What are you listening to and WHY might anyone be interested? (Vol. XIII)
Posted by: Richard Dane on 01 January 2017
2017 has arrived today, so time to start this thread afresh.
Last year's thread can be found here;
Streaming A+3 | 24/96 WAV
(2000)
On vinyl
I got this recording in the Philips at 50 box set, it's now probably my go to performance. It's a fresh look at the work while staying totally faithful, the playing is free and sounds almost improvisatory, yet doesn't deviate from the composition, amazing music making.
Today, Radio Paradise while doing some chores. In the past few weeks, I've been listening to some bargain downloads from Qobuz and 7Digital. All below streamed in FLAC.
Bargain of the Century £12 quid from 7Digital in hi-res (£157 on CD from Amazon), Allan Holdsworth:
The Stylistics - You Are Everything 3 CD compilation. Who doesn't like a bit of sweet harmony singing, though I doubt there are actually 55 classics tracks?
London Symphony Orchestra cond. Igor Markevitch - Tchaikovsky Symphonies and Manfred
Derek Trucks Band - Already Free and Songlines
Silje Neergard - Be Still My Heart, The Essential (not the Japanese version shown in the cover below)
A whole bunch of Pavarotti operas in hi-res e.g.
Wilhelm Kempff - Beethoven The 32 Piano Sonatas
Some Ella Fitzgerald Song Books I didn't already have on CD/rip
Jerome Kern
Johnny Mercer
Irving Berlin
Evgeny Kissin - Complete RCA and Sony album collection
And in 24 bit hi-res, in memoriam,
Happy, and reflective, listening.
Vlad
On deck, in the queue......
Paul Motain with Bill Frisell, Joe Lavano, Charlie Haden - Standards Plus One
Paul Motian (drums), Joe Lovano (tenor saxophone), Bill Frisell (electric guitar), Charlie Haden (acoustic bass), and
Lee Konitz (soprano and alto saxophone; track 2 and 6).
@ HH ---- Bill Frisell is everywhere! Thanks for the mention, I enjoy all four of the musicians on this album!
Comments from a review here
“I was a huge fan of Paul’s,” Frisell says. “The day he first called me, it was a complete surprise that he would ask me to come over and play. I had his Conception Vessel album sitting there facing me on the floor, and the phone rings and he says, ‘Hi, this is Paul Motian….’ I just about had a heart attack. We played together ever since. It’s just gigantic, the importance of him in my life — even if I hadn’t played with him.”
♦ For a drummer who made a habit of flouting expectations, Motian was perhaps at his most unpredictable with Frisell and Lovano. The trio’s recorded output runs the gamut from beautiful ballads to dreamy cloud–watching soundscapes to flaming barn burners, all heightened by sharp listening and a unified sense of melody among the bandmates — as well as by a rare ability to ditch the past and live in the moment.
♦ “Paul made me feel like I was discovering everything I was playing for the first time,” Frisell says. “He was allowing me to be myself, and I could just go full force, as far as my imagination could go. I credit him with giving me the confidence and the experience of really finding my own voice.”
♦ “I’m playing with him and I think, Wow, I just had this great idea,” Frisell continues, “but then I realize later that there was a lot of telepathy stuff going on, almost like he was transmitting his ideas into me. Like we’d be on a train somewhere, and I would be singing some song in my head that we had played the night before, and then he would start singing it right at the exact same moment, at the same point, in the same key. You just get into a zone of being connected in this amazing way.”
♦ The Motian/Frisell/Lovano trio played all over the world, always coming home to the Vanguard for at least a couple of weeks a year. Its discography, sometimes with special guests, includes Monk in Motian (1988), three volumes of On Broadway (1989, 1993), Motian in Tokyo (1991), Trioism (1994), At the Village Vanguard (1995), I Have the Room Above Her (2005), and Time and Time Again (2007).
The English Riviera by Metronomy, cd rip.
Last bit of my tribute to Walt. On vinyl:
Hungryhalibut posted:Kevin-W posted:Vinyl. How about this line from "Show Biz Kids": "Show Business Kids making movies of themselves you know they don't give a fcuk about anybody else". How prescient was that? The Dan were always the smartest of bands...
Rickie Lee Jones's version is just as good, if not better than the original. It's well worth a listen if you've not heard it.
Yes, it is very good, but for me lacks the urgency of the Dan's version, and also the dark, heartless cynicism lurking under the surface sheen that was one of SD's most distinctive traits, and one of the things that made them truly great (and made their songs uncoverable). Also it hasn't got the brilliant slide guitar Rick Derringer contributed to the original.
Close, but no cigar. The Dan version still rules.
Triggered by Gianluigi's post earlier, two great guitarists who are having fun and playing the blues.
Streaming Tidal.
20 year anniversary of one of the all-time great records from my favourite band. A subtle but worthwhile re-master to my ears.
But a stunning collection of b-sides and unreleased material. Compare "Man of War" with that idiotic Bond theme (Spectre) by that one-hit wonder whose name I've already forgotten.
Now Playing......
Lucinda Williams - Live @ The Fillmore
Changing up the pace from a day of jazz to Lucinda's gravely voice delivering some ballads, some rock and some blues.....
Review from ALLMusic Review by Mark Deming - Recorded during a three-night stand in San Francisco, the album captures Williams' band in superb form -- Doug Pettibone's guitars, Taras Prodaniuk's bass, and Jim Christie's drums merge into a tight and emphatic groove machine that can match Williams's many moods, whether she's quietly contemplative on "Blue," rocking out hard on "Changed the Locks," or howling the blues on "Essence," while the deeply resonant recording and mix gives them the royal treatment. Williams herself is a slightly more complicated matter here -- her performance is deeply into the spirit, so much so that sometimes her melismatic wanderings and broad phrasing sound like they're verging on caricature. But this is clearly a recording of a performance, and by the time we get to the end of disc two, the broad strokes have coalesced into something quite remarkable; as Williams searches through the nooks and crannies of her songs, you sense she's discovering things that she didn't expect to find, and it's a tremendous thing to hear. Lucinda Williams is an artist who writes from her soul, and she's thoroughly unafraid of letting her passion show when she sings. If that makes for strained technique, it also results in very real art, and this album offers a privileged glimpse of a singular songwriter in full flight.
Music in the car. The star of our six hundred miles-10 hours straight drive from Toronto to Chicago:
Now playing.....
Moody Blues - On The Threshold Of A Dream
.....a quick trip back to the late 60's in the musical time machine.
Now Playing......
Natalie Merchant - Motherland
Love Natalie's music, lyrics and vocals, sweet......
During workout...
Just finishing up......
Natalie Merchant - Tigerlily
Just keep the Natalie Merchant flowing..... easy listening on a Sunday night, last album of the day.....
1st run...
The Danfest continues. On vinyl:
Head like a spoon...
Bert Schurink posted:1st run...
Listen to the moonlight and the voice from the audience is incredible
