Stand
2. Ernie K-Doe – Mother-In-Law
3. Aaron Neville – Over You
4. Allen & Allen – Heavenly Baby
5. Jessie Hill – Ooh Poo Pah Doo, Pt. 1
6. Ernie K-Doe – Tain't It The Truth
7. Irma Thomas – Cry On
8. Allen Orange – True Love Never Dies
9. Aaron Neville – Let's Live
10. Ernie K-Doe – Te-Ta-Te-Ta-Ta
11. Jessie Hill – Whip It On Me
12. Benny Spellman – Fortune Teller
13. Ernie K-Doe – I Cried My Last Tear
14. Benny Spellman – Lipstick Traces (On A Cigarette)
15. The Del-Royals – Always Naggin' (Grumblin' Fussin' Nag Nag)
16. Irma Thomas – It's Raining
17. Ernie K-Doe – A Certain Girl
18. The Showmen – 39-21-46
19. Irma Thomas – Ruler Of My Heart
20. Jessie Hill – Ooh Poo Pah Doo, Pt. 2
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Yiddish Songs - Traditionals 1911-1950
Yiddish Songs - Traditionals 1911-1950
CDs 1+2, VBR, 198mb on megaupload or rapidshare
CDs 3+4, VBR, 176mb on rapidshare or megaupload
Tracklist in comments
The first two CDs came out separately with the following artwork:
Monday, March 15, 2010
Johnny Richards - Mosaic Select
Johnny Richards is known for the wrong reasons. His main claim to posterity is writing Sinatra's "Young at Heart", but pop hit songwriting is not what he really is about. The tides of exotica movement brought ashore his album Rites of Diablo, it often shows up on the "lounge" blogs, but his best work is anything but easy listening; engaging, cerebral, complex - yes, easy - no.
Throughout 1950s and 60s Richards was the arranger/composer at the forefront of the "progressive jazz/third stream" movement. He wrote charts for Stan Kenton's Orchestra, led his own band for a while, and did movie scoring in Hollywood and in the UK. His music is an amalgam of his many influences and experiences: while jazz in spirit, it has cinematic sweep, and uses a multitude of hues in the palette. Complex structure, penchant for dissonance, and bold use of symphonic instrumentation (French horn, oboe, bassoon, tympani, tuba) come from his studies with Arnold Schoenberg; his feel for the latin rhythms, as seen on Kenton's Cuban Fire! and his own Aqui Se Habla Espanol, stems both from his Latino heritage and his travels through South America; on Kenton's Adventures in Time Richards was the first to use unusual time signatures in jazz context, predating the experiments of Don Ellis by almost a decade.
At the time, the "third stream" experiments were very influential and visible in the music of West Coast "cool school" and in a lot of Miles' work, from Birth of the Cool to his collaborations with Gil Evans. But in the long run, the highest peaks of the genre proved to be too cerebral and unaccessible - not only for the listening public, but even for the majority of musicians.
At the bottom I will include a thorough review of Annotations of the Muses taken from The Essential Jazz Records: Modernism to postmodernism; among the players on it are the great jazz guitarist Johnny Smith (who, incidentally, also played on the Arnold Schoenberg's Serenade, Op. 24), and Ray Starling, one of two jazz mellophone players in the world.
Johnny Richards - Mosaic Select
CD1: rapidshare, filefactory, megaupload: Annotations of the Muses EP 1955, Wide Range 1957 + unreleased material, 95mb
CD2: mediafire, megaupload, rapidshare - Experiments in Sound 1958, The Rites of Diablo 1958, 103mb
CD3: mediafire, megaupload, rapidshare - My Fair Lady - My Way 1964, Aqui Se Habla Espanol 1966, 118mb
Tracklist in comments
Johnny Richards
Annotations of the Muses
Legende (A) LP1401
Joe Wilder (tpt); John Barrow (ft h); Julius Baker (fl); Robert Bloom (ob); Vincent Abato (at); Harold Goltzer (bsn); Johnny Smith (g); Jack Lesberg (bs); Sol Gubin (d); Richards (comp, arr).
New York City, early 1955.
Annotations of the Muses: Calliope • Clio • Erato • Euterpe • Melpomene • Polymnia • Terpsichore • Thalia • Urania
Reputedly the only jazz musician ever to dedicate a piece to Ghengis Khan (First Heard [E] FH45), Richards was never in good odour with the pseudo-highbrows of jazz. They strongly disapproved of such things as The Rites of Diablo (Roulette [A] 52008, 1958) with its innovative placing of choral voices in the big-band context, later taken up by Don Ellis. Usually Richards's works have a particularly strong rhythmic orientation, for example the six-movement Cuban Fire for Stan Kenton (Capitol [E] CDP796 260-2, 1956), which centres on a fuller integration of Latin rhythms and big-band scoring than has often been achieved. Better still, and in fact one of the most satisfying records Kenton ever made, is Adventures in Time (tCapitol [E] CDP855 454-2), a main point of which is the fluent use of uneven time signatures such as 5/4 and 7/4.
Unlike most jazz composers, Richards was at his best in large-scale works, especially when he could plan a session or group of sessions as a whole. All too many jazz 'suites' and supposedly long 'compositions', including some by band leaden of far greater renown, are merely assemblages of random short pieces which display few essential — which is to say musical — links, if any. Probably Richards's finest single work, Annotations of the Muses, is the opposite case, though it should at once be noted that its completely unified fabric could be woven only at a cost which other jazz composers have likewise had to pay. As in such pieces as Ellington's Reminiscing in tempo or Dameron's Fontainebleau, there is very little improvisation, this amounting to no more than a couple of solos each by Wilder and Smith.
No background to the title of this work or to those of its individual movements is offered by the sleeve note so it ought to be stated here that in Greek mythology the muses were the goddesses of the arts — as they were then conceived — and were the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne. In the order in which Richards takes them they were: Calliope, who presided over eloquence and epic poetry, Clio over history, Erato over erotic poetry and elegy, Euterpe over music, Melpomene over tragedy, Polymnia over lyric poetry, Terpsichore over choral dance and song, Thalia over comedy and Urania over astronomy. Except occasionally in the most general sense, as with the elegiac warmth that informs the Erato movement, Richards is wise enough not to attempt to portray, barely to suggest, these areas of responsibility. What is important is that this mythological subject matter led him to a quite remarkable variety of invention on melodic, rhythmic and harmonic planes, and just as much in terms of orchestration, the range of instrumental colours, textures and blendings being extraordinary. And not only blendings, for Richards invention on melodic, rhythmic and harmonic planes, and just as much in terms of orchestration, the range of instrumental colours, textures and blendings being extraordinary. And not only blendings, for Richards often writes in such a way that rather than fusing together, the instruments stand off from each other. Given the work's frequently rich counterpoint, this is crucial.
He is much aided in this by using the well-differentiated components of a classical wind quintet as his basic resource, adding to them only a trumpet and a pianoless rhythm section. An element in the music's organization is interplay between the wind quintet as a separate entity and the ensemble as a whole, though it should be stressed that this is only one of a considerable number of stratagems used. Doing without set chorus lengths or repeating chord sequences, the work is freely composed yet maintains formal lucidity throughout. Questions about the jazz or classical origins of the many techniques of writing employed never arise because this music flows with apparently unforced naturalness through its diverse moods and several climates of expression.
Each movement has a distinct character but they are linked in three larger sections. In fact these nine pieces for nine instruments are arranged in three groups of three. Smith in places acts as an intermediary, joining together movements or sections thereof, occasionally leading, often accompanying. Gubin's timpani are sometimes prominent also, but essentially Annotations is a great extension and purification of several aspects of Richards's work for Raebum, and was to a degree anticipated by specific pieces such as Cartaphilius (Hep [E] CD42). Another possible influence was Tommy Talbot's group of 1946 scores for Raeburn using woodwind, french horns and a rhythm section, and an earlier precedent was the Alec Wilder octet with flute, english horn, clarinet, bass clarinet and bassoon which supported Mildred Bailey on some of her 1939-40 recordings.
Although not inherent in the programmatic titles, it is a sign of the quality of Richards's imaginative response to them that these nine movements, rather than seeming like stages in a journey as in a true suite, appear to radiate from one central experience, their great variety notwithstanding. Indirect proof of this was given when he made a later recording of the Terpsichore movement by itself (Capitol [A] T981, 1958). Removed from its context, this made very little impression and its character was virtually destroyed by transfer to conventional big-band instrumentation. A further, if slightly paradoxical, indication of this work's unity as much as of its diversity is the frequency of its shifting into and out of tempo, the range of tempos indeed being exceptional. This draws attention to the fine performance it receives. Richards evidently chose his men well, for the playing is full of subtle nuance, and although this is music of very unusual character, its interpreters demonstrably understand it completely.
The fact that it was issued on Legende, a minor Roost subsidiary, has obviously not helped this work, but it is supposed to be pan of the task of critics and historians to find out about obscure yet valuable endeavours. In fact, the literature of jazz appears to be innocent of any reference to Annotations of the Muses. Richards's score stands as a small but absolutely distinctive monument, however, and one that will continue quietly to demand the attention it deserves. M.H.
"The Essential Jazz Records"
Throughout 1950s and 60s Richards was the arranger/composer at the forefront of the "progressive jazz/third stream" movement. He wrote charts for Stan Kenton's Orchestra, led his own band for a while, and did movie scoring in Hollywood and in the UK. His music is an amalgam of his many influences and experiences: while jazz in spirit, it has cinematic sweep, and uses a multitude of hues in the palette. Complex structure, penchant for dissonance, and bold use of symphonic instrumentation (French horn, oboe, bassoon, tympani, tuba) come from his studies with Arnold Schoenberg; his feel for the latin rhythms, as seen on Kenton's Cuban Fire! and his own Aqui Se Habla Espanol, stems both from his Latino heritage and his travels through South America; on Kenton's Adventures in Time Richards was the first to use unusual time signatures in jazz context, predating the experiments of Don Ellis by almost a decade.
At the time, the "third stream" experiments were very influential and visible in the music of West Coast "cool school" and in a lot of Miles' work, from Birth of the Cool to his collaborations with Gil Evans. But in the long run, the highest peaks of the genre proved to be too cerebral and unaccessible - not only for the listening public, but even for the majority of musicians.
At the bottom I will include a thorough review of Annotations of the Muses taken from The Essential Jazz Records: Modernism to postmodernism; among the players on it are the great jazz guitarist Johnny Smith (who, incidentally, also played on the Arnold Schoenberg's Serenade, Op. 24), and Ray Starling, one of two jazz mellophone players in the world.
Johnny Richards - Mosaic Select
CD1: rapidshare, filefactory, megaupload: Annotations of the Muses EP 1955, Wide Range 1957 + unreleased material, 95mb
CD2: mediafire, megaupload, rapidshare - Experiments in Sound 1958, The Rites of Diablo 1958, 103mb
CD3: mediafire, megaupload, rapidshare - My Fair Lady - My Way 1964, Aqui Se Habla Espanol 1966, 118mb
Tracklist in comments
Johnny Richards
Annotations of the Muses
Legende (A) LP1401
Joe Wilder (tpt); John Barrow (ft h); Julius Baker (fl); Robert Bloom (ob); Vincent Abato (at); Harold Goltzer (bsn); Johnny Smith (g); Jack Lesberg (bs); Sol Gubin (d); Richards (comp, arr).
New York City, early 1955.
Annotations of the Muses: Calliope • Clio • Erato • Euterpe • Melpomene • Polymnia • Terpsichore • Thalia • Urania
Reputedly the only jazz musician ever to dedicate a piece to Ghengis Khan (First Heard [E] FH45), Richards was never in good odour with the pseudo-highbrows of jazz. They strongly disapproved of such things as The Rites of Diablo (Roulette [A] 52008, 1958) with its innovative placing of choral voices in the big-band context, later taken up by Don Ellis. Usually Richards's works have a particularly strong rhythmic orientation, for example the six-movement Cuban Fire for Stan Kenton (Capitol [E] CDP796 260-2, 1956), which centres on a fuller integration of Latin rhythms and big-band scoring than has often been achieved. Better still, and in fact one of the most satisfying records Kenton ever made, is Adventures in Time (tCapitol [E] CDP855 454-2), a main point of which is the fluent use of uneven time signatures such as 5/4 and 7/4.
Unlike most jazz composers, Richards was at his best in large-scale works, especially when he could plan a session or group of sessions as a whole. All too many jazz 'suites' and supposedly long 'compositions', including some by band leaden of far greater renown, are merely assemblages of random short pieces which display few essential — which is to say musical — links, if any. Probably Richards's finest single work, Annotations of the Muses, is the opposite case, though it should at once be noted that its completely unified fabric could be woven only at a cost which other jazz composers have likewise had to pay. As in such pieces as Ellington's Reminiscing in tempo or Dameron's Fontainebleau, there is very little improvisation, this amounting to no more than a couple of solos each by Wilder and Smith.
No background to the title of this work or to those of its individual movements is offered by the sleeve note so it ought to be stated here that in Greek mythology the muses were the goddesses of the arts — as they were then conceived — and were the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne. In the order in which Richards takes them they were: Calliope, who presided over eloquence and epic poetry, Clio over history, Erato over erotic poetry and elegy, Euterpe over music, Melpomene over tragedy, Polymnia over lyric poetry, Terpsichore over choral dance and song, Thalia over comedy and Urania over astronomy. Except occasionally in the most general sense, as with the elegiac warmth that informs the Erato movement, Richards is wise enough not to attempt to portray, barely to suggest, these areas of responsibility. What is important is that this mythological subject matter led him to a quite remarkable variety of invention on melodic, rhythmic and harmonic planes, and just as much in terms of orchestration, the range of instrumental colours, textures and blendings being extraordinary. And not only blendings, for Richards invention on melodic, rhythmic and harmonic planes, and just as much in terms of orchestration, the range of instrumental colours, textures and blendings being extraordinary. And not only blendings, for Richards often writes in such a way that rather than fusing together, the instruments stand off from each other. Given the work's frequently rich counterpoint, this is crucial.
He is much aided in this by using the well-differentiated components of a classical wind quintet as his basic resource, adding to them only a trumpet and a pianoless rhythm section. An element in the music's organization is interplay between the wind quintet as a separate entity and the ensemble as a whole, though it should be stressed that this is only one of a considerable number of stratagems used. Doing without set chorus lengths or repeating chord sequences, the work is freely composed yet maintains formal lucidity throughout. Questions about the jazz or classical origins of the many techniques of writing employed never arise because this music flows with apparently unforced naturalness through its diverse moods and several climates of expression.
Each movement has a distinct character but they are linked in three larger sections. In fact these nine pieces for nine instruments are arranged in three groups of three. Smith in places acts as an intermediary, joining together movements or sections thereof, occasionally leading, often accompanying. Gubin's timpani are sometimes prominent also, but essentially Annotations is a great extension and purification of several aspects of Richards's work for Raebum, and was to a degree anticipated by specific pieces such as Cartaphilius (Hep [E] CD42). Another possible influence was Tommy Talbot's group of 1946 scores for Raeburn using woodwind, french horns and a rhythm section, and an earlier precedent was the Alec Wilder octet with flute, english horn, clarinet, bass clarinet and bassoon which supported Mildred Bailey on some of her 1939-40 recordings.
Although not inherent in the programmatic titles, it is a sign of the quality of Richards's imaginative response to them that these nine movements, rather than seeming like stages in a journey as in a true suite, appear to radiate from one central experience, their great variety notwithstanding. Indirect proof of this was given when he made a later recording of the Terpsichore movement by itself (Capitol [A] T981, 1958). Removed from its context, this made very little impression and its character was virtually destroyed by transfer to conventional big-band instrumentation. A further, if slightly paradoxical, indication of this work's unity as much as of its diversity is the frequency of its shifting into and out of tempo, the range of tempos indeed being exceptional. This draws attention to the fine performance it receives. Richards evidently chose his men well, for the playing is full of subtle nuance, and although this is music of very unusual character, its interpreters demonstrably understand it completely.
The fact that it was issued on Legende, a minor Roost subsidiary, has obviously not helped this work, but it is supposed to be pan of the task of critics and historians to find out about obscure yet valuable endeavours. In fact, the literature of jazz appears to be innocent of any reference to Annotations of the Muses. Richards's score stands as a small but absolutely distinctive monument, however, and one that will continue quietly to demand the attention it deserves. M.H.
"The Essential Jazz Records"
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Louis Armstrong - Blues Accompaniments 1924-1927
If I were to compile a list of my favorite jazz players, it probably won't overlap with a "jazz genius top ten" by much. I'll take Sonny over Trane any day, ditto Fats and Brownie over Miles, and I am only lately starting to warm up to Parker, and then probably because of overexposure than because of a true emotional connection - I must've heard his Savoy sides more times than I've heard Pink Floyd. But there is one guy that will probably top both lists, and that is Louis Armstrong. Satchmo does it for me every time.
I'll take his Hot Fives/Sevens to a desert island, no contest. There is no point in sharing them, though: there have been at least three different "complete" reissues, probably more, and all are easily available elsewhere. However, his sideman recordings are more obscure. After coming up to Chicago in 1922 to play with King Oliver and then Fletcher Henderson, Pops was very much in demand as a studio musician and accompanist. I am sure he did not mind making some dough on the side, either, so there is a wealth of his solos backing the famous and not-so-famous blues singers of the day, from Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith on down. In fact, the record execs noticed that the 78s with his solos - even uncredited - often sold better, and that gave them a bright idea to record Armstrong as a leader; the rest, as they say, is history.
Today's share is a collection of tracks with Armstrong's participation, recorded between 1924 and 1927. There are some sublime solos here; my favorites are two Bessie Smith tracks - I Ain't Gonna Play No Second Fiddle and You've Been a Good Ole Wagon; another great track, He Likes It Slow, features the whole Hot Five and so appeared as a part of the "Complete" box sets. I should warn the prospective listeners that some of this is pretty sonically crude. Hot Fives and Sevens were an all-star band and they got all the latest studio gizmos and extra attention from the recording engineers; also, we get to hear the Hot Fives and Sevens after they've been put through the marvels of modern remastering. These tracks, OTOH, have none of the above; what they often do have is a distinctive unrehearsed "let's cut it and go drinking" one-take feel - the balance is all over the place, there are stumbles and rough spots, and the instrumentation is sometimes rather skeletal, such as the vocal-cornet-harmonium trio on the St. Louis Blues. So, for all the historical interest and occasional brilliance of Satchmo's solos, these probably won't be going with me to any desert island unless I'll be taking my 500GB hard drive with me.
A very thorough Armstrong discography can be found here, refer to it for session dates, personnel and instrumentation.
Track list and links are in comments.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
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
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
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Duško Gojković - Swinging Macedonia (1966)
Sometimes the music takes its time to reach the destination. I got this album at least five years ago, gave it a cursory listen and shelved it. Just recently I put it on again, not even sure why, and discovered how great it was.
Duško Gojković, a trumpet/flugelhorn player, composer and bandleader, was born and spent his youth in former Yugoslavia. After rising to prominence as a trumpet virtuoso, he is leading a truly cosmopolitan life. He moved to Germany, spent considerable time in the US, both studying at Berklee and playing with many of the major jazz figures, and now resides in Munich and plays all over Europe.
Swinging Macedonia was recorded in Germany with american sidemen, including Mal Waldron on piano, but the focus here is on Dusko's own compositions that attempt to fuse the sensibility of Balkan music with jazz. Several elements are at play here: most obvious are, of course, the skewed rhythms of 5/4 and 9/4 that are native to the dances of southeastern Europe - Romanian, Macedonian, and gypsy music. Macedonia and The Nights of Skopje are written in 5/4. Secondly, it's the modal harmonic elements: Saga Se Karame (later recorded as Slavic Mood) is built on Phrygian; Balkan Blue and Macedonia are modal tunes. Finally, there are structural elements; very few of the tunes utilize the AABA form so ubiquitous in jazz. American jazz was already experimenting with many of these features - odd meters of Take Five and Don Ellis recordings, modal music etc., but here they are very naturally fused into a single unity, the first recording of what later became known "Balkan jazz". Another reason why this fusion sounds so organic is that brass instruments are very prominent in the real southeast European ethnic music - just look at the gypsy brass orchestras.
I truly love this album: the tunes are catchy, the playing is top-notch, the rhythm section grooves and the solos burn - I can listen to it daily for a month and never get tired.
The serbian spelling is Duško Gojković; on his american releases it is spelled at least two different ways: Gojkovic or Goykovich. He is still active both performing and recording; I have not heard his recent releases but apparently the critics love them. I did hear Belgrade Blues, which compiles his recordings made in early sixties, before this album, and they are more of a straightforward jazz - proficient, but not as impressive.
Bio and interview
Dusko Goykovich - Swinging Macedonia (1966)
ul.oz or zippyshare
1. Macedonia
2. Old Fisherman's Daughter
3. Jumbo Uganda
4. The Gypsy
5. Macedonian Fertility Dance
6. Bem-Basha
7. Saga Se Karame
8. Wedding March of Alexander the Macedonian
9. The Nights of Skopje
10. Balkan Blue
Duško Gojković, a trumpet/flugelhorn player, composer and bandleader, was born and spent his youth in former Yugoslavia. After rising to prominence as a trumpet virtuoso, he is leading a truly cosmopolitan life. He moved to Germany, spent considerable time in the US, both studying at Berklee and playing with many of the major jazz figures, and now resides in Munich and plays all over Europe.
Swinging Macedonia was recorded in Germany with american sidemen, including Mal Waldron on piano, but the focus here is on Dusko's own compositions that attempt to fuse the sensibility of Balkan music with jazz. Several elements are at play here: most obvious are, of course, the skewed rhythms of 5/4 and 9/4 that are native to the dances of southeastern Europe - Romanian, Macedonian, and gypsy music. Macedonia and The Nights of Skopje are written in 5/4. Secondly, it's the modal harmonic elements: Saga Se Karame (later recorded as Slavic Mood) is built on Phrygian; Balkan Blue and Macedonia are modal tunes. Finally, there are structural elements; very few of the tunes utilize the AABA form so ubiquitous in jazz. American jazz was already experimenting with many of these features - odd meters of Take Five and Don Ellis recordings, modal music etc., but here they are very naturally fused into a single unity, the first recording of what later became known "Balkan jazz". Another reason why this fusion sounds so organic is that brass instruments are very prominent in the real southeast European ethnic music - just look at the gypsy brass orchestras.
I truly love this album: the tunes are catchy, the playing is top-notch, the rhythm section grooves and the solos burn - I can listen to it daily for a month and never get tired.
The serbian spelling is Duško Gojković; on his american releases it is spelled at least two different ways: Gojkovic or Goykovich. He is still active both performing and recording; I have not heard his recent releases but apparently the critics love them. I did hear Belgrade Blues, which compiles his recordings made in early sixties, before this album, and they are more of a straightforward jazz - proficient, but not as impressive.
Bio and interview
Dusko Goykovich - Swinging Macedonia (1966)
ul.oz or zippyshare
1. Macedonia
2. Old Fisherman's Daughter
3. Jumbo Uganda
4. The Gypsy
5. Macedonian Fertility Dance
6. Bem-Basha
7. Saga Se Karame
8. Wedding March of Alexander the Macedonian
9. The Nights of Skopje
10. Balkan Blue
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Zhou Xuan + linkage
Good news for the fans of ShiDaiQu.
Mr. Fung of Bolingo answered my pleas and shared the Zhou Xuan box.
Click the cover to get to Zhou Xuan bio and mediafire links to the bilingually-tagged files. Alternatively, you can get them on rapidshare, tagged in chinese only, here: one, two, three, four, five; booklet scans included.
Secondly, our most excellent contributor of late, Remorseful Prober, has a blog now.
Ambuscade From Ten Sides
More shidaiqu and other far east musical gems, lyric transcriptions/translations, a learned culturological commentary, and all-around coolness. Most of the stuff is either out of print, unavailable from european/american retailers, or both. There is no other place to get this music unless you live in China/Taiwan. Do check it out, add to your favorite RSS reader, download the music and leave a comment.
The subsequent Pathe 100 discs would be shared there! although I will link to new posts.
Mr. Fung of Bolingo answered my pleas and shared the Zhou Xuan box.
Click the cover to get to Zhou Xuan bio and mediafire links to the bilingually-tagged files. Alternatively, you can get them on rapidshare, tagged in chinese only, here: one, two, three, four, five; booklet scans included.
Secondly, our most excellent contributor of late, Remorseful Prober, has a blog now.
Ambuscade From Ten Sides
More shidaiqu and other far east musical gems, lyric transcriptions/translations, a learned culturological commentary, and all-around coolness. Most of the stuff is either out of print, unavailable from european/american retailers, or both. There is no other place to get this music unless you live in China/Taiwan. Do check it out, add to your favorite RSS reader, download the music and leave a comment.
The subsequent Pathe 100 discs would be shared there! although I will link to new posts.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
VA - South Sea Wind (Pathe 100 Vol.8)
An upload by Remorseful Prober.
South Sea Wind (Pathe 100 Vol.8)
Tagged in Chinese on mediafire
Tagged in English on megaupload
1. Xiu Qiong Pan - The Spark in My Heart
2. Xiu Qiong Pan - I Can’t Help But to Ask You
3. Kuang Yu Ling - This Night the Moon is Especially Beautiful
4. Kuang Yu Ling - The Merry Widow Waltz
5. Kuang Yu Ling - Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
6. Kuang Yu Ling - Shangri-la
7. Kuang Yu Ling - Mid-Autumn Moon
8. Kuang Yu Ling - I Can’t Forget You
9. Kuang Yu Ling - Don’t Look Back
10. Zhang Lai Lai - A Good Couple
11. Zhang Lai Lai - Dumb as a Baby
12. Zhang Lai Lai - The First Kiss
13. Lan Di - I Love Ballet
14. Lan Di - The Beautiful Youngest Daughter
15. Lan Di - Jealousy
16. Lan Di - Raise Your Head and Look at Me
17. Hua Yi Bao - Dreams
18. Hua Yi Bao - The Phoenix and the Raven
19. Hua Yi Bao - Eastern Mountain Rains, the Western is Clear
20. Hua Yi Bao - Live in Your Heart
21. Hua Yi Bao - Spring Flowers in Autumn
South Sea Wind (Pathe 100 Vol.8)
Tagged in Chinese on mediafire
Tagged in English on megaupload
1. Xiu Qiong Pan - The Spark in My Heart
2. Xiu Qiong Pan - I Can’t Help But to Ask You
3. Kuang Yu Ling - This Night the Moon is Especially Beautiful
4. Kuang Yu Ling - The Merry Widow Waltz
5. Kuang Yu Ling - Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
6. Kuang Yu Ling - Shangri-la
7. Kuang Yu Ling - Mid-Autumn Moon
8. Kuang Yu Ling - I Can’t Forget You
9. Kuang Yu Ling - Don’t Look Back
10. Zhang Lai Lai - A Good Couple
11. Zhang Lai Lai - Dumb as a Baby
12. Zhang Lai Lai - The First Kiss
13. Lan Di - I Love Ballet
14. Lan Di - The Beautiful Youngest Daughter
15. Lan Di - Jealousy
16. Lan Di - Raise Your Head and Look at Me
17. Hua Yi Bao - Dreams
18. Hua Yi Bao - The Phoenix and the Raven
19. Hua Yi Bao - Eastern Mountain Rains, the Western is Clear
20. Hua Yi Bao - Live in Your Heart
21. Hua Yi Bao - Spring Flowers in Autumn
Carrie Koo Mei - Little Skylark (Pathe 100 Vol.14)
An upload and bio translation by Remorseful Prober.
Gu Mei (real name: Gu Jia-Mi, In English- Carrie Ku/Koo Mei) was born in 1934. Nicknamed "Lovebird" in her youth, at the height of her career she was dubbed "Little Skylark". She hails from Suzhou, in Jiangsu province in Southeastern China. In 1949 she moved to Hong Kong and two years later began to perform, landing a role in a Cantonese film "The Second Wife". By the next year she was acting and singing in Mandarin language films; her first song being called "I Don't Want to Be Apart from You".
In the 1950s she was signed to Great World, Big China and Phillips records, and largely remained a second tier actress. 1958 she went to Thailand to promote one of her movies, and she was invited to stay and make films there, where she became fluent in Thai and gained considerable popularity as a singer and actress in Bangkok. After her return to Hong Kong her popularity continued to increase on into the early sixties, as she continued to act, and her voice became familiar through the title songs of popular films ("Mountain Song" and "Dreams" - the latter is track 4 on this disc). Considered primarily a singer with only a few uneven appearances in films, in 1965 she starred in the Shaw Brothers' movie "The Lark" to great success and acclaim for both her singing and acting.
In 1969 she found herself free of all contracts, and she moved to Taiwan. There she began to host a variety show, "Everyday a Star" on TV. In 1971 she released her final record, a collaborative album with Chen Fen-Lan, another famous singer at the time in Taiwan. Her final movie was a Taiwanese ghost film, "The Bride From Hell". From that time on, she has neither sang nor acted, but instead started to paint. She has had many exhibitions in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, America and Canada. In 1977 she received an award from the Hong Kong Museum of Fine Arts. In May 1998, having not performed in 27 years, she sang as a favor for her brother at one of his concerts. She currently lives in Vancouver, Canada.
A bit more at the Soft Film blog.
Tagged in Chinese on mediafire
Tagged in English on sharebee
1. The Lady of Mount Ali
2. The Little Skylark
3. The Wandering Eye
4. Dreams
5. Red Lychees
6. The Girl Over There
7. Old Dreams are Hard to Find
8. Light Smoke and Dense Fog
9. A Dream of Love
10. A Slow Smile
11. Remembering Our Youth
12. Goodbye, Lover
13. Because I Have You
14. A Bitter Cup
15. Don’t Waver Again
16. Innumerable Flowers (1)
17. Innumerable Flowers (2)
18. Long-Odds Love
19. Mother, Where are You?
20. Looking for Love
21. I Await You Alone
Gu Mei (real name: Gu Jia-Mi, In English- Carrie Ku/Koo Mei) was born in 1934. Nicknamed "Lovebird" in her youth, at the height of her career she was dubbed "Little Skylark". She hails from Suzhou, in Jiangsu province in Southeastern China. In 1949 she moved to Hong Kong and two years later began to perform, landing a role in a Cantonese film "The Second Wife". By the next year she was acting and singing in Mandarin language films; her first song being called "I Don't Want to Be Apart from You".
In the 1950s she was signed to Great World, Big China and Phillips records, and largely remained a second tier actress. 1958 she went to Thailand to promote one of her movies, and she was invited to stay and make films there, where she became fluent in Thai and gained considerable popularity as a singer and actress in Bangkok. After her return to Hong Kong her popularity continued to increase on into the early sixties, as she continued to act, and her voice became familiar through the title songs of popular films ("Mountain Song" and "Dreams" - the latter is track 4 on this disc). Considered primarily a singer with only a few uneven appearances in films, in 1965 she starred in the Shaw Brothers' movie "The Lark" to great success and acclaim for both her singing and acting.
In 1969 she found herself free of all contracts, and she moved to Taiwan. There she began to host a variety show, "Everyday a Star" on TV. In 1971 she released her final record, a collaborative album with Chen Fen-Lan, another famous singer at the time in Taiwan. Her final movie was a Taiwanese ghost film, "The Bride From Hell". From that time on, she has neither sang nor acted, but instead started to paint. She has had many exhibitions in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, America and Canada. In 1977 she received an award from the Hong Kong Museum of Fine Arts. In May 1998, having not performed in 27 years, she sang as a favor for her brother at one of his concerts. She currently lives in Vancouver, Canada.
A bit more at the Soft Film blog.
Tagged in Chinese on mediafire
Tagged in English on sharebee
1. The Lady of Mount Ali
2. The Little Skylark
3. The Wandering Eye
4. Dreams
5. Red Lychees
6. The Girl Over There
7. Old Dreams are Hard to Find
8. Light Smoke and Dense Fog
9. A Dream of Love
10. A Slow Smile
11. Remembering Our Youth
12. Goodbye, Lover
13. Because I Have You
14. A Bitter Cup
15. Don’t Waver Again
16. Innumerable Flowers (1)
17. Innumerable Flowers (2)
18. Long-Odds Love
19. Mother, Where are You?
20. Looking for Love
21. I Await You Alone
Friday, September 4, 2009
A collection of the compositions by Ornette Coleman, pdf
Sheet music.
A collection of the compositions by Ornette Coleman, edited and transcribed by Gunther Schuller - 4mb .pdf file on depositfiles. Includes Bird Food, Chronology, Congeniality (with a transcribed solo), Face of the Bass, Focus on Sanity, Forerunner, Free, Lonely Woman, Peace, Una Muy Bonita. These are off of The Shape of Jazz to Come (1959) or Change of the Century (1960) LPs.
A collection of the compositions by Ornette Coleman, edited and transcribed by Gunther Schuller - 4mb .pdf file on depositfiles. Includes Bird Food, Chronology, Congeniality (with a transcribed solo), Face of the Bass, Focus on Sanity, Forerunner, Free, Lonely Woman, Peace, Una Muy Bonita. These are off of The Shape of Jazz to Come (1959) or Change of the Century (1960) LPs.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Billie Holiday with Lester Young - Lady Day and Prez 1937-1941
August 26th was a centennial of Lester Young's birth. I would like to honor the memory of a musician after whom I took my alias - LesTP (Lester The Prez).
Billie Holiday and Lester Young were a match made in the music writer's heaven: Lady Day, the embodiment of jazz, and The Prez, the best and the hippest of the shade-wearing, sax-toting, dope-smoking jazz cats. Their musical affinity, the tender platonic relationship, the fact that they gave each other nicknames, their brief, tragic, self-destructive lives inspired countless pages of purple proze. I quoted some of the more florid writing before: "like mating eagles, they rose higher and higher..." etc.
However, their alliance is interesting not only as a backdrop for a cliche'd romantic story, but for some very specific musical reasons. Lester Young is well-known as Charlie Parker's boyhood idol and the biggest influence on bop playing in general. The following style elements are usually listed: emphasis on the melodic rather than harmonic improvisation, fluid phrasing that goes across the bar, a loose rhythmic approach with a tendency to play behind the beat.
People who talk about his recordings with Holiday also say that their musical styles were especially close, and they list much the same elements as above. Apparently, Holiday and Young developed this approach independently, but once they started playing together, it really clicked.
Billie Holiday was never considered to be a bop forerunner or a bop singer proper, like Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, or Anita O'Day - by the time bop started to take shape, she was already too invested into her extramusical/chemical pursuits to stay on the cutting edge - but at the time of these recordings she was definitely the first modernist among the jazz singers.
Second point: the music writer's fascination with the romantic couple unfortunately draws attention away from the other musicians that played on this. Sessions for a commercially and artistically successfull singer together with the best instrumentalist of the time are bound to draw a constellation of great accompanists, and they do: see the listing here (for recordings in chronological order) or here (track-by-track). Walter Page, Jo Jones, and Freddie Green are the celebrated Count Basie rhythm section, Claude Thornhill's future band became a veritable school for the cool jazz musicians, a former King Oliver/Louis Armstrong colleague Benny Morton is on clarinet, another sax is by Johnny Hodges, who really needs no introduction. As any great musician, Billie Holiday develops a special rapport with each one of them.
My favorite contributions, though, are by Buck Clayton: hear, for instance, his trumpet figures behind Billie on Easy Living. He is present on virtually every track. For bonus nerd points, Clayton is the single biggest contributor to the development of Chinese jazz/shidaiqu (wiki): he lived in Shanghai in 1934-1937, led a highly popular jazz band, and closely collaborated with Li Jinhui, the main architect of the shidaiqu sound.
But all the musical nerdery aside, these are some great pop songs from back when jazz was a good-time party music, before it got mired in the high-art pretensions. They are bouncy, catchy, groovy, melodic - and they are made by the greatest jazz singer and the greatest jazz instrumetalist of the time at the peak of their powers. Highly recommended!
Billie Holiday with Lester Young - Lady Day and Prez 1937-1941
256kbps, 125mb on megaupload
1. This Year's Kisses
2. Without Your Love
3. All Of Me
4. Me, Myself And I (Are All In Love With You)
5. I'll Get By
6. Mean To Me
7. A Sailboat In The Moonlight
8. I'll Never Be The Same
9. Getting Some Fun Out Of Life
10. The Man I Love
11. Trav'lin' All Alone
12. Time On My Hands
13. Laughing At Life
14. Back In Your Own Backyard
15. Georgia On My Mind
16. Let's Do It
17. Foolin' Myself
18. Easy Living
19. Say It With A Kiss
20. You Can't Be Mine (And Someone Else's Too)
21. I Can't Believe That You're In Love With Me
22. She's Funny That Way
23. Romance In The Dark
24. I Must Have That Man!
There are several compilations of this material out there. This one is a single-disc collection of choice picks from their legacy. There is also a double-disc Complete Billie Holiday and Lester Young at Taringa, although the bitrate is a little lower. There is also another "Complete recordings" collection on 3 CDs that includes a disc's worth of alternate takes etc., but I don't have that one.
Billie Holiday and Lester Young were a match made in the music writer's heaven: Lady Day, the embodiment of jazz, and The Prez, the best and the hippest of the shade-wearing, sax-toting, dope-smoking jazz cats. Their musical affinity, the tender platonic relationship, the fact that they gave each other nicknames, their brief, tragic, self-destructive lives inspired countless pages of purple proze. I quoted some of the more florid writing before: "like mating eagles, they rose higher and higher..." etc.
However, their alliance is interesting not only as a backdrop for a cliche'd romantic story, but for some very specific musical reasons. Lester Young is well-known as Charlie Parker's boyhood idol and the biggest influence on bop playing in general. The following style elements are usually listed: emphasis on the melodic rather than harmonic improvisation, fluid phrasing that goes across the bar, a loose rhythmic approach with a tendency to play behind the beat.
People who talk about his recordings with Holiday also say that their musical styles were especially close, and they list much the same elements as above. Apparently, Holiday and Young developed this approach independently, but once they started playing together, it really clicked.
Billie Holiday was never considered to be a bop forerunner or a bop singer proper, like Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, or Anita O'Day - by the time bop started to take shape, she was already too invested into her extramusical/chemical pursuits to stay on the cutting edge - but at the time of these recordings she was definitely the first modernist among the jazz singers.
Second point: the music writer's fascination with the romantic couple unfortunately draws attention away from the other musicians that played on this. Sessions for a commercially and artistically successfull singer together with the best instrumentalist of the time are bound to draw a constellation of great accompanists, and they do: see the listing here (for recordings in chronological order) or here (track-by-track). Walter Page, Jo Jones, and Freddie Green are the celebrated Count Basie rhythm section, Claude Thornhill's future band became a veritable school for the cool jazz musicians, a former King Oliver/Louis Armstrong colleague Benny Morton is on clarinet, another sax is by Johnny Hodges, who really needs no introduction. As any great musician, Billie Holiday develops a special rapport with each one of them.
My favorite contributions, though, are by Buck Clayton: hear, for instance, his trumpet figures behind Billie on Easy Living. He is present on virtually every track. For bonus nerd points, Clayton is the single biggest contributor to the development of Chinese jazz/shidaiqu (wiki): he lived in Shanghai in 1934-1937, led a highly popular jazz band, and closely collaborated with Li Jinhui, the main architect of the shidaiqu sound.
But all the musical nerdery aside, these are some great pop songs from back when jazz was a good-time party music, before it got mired in the high-art pretensions. They are bouncy, catchy, groovy, melodic - and they are made by the greatest jazz singer and the greatest jazz instrumetalist of the time at the peak of their powers. Highly recommended!
Billie Holiday with Lester Young - Lady Day and Prez 1937-1941
256kbps, 125mb on megaupload
1. This Year's Kisses
2. Without Your Love
3. All Of Me
4. Me, Myself And I (Are All In Love With You)
5. I'll Get By
6. Mean To Me
7. A Sailboat In The Moonlight
8. I'll Never Be The Same
9. Getting Some Fun Out Of Life
10. The Man I Love
11. Trav'lin' All Alone
12. Time On My Hands
13. Laughing At Life
14. Back In Your Own Backyard
15. Georgia On My Mind
16. Let's Do It
17. Foolin' Myself
18. Easy Living
19. Say It With A Kiss
20. You Can't Be Mine (And Someone Else's Too)
21. I Can't Believe That You're In Love With Me
22. She's Funny That Way
23. Romance In The Dark
24. I Must Have That Man!
There are several compilations of this material out there. This one is a single-disc collection of choice picks from their legacy. There is also a double-disc Complete Billie Holiday and Lester Young at Taringa, although the bitrate is a little lower. There is also another "Complete recordings" collection on 3 CDs that includes a disc's worth of alternate takes etc., but I don't have that one.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Grace Chang - Pathe 100 Vol.15
An upload and liner notes translation by Remorseful Prober.
Grace Zhang (Ge Lan, real name Zhang Yu-Fang) was born in the city of Haining in Zhejiang province, and grew up in Shanghai. She immigrated to Hong Kong with her family in 1949. In 1952 she passed a screen test for the Taishan movie company, and dropped out of school to star in the movies. Her screen name Ge Lan comes from the English name Grace, selected by a studio director. In this year she starred in her first movie, "Love in Spring" which was shown in Singapore in 1953. By 1957, after starring and co-starring in several more movies her popularity soared, and she was considered for a brief time the queen of musicals. In 1959 she was invited by NBC to sing on US television, on the Dinah Shore show. She was married to a wealthy businessman in London in 1961, and then retired in 1964, having starred in over thirty movies.
Between 1950 and 1960 she made records for the Bai-Dai label, the most popular being, "I love the Cha-Cha", "Carmen", "I Want Your Love" and "I Want to Fly in the Blue Sky." In 1973 she began to study Beijing Opera, and when the state-sponsored Beijing Opera Troupe visited Hong Kong in 1979 she was allowed to perform one song with them, a considerable honor. In 1989 she recorded an album of famous songs of the Chinese Opera. In 1994 she performed in an a-capella commerative concert for the 100th birthday of one of Beijing's most famous opera performers, Mei Lan-Fang. In retirement, she continues to make occasional appearances.
This collection by Grace Chang is doubly different from the previous Pathe 100 discs. The singers featured before started in the Shanghai nightclubs and dancehalls and moved away from the mainland after 1950. While Grace Chang grew up in Shanghai, she began her career in Hong Kong. I think this is reflected in a more pronounced Western influence in her music. Secondly, the performers so far were singers first, and except for Zhou Xuan, appeared in the movies mostly in cameo roles or solely on the soundtrack. Grace Chang was foremost an actress, although she starred in musicals. The Soft Film blog has several posts with clips from her movies, promo photos etc. Make sure to check out her version of Carmen (Habanera) - strumming (pretending to strum) a National Tricone, no less!
Tagged in Chinese on mediafire
Tagged in English on sharebee
1. I Want Your Love (I Want You to Be My Baby)
2. What Do You Want
3. Moonless Night
4. Beautiful Taiwan
5. Carmen
6. Butterfly Lovers
7. Love in the Countryside
8. Good Tidings Come to the Door
9. World of Shadows
10. How Can I be Without Him?
11. Unspoken Joy
12. Beautiful Dancing
13. Suddenly I See Him
14. The Hula Hula Twist
15. Girl Soldier
16. Love Blossoming Everywhere
17. Marriage as a Cold War
18. Barroom Angel
19. Crazy in Love (literal: Love Sounds Like “Ding-Dong”)
20. Moonlight Love
21. Can’t Deny the Heart
Grace Zhang (Ge Lan, real name Zhang Yu-Fang) was born in the city of Haining in Zhejiang province, and grew up in Shanghai. She immigrated to Hong Kong with her family in 1949. In 1952 she passed a screen test for the Taishan movie company, and dropped out of school to star in the movies. Her screen name Ge Lan comes from the English name Grace, selected by a studio director. In this year she starred in her first movie, "Love in Spring" which was shown in Singapore in 1953. By 1957, after starring and co-starring in several more movies her popularity soared, and she was considered for a brief time the queen of musicals. In 1959 she was invited by NBC to sing on US television, on the Dinah Shore show. She was married to a wealthy businessman in London in 1961, and then retired in 1964, having starred in over thirty movies.
Between 1950 and 1960 she made records for the Bai-Dai label, the most popular being, "I love the Cha-Cha", "Carmen", "I Want Your Love" and "I Want to Fly in the Blue Sky." In 1973 she began to study Beijing Opera, and when the state-sponsored Beijing Opera Troupe visited Hong Kong in 1979 she was allowed to perform one song with them, a considerable honor. In 1989 she recorded an album of famous songs of the Chinese Opera. In 1994 she performed in an a-capella commerative concert for the 100th birthday of one of Beijing's most famous opera performers, Mei Lan-Fang. In retirement, she continues to make occasional appearances.
This collection by Grace Chang is doubly different from the previous Pathe 100 discs. The singers featured before started in the Shanghai nightclubs and dancehalls and moved away from the mainland after 1950. While Grace Chang grew up in Shanghai, she began her career in Hong Kong. I think this is reflected in a more pronounced Western influence in her music. Secondly, the performers so far were singers first, and except for Zhou Xuan, appeared in the movies mostly in cameo roles or solely on the soundtrack. Grace Chang was foremost an actress, although she starred in musicals. The Soft Film blog has several posts with clips from her movies, promo photos etc. Make sure to check out her version of Carmen (Habanera) - strumming (pretending to strum) a National Tricone, no less!
Tagged in Chinese on mediafire
Tagged in English on sharebee
1. I Want Your Love (I Want You to Be My Baby)
2. What Do You Want
3. Moonless Night
4. Beautiful Taiwan
5. Carmen
6. Butterfly Lovers
7. Love in the Countryside
8. Good Tidings Come to the Door
9. World of Shadows
10. How Can I be Without Him?
11. Unspoken Joy
12. Beautiful Dancing
13. Suddenly I See Him
14. The Hula Hula Twist
15. Girl Soldier
16. Love Blossoming Everywhere
17. Marriage as a Cold War
18. Barroom Angel
19. Crazy in Love (literal: Love Sounds Like “Ding-Dong”)
20. Moonlight Love
21. Can’t Deny the Heart
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Pathe 100 Vol.3 - Yao Li
Another share by Remorseful Prober.
A compilation of songs by Yao Li (Yao Lee) [Bio at Wiki]. She first rose to popularity in Mainland China, singing in a Shanghainese dance hall style. Her brother Yao Min was also a successfull pop singer, and they often recorded as a duo. She was a rival of Zhou Xuan, and had a stage name of "Silver Voice" in counterpart to Zhou Xuan - "Golden Voice". After the revolution she fled to Hong Kong where she continued to record, her songs featured prominently in many movies.
Yao Li’s voice changed with time. Her initial success in Shanghai was partially indebted to the techniques and vocal training of Russian diaspora court musicians. In the 1940s, Yao Min asked her to imitate black singers from Hollywood films that were easily available in Shanghai. Her voice thus became lower and thicker, full of jazz’s lyricism. In the 1950s, however, she began to fall in love with the voice of Patti Page and developed a new hybrid style based on jazz and country music. @
This disc is most notable for inclusion of the original version of "Rose, Rose, I Love You", possibly the only China-to-America crossover hit ever.
"Rose, Rose, I Love You" comes from the 1940 film A Pitiful Singing Girl. The music and words were written by Chen Gexin and Wu Cun respectively. The singer of the song, Yao Li, played a minor part as a singer in the film. It proved to be an instant hit. This very same song was also the first Chinese song to be adapted with English words, to win international fame. It was the famous American singer Frankie Laine who sang the English version, which made its way to the top of the American popular song chart in the early 1950s. As time passed, many Chinese people came to mistake the Chinese version for an adaptation from the English version. The liveliness and high spirits of the music, the clever blending of Chinese tunes into a cosmopolitan style, were probably the reasons for its popularity all over the world. @
This song is also featured on the Remixed and Restored Vol.1 CD by Shanghai Restoration Project.
Tagged in English on sharebee
Tagged in Chinese on mediafire
1. Catching Lovesickness
2. Susan
3. Rose, Rose, I Love You
4. Lovers With The Same Fate
5. Don’t Hesitate
6. Little Brother
7. Keep Silent
8. Ay-ya-ya
9. I Don’t Want You
10. Little Shepard
11. Riding a Bicycle in Spring
12. Wasting Your Youth
13. The Riverside in Suzhou
14. Long Distance Love
15. Don’t Say No
16. Looking for a Trace of You in the Moonlight
17. Happy Youth
18. What Kind of World is This?
19. What is Love?
20. Golden Oriole Flying
21. Fantasy
22. Red Lights and Green Booze
A compilation of songs by Yao Li (Yao Lee) [Bio at Wiki]. She first rose to popularity in Mainland China, singing in a Shanghainese dance hall style. Her brother Yao Min was also a successfull pop singer, and they often recorded as a duo. She was a rival of Zhou Xuan, and had a stage name of "Silver Voice" in counterpart to Zhou Xuan - "Golden Voice". After the revolution she fled to Hong Kong where she continued to record, her songs featured prominently in many movies.
Yao Li’s voice changed with time. Her initial success in Shanghai was partially indebted to the techniques and vocal training of Russian diaspora court musicians. In the 1940s, Yao Min asked her to imitate black singers from Hollywood films that were easily available in Shanghai. Her voice thus became lower and thicker, full of jazz’s lyricism. In the 1950s, however, she began to fall in love with the voice of Patti Page and developed a new hybrid style based on jazz and country music. @
This disc is most notable for inclusion of the original version of "Rose, Rose, I Love You", possibly the only China-to-America crossover hit ever.
"Rose, Rose, I Love You" comes from the 1940 film A Pitiful Singing Girl. The music and words were written by Chen Gexin and Wu Cun respectively. The singer of the song, Yao Li, played a minor part as a singer in the film. It proved to be an instant hit. This very same song was also the first Chinese song to be adapted with English words, to win international fame. It was the famous American singer Frankie Laine who sang the English version, which made its way to the top of the American popular song chart in the early 1950s. As time passed, many Chinese people came to mistake the Chinese version for an adaptation from the English version. The liveliness and high spirits of the music, the clever blending of Chinese tunes into a cosmopolitan style, were probably the reasons for its popularity all over the world. @
This song is also featured on the Remixed and Restored Vol.1 CD by Shanghai Restoration Project.
Tagged in English on sharebee
Tagged in Chinese on mediafire
1. Catching Lovesickness
2. Susan
3. Rose, Rose, I Love You
4. Lovers With The Same Fate
5. Don’t Hesitate
6. Little Brother
7. Keep Silent
8. Ay-ya-ya
9. I Don’t Want You
10. Little Shepard
11. Riding a Bicycle in Spring
12. Wasting Your Youth
13. The Riverside in Suzhou
14. Long Distance Love
15. Don’t Say No
16. Looking for a Trace of You in the Moonlight
17. Happy Youth
18. What Kind of World is This?
19. What is Love?
20. Golden Oriole Flying
21. Fantasy
22. Red Lights and Green Booze
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Richard Hell and the Voidoids - Destiny Street
I did not mean to continue the Quine retrospective, but there are some new developments with his recorded legacy.
It is well known that Richard Hell was unhappy with the Voidoids' second LP. Destiny Street was recorded in 1982, in a difficult period for Hell. ...the record is heavily guitar-laden - when I couldn't muster the self-possession to leave the house I'd call the studio and tell them to lay down another guitar track - says Richard himself in the original liner notes.
And this is from a Quine interview:
Q: I read that sometimes Richard Hell would cancel or even no-show when you were recording, and that you would just lay down more and more guitar tracks. If this is true, did you help mix these and decide which tracks were used in the final cut?
A: When we were working on Destiny Street in early '81, Richard did totally disappear for a week (that's the only time that ever happened). We had already done the basic tracks. But the time was already booked, so Naux and I went in and did a LOT of overdubs during that week (too many!).
Then Richard reappeared and did his vocals and fixed a few bass parts. Then over a year went by before the album was mixed. I was invited to participate but declined — I was busy, and couldn't face dealing with the nightmarish number of overdubs I'd done (backwards guitars, constant feedback, etc.). So I wrote down some of my opinions on how the record could be mixed, some of which were followed.
My one basic misgiving about the final mix is that many of the guitars on the "live" basic tracks were fairly inaudible, buried under overdubs that were only meant for adding subtle textures. But over the years I got used to that mix, and it's difficult for me to imagine the album sounding any other way, for better or worse.
Recently, Richard Hell came across the original tapes for the album and decided to do it justice: Using those original rhythm tracks as the foundation, Hell recorded fresh, new vocals, did some editing, gathered new musicians of the highest caliber for the lead guitars, and re-mixed all the elements to produce Destiny Street Repaired - says the official release. The new musicians mentioned are Marc Ribot, Bill Frisell, and Ivan Julian.
In general, I would be excited to hear a "second take" like this one, especially with the star guitar players Hell picked. I recently posted Gerry Mulligan's second take on the Birth of the Cool, and I think it's a great effort, very much worth hearing. However, there is one caveat: those second takes should be an addition, not a replacement - what would you say if Mulligan's Re-Birth of the Cool was the only version available? Unfortunately, this is the case with the Destiny Street Repaired. Hell, the copyright owner, deliberately allowed the original to drop out of print and has no plans for bringing it back. A number of fans voiced their concerns: both of the original guitar players, Naux and Quine, are dead, and messing with their legacy like this is unfair. I would agree, except for the fact that it allows me to post the original officially-out-of-print album without any misgivings. Perhaps it should be titled Destiny Street DON'T FIX WHAT AIN'T BROKE.
Richard Hell and the Voidoids - Destiny Street
High VBR, 60mb on depositfiles
1. The Kid with the Replaceable Head
2. You Gotta Move
3. Going Going Gone
4. Lowest Common Denominator
5. Downtown at Dawn
6. Time
7. I Can Only Give You Everything
8. Ignore That Door
9. Staring In Her Eyes
10. Destiny Street
PS See The Hound's posts with Quine's unreleased recordings from 2004, shortly before his passing: one, two. Also, a Hell ROIR bootleg, Quine plays on tracks #4-9 and did overdubs on #11 and 14.
It is well known that Richard Hell was unhappy with the Voidoids' second LP. Destiny Street was recorded in 1982, in a difficult period for Hell. ...the record is heavily guitar-laden - when I couldn't muster the self-possession to leave the house I'd call the studio and tell them to lay down another guitar track - says Richard himself in the original liner notes.
And this is from a Quine interview:
Q: I read that sometimes Richard Hell would cancel or even no-show when you were recording, and that you would just lay down more and more guitar tracks. If this is true, did you help mix these and decide which tracks were used in the final cut?
A: When we were working on Destiny Street in early '81, Richard did totally disappear for a week (that's the only time that ever happened). We had already done the basic tracks. But the time was already booked, so Naux and I went in and did a LOT of overdubs during that week (too many!).
Then Richard reappeared and did his vocals and fixed a few bass parts. Then over a year went by before the album was mixed. I was invited to participate but declined — I was busy, and couldn't face dealing with the nightmarish number of overdubs I'd done (backwards guitars, constant feedback, etc.). So I wrote down some of my opinions on how the record could be mixed, some of which were followed.
My one basic misgiving about the final mix is that many of the guitars on the "live" basic tracks were fairly inaudible, buried under overdubs that were only meant for adding subtle textures. But over the years I got used to that mix, and it's difficult for me to imagine the album sounding any other way, for better or worse.
Recently, Richard Hell came across the original tapes for the album and decided to do it justice: Using those original rhythm tracks as the foundation, Hell recorded fresh, new vocals, did some editing, gathered new musicians of the highest caliber for the lead guitars, and re-mixed all the elements to produce Destiny Street Repaired - says the official release. The new musicians mentioned are Marc Ribot, Bill Frisell, and Ivan Julian.
In general, I would be excited to hear a "second take" like this one, especially with the star guitar players Hell picked. I recently posted Gerry Mulligan's second take on the Birth of the Cool, and I think it's a great effort, very much worth hearing. However, there is one caveat: those second takes should be an addition, not a replacement - what would you say if Mulligan's Re-Birth of the Cool was the only version available? Unfortunately, this is the case with the Destiny Street Repaired. Hell, the copyright owner, deliberately allowed the original to drop out of print and has no plans for bringing it back. A number of fans voiced their concerns: both of the original guitar players, Naux and Quine, are dead, and messing with their legacy like this is unfair. I would agree, except for the fact that it allows me to post the original officially-out-of-print album without any misgivings. Perhaps it should be titled Destiny Street DON'T FIX WHAT AIN'T BROKE.
Richard Hell and the Voidoids - Destiny Street
High VBR, 60mb on depositfiles
1. The Kid with the Replaceable Head
2. You Gotta Move
3. Going Going Gone
4. Lowest Common Denominator
5. Downtown at Dawn
6. Time
7. I Can Only Give You Everything
8. Ignore That Door
9. Staring In Her Eyes
10. Destiny Street
PS See The Hound's posts with Quine's unreleased recordings from 2004, shortly before his passing: one, two. Also, a Hell ROIR bootleg, Quine plays on tracks #4-9 and did overdubs on #11 and 14.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Pathe 100 Vols. 10 & 16
More shares by RP
Pathe 100 Vol.16 - Rou Yun, Jing Ting, Yu Fei
Tagged in Chinese on mediafire, pt.1 and pt.2
Tagged in English on megaupload
1. Rou Yun - Diamond Flower
2. Jing Ting - Sun Song
3. Rou Yun - Red Sails in the Sunset
4. Yu Fei - Dream of My Hometown
5. Yu Fei - Memory of the Sea Shore
6. Rou Yun - Point of the Temple
7. Jing Ting - Matchmaker
8. Rou Yun - My Faithless Lover
9. Jing Ting - The Mountain Laughs at Me
10. Yu Fei - Follow You
11. Jing Ting - Comforting Conversation
12. Yu Fei - Love Too Late
13. Yu Fei - Awaiting My Lover's Return
14. Yu Fei - Knitting Girl
15. Rou Yun - Beautiful Garden
16. Yu Fei - Pin a Flower on Your Shirt
17. Jing Ting - Reminiscing At the Riverside
18. Rou Yun - Last Night I Couldn't Sleep Because of You
19. Jing Ting - If You Love Me Just Tell Me
20. Jing Ting - Equal to Zero
21. Yu Fei - Peach Flowers Blooming
Pathe 100 Vol.10 - Xia Dan (Hsia Tan) and Liu Yun
Tagged in Chinese on mediafire pt.1 and pt.2
Tagged in English on megaupload
1. Xia Dan - Spring in the Mountains
2. Xia Dan - Voices in the Valley
3. Xia Dan - Selling the Newspaper
4. Xia Dan and Jiang Hong - Picking Water Chestnuts
5. Xia Dan - I Can't Understand
6. Xia Dan - Stunned by the Splendor
7. Xia Dan - Steel Needle Dance
8. Xia Dan and Jiang Hong - Miss Rita
9. Xia Dan - Happy Song
10. Xia Dan - Nine Out of Ten Windows Opened
11. Xia Dan - Happy Home
12. Xia Dan - Just to Talk with You
13. Xia Dan and Yang Guang - Where's My Love?
14. Liu Yun - Little White Boat (Korean Folk Song)
15. Liu Yun - Feeding Chickens
16. Liu Yun - Sunshine
17. Liu Yun and Jiang Hong - The Girl at the Bar
18. Liu Yun - Bang the Drums
19. Liu Yun - Add a Little More (Love Me A Bit More)
20. Liu Yun - Carefree Morning
21. Liu Yun - Silly Girl
22. Liu Yun - A Fortnight
Pathe 100 Vol.16 - Rou Yun, Jing Ting, Yu Fei
Tagged in Chinese on mediafire, pt.1 and pt.2
Tagged in English on megaupload
1. Rou Yun - Diamond Flower
2. Jing Ting - Sun Song
3. Rou Yun - Red Sails in the Sunset
4. Yu Fei - Dream of My Hometown
5. Yu Fei - Memory of the Sea Shore
6. Rou Yun - Point of the Temple
7. Jing Ting - Matchmaker
8. Rou Yun - My Faithless Lover
9. Jing Ting - The Mountain Laughs at Me
10. Yu Fei - Follow You
11. Jing Ting - Comforting Conversation
12. Yu Fei - Love Too Late
13. Yu Fei - Awaiting My Lover's Return
14. Yu Fei - Knitting Girl
15. Rou Yun - Beautiful Garden
16. Yu Fei - Pin a Flower on Your Shirt
17. Jing Ting - Reminiscing At the Riverside
18. Rou Yun - Last Night I Couldn't Sleep Because of You
19. Jing Ting - If You Love Me Just Tell Me
20. Jing Ting - Equal to Zero
21. Yu Fei - Peach Flowers Blooming
Pathe 100 Vol.10 - Xia Dan (Hsia Tan) and Liu Yun
Tagged in Chinese on mediafire pt.1 and pt.2
Tagged in English on megaupload
1. Xia Dan - Spring in the Mountains
2. Xia Dan - Voices in the Valley
3. Xia Dan - Selling the Newspaper
4. Xia Dan and Jiang Hong - Picking Water Chestnuts
5. Xia Dan - I Can't Understand
6. Xia Dan - Stunned by the Splendor
7. Xia Dan - Steel Needle Dance
8. Xia Dan and Jiang Hong - Miss Rita
9. Xia Dan - Happy Song
10. Xia Dan - Nine Out of Ten Windows Opened
11. Xia Dan - Happy Home
12. Xia Dan - Just to Talk with You
13. Xia Dan and Yang Guang - Where's My Love?
14. Liu Yun - Little White Boat (Korean Folk Song)
15. Liu Yun - Feeding Chickens
16. Liu Yun - Sunshine
17. Liu Yun and Jiang Hong - The Girl at the Bar
18. Liu Yun - Bang the Drums
19. Liu Yun - Add a Little More (Love Me A Bit More)
20. Liu Yun - Carefree Morning
21. Liu Yun - Silly Girl
22. Liu Yun - A Fortnight
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Pathe 100 Vol.20 - Hong Kong At Night
A share by RP.
Pathe 100 Vol.20 - Hong Kong At Night
Tagged in Chinese on mediafire pt.1 and pt.2
Tagged in English on 4shared
1. Yang Ping (Liang Ping) - Hong Kong at Night
2. Li Jing-Jie - Half as Much
3. Rou Yun - Tranquil Night's Reminiscence
4. Wei Xiu-Xian - Southern Country Night Song
5. Ye Feng - Clouds at Sunset
6. Ye Feng - Spring Night Complaint
7. Ye Feng - Street Lamps on a Winter's Night
8. Bei Lei - Happiness in the Wind and Rain
9. Liu Yun - Wishing All Day
10. Huang Ling - Deep Dark Night
11. Pan Di-Hua (Rebecca Pan) - Midnight Kiss
12. Chui Ping - Last Night's Dream
13. Fang Yi-Hua (Mona Fong) - Got Drunk Last Night
14. Gu Mei - Lonely Night
15. Gu Mei - Every Lonely Night
16. Jing Ting - Flowers in the Rainy Night
17. Jing Ting - I Won't Cry Again Tonight
18. Zhang Lu - One Little Bird Calling in the Night
19. Zhen Xiu-Yi - Cold Nights are the Most Miserable
20. Pan Xiu-Qiong and Sow Keng Poon - Midnight Guitar
Those who liked the Shanghai Lounge Divas' remixes better than the originals should check out the Shanghai Restoration Project, a neolounge/downtempo electronic project with a cross-cultural approach similar to that of Ian Widgery. A few albums can be heard at the jbums; I haven't heard Remixed and Restored Vol.1, but it seems very interesting.
Pathe 100 Vol.20 - Hong Kong At Night
Tagged in English on 4shared
1. Yang Ping (Liang Ping) - Hong Kong at Night
2. Li Jing-Jie - Half as Much
3. Rou Yun - Tranquil Night's Reminiscence
4. Wei Xiu-Xian - Southern Country Night Song
5. Ye Feng - Clouds at Sunset
6. Ye Feng - Spring Night Complaint
7. Ye Feng - Street Lamps on a Winter's Night
8. Bei Lei - Happiness in the Wind and Rain
9. Liu Yun - Wishing All Day
10. Huang Ling - Deep Dark Night
11. Pan Di-Hua (Rebecca Pan) - Midnight Kiss
12. Chui Ping - Last Night's Dream
13. Fang Yi-Hua (Mona Fong) - Got Drunk Last Night
14. Gu Mei - Lonely Night
15. Gu Mei - Every Lonely Night
16. Jing Ting - Flowers in the Rainy Night
17. Jing Ting - I Won't Cry Again Tonight
18. Zhang Lu - One Little Bird Calling in the Night
19. Zhen Xiu-Yi - Cold Nights are the Most Miserable
20. Pan Xiu-Qiong and Sow Keng Poon - Midnight Guitar
Those who liked the Shanghai Lounge Divas' remixes better than the originals should check out the Shanghai Restoration Project, a neolounge/downtempo electronic project with a cross-cultural approach similar to that of Ian Widgery. A few albums can be heard at the jbums; I haven't heard Remixed and Restored Vol.1, but it seems very interesting.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Zhou Xuan (Chou Hsuan)
Another excellent share by Remorseful Prober.
Zhou Xuan is truly the jewel of Shidaiqu, a singer and movie star of singular talent, who has been compared to Edit Piaf and Billie Holiday, both for her expressive singing and for tragic personal life.
For a bio I would refer you to Wiki and to an article in The Chinese Mirror. They give contradicting versions of the origin of her stage name, though. There is also a japanese fan page.
If anyone has access to the 5CD Zhou Xuan box (this one), please share!!!
Pathé 100: The Series Vol.13
130mb
REUP: on depositfiles
1. Picking Betel Nuts
2. Missing My Husband
3. A Lover's Knot
4. Sweet Love
5. Women
6. The Flowers Bloom, I Await My Love
7. Four Seasons of Heartache pt 1
8. Four Seasons of Heartache pt 2
9. Silver Flowers Flying
10. Blossoming Lotus
11. Many Things I Hate
12. Autumn Wind
13. Little Stream
14. When Will We Meet Again
15. Butterflies
16. South Wind Blowing
17. The Flavor of Yearning
18. Let Me Look at You
19. The Peach Flowers of Longhua
20. Seeing My Brother Off
21. Tell Me
Here's another one via AvaxHome:
Shanghai's "Golden Throat" Zhou Xuan (1918-1957) - Sound Treasure Collected
Rapidshare pt.1 and pt.2
01. 天涯歌女 (A wandering songstress)
02. 四季歌 (A song of four seasons)
03. 襟上一朵花 (A flower on my chest)
04. 五月的风 (Wind in May)
05. 采槟榔 (Gather bethel nuts)
06. 银花飞 (Silver flowers are flying)
07. 拷红 (Interrogating Red Maid)
08. 卖杂货 (Selling sundry goods)
09. 龙华的桃花 (Peach blossoms in LongHua)
10. 花样的年华 (One's young life like a flower)
11. 想郎 (Longing for her lover)
12. 难民歌 (Refugees' song)
13. 永远的微笑 (Smile forever)
14. 黄叶舞秋风 (Yellow leaves danced in autumn wind)
15. 葬花 (Bury fallen flowers)
16. 月圆花好 (Full moon and blooming flowers)
17. 莫负青春 (Don't fail youth)
18. 夜上海 (Shanghai's night)
P.S. Thanks to everyone who comments, I do appreciate additional info, translations etc.
Zhou Xuan is truly the jewel of Shidaiqu, a singer and movie star of singular talent, who has been compared to Edit Piaf and Billie Holiday, both for her expressive singing and for tragic personal life.
For a bio I would refer you to Wiki and to an article in The Chinese Mirror. They give contradicting versions of the origin of her stage name, though. There is also a japanese fan page.
If anyone has access to the 5CD Zhou Xuan box (this one), please share!!!
Pathé 100: The Series Vol.13
130mb
REUP: on depositfiles
1. Picking Betel Nuts
2. Missing My Husband
3. A Lover's Knot
4. Sweet Love
5. Women
6. The Flowers Bloom, I Await My Love
7. Four Seasons of Heartache pt 1
8. Four Seasons of Heartache pt 2
9. Silver Flowers Flying
10. Blossoming Lotus
11. Many Things I Hate
12. Autumn Wind
13. Little Stream
14. When Will We Meet Again
15. Butterflies
16. South Wind Blowing
17. The Flavor of Yearning
18. Let Me Look at You
19. The Peach Flowers of Longhua
20. Seeing My Brother Off
21. Tell Me
Here's another one via AvaxHome:
Shanghai's "Golden Throat" Zhou Xuan (1918-1957) - Sound Treasure Collected
Rapidshare pt.1 and pt.2
01. 天涯歌女 (A wandering songstress)
02. 四季歌 (A song of four seasons)
03. 襟上一朵花 (A flower on my chest)
04. 五月的风 (Wind in May)
05. 采槟榔 (Gather bethel nuts)
06. 银花飞 (Silver flowers are flying)
07. 拷红 (Interrogating Red Maid)
08. 卖杂货 (Selling sundry goods)
09. 龙华的桃花 (Peach blossoms in LongHua)
10. 花样的年华 (One's young life like a flower)
11. 想郎 (Longing for her lover)
12. 难民歌 (Refugees' song)
13. 永远的微笑 (Smile forever)
14. 黄叶舞秋风 (Yellow leaves danced in autumn wind)
15. 葬花 (Bury fallen flowers)
16. 月圆花好 (Full moon and blooming flowers)
17. 莫负青春 (Don't fail youth)
18. 夜上海 (Shanghai's night)
P.S. Thanks to everyone who comments, I do appreciate additional info, translations etc.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Pathé 100: The Series
A guest upload by Remorseful Prober, this one might be the most interesting one in the history of this blog.
The first decades of the XXth century were a time of upheaval around the world - politically, technologically, and culturally. It was the Jazz Age in the States, the era of dramatic literary experimentation in Russia, explosion of modernity in european culture... China, though walking its own historical path, did not stay behind. The opium wars and european political meddling throughout the previous century cracked the empire open, and the seeds of foreign culture that came through the cracks gave their first shoots in the 1920s. Shanghai, the most prosperous and open city of the time, saw the emergence of shidaiqu - a fusion of Chinese folk music and European jazz.
Pathé Records was the record label dominating asian market at the time. Throughout the next decades, Pathé documented the development of this new music. The revolution of 1949 effectively ended Pathé activities on mainland, so the label continued operating from Hong Kong. It's been taken over first by Columbia, and then by EMI. Recently, Pathé started a retrospective called Pathé 100: The Series and dedicated to the the glory days of shidaiqu - 30s, 40s, 50s. The Shanghai Lounge Divas albums (here) introduced the style; other discs from the series are dedicated to individual performers or are topical. The next few posts will feature several albums from the series, all shared by Remorseful Prober.
The first one is by the Loo sisters - Chang Loo (AKA Zhang Lu), a singer and a movie star, deceased earlier this year at the age of 77, and her less famous sister Xiao Loo. This disc might be a good intro to chinese pop for the wary, as it includes several covers of american songs, including Merle Travis' 16 Tons and Oh Susanna, complete with a banjo solo. I guess she had a thing for country'n'western; she also did a cover of Hank Williams' Jambalaya, hear it here.
Vol.1: Zhang Lu and Xiao Lu
135mb
Tagged in Chinese, on mediafire pt.1 and pt.2
Tagged in English, on megaupload, translation by RP.
1. Spring Flowers
2. Where the Fish Are
3. I Hear Music and See the Lover's Shadows
4. Little Mottled Dog
5. Blue Tango
6. Mambo Italiano
7. 16 Tons (the Chinese Translation is "Patiently Waiting")
8. Hu-La-La-Yi
9. Tonight
10. Little Wooden Horse
11. Chinese Mambo
12. Lover's Snare
13. Oh Susanna (A Banjo on my Knee)
14. Golden Palace Dance
15. Happiness and Tranquility
16. Evergreens
17. A Woman's Lament
18. Open the Bottle
19. Song for a Cold Night
20. Red Pomegranates
21. Raindrops
22. Sister's Sowing Her Boyfriend's Wallet
23. A Cold and Snowy Day
No info on this one.
Vol.2: Fong Jing-Yin AKA Fang Tsin Ying
127mb
Tagged in English on megaupload or mediafire
1. A Young Girl's Dream
2. Dragon Lamps and Kites
3. Wait for Me Darling
4. Asking for Trouble
5. Buying Dumpling Soup
6. It's Good to be Young
7. Wonderful Spring
8. Wake Up!
9. Strict Father
10. Crazy Fun
11. On the Mountain Road
12. Hey Mr. Guitar
13. Silver Star
14. Come quickly to See Me
15. Ya Ya Ya Cha Cha Cha
16. Phoenixes Flying
17. Ya Cha Cha
18. Round and Round
19. Dangers of the Wandering Heart
20. Life on the Installment Plan
21. A Glass of Wine
22. Carrying Goods to Market
23. My Little Lover
The first decades of the XXth century were a time of upheaval around the world - politically, technologically, and culturally. It was the Jazz Age in the States, the era of dramatic literary experimentation in Russia, explosion of modernity in european culture... China, though walking its own historical path, did not stay behind. The opium wars and european political meddling throughout the previous century cracked the empire open, and the seeds of foreign culture that came through the cracks gave their first shoots in the 1920s. Shanghai, the most prosperous and open city of the time, saw the emergence of shidaiqu - a fusion of Chinese folk music and European jazz.
Pathé Records was the record label dominating asian market at the time. Throughout the next decades, Pathé documented the development of this new music. The revolution of 1949 effectively ended Pathé activities on mainland, so the label continued operating from Hong Kong. It's been taken over first by Columbia, and then by EMI. Recently, Pathé started a retrospective called Pathé 100: The Series and dedicated to the the glory days of shidaiqu - 30s, 40s, 50s. The Shanghai Lounge Divas albums (here) introduced the style; other discs from the series are dedicated to individual performers or are topical. The next few posts will feature several albums from the series, all shared by Remorseful Prober.
The first one is by the Loo sisters - Chang Loo (AKA Zhang Lu), a singer and a movie star, deceased earlier this year at the age of 77, and her less famous sister Xiao Loo. This disc might be a good intro to chinese pop for the wary, as it includes several covers of american songs, including Merle Travis' 16 Tons and Oh Susanna, complete with a banjo solo. I guess she had a thing for country'n'western; she also did a cover of Hank Williams' Jambalaya, hear it here.
Vol.1: Zhang Lu and Xiao Lu
135mb
Tagged in Chinese, on mediafire pt.1 and pt.2
Tagged in English, on megaupload, translation by RP.
1. Spring Flowers
2. Where the Fish Are
3. I Hear Music and See the Lover's Shadows
4. Little Mottled Dog
5. Blue Tango
6. Mambo Italiano
7. 16 Tons (the Chinese Translation is "Patiently Waiting")
8. Hu-La-La-Yi
9. Tonight
10. Little Wooden Horse
11. Chinese Mambo
12. Lover's Snare
13. Oh Susanna (A Banjo on my Knee)
14. Golden Palace Dance
15. Happiness and Tranquility
16. Evergreens
17. A Woman's Lament
18. Open the Bottle
19. Song for a Cold Night
20. Red Pomegranates
21. Raindrops
22. Sister's Sowing Her Boyfriend's Wallet
23. A Cold and Snowy Day
No info on this one.
Vol.2: Fong Jing-Yin AKA Fang Tsin Ying
127mb
Tagged in English on megaupload or mediafire
1. A Young Girl's Dream
2. Dragon Lamps and Kites
3. Wait for Me Darling
4. Asking for Trouble
5. Buying Dumpling Soup
6. It's Good to be Young
7. Wonderful Spring
8. Wake Up!
9. Strict Father
10. Crazy Fun
11. On the Mountain Road
12. Hey Mr. Guitar
13. Silver Star
14. Come quickly to See Me
15. Ya Ya Ya Cha Cha Cha
16. Phoenixes Flying
17. Ya Cha Cha
18. Round and Round
19. Dangers of the Wandering Heart
20. Life on the Installment Plan
21. A Glass of Wine
22. Carrying Goods to Market
23. My Little Lover
Thursday, June 25, 2009
JDT + Bud Melvin
WFMU is linking here, which is the music blog's equivalent of Time cover. I think I should put the exposure to good use by passing it on to the more deserving folks.
One of the greatest pleasures of running a music blog is meeting interesting people, albeit only virtually. Among the people who left a comment here are The Hound, Monty Stark of Stark Reality, DJ Kalil, Mikey IQ of Brown Wing Overdrive and really many more than I can think of right now. So I will use the opportunity to highlight the projects of two of my readers.
Justin David Thomas - Music From My Bedroom
Listen or download
Pop-musique concrete: JDT creates minimalistic, melodic instrumental music from everyday noises, along with more conventional instrumentation of basses, keyboards in various states of disrepair, guitars etc.etc. Some of the track titles are directly descriptive: Music For Record Player and Found Objects, Music for Piano and Bathtub. The workings of a singular musical mind are showing through the rough seams on these tunes. Recommended!
Bud Melvin - Popular Music
Listen or download
They say politics makes strange bedfellows, but nothing is more improbable than two fellows found in this bed. The albuquerquean Bud Melvin is combining 8bit/chiptune music with bluegrass on his latest release Popular Music. His banjo and steel playing blends surprizingly well with his programming into a single choppy, flickering, pulsing fountain of sound, reminding us that everything new is old again... and new again... and old again...
While you're at it, check out The GREEN ALbum, too.
One of the greatest pleasures of running a music blog is meeting interesting people, albeit only virtually. Among the people who left a comment here are The Hound, Monty Stark of Stark Reality, DJ Kalil, Mikey IQ of Brown Wing Overdrive and really many more than I can think of right now. So I will use the opportunity to highlight the projects of two of my readers.
Justin David Thomas - Music From My Bedroom
Listen or download
Pop-musique concrete: JDT creates minimalistic, melodic instrumental music from everyday noises, along with more conventional instrumentation of basses, keyboards in various states of disrepair, guitars etc.etc. Some of the track titles are directly descriptive: Music For Record Player and Found Objects, Music for Piano and Bathtub. The workings of a singular musical mind are showing through the rough seams on these tunes. Recommended!
Bud Melvin - Popular Music
Listen or download
They say politics makes strange bedfellows, but nothing is more improbable than two fellows found in this bed. The albuquerquean Bud Melvin is combining 8bit/chiptune music with bluegrass on his latest release Popular Music. His banjo and steel playing blends surprizingly well with his programming into a single choppy, flickering, pulsing fountain of sound, reminding us that everything new is old again... and new again... and old again...
While you're at it, check out The GREEN ALbum, too.
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