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;
Interesting...
Now
Michael Stanley - "Stolen Time" (2017)
dave marshall posted:nigelb posted:dave marshall posted:nigelb posted:Boz Scaggs - Fade Into Light
This is nice to relax to. Smoother than a very smooth thing.
DAVE....DAVE.....TURN THAT RACKET DOWN!!
Erm, sorry Nigel, but no.
If you can't hear Boz Scaggs for the decibels beaming out from North Yorks. , TURN YOURS UP!
WHAT D'YA SAY! ALL I CAN HEAR IS FLIPPIN' AC/DC AT FULL TILT AND I AM IN BUCKINGHAMSHIRE.
OK Nigel, 'tis the season, etc. etc. ............. goodwill to all men and that ............. Jack White ACOUSTIC sessions.......... better?
Jack White - Acoustic Sessions.
Mind you, still loudish, and this amp does go to "11" Har, Har.
Ahh... that’s better. In fact I listened to this Jack White album the other day and I think it works really well.
Merry Christmas to you and your family Dave.
Night cap
Now Playing......
John Mayer - The Search for Everything
Streaming on TIDAL....... going with a mention from JEFF ANDERSON and giving John's latest album a spin.
From 1994:
Recorded in NY remastered and released first in France.
dave marshall posted:
AC / DC - The Razor's Edge.
Someone mention LOUD?
Gotcha!
TYVM. Tidal.
Now Playing.......
Boz Scaggs - Fade Into Light
Streaming on TIDAL........ Going with a mention from NIGELB above and taking Boz out for a spin.
My house is moving on mighty swing, have to get to sleep - but would like to keep listening......
Eddie Higgins: Haunted Heart
The emphasis in Higgins’ fourth Sunnyside CD is on ballads, with a particularly-well-haunting treatment of the title song. Even in Haunted Heart, however, all is not slow and reflective. Two Rodgers and Hart gems, “My Funny Valentine” and “Isn’t It
Romantic?,” are what used to be called (and may still be called) rhythm ballads. There is, in fact, rhythmic thrust to all of the pieces. Higgins gives “Lover Come Back to Me” a Latin treatment. He waltzes at a moderate tempo through “How My Heart Sings.” “Someone to Watch Over Me” begins with a chorus of out-of-tempo solo piano, but by the time bassist Rufus Reid and drummer Ben Riley join him, Higgins has entered the second chorus in a groove that complements Gershwin’s blues-inflected harmonies. He ends the piece alone, with two phrases from “Rhapsody in Blue” as his coda.
Higgins weaves such allusions and quotes into the fabric of his improvisations without sounding like, in Miles Davis’ deathless phrase, “a hip cornball.” You have to admire a man who can quote “Work Song” in “My Funny Valentine” and make it sound logical. As everyone knows, puns are the highest form of wit. Higgins is a pianist of wit, among his many other admirable attributes. In a quote on the CD box, Riley puts him in a league with “Hank Jones, Tommy Flanagan, and the other grand masters of modern jazz piano.” It is easy to agree with that evaluation.
My Dying Bride, The Dreadful Hours.
Sometimes only MDB will do.
Now Playing.......
The Be Good Tanyas - A Collection (2000 - 2012)
Streaming on TIDAL...... Going with a mention from SJUST and taking out 'The Be Good Tanyas' for a spin. This is my first listen and through the first three tracks I am enjoying this folk trio, very nice.
A review by Martin Chilton in 'The Telegraph' can be found here:
Fans of The Be Good Tanyas trio have certainly enjoyed fine dining on small portions - the Canadian band released only three albums between their formation in 1999 and this 2012 anthology.
The Be Good Tanyas were formed in Vancouver and there are rosy tales of them having met at tree planting camps in British Columbia. Trish Klein and Frazey Ford actually met at an open mic in Nelson and later hooked up with Samantha Parton. This 16-song retrospective (featuring four previously unreleased tracks) is a delight. The band are as adept at cover versions as they are at their original material.
Their music - call it a mix of folk, country, bluegrass - is a marvellous blend and the singing, musicianship and orchestration is simply top notch. There are songs of heartbreak (Scattered Leaves) and songs of hope (The Littlest Birds) and the Collection includes their wonderfully tuneful yet dark rendition of Townes Van Zandt's Waiting Around to Die. They do traditional well, shown in a lovely version of Stephen Foster's minstrel song Oh! Susanna.
The band had to temporarily halt a tour to support the album because Sam Parton was in a car accident (best wishes to her as she recovers in Vancouver) where fans could have heard them perform their two new songs. Little Black Bear and Gospel Song fit soundly within the Tanyas repertoire. And if you want classy and mournful, then a standout song on the album is the haunting The Junkie Song.
Their scant output over the years has been down to their busy work on other solo and band projects but a new album is in the pipeline. For now, we can enjoy this retrospective CD, which features a great cover picture by Eric Stanfield. It shows the Vancouver-based trio looking like a serious 1950s gospel trio, with Trish Klein carrying her banjo like a shovel.
The band's name, incidentally, comes from a song by Obo Martin about a young gypsy girl who hated school and wanted only to play music. If it was music as good as this, then you can understand why.
Now Playing.......
Kat Bush - The Hounds of Love
Streaming on TIDAL...... Following a mention from JAMES N and taking the 'Hounds of Love' out for a spin.
Now Playing......
The Be Good Tanyas - Blue Horse
Streaming on TIDAL........ Following up on the 'A Collection' album earlier, which I really enjoyed. I ended up reading a interview from Doug Heselgrave with Sam Parton from 'The Be Good Tanyas' where they discussed how the group formed and how the opening track on 'Blue Horse' album came about. So I needed to give it a listen. The Interview is a good read and so is this album, at least through the first three tracks where I am at at the moment. Enjoying 'The Be Good Tanyas' music!
This is superb music, showcasing the guitarist and pianist at their very best. All of the sessions are straight-ahead bop but the music has a gentle, relaxed vibe that makes it warm, intimate, and accessible. Grant and Clark's mastery is subtle -- the music is so enjoyable, you may not notice the deftness of their improvisation and technique -- but that invests the music with the grace, style, and emotion that distinguishes The Complete Quartets. Small group hard bop rarely comes any better than this. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Now Playing.....
Jan Garbarek w/ The Hilliard Ensemble - Officium Novum
Jan Garbarek (soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone), The Hilliard Ensemble: David James (countertenor), Rogers Covey-Crump (tenor), Steven Harrold (tenor), Gordon Jones (baritone), Bruno Ganz (speaker)
Streaming from TIDAL........ Something to relax with on a Saturday night, just outstanding!
Note from ECM Records here:
The inspired bringing together of Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble has resulted in consistently inventive music making since 1993. The unprecedented “Officium” album, with Garbarek’s saxophone as a free-ranging ‘fifth voice’ with the Ensemble, gave the first indications of the musical scope and emotional power of this combination. “Mnemosyne” (1998) took the story further, expanding the repertoire beyond ‘early music’ to embrace works both ancient and modern. Now, after another decade of shared experiences, comes “Officium Novum”, the third album from Garbarek/Hilliard, recorded, like its distinguished predecessors, in the St Gerold monastery. A central focus this time is music of Armenia based on the adaptations of Komitas Vardapet, pieces which draw upon both medieval sacred music and the bardic tradition of the Caucasus. The Hilliards have studied these pieces in the course of their visits to Armenia, and the modes of the music encourage some of Garbarek’s most impassioned playing. Alongside the Armenian pieces in the “Officium Novum” repertoire: Arvo Pärt’s “Most Holy Mother of God” in an a cappella reading , Byzantine chant, two pieces by Jan Garbarek, including a new version of “We are the stars”, as well as the Spanish “Tres morillas”. There is also a new account of Perotin’s “Alleluia, Nativitas”: the freedom of interpretation is testimony to the way the project as a whole has grown since its introduction on ECM New Series, with the Hilliard Ensemble now very much involved in the music’s improvisational processes and implications.
Grant Green - Idle Moments. Almost a response to my rant about what I like with some of the ECM recordings: that space between the written and played notes. In today‘s music world, there is no emptyness (or idle) between the audible music, any more. Grant Green takes his time to finish his „thought“ without hastily playing the next notes to kill silence. Woohoo, what a great discovery. Thanks [@mention:1566878603919322], for the recommendation !
The Best Of The Alan Parsons Project. On vinyl from 1983. SQ everything you'd expect from AP. A tight, punctual, and engineered sound in all regards, yet still gets me lost in its musicality.
The complete concert.
My most played Reed set.
