Silent Night

My friend John sent me email to remind me of one of the best Christmas songs I know of ...

[......................] of 2009

The lists are starting to appear now. Here are LIFE.com's Photos of the Year.

Part 1

Part 2

Quatuor Ebène

Kronos is NOT the only game in town. Here is the Ebene Quartet, a French group, doing their take on the theme music from Pulp Fiction (remember that mind-bending film?):

Some background, in their own words:

You can bet I will be chasing down as much of their music as I can hear in the near future ... !

In Mulieribus

Credit this discovery to Kim. Today she was looking for some new music more or less in keeping with this season to fill the house. (This comes on the heels of the annual Christmas program at EOU last night, where the highlight for me was the Chamber Choir doing Pavel Chesnokov's Salvation Is Created (but the EOU Faculty Klezmer Ensemble was a big hit, too).) But, anyway ...

In Mulieribus is a Portland-based female vocal ensemble whose specialty is early music. If you like Anonymous 4, you will should love this group. Hear some of their work on their MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/inmulieribus

Sultans of Swing

Knopfler AND Clapton! A discovery by jamesa ...

Captured

Photograher David Guttenfelder has been photographing the war in Afghanistan for the past seven years. Here, the Denver Post publishes a portfolio of his outstanding work on its Captured photoblog:

http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2009/10/30/photographer-collection-david-guttenfelder-in-afghanistan/

Black and White America

Roy DeCarava, the first black photographer to be awarded a Guggenheim grant, died recently. I remember him mostly from his photographs of Harlem neighborhoods and jazz scenes, which I encountered during my early years in photography. NPR offers up this tribute and story on DeCarava and his work.

Video of the Day

Song of the Day

Easy by Deer Tick (Born on Flag Day)

Leaping Wolf

We don't often see something really different in wildlife photography. This one is, and it captured the Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2009 award for Jose Luis Rodriguez. Read the back story here.

Bah, Humbug?

Bob Dylan's music, as you probably know about me, would be among the very first that I would take to that desert island if I had to spend the rest of my life that way. Heck, I think he might be the most important rock/pop/folk artist of the last fifty years.

You may have heard that Dylan is doing a Christmas album. I heard it. My opinion: This is clearly the worst thing Dylan has ever done, and possibly one of the worst Christmas albums I have ever heard of any kind. Can't even pass as one of those Bob-Dylan-enigmatic-jokes. (On the other hand, I see that the proceeds are going to charity, thankfully. You can check that out at bobdylan.com.) Do yourself a favor and avoid this thing at all costs and get something worthwhile, say, the New Joy Orthodox Christmas Music album of two or three years ago with Paul Hillier conducting the Estonian Chamber Choir.

Goodbye, Alicia de Larrocha

Alicia de Larrocha dies at age 86 yesterday, September 25. Probably best known for her interpretations of her native Spanish music, including Granados and Albeniz, she also handled Mozart, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, and many others masterfully. Here is a very, very nice piece from Franz Liszt I had never heard from her before:

Happy Birthday, Leonard

Today is Leonard Cohen's 75th.



I had the good fortune to discover Leonard Cohen (as a poet, only later starting to hear his music) shortly after moving to Los Angeles in the 60s, when I came upon in a small bookstore what has become perhaps my most favorite piece of his poetry, "Marita":

Marita/please find me/i am almost 30

Song of the Day

Trouble by Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions (Through the Devil Softly)

People Who Died

Just learning today that Jim Carroll died on September 11, I slipped down to my basement vinyl music stash. There it was, his 1980 album, Catholic Boy, containing the only piece that I had remembered: "People Who Died". Carroll may have been a one-hit wonder with that number, but along with being a punk rocker of that era, he was a poet and authored the Basketball Diaries book that was turned into a movie with Leonardo DiCaprio. Here, now, People Who Died:





Almost every time I hear this song, I am reminded of Tulsa. Long out of print as far as I know, Tulsa was a book of photographs by Larry Clark, a drug addict who documented the sex-guns-drugs life (and death) of people around him in that Oklahoma city. The book, incidentally, was published in the early 70s by Ralph Gibson's Lustrum Press. Not long after that I came to meet Ralph, whose own photographs as well as his publication of others' work had become of great interest to me (and will probably be explored in future posts here as time allows).

Mary Travers Passes On

Today we received word that Mary Travers has passed away. I feel that I grew up with her and the rest of her folk group, the legendary Peter, Paul and Mary. I first saw the group live in 1963 or 64 at a concert in Kansas City, where the audience was on its feet almost the entire time. During our car trips, Peter, Paul and Mary songs were top candidates for group sing-alongs as we drove. Especially memorable would be "If I Had A Hammer", which became something of an anthem for the civil rights movement of that era, after Mary and her crew sang it on the occasion of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s historic 1963 speech in Washington. Here is a later (couldn't find the referenced one) performance of that piece.



The group had a great cover of Bob Dylan's "Blowing In The Wind", which I think they also performed on the day of the King speech. I couldn't find a clip of that performance either, but here is another one to give you the idea, although somewhat lacking in the tremendous energy of the alfresco Washington event:



More on Mary Travers here.


UPDATE: 9.18.09

Brother Dennis sends along these links to a couple of his old favorites as well:

• 500 Miles (rough audio quality, but great song)
• Jane, Jane

Song(s) of the (Labor) Day

1. Career Opportunities by The Clash.



2. Working Class Hero by John Lennon.

Green Porno

Several months ago, niece-in-law and fabulous designer Chika told us about Isabella Rossellini's wonderful scientifically-accurate videos of insect and marine sexual life. Here's an example:



See more: http://www.sundancechannel.com/greenporno/

Creep vs. Air

Friend John contends that Radiohead's Creep is something of a rip-off of The Air That I Breathe, written by Brit songwriters Mike Hazlewood and Albert Hammond, and that it becomes apparent upon hearing the old cover by The Hollies. As my iPod harbors a cover, and a great one at that, of The Air That I Breathe by k.d. lang, that was my point of reference, not having heard The Hollies' schmaltzy version (did I say schmaltzy? have I forgotten Barry Manilow's cover?) in thirty years.

Now that I unearthed a performance of all of these, John may (almost certainly) be on to something, although the songs have a much different feeling. You be the judge. (And let's not get started on a discussion of how many times we have heard pieces of melodies from, say, classical music show up in all manner of pop and other later music.)

(Try to get past the ... what?... belch? ... about 1:02 minutes in ...)

And The Hollies from 1974 ...



Heck, while we are at it, you can hear a k.d. lang version here ...

http://www.viddler.com/explore/darealmoflight/videos/6/

UPDATE 9/5/09: Adding weight to his argument, John now sends along this blurb from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creep_(Radiohead_song)#Background_and_recording

Faces, Mostly Familiar and Most Welcome

Last Saturday I visited the Charles A. Hartman Gallery in Portland. A rather special exhibition was just winding down in this small, relatively-new-to-the-area (I think Hartman is a transplant from San Francisco) gallery. Called "Faces: Vintage and Contemporary Photographic Portraits", it was a rare opportunity to see such a range of quality and historic photographs not likely to be seen in one place in this neck of the woods.

What greeted me in the window from the street as I approached was a 1967 piece by my once-mentor Ralph Gibson from his book, The Somnambulist. (The book title was incorrectly spelled in the exhibition program, but all is forgiven... but I must admit that I looked at my copy of the book when I went back home.)



Once inside, over thirty pieces awaited the viewer from the likes of Diane Arbus, Berenice Abbott (a wonderful 1926 portrait of James Joyce), Adam Clark Vroman, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Elliott Erwitt, Wayne Miller, William Klein, Werner Bischof and many more. Names you likely know. There was even a 1903 portrait of Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce (his grave is not that far from our neighborhood) by Edward Curtis.

In this interior view of one corner of the space we can see Arnold Newman's 1954 Picasso, Frederick Sommer, Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Andre Kertesz' 1931 Elizabeth, Harry Callahan, Sally Mann, Emmet Gowin (whom I had almost forgotten about until reminiscing with my wife a few weeks ago), Danny Lyon, Garry Winogrand, an Alfred Stieglitz that I had never seen or recalled seeing (I will have to review my book of Camera Work reprints), Manuel Alvarez Bravo, and Flor Garduno (new to me but very arresting).



Seeing these photographs was a lot like meeting up with some old friends from my distant past. I will be keeping an eye on the activities of this gallery, for certain.

Tim Buckley, Heard Again

Live previously unpublished recordings from 1967 of the late folk-rocker Tim Buckley have surfaced, and can be heard online at NPR's (National Public Radio) music site: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111966379

Buckley died while still in his twenties in the mid-'70s, but he had many albums to his credit. Probably my single favorite piece would be "Song To The Siren" which I think was on the Starsailor album. It has been covered by many artists (I especially like versions by Elizabeth Fraser [Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil] and by Sheila Chandra), as have been many, many of his songs.

Ironically, Buckley's son, Jeff (whose own singing -- which you should NOT miss -- sometimes gives me shivers and haunting remembrances of his father) also died at a very young age.

Sita Sings The Blues

Get this into your Netflix queue now! In one of those rare moments of the week when all family members found themselves in one room at the same time, we watched this wonderful animated 82-minute mashup by artist Nina Paley. In an unlikely but inspired convergence of the Hindu story of Ramayana, '20s jazz vocals by Annette Hanshaw, shadow puppets with unscripted commentary, Flash and Quicktime animation on a Macintosh, scans of hand painted art, and more in a seemingly impossible blend of five different animation styles (!), all juxtaposed with a parallel story of the breakup of Paley's own marriage, we shared some of the most enjoyable entertainment of the whole summer, right on our own TV screen.

Paley, a self-described "free culture activist", released her film in 2008 under a Creative Commons license. Freely download it in varied formats from her site at http://www.sitasingstheblues.com and learn more fascinating background details. And spread the word!

As an example of reviews the film has garnered, here's what the New York Times had to say.

It Might Get Loud

Old friend John from Berkeley has turned me on to a movie that I absolutely must see as soon as possible.

It is a documentary paen to the electric guitar and features three of our time's most acclaimed guitar practitioners ...


See the trailer and lots more information at the site: http://www.sonyclassics.com/itmightgetloud/

On a related note, the recent passing of the legendary Les Paul makes for some poignant timing. (I had started a tribute-type post on the day of his death, but never got it finished or published, so I may add an update here when time allows.)

Song of the Day

Forever Young by Madness, from the new The Liberty of Norton Folgate album ...

When I met Kim, I was listening to a lot of Madness (and The Specials). We probably played their then-new 1979 One Step Beyond album daily for quite a while (and you can get a sense of that time by listening to the linked excerpts; highly recommended). Another vinyl treasure buried in my basement, sometimes resurrected so its wonderful cover art can adorn the living room wall.

Hard to believe that this Brit new wave ska band has been around for 30 years; I hadn't heard them for at least ten years until tonight. I understand this is their first album since 1999.

Woodstock and Bert Sommer

Woodstock awareness is in the air. As I type this I can hear music from the 1969 Woodstock concert/cultural phenomenon -- happened forty years ago from today -- drifting through the window from the yard where my daughter and a number of her schoolmates are starting to party. One of the interesting recent re-discoveries from that event is the performance of the late Bert Sommer, a folksinger and member of the Hair cast, who was almost immediately catapulted into -- obscurity, although performing there was an instant ticket to fame for most of the other musicians. Here is Sommer:



And some photos from that event, courtesy of Slate: Today's Pictures: Woodstock: The Acts

Song of the Day

New from Radiohead ...



download this for free from Radiohead's site

Harry Patch

Harry Patch was Britain's oldest surviving World War I veteran. When he died last week at 111 years, Radiohead quickly issued their Patch-inspired peace anthem (created a few weeks earlier: lyrics and vocals, as usual, by Thom Yorke and orchestral score by Jonny Greenwood), entitled "Harry Patch, In Memory Of". Almost immediately, versions became available on YouTube, such as this one:



The song can be downloaded here or from Radiohead's Web site for one English pound as a charitable donation to the Royal British Legion, which provides support for veterans and their families.


More on Harry himself, as seen at age 109:

Play It Again, Wolfgang

You may have heard that, a few days ago, the Austria-based International Mozarteum Foundation found what is believed to be two previously unknown Mozart compositions, perhaps composed when little Wolfgang Amadeus was only 7 or 8 years old.

I have been anxious to hear these pieces ever since it was announced that they would be performed by clavichord artist Florian Birsak on the actual fortepiano in the Mozart family's home in Salzburg on August 2. Tonight, while listening to National Public Radio's All Things Considered newscast, some of this music could be finally heard.

And a quick trip to YouTube revealed this brand-new but less-than-satisfying entry:

Thunderstorm

Toto's Africa by Perpetuum Jazzile, performed live at Vokal Xtravaganzza 2008 (October 2008) - arranger Tomaž Kozlevčar.

For Falling Down

In the early 80s, Kim and I laughingly made "I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down" a kind of personal theme song for ourselves. The song was covered by Elvis Costello in his Get Happy album which got plenty of play in our house at the time, and still occupies a spot on a shelf in all its vinyl-ness in my basement.

Tonight, PBS' The NewsHour interviewed Elvis about his career and his music. Take a look:

Google Humor

Mystery Train

Another Playing For Change collaboration:

Under Milkwood

This afternoon I had a chance, while recuperating from a back outage, to catch up on the Netflix backlog. So Kim and I watched The Edge of Love. I knew virtually nothing about the film beforehand, and thought it was going to be a sort of dramatic quasi-documentary about Dylan Thomas. But it turned out to really be about the two women in his life ... and we enjoyed it.

This led me to recall how, years before I met Kim, I heard a radio broadcast of the Dylan Thomas "play for voices", Under Milkwood, with Richard Burton as the main voice, on late night KPFK in Los Angeles. I captured it on cassette tape, but haven't heard it for years. I used to replay it like music. The tape is presumably somewhere in my basement, garage or storage shed. Somewhere. And who knows in what condition. In the meantime, I came upon this, the first few minutes of this remarkable classic:



This should whet your appetite for the whole thing.

And here is a nice reading of Thomas' piece for his dying father, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, with photos:



Somewhere I have John Cale and Brian Eno putting this thing to music. But I much prefer it as spoken poetry.

And ... finally, was Thomas really the inspiration for the name Bob Dylan (once Robert Zimmerman) assumed?

Toyota Designs A Font

To promote its new iQ model in Belgium, Toyota commissioned the services of graphics designers, a pro racing car driver and a software programmer to create a unique font, based on movements of its car, as seen from overhead cameras. See the video then go here and here to learn more.

iQ font - When driving becomes writing / Full making of from wireless on Vimeo.

Song of the Day

Shankill Butchers by Sarah Jarosz

From the "Song Up In My Head" album. One gifted teenager. Covering the Decemberists here.

Featured on NPR a while back, too.

Song of the Day, Four Decades On

Ghosts of American Astronauts by The Mekons (ca. 1988) from their best, IMHO, album: So Good It Hurts. Known as Brit punk rockers, here they sound more like alt-country; think Cowboy Junkies with angry politics.

Entrancing, dreamy sound and provocative lyrics with references to the moon landing conspiracy theory, Viet Nam and more ("... Nixon sucks a dry martini ...").

Yes, like some of you, I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing on July 20, 1969 ...

Whip It; Whip It Good

The other day, while prowling the dusty shelves of my basement, I happened to come across a vinyl copy from ca. 1980 of my Freedom of Choice album by Devo, featuring the notorious "Whip It" cut. For a moment, I considered ripping it toWAV/FLAC/MP3, but quickly decided that I had higher priorities for conversion ...

Then today my attention was directed to what is said to be the spiritual inspiration for that song, slightly risque that it is:

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/07/16/bb-video-the-1944-so.html

Watch at your own risk.

P.S. A Little Trivia: Did you know that Devo's first album was produced by (IMHO, the great) Brian Eno?

July: Oregon Awareness Month for Ernest Bloch

So declares our state's governor. Bloch lived his later years in Oregon, probably becoming the state's best known composer. So let's listen to one of his most popular compositions, Schelomo Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra. Here, by Mstislav Rostropovich in an obviously old (when? Berstein died around 1990) partial (where is the rest of it?) performance with the French National Orchestra being conducted by Leonard Bernstein:



And here is an interesting, quite different performance done with double bass (Boguslaw Furtok) and piano (Ewa Warykiewicz):

Danger Mouse + Sparklehorse + David Lynch = Dark Night Of The Soul

Okay, I know this is old news. But I finally got around to streaming the tracks from "Dark Night Of The Soul" (DNOTS). In case you don't know, this is a non-album or a CD with no music, composed by Sparklehorse and Danger Mouse, originally to accompany photos by film director David Lynch. I was intrigued from first hearing about this a few weeks ago, if for no other reason than being a David Lynch fan from the time of Twin Peaks TV series to The World's Angriest Dog cartoon strip (my absolute favorite of his work) to Eraserhead and his other films. Due to a legal quagmire with EMI, you can go to the DNOTS site and order the CD and poster (the book of photos is apparently sold out now), but it comes with the notice, above left.



So tonight I am streaming the entire album from NPR (and so can you), where the back story is also presented. And don't ask me whether I am capturing the stream so I can play it on my iPod and surprise daughter Ivi with it when she returns from Europe late this month ...



Each track features a different performer, and they are an interesting lot, as you can see from the poster image above. This music is growing on me. Take a listen.

UPDATE 11 JULY 2009: This morning I awoke to the clock radio tuned to NPR's Weekend Edition and caught the last half of an interview with David Lynch about the Danger Mouse - Sparklehorse project. You can hear here and see some of the related photos now being shown at the Michael Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles.

Science and Music, No Let Up

Just minutes ago, I watched PBS' Nova Musical Minds, where neurologist Oliver Sacks explores how the brain deals with music. Turns out that Sacks' brain seems to have the same relative emotional reaction to Bach that I must have -- we both greatly prefer Bach to Beethoven, and in his case, he can measure or map the difference with an MRI, a FMRI (functional magnetic resonance image) to be more precise. Watch it online and check out the online extras!

By the way, I have my old and dear friend Ann to thank for bringing Oliver Sacks to my attention quite some time ago. His Musicophilia book is on my Amazon wish list, just waiting for me to get after it. Ann also highly recommends Sack's The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales.

And in my final sidebar, you should know that Ann -- Ann Nietzke -- is a wonderful and highly acclaimed writer herself, about whom I will try to have much more to say before long.

UPDATE 13 JULY 2009: Today I was surprised to find a package on my doorstep containing a copy of Oliver Sacks' Musicophila sent to me by dear niece Gabrielle! You can guess how I will spend the evening ...

Science Talks Music and Vice Versa

One of the best things we have seen this summer on TV was PBS' special this past week, The Music Instinct: Science and Song. It paired up Bobby McFerrin (who captured Ivi's imagination at the Idaho Jazz Festival earlier this year) and scientist Daniel Levitin in an exploration of what the heck sound and music are really all about. Lots of great performances, or at least snippets thereof, by McFerrin himself as well as Daniel Barenboim, Yo Yo Ma and lots more. Watch interviews and other chunks at the site linked above.

The Death of Kodachrome

Kodak will no longer produce Kodachrome, once its flagship film offering. Many of us grew up with Kodachrome. Paul Simon famously sung about it. While I mostly shot black-and-white Tri-X in my film days, I can feel the sense of loss that is being expressed in many reports around the Web -- like this one -- and other media. I will try to update this entry by making a search to post the earliest Kodachrome image I can find in my personal slide archives.

Olivier Laban-Mattei

Friend and fellow photographer John just helped me discover a great photojournalist in AFP's prize-winning Olivier Laban-Mattei of France. See a sample of his work at http://portfolios.afp.com/photographer/olivier-laban-mattei.html. Also, his images from Iran following the recent election are appearing almost everywhere, including here.

D-Day, Another View

This week we commemorated the 65th anniversary of D-Day in Europe. Most of us are familiar with the Omaha Beach landing photographs of Robert Capa, regarded as perhaps the greatest war photographer of the era. One of my very favorite blogs, DesignObserver, has unearthed some rare documentation from that time by a soldier-artist named Manuel Bromberg. Go there and see more and read the fascinating back story.

Besting Hemingway

Friend John sends along a link -- passed to him, I gather, by a participant in the photo shoot -- of Felice Arenas' portraits, coupled with appropo Ernest Hemingway quotes, that try to go beyond Hemingway's challenge of avoiding big words to convey emotion.

Coming Your Way: Neil Young

Just happened to notice that PBS TV's American Masters is doing an hour of Neil Young tomorrow night, featuring performances from his personal archive. Neil Young is probably the musician Kim and I most share as emblematic of our 60s-70s-and-beyond experience, and we will NOT miss this one. Warm up your Tivos for this one. In the meantime, see some perhaps rare 70s live footage of this Canadian gift to the world at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/neil-young/video-live-at-massey-hall-1971/1156/.

UPDATE 10 JUNE 2009: Disappointment. While some of the live interviews were a value-add and I enjoyed seeing old footage and hearing some of the old music, there was only one hour to cover Neil Young's expansive career, and whole chunks of it were never even mentioned. You could get the feeling that the production ran short of budget somewhere along the line and just tried to patch together whatever they had up to that point. One of the less masterful American Masters productions, imho; an artist of Young's caliber deserved better. Yet, if you are interested in his music, you will want to watch.

Rumi and Barks

Last night I chanced to see a nice piece on Afghan poet Rumi and translator-poet Coleman Barks while watching the evening news on PBS' Newshour:

Wang Dang Doodle

Koko Taylor and her big, big voice passed on this week. Here she is in 1967, doing her signature piece, "Wang Dang Doodle".

Pomp and Circumstance

Today son Nik received his honors diploma in high school graduation ceremonies. And, of course, the tradition of playing Sir Edward Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance (technically, what gets played is a just one of several marches, in part inspired by Shakespeare's Othello, that comprise the whole work) was upheld -- incidentally including clarinet work by Nik's younger sister in her role with her bandmates. It is said that Elgar was invited to a 1905 Yale commencement, where the work was played and went on to become a virtual institution at stateside graduations and commencements. Here is Elgar conducting a 1931 performance (a much more brisk rendition than the slow, stately treatment we usually hear these days):



SIDEBAR: While hearing this music can readily and rightly make parental hearts flutter and tears flow, it is still Elgar's Cello Concerto -- especially the classic first movement -- that really reaches me, especially Jackie Du Pre's interpretation (here seen a few years before her death):

Drumming and More

Hallelujah! Steve Reich gets a Pulitzer for his composition, "Double Sextet". About time, please pardon the pun.

As a long-time fan of the kind of music often characterized as "minimalism" and as created by people like Terry Riley, Philip Glass, John Adams, Brian Eno and others, it is the work of Steve Reich that has especially drawn me in, perhaps from my own, but very limited, background in percussion.

The other day I unearthed my beloved 1974 Deutsche Grammophon three-vinyl-disc set of Reich's 1970-1971 Drumming, found it to be in fairly decent condition and set to digitizing it for my FLAC project.

"Drumming" is a monumental piece performed over about ninety minutes with four pairs of tuned bongo drums, three marimbas, three glockenspiels, two female voices, whistling and piccolo. It employs Reich's now-famous technique of players (typically percussionists on the same instrumentation) repeating a pattern in unison, then gradually moving out of sync so that one is a sixteenth note, then a quarter note, etc. away. This kind of thing fades from one group of instruments and players to another, and can include layers and combinations of the differently-phased patterns. Or at least that is my layman's explanation of how it seems to build. Here is a condensed sampling from a relatively recent performance that might give you the idea:



Other Reich pieces in my library include Music for 18 Musicans (tagged as a favorite on my iPod), The Desert Music, Tehillim, Four Organs, Six Pianos, and Different Trains, and maybe more I have overlooked. All of it is fascinating, hypnotic and highly recommended for further exploration. Except for the (Bach-inspired?) Music for 18 Musicians, which I hear fairly often, it has been some time since I have listened to this other stuff, and I need to try to find time to do that -- and maybe acquire some more of Reich's output.

I have not yet heard Reich's Double Sextet, and after reading Newsweek's interview with Reich on the occasion of his Pulitzer, I learn that it has not yet been commercially recorded. And I see that FlypMedia has another multimedia-interview-piece with Reich, along with information on his upcoming rock composition "2x5".

Update: Here is an interesting YouTube finding -- a rather unique one-man performance of Reich's Piano Phase (I heard that this piece was dedicated to Philip Glass, but I haven't confirmed that) on two pianos:

Song Of The Day: California

Joni Mitchell is one of those icons of the Sixties who keeps coming up in shuffle mode on my iPod during my walks to work. Joni, along with, say, Neil Young and k.d. lang, have to be among Canada's great gifts to the world. While this is not my single favorite (there are so many) Joni tune, it has popped up twice now in the last day and always brings back lots of memories; from 1970:



If you ever get a chance to see her American Masters PBS TV documentary (there's a DVD), go for it. And check out some of Joni's later jazz collaborations. Her voice deepened over time, and later on she famously has said that her young voice sounded "like she was on helium".

This one hit home. Literally. As a native rural Iowan and decades-long fan of Robert Frank (who wrote an introduction for this project, and whose The Americans book of mid-fifties photographs seems to be a definite spiritual predecessor), I was immediately taken away with this work by fellow Iowan Danny Wilcox Frazier. You can also see pieces from this project -- and much more great photojournalism -- at the New York Times' wonderful Lens site, fast becoming one of my very favorite Web destinations.

Death Of Music

Weekends sometime find me sitting around with my teenage kids watching Saturday Night Live. ( I only share my memories up to a point of what that conjures up in my mind.) When the SNL musical guests come up, and even my kids often shake their heads or even snicker out loud, I wonder where the good music went (not always, but too often). Things have changed when listening to great music for hours at a time, every day, with a killer stereo -- if it wasn't possible to hear live concerts -- as a young man represented just about the highest form of leisure-time activity. We demanded high quality, both performance and reproduction. Now we watch TV or stream a Netflix video or catch a few minutes of MP3 while strolling about with iPods attached. Once in a while, I stumble across something that reminds of what we seem to be missing these days. Here is the late/great Janis Joplin, live in Stockholm, circa 1969 (thanks to Tom Hannaher of ZVox for spotting this) :

Synecdoche

Veering off-topic a bit here.

I had to look this one up:

Synecdoche (pronounced "si-NEK-də-kee", IPA: /sɪˈnɛkdəˌki/; from Greek synekdoche (συνεκδοχή), meaning "simultaneous understanding") is a figure of speech in which:

* a term denoting a part of something is used to refer to the whole thing (Pars pro toto), or
* a term denoting a thing (a "whole") is used to refer to part of it (Totum pro parte), or
* a term denoting a specific class of thing is used to refer to a larger, more general class, or
* a term denoting a general class of thing is used to refer to a smaller, more specific class, or
* a term denoting a material is used to refer to an object composed of that material.

Synecdoche is closely related to metonymy (the figure of speech in which a term denoting one thing is used to refer to a related thing); indeed, synecdoche is considered a subclass of metonymy. It is more distantly related to other figures of speech, such as metaphor.

Now when the subject of great contemporary actors come up, Philip Seymour Hoffman immediately comes to (my) mind. And then I find that he is in a film directed by the terrific (IMHO) writer, Charlie Kaufman (Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich, etc.). Last night I saw Synecdoche, New York. Go see it for yourself!

Fado and Mariza

Fado is a 200-year-old musical genre that is said to blend African slave rhythms and Arabic influences with Portuguese traditions. Typically, it is performed with a singer and accompanying guitar, but can be backed by string quartets and even full orchestras. Thanks to the pop music critic of The Oregonian, Luciana Lopez (I highly recommend that you add her blog to your RSS reader), I learn about Mariza, who recently appeared in Portland in concert with the Oregon Symphony, and you can see an example of her work here:



And here:



Somehow, I suspect that Rohit, living in Portugal last year and in Brazil now, is all over this stuff. But it is new to me and I like it and I have to share.

Damon Winter and the Pulitzer

This year's Pultizer Prize in feature photography was won by Damon Winter of the New York TImes for his work covering the Obama campaign. Read about Winter and see a gallery of his work.

Let's Slow Things Down A Bit

This is said to have been mostly done at 1000 FPS ...


I-Movix SprintCam v3 NAB 2009 showreel from David Coiffier on Vimeo

Cassini Exposed

The Boston Globe's Big Picture today is publishing the most gorgeous images I have seen yet from NASA. These document the Cassini spacecraft visit to Saturn.



Also see NASA's Cassini pages.

The Monkey Chant

Rediscovered during my recent dive into my ancient vinyl collection in storage, the 1969 Nonesuch Explorer recording by David Lewiston of Balinese performers doing "Ketjak: The Ramayana Monkey Chant" is as stunning and riveting as the first time I heard it. One of the more apt descriptions I've heard is that it "... exists as a Hindu liturgical drama backed by a beatbox orchestra ready for war". As you might guess, I immediately ripped this to 320 kbps MP3 for the iPod and FLAC for the online networked household library. Here is the cover art from the album, along with a photo of the performers.




Thanks to YouTube, here is a tiny snippet of a Monkey Chant performance. Now imagine the mesmerizing effect of the original Nonesuch high-fidelity twenty-plus minutes audio-only version. Better yet, go to Amazon.com for a preview and an MP3 download (three-minute excerpt) for only 99 cents.

WWII and LIFE.com

Getting lost looking at photos on life.com again. Here is the famous Alfred Eisenstaedt photograph of the sailor and nurse at Times Square, celebrating the end of World War II in August 1945.



This image, and some others from that era, have remained in my mind since, as a very young child, I first saw them published. Among the Life photographers from WWII that later would inspire me with their work, and I get to re-explore now, would be W. Eugene Smith and Margaret Bourke-White. Also, you might want to check out Life's photos of Marlene Dietrich with the troops then.

OMG ... Throbbing Gristle

I had no idea that TG was still around. First discovered its music on a late 70s noontime walkaround at my UCLA job. My rediscovery came in a most unexpected way: while reading blogs this morning on the subject of CF/Flex/Railo/Air programming, an off-topic post by a kindred programmer from San Francisco mentioned that he was going to attend a reunion concert next week of these legendary (perhaps to a rather small cult-ish following, including the art world) punk powerhouses. And, as you might guess from the band's name they also had some memorable album cover art -- if I can find mine or some somewhere, I will consider posting a scan, but it might be a bit intense ... Anyway, take a listen here, and you will see that Throbbing Gristle was probably way ahead of its time, and a big influence on music to follow:



TG's label, Industrial Records, makes this statement:

Industrial Records began as an investigation. The 4 members of Throbbing Gristle wanted to investigate to what extent you could mutate and collage sound, present complex non entertaining noises to a popular culture situation and convince and convert. We wanted to re-invest Rock music with content, motivation and risk. Our records were documents of attitudes and experiences and observations by us and other determinedly individual outsiders. Fashion was an enemy, style irrelevant.

Here's what the Ann Powers says in the Los Angeles Times:

Throbbing Gristle: Coachella is known for helping reunite alternative-rock elders, but rarely is a returning group as foundational to a style of music as is this English outfit. More than 30 years ago, Throbbing Gristle basically invented industrial music, melding synthesizer music with found sound and provocative, sometimes repulsive imagery to push punk into its darkest future. Its members continued to shape the genre in groups such as Psychic TV and Chris & Cosey, but this return to the source allows fans to participate in a collaboration that's essential and consistently inventive.

To learn more about TG, visit their website.

YouTube Symphony Orchestra

Tonight, the long-awaited first performance of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra came together at Carnegie Hall. Led by renowned conductor, Michael Tilson Thomas (now director of the San Francisco Symphony), the orchestra consists of musicians from throughout the world, in an online collaborative effort that got underway earlier this year. Musicians uploaded videos showcasing their talents and styles, and were selected in part by the online YouTube community. Here's the first video -- nearly 60 minutes --of the event:



Go to http://youtube.com/symphony for backstories, lots more information, and videos from successful auditioning performers.

Looming Large

Mark your calendars now for Storm Large's Crazy Enough musical. In Portland from March 31 - June 7: http://www.pcs.org/crazyenough/

More here:
http://www.oregonlive.com/performance/index.ssf/2009/04/portland_entertainer_storm_lar.html

And here:
http://www.oregonlive.com/performance/index.ssf/2009/04/storm_large_answers_question_a.html

Maybe you know Storm Large from her performances with Storm Large and the Balls, or from her TV reality-show participation in Rock Star: Supernova, or maybe not at all. When I first came upon her a few years back, I was immediately hooked by her sort of meld of Bette Midler and Janis Joplin and Mae West and who knows what. She has been described as a six-foot-tall, sailor-mouthed Glamazon. I would say that she has to be one of Portland's cultural (albeit at least R-rated) treasures. A powerful voice, a big brain, a wonderful sense of humor and a warm heart. Storm does a great cover of the Sex Pistols' Anarchy in the UK, by the way.

Here is her Ellen Degeneres interview:



Recommended: watch all of the videos at her site: http://www.stormlarge.com

Brubeck Meets Adams

While visiting NPR's music site in connection with my previous post on Record of Singing, I came upon an unexpected connection.

In earlier posts, we mentioned how Ivi was turned on to Dave Brubeck's classic Take Five and the "Time Out" recording from 1959 and how Overdub had done a mashup of Take Five with Radiohead.

Well, it turns out that Brubeck -- now 88 years old -- together with his son is composing a tribute to Ansel Adams and his photography. You can hear some of this music and interviews, along with statements from the late Ansel, at NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102656153

When I studied with Ansel in Yosemite in the early 70s (where I got to work in his darkroom at one point!), he was fond of comparing photography with performing and composing music, and often regaled us with tales of his early experience as an aspiring concert pianist. (see regaling photo)

So, once again, an opportunity to thrust Ivi -- on the heels of her critical examination of the Time Out album -- into a connection with my library of photography books, including my autographed copy of one of Ansel's.

Record of Singing

During breakfast this morning, listening to NPR radio, up came a nice surprise -- a feature on the history of opera as presented by NPR's classical music producer. He was discussing a new 20-CD (!) collection of recorded opera from 1899 to now, the latest in EMI's "Record of Singing" series.

You can hear a podcast of this piece and read the story here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102728168.

This inspired me to immediately drag out my EMI CD of Enrico Caruso's Milan recordings of 1902-1904. And I plugged Ivi and her headphones into Caruso's "Elixir of Love" so she could listen from my FLAC library at her own computer. I came in late to the NPR broadcast, and didn't realize that they had played that very piece a bit earlier, until I fully read the page linked above.

Definitely listen to the podcast and also learn more about the collection at EMI's own site:
http://www.emiclassics.com/releaseabout.php?rid=47773#

The two set collection includes (1) earliest recordings from 1899 until about 1952, the end of the 78rpm era, and (2) 1953 - present, encompassing the vinyl era to CDs and the digital era.

Looks like this one has to go on my wish list immediately. I see that the each of the two sets of the collection is priced around $60 (what a bargain!), based on a quick look at Barnes & Noble:
http://music.barnesandnoble.com/The-Record-of-Singing-The-Very-Best-of-Vols-1-4-From-1899-to-the-End-of-the-78-Era/e/5099922895622
and Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Record-Singing-1899-1952-Very-Vols/dp/B001PPLJAE/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1238865473&sr=8-1

Life In Beta

Life.com is now in beta, I have discovered. Guess it's okay, but it somehow doesn't have the impact for me that opening a paper issue did when I was a child.

UPDATE 4/4/09 - There is an incredible wealth of images here (including Getty Images), with constant additions happening. (Most recently, I have been seeking out W. Eugene Smith photos from World War II.) I think I could start living at this site. The Library of Congress should be as easy and fast to use ...

Vortex

Oregon composer Tomas Svoboda creates a political protest work -- sounding out against war, greed and global warming -- in "Vortex":







Learn more about "Vortex", Svodoba and Carlos Kalmar's Oregon Symphony performance here: http://www.oregonlive.com/special/index.ssf/2009/01/sounds_of_oregon.html