DIGITAL TO ANALOG CONVERSION

The three B’s: Bach, Berlioz and Björk.

Posted on Tuesday, December 7th, 2010 at 10:41 pm in Classical, Rock / Pop by josh

While I have been to busy to do a post recently, I have still found time to rip a few CDs a night. And while I wouldn’t call my CD shelves bare by any means (I am estimating that I am about halfway through the CDs at this point), the shelves are looking thinner. And I am also starting to reach more and more into the back shelves to find some discs I haven’t heard for a long time. One of these find this week was three different recordings of Bach’s ‘Goldberg Variations’ as well as a box set of all of Berlioz’s orchestral works. But at the front of a thinner and thinner pop front layer there was also the first couple CDs by Björk which I have always loved, but haven’t listened to for some time (a couple years?).

So tonight’s post will revolve a bit around my friend Russ… we worked at Barnes and Noble together during my brief stint there when I first moved to Seattle. We both were into classical music quite a bit (and as anyone who has ever shopped record stores, especially record departments in larger stores knows, the classical music nerd is the person you want to get to know… not only can they find the recording of a specific performance of a piece by Brahms for you, but since they are used to flipping through catalogs looking for pieces, they are also usually the person that can find for you just about anything in a record store, regardless of category). Russ also had a knack for modern music, and when I worked at Barnes and Noble he actually pointed me to many composers that I wouldn’t have thought to listen to at the time. Not that we had a huge modern classical section (this was Barnes and Noble after all), but I’m pretty sure he led me to my first Berio as well as my first Stockhausen. Even though I was hoping to go to school to be a composer at the time, my knowledge of modern music was terribly limited. Having someone like Russ around, who had a knack AND good taste for new music was something I had really needed.

And after working around so many classical music geeks at the Tower in Berkeley, it was also great to be around someone who could talk about different recordings of a single piece again. This really is one of the joys of classical music in my opinion. While I ripped three versions of the ‘Goldberg Variations’ in just the last couple days, I have even more then that (I think 6 total? Maybe more?) and they are all fun for different reasons. And it takes the kind of mind that can remember that BWV 1080 is ‘The Art of the Fugue’ to also know why one customer would want Angela Hewitt playing the Goldberg Variations rather then Glenn Gould or Christophe Rousset. But while I remember having so many of these conversations, they are mostly blurred together into those kind of conversations that people have who work in record stores. And the reality is that when you work in a record store, you talk SO much about music that it is often hard to remember specific moments or conversations.

Yet there is one conversation with Russ that sticks out very clearly to me. I seem to remember Russ with a stack of CDs to shelve in his arm (and I’m pretty sure I was getting ready to head out to shelve some as well) when one of the other clerks wondered if we could get away with playing some Björk in the store. Russ stopped immediately, and with the most serious face I think I ever saw on him, he said “Björk? My god… there is nothing I wouldn’t do for that woman”.

It usually surprises other record store types who know the classical types when they hear things said like this. What they don’t understand though is that to get to know all those catalog numbers and performers and performances of classical music takes passion. And for most people my age who have worked in classical stores or departments, this passion for music usually extends into other genres as well. So while I was ripping Bach and Berlioz today, I didn’t necessarily remember the constant conversations about Back or Berlioz I may have had with Russ ten years ago. But when I threw on ‘Human Behaviour’ and remembered how great this album was, and how much I loved it when I first heard it and played it at Tower probably every day for over a month, the look on Russ’s face and the seriousness of his statement rang again in my ears.

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Day 157. Toscanini.

Posted on Tuesday, November 9th, 2010 at 9:23 pm in Celia, Classical, DAC Project, Mira, Tamiko by josh

I think I am finally going to have to accept the fact that daily blog posts are a thing of the past for me. On one hand, work is keeping me so busy (and often into the night). On another, I have gotten little of my own composing done over the past few weeks. Part of me is bummed about this, but there is another aspect at play as well. As more and more of the CDs disappear from the front layer of shelves, more and more from the back are being pulled down for ripping. The quality of the discs here is still better then average for the most part, but there are lots of discs back here that, while I have listened and enjoyed them, they don’t necessarily bring up strong memories or personal history. I glanced over the blog as a whole a bit this past week and I have come across some strong memories that seem to be with me almost every day, and I also noticed that I have ‘found’ memories that I thought were lost (and now returned because of this project). I’m sure those aren’t done, but I am also sure at this point that they will be occurring with less frequency.

For me, starting this project almost a year ago was a needed distraction for what was a difficult time for Tamiko and me. Not between us, but due to situations in our lives that were, at the time, beyond our control in many ways. The blog provided some welcome distraction, and the enormity of the project itself gave me a positive outlet for some not always so positive energy. It also gave me focus on my life, family and one of the things that make me happiest in the world (music) at a time when lots of negative energy was flowing our way. I think this outlet for me helped me protect my girls from some of the negative that was hitting us and affecting me greatly at times.

Plus, there is just more music in the house now. Not that there wasn’t before, but the variety has grown considerably. Tamiko and I now have something different on every night as we wind down like we did when we first moved in together, Mira is discovering new ‘pretty music’ all the time and Celia and I start our evening reading with a new composer or musician just about every night. It’s pretty amazing how I have found something so great as a result of such a difficult situation (but, that is just how it goes sometimes).

Anyways, on to some music, and tonight I have been working on a stack of 11 2-Disc sets… the Toscanini / NBC Symphony Orchestra remastered and cleaned up sets the RCA put out in the late 90s. 6 discs of Beethoven, the pairs of discs covering quite a bit of the symphonic repertoire. All in mono. And while these are old recordings, it is remarkable how dynamic they are. I love watching videos of Toscanini conducting, and an image of him ‘shhhshing’ his orchestra almost always comes to mind (my friend Colin was able to do a wonderful imitation of this). It strikes me that Toscanini new that there was really a maximum of loud that you could get out of an orchestra, but with enough coaxing you could always get people to play a little quieter. This makes the louder parts seem more so by contrast, and this led to a large number of very dynamic recordings at a time when the technology in use was still quite limited.

Toscanini’s interpretations are seen by many people, especially today, as a bit off. I tend to find them a bit operatic, and sometimes overly dramatic. I don’t really have a problem with this, and like Glenn Gould I think that what you are getting is Toscanini performing a piece rather then just the piece itself. I wouldn’t suggest any of his recordings as the way to get to know a work (same with Gould – do NOT listen to the Gould ‘Goldberg Variations’ as the first version you listen to). Both are performers that you should go to once you know a piece pretty well. THEN – they are excellent examples of what great musicians can do with the art of interpretation. As I listen right now to Beethoven’s Seventh, I feel like I have a good idea about what is Toscanini and what is Beethoven. And the two are having a great conversation. It is my like I am having a seance as I listen to the ghosts of these two musicians play with each other… truly a treat.

Tags: Beethoven, Toscanini, Wagner
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Day 156 … Cracker, Counting Crows, Jane’s Addiction and Shostakovich.

Posted on Monday, November 1st, 2010 at 11:04 pm in Classical, Rock / Pop, Tamiko by josh

So my 90s streak continued with a few other things thrown in. Counting Crows’ first album, the first Jane’s Addiction album, Cracker’s ‘Kerosene Hat’ and some Shostakovich all came off the shelves this week and most of it has been ripped.

‘Kerosene Hat’ is another one of those end of high-school discs that sticks in my mind. I think I got the promo for it probably right around graduation, and played it quite a bit over the summer. Though I don’t associate it directly with me and Tamiko getting back together, that was a good summer and those good feelings were mapped onto that and a few other discs. Which is funny because ‘Low’, ‘Take Me Down To The Infirmary’, and a GREAT cover of the Grateful Dead’s ‘Loser’ aren’t exactly chipper tunes (though I do remember clicking through over 60 tracks to get to ‘Euro-Trash Girl’ so that I could play it loudly as I drove down I-80 … and that song is just damn fun). Regardless of the mood in the songs though, I still remember how good the summer of ‘93 felt as we were getting back together, and this was one of those discs that was in my car.

‘August and Everything After’ was one of the discs that, about a year later, was in Tamiko’s apartment after I first moved down to Berkeley. It took a little time for Counting Crows to take off, but once they did they were certainly a band that was noticed around Berkeley. When I put the music on last night, Tamiko immediately started to bop to it, and like me I imagine there is the feeling of us starting our lives together in the Bay Area in the back of her head as well. At the same time, the guitarist from The Counting Crows also gave me (and my old Tower friend Jordan) an early lesson in the inequities of the rock and roll lifestyle.

I think it was between Christmas and New Years in 1994 when a guy came into Tower with a stack of $100 gift certificates (3 or 4?), and Jordan noticed when he was cashing them in that they were from Adam Duritz. Then Jordan noticed that the guy cashing them in was David Bryson (I think?), the guitarist for the band. It was funny – because we had a Counting Crows poster on the wall behind the guy. It was one of the biggest selling albums that year, and here he was cashing gift certificates from the lead singer! We were jazzed to meet him, but somehow the conversation got around to why he had these gift certificates. I remember him telling us that since Adam was the songwriter (and therefore got writing credit) that he was the one that made all the money. And while the rest of the band did ok, they were basically employees. They liked the gig (he wasn’t complaining), but he certainly didn’t have $400 of his own to go out and spend on music. So Adam had given them gift certificates to Tower that year as presents.

I think both Jordan and I were floored by this… this guy was on a record that had sold millions, yet he wasn’t a millionaire. Maybe with the next record, but that initial contract didn’t have him sitting pretty yet. While I wasn’t entertaining ideas really of rock and roll stardom anymore at this point (I was going to make millions as a composer of new music!!!), it still struck me just how messed up the music industry was (and of course I remember remembering this night a few years later when I saw a little clearer what my role in that messed up situation was).

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Day 155. Charles Mingus, Jean Sibelius.

Posted on Friday, October 22nd, 2010 at 10:51 am in Classical, Jazz by josh

Last night was a stack of Mingus, and a stack of Sibelius. Both who were pretty amazing artists with a strong sense of history behind them. On the one hand you have Sibelius who’s output through the first half of the 20th century sounded more like a polishing of the romantic tradition. And it is hard not to get a sense that he was a composer born about 50 years too late. But I while my inclination is to think that someone writing in such an out of date style shouldn’t necessarily be celebrated, Sibelius was able to write symphonies and chamber music that while sounding older also had a very personal stamp. His orchestration especially can be very unique, and there are times where I hear granular synthesis textures that remind me of Sibelius string writing. At times there are masses of sound that are dense but clear at the same time in his music, and analyzing the score doesn’t always immediately show how he does it.

During my time at Berkeley the orchestra played the Fifth Symphony, and this piece still really holds a special place for me. The music is great, but I also think Sibelius was able to create a sense of urgency in a cool tricky way between the ‘two parts’ of the first movement (originally, these were two separate movements). The first part is quite slow, but as the transition happens, what were once quarter notes become whole notes… and as the tempo increases the performers eyes have to scan the page faster and faster. I remember feeling like the page turns were hectic. As a result of this, of the musicians playing the music having to read the page so much faster, I think he created momentum in the music as well. I would have to look again, but if I remember correctly the whole second section of the movement could have been written with a slower notation (similar to the first part – where what is a fast whole note would become a quarter-note), but my guess is the fast pace wouldn’t quite hold. The other result of this is that almost every note that is played is a downbeat. It is a great example of how much the notation of a musical idea can influence how it is played, and it is something I still think about constantly when I start putting musical thoughts down on paper.

Mingus’ connections to an older time go back to his childhood hero Duke Ellington. And he even was employed (and was the only person ever fired by) Duke Ellington early in his career. Mingus never lost respect for Ellington, and even worked with him in other situations later on, but Ellington’s style permeated Mingus’s throughout his career. You can often hear Ellington in Mingus’s orchestration and melodic shaping and phrasing, but mostly there is an sense of energy and style that Mingus seems to keep alive. And most of all, he took his position as a connector between old and new very seriously. He led workshops at community colleges in California, and kept the older traditions alive. Part of this tradition included performing standards, but making them a groups own, keeping them alive by changing them. Listening to ‘Mood Indigo’ across different sessions shows how the music kept growing with Mingus at the lead.

And like Duke Ellington, Mingus as band-leader seemed to have a great time making room for the musicians he has brought together. There is the occasional bass solo (and recording engineers certainly would bring the bass out in a recording a bit), but mostly you hear quite a bit of the other players that he has assembled for a recording. And he places these players in great relief to the history he is making them a part of… you hear Mingus, Ellington, homage to pre-WW II and even pre-WW I jazz styles, as well as the very vocal encouragement from the band leader. Call and response, going back to the earliest of jazz and blues traditions is part of the excitement of many Mingus recordings. And while so much looks to this history, Mingus is a great composer and innovator. I’m sure he saw himself as adding new material to that history and he took his role there very seriously. It’s what all great artists need to do.

Tags: Charles Mingus, Sibelius
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We’ll just say Day 154… Miles Davis, Grateful Dead… lots more…

Posted on Sunday, October 17th, 2010 at 10:01 pm in Classical, Jazz, Rock / Pop by josh

Well… it’s been a couple of weeks. The first week I was in Italy for concerts and workshops and just didn’t have discs with me. It was a fair trade off, to say the least. Then last week was dealing with jet-lag as well as just adjusting to teaching again… but in the past couple of nights I have gotten back into the swing of things. Last night was some Radiohead, The Spinanes and Oasis, tonight features a two-disc opportunistic greatest hits Grateful Dead set (‘The Arista Years’) as well as the first Dick’s Picks, the complete Miles Davis ‘In A Silent Way’ sessions and an Arvo Pärt disc.

I say ‘opportunistic’ about the ‘Arista Years’ discs because they came out within about a year of Jerry Garcia dying. For the label to just throw together the collection was surely a way to try and milk the Arista catalog for what it could. And while there are some good songs on ‘Terrapin Station’ and ‘In The Dark’, for the most part all these albums sounded weak compared to live concerts (which is amazing… 1977 is a time of generally high quality Dead shows, and the studio albums from around that time some lifeless). What is even more amazing to me is that this collection represents 18 years of the band’s 30 year existence, yet a small portion of their recordings. So while in some ways it seems like the release of the disc may have been a little ‘too soon’, at the same time I can understand why it was put together. With the exception of ‘In The Dark’, I imagine none of these albums really paid for themselves. And for the most part, the collection puts together just about the songs I would want off these albums. I certainly wasn’t ever going to put down cash to buy any of these records, not when I could probably get just about all of them in great live performances. But in a two disc set, well, not bad. I bought it. And so it seems a little cold to me on the one hand that just after this band has officially called it quits after Jerry died that their label would carve the work up for such commercial purposes. At the same time… sure am glad they did! I certainly wouldn’t have paid for the ‘Complete Arista Years With Outakes’ discs.

Which is basically what Columbia did for Miles Davis. The box sets they released over the past decade or so that capture his output during his time at Columbia are nothing short of amazing, and I think the ‘In A Silent Way’ sessions is the last of the Miles box sets I have to rip. While only three discs, the liner notes comment that this set covers about six months worth of sessions that have Miles leaving the Quintet behind while looking ahead to what will become ‘Bitches Brew’. While I would never question the genius that is ‘Bitches Brew’ I like ‘In A Silent Way’ better. The music is haunting at times, at other times it is stretching out and searching. And some of the tracks almost feel like younger Miles Davis. It is experimentation building on foundation, and it is amazing to hear the progression while listening to the discs from beginning to end. The rehearsals that were recorded also show how this music was shaped in the studio, and while they are rehearsals they are just as exciting as the material that made its way onto the final discs. Also of note is the presence more and more of the electric piano and organ (sometimes there are three keyboards playing on a single track!) as well as more electric guitar (welcome John McLaughlin). The tunes get a funkier, sometimes denser, feeling as a result.

Tags: Grateful Dead, Miles Davis, Oasis, Radiohead, The Spinanes
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Day 153. Some folk / blues collections and some Mozart.

Posted on Thursday, September 30th, 2010 at 10:59 pm in Celia, Classical, Folk / Blues / Country, Mira by josh

Tonight was some folk / blues and Mozart. Mostly a few collections (including some old Tower Records samplers and the ‘O Brother Where Art Thou’ soundtrack) and the Muddy Waters Chess compilation, and the Mozart discs were made up of the Piano Quartets and his six quartets for Haydn. The folk and blues compilation ripping though was inspired by an assembly held for the student’s at Celia’s school. Every month, a few students from each K-2 grade classes are chosen to be honored students. All the other students in the class get to put together a list of why the honored students are people they like, the teacher adds something, and then the principal of the school gives each kid a little certificate with the list. During the assembly, the list is read, and parents are invited to attend. It is really very sweet, and Celia was in the first group of honored students for this school year. Tamiko and I made it to the assembly and were just so impressed with how this school teaches kids about what recognition is and how this sort of thing really makes them feel welcome in these first few years of school. And there was lots of positive reenforcement for good behavior with the kids (which is pretty impressive considering that there were 150 or so kids under the age of 8 in one room… they were all great, and they were told so).

Seeing Celia get her certificate was great. She stood with her classmates, waved at friends and blew kisses. She waved at me, Tamiko and Mira, and didn’t hide her head when the principal read about her. It’s amazing to see my little girl adapting to this new environment so quickly and so well. There are, of course, tons of challenges ahead but so far, she seems to be enjoying herself and learning so much.

My next favorite part of all this though we the fact that the music teacher was an important part of the assembly. Once things officially started, all the students stood up, turned towards the parents and sang a song together. This wasn’t a concert, no one was dressed up or told what was going to be performed ahead of time. The principal mentioned a song, and the kids sang it. What made it so special for me was the sense that it wasn’t special – it was just part of their day.

Even more amazing to me though was what happened before anything officially began. The music teacher started to play a relaxed waltz, then suddenly half the kids began to sing ‘Goodnight Irene’. Some very sweet music (recorded by Alan Lomax in the 40s with Leadbelly singing) makes its way to into my kid’s assembly. There was no verbal announcement, but at the same time, the music teacher playing this waltz was recognized by most of the students and they just started to sing. It blew me away… what lucky kids to have this be such an important part of their school.

So – I had to find my Alan Lomax discs with Leadbelly which led to a few other discs and a couple blues discs. I get so caught up in the centuries of music history from western Europe that when I realize the rich musical heritage my own country has created I find myself surprised over and over again. Part of me is a little ashamed of this, that this music isn’t just more of a part of my life (especially since I enjoy it so much), but I am also realizing that is part of what having kids is about. Celia and Mira have reminded me so much already about things that I have forgotten about, and part the excitement for me of Celia heading off to school is that I get to learn so many things again. What surprised me the other day is that for some reason I didn’t think music was going to part of that reminding. I’m excited now that it is.

Tags: Alan Lomax, Leadbelly, Mozart
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Day 152. Tchaikovsky, Telemann and Tallis.

Posted on Monday, September 27th, 2010 at 8:13 pm in Classical by josh

After a few nights finishing up some Mozart, I get back to some new music tonight. A stack of Tchaikovsky, some Telemann and Tallis. The Telemann is a disc of Keyboard Fantasias played by John Butt. I actually had the chance to see Prof. Butt play these live once, and the week before the concert I found a Dover edition of these pieces. When I got to the concert (a Wednesday noon concert at UC Berkeley) I saw him sit down with the same Dover edition. I’m not positive, but he may have been picking and choosing what pieces to play as he went along. He is an amazing harpsichord player, and part of me wonders if he did the same thing for the recording session of this disc.

Most of the Tchaikovsky is chamber music (and the six disc Haitink orchestral works set). But the first thing I listened to tonight was the first string quartet and a common-tone chromatic third related chord immediately jumped out (the beginning is in D-major, and the phrase has settled onto an A triad that is decorated with an F-major chord for part of a beat). I forget how refreshing this harmonic trick is. I haven’t listened to much later romantic music lately (and while these relationships show up in Beethoven and Schubert they usually become a new key area rather then a momentary highlighting kind of effect). The place where I usually hear this now is in a Radiohead song every now and then and while it is surprising in that context also, Tchaikovsky knew how to use it to wake up the listener. That chord appear just a few moments after an F-sharp minor chord which fits in well with its surroundings. But that sudden F major chord seems to come out of almost nowhere harmonically.

Now, it’s not that this kind of harmonic writing is daring or risky. No one risks death here, and if someone gets up and leaves an audience upon hearing something like this then there just aren’t enough worries in that persons life. So I don’t like using words like daring or risky to describe that kind of composing. But when I heard it just now the first thing that came to my mind was ‘Damn… Tchaikovsky is quite the badass”. And really, he was. Not just for that chord, but for some very dramatic and elegant and beautiful music that he put down on paper. And when I heard it, it made me think that it has been some time since there is something I had put down on paper that really surprised me, and I think it is time to make that a goal again. I need to do some things in my music that surprises me again.

Tags: Tallis, Tchaikovsky, Telemann
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Day 151. Wagner, Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald.

Posted on Sunday, September 19th, 2010 at 10:48 pm in Celia, Classical, Jazz, Mira by josh

Mira again spotted the box-set operas tonight, and then she noticed that four of the double discs sets were actually in a single box… excitedly, she jumped at the shelf yelling ‘Daddy!!! big one big one BIG ONE!!!!’. Little does she know that in that box is the music that she already will recognize as ‘Kiwl the Wabbit’. Of course, it is none other then Wagner’s Ring.

I have the Karl Böhm Bayreuth Festival recordings from 1967. Buying a complete Ring cycle is a special thing… costly on the one hand, and on the other there isn’t a perfect one you can find. Now, I would certainly look for it on DVD, but fifteen years ago a CD set was still the way to go. I researched for a good few months and asked numerous people what they thought, and eventually chose this set for two reasons… it was a live recording, shaped by a masterful conductor, and Birgit Nilsson’s ‘throat of steel’ was singing Brünnhilde. I’ve listened to this set twice, and the coughing and ambient audience noise really doesn’t bother me. The performance is great, and doesn’t feel as flat to me as the Solti studio recordings do (which seems to miss the overall arch at times… I believe these are more production errors then Solti’s, but the problem is still there).

While I am sure I will probably spend the next week going through these recordings again, I am also thinking it might be time to go through the process again and see what else I should listen to and to see what is available these days on DVD. I can’t imagine just playing these pieces straight through for the girls to hear for instance. More and more I regret spending so much money on opera CDs and wish that opera DVDs had been around in the mid-90s (or even DVDs really for that matter), but I think that is especially the case with The Ring. On top of that, though I don’t watch much TV I don’t think our little tube will cut it for watching The Ring. So I probably really just need to wait a little longer until we can afford something a little bigger and for BluRay to really take off. I just need patience… Wagner isn’t going anywhere.

Celia finally got into the box set act tonight as well, and pointed to the Ella Fitzgerald / Duke Ellington ‘Côte d’Azur’ eight disc set. A wedding present from our friends Bryn and Colin, this CD out of all our discs may be the one I will miss the packaging of the most. There are 4 two disc sets in jewel cases with different bright colors, and imprinted on the clear cases and the CDs underneath are male and female figures that, when aligned, embrace each other. The box itself is slightly off-white and doesn’t let on to art underneath. And as beautiful as the packaging is, the music in the set is even more beautiful. I probably won’t get to rip it tonight (I am ALMOST done with ‘Götterdämmerung’) but I look forward to playing it over the next couple nights after we get home with the girls.

Tags: Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Richard Wagner
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Day 150. Prince and Nirvana.

Posted on Friday, September 17th, 2010 at 6:46 pm in Rock / Pop by josh

Finished up my Nirvana discs tonight, and grabbed a stack of Prince as well (or, as CDDB craftily called him 0(+> ). I only have a few Prince CDs but unlike other artists where I have a more complete collection on LP, most of my other Prince is on cassette and therefore dead to me.

The Hits/B-Sides collections are respectable, and I also have the New Power Generation CDs (including the special limited edition of ‘Gold’ that I still think is sooooo cool). Couldn’t find ‘Diamonds and Pearls’ and its holographic cover last night though, so I’ll need to dig a bit for that. Just throwing on the collections last night though then the first few tracks of ‘Gold’ put me in a good mood last night. While ‘Sexy M.F.’ has its place on a mix disc on my computer (so I hear it a little more often) I hadn’t heard ‘My Name Is Prince’ or ‘7’ for quite some time. And with the greatest hits discs, so much of the stuff from the 80’s has stood up incredibly well. Where the synthesizers and kind-of jazz stuff on parts of the ‘Gold’ album sound a little more dated to me (in that ‘an R&B record from a genius like Prince in the 90’s has to have Funk, Soul, Jazz and Hip-Hop influences all included’ feel to it), the stuff off ‘Purple Rain’, ‘Sign O’ The Times’ and the other albums from that time seem to show off the best of what could be done in the 80’s. Prince, I imagine, was a monster in the recording studio and like Miles Davis he has always had a knack for finding some of the best musicians available at any given time that may not have big names for themselves yet. And the energy in the 80’s was also more urgent, almost frantic. The 90’s tracks are more mature, smoother and generally slicker. But put on ‘Let’s Go Crazy’ and the tempo and energy of the song builds up to that first guitar solo… then just keeps amping up. And you get a few glimpses into the kind of guitar player Prince is, which is some of my favorite parts of this song.

‘Sexy M.F.’ is Prince saying I’m a badass and can do pretty much anything I want to at this point in my career. The song is great, even if I don’t think I can put it on and sing along with Celia in the room. The drums, horns, keyboards and bass are all extremely tight as well. I can almost imagine that if the lyrics were actually being sung that this is the song that James Brown may of wished he had done. Except that the hardest working man in show business would never do something that could alienate an audience or prevent airplay. But the generation that let James Brown sing about feeling like a Sex Machine probably wouldn’t have stood for James Brown feeling like a mother-fucking Sex Machine. But the sense of control that James Brown wanted from his band and the competing layers of sound is all there and I could surely see James Brown signing and dancing to it on stage (especially over the last couple minutes of the song). Prince wasn’t worried about it though. He released it as a single knowing there was no way it was going to get airplay, and when the single showed up at Tower I remember thinking ‘this thing is going to see like crazy even if you can’t put it on the radio’. Hell, we couldn’t even play it in the store (though it started a number of times, there always seemed to be JUST enough time for a supervisor or manager to run to the front of the store to hit the |>>| button on the CD player before anyone could really be offended). Still, it did sell well, and my guess is that most people who know Prince know this song.

With my Nirvana discs, I listened to just a couple tracks off ‘Nevermind’ last night (‘Lounge Act’, ‘Lithium’ then ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’) before moving on to ‘Bleach’ and the ‘MTV Unplugged’ discs. What surprised me was how slick and well produced ‘Nevermind’ now sounded. This is the ‘grunge’ sound? I remember how gritty it sounded in the early 90’s, but listening to it now it surprises me how polished it feels. Don’t get me wrong, I still think it is a great album (and ‘Lounge Act’ is surely in my top 100 songs list) but it is strange to get such a different impression of an album that I feel like I know so well. So I put on ‘Bleach’ to see if my impression of it had changed at all, and luckily it hasn’t. It still feels quite rough and edgy and has a much more DIY feel (even if the evidence of studio production is still found in the recordings). And when I put on the ‘Unplugged’ disc, I was amazed at how much this band did in such a short time. And how amazing Kurt Cobain performs on this disc. While calling it ‘Unplugged’ seems a stretch to me, the smaller and quieter setting allows for an amazing range for him and the band. And actually, I think the music and his voice is actually at its most powerful on this disc. Amazing that it is with stripped down amplification that this happens.

My friend Kyle (who I know from the bus rides between Tacoma and Seattle) and I met up this morning as I was starting to write this post. Kyle is a blast to talk to and is as deeply into listening and finding new music to listen to as I am. Our conversations almost always get around to ‘what have you heard lately’ and between the two of us there will be a power group or two, some obscure jazz or out there rock. It’s always a blast to talk to him and we often pass headphones back and forth to give tastes of something. Anyways, as I start typing this post today I see him at the back of the downtown bus when ‘Love Buzz’ comes on. I stride back laptop in hand and hold my headphones out just as looks up. He puts the headphones on and within a couple moments of each other, both of us have had a flashback to 20 years ago. He gives me a fist bump. I think both of us had just had our mornings made for us… then we go on and talk about how amazing Nirvana was.

But the point that we both agree quite heartily on is the opinion that as amazing as Nirvana was, neither of us realized at the time that the guy sitting behind Kurt was the genius Dave Grohl. As Dave takes his post-Nirvana career higher and higher (Foo Fighters and no Them Crooked Vultures where he get to play with JOHN PAUL JONES!) you see how the strung out grungy look of Nirvana led to Kurt’s success and fall. While the smiling face of Dave Grohl may not inspire sales to depressed teenage kids, I think Dave got it right. I imagine he is thrilled with the career he has had and who he has been able to play with. And he got to be part of a scene-changing band without it destroying him. Kurt might be the legend, but Dave is definitely my kind of musician. More about this when I get to those Foo Fighters discs …

Tags: Nirvana, Prince
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Day 149. Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman and Great Pianists!

Posted on Tuesday, September 14th, 2010 at 9:09 pm in Celia, Classical, Jazz, Mira by josh

Mira pointed to a Glenn Miller collection, and Celia wanted more piano music for her room. I went ahead and grabbed a Benny Goodman disc as well, and for Celia grabbed my little selection of the Phillips ‘Great Pianists of the 20th Century’. Tonight, Celia went to sleep with Rosalyn Tureck playing Bach Partitas.

Big Band music has a special place in my heart… when high school marching band would finally slow down in Fall, concert and jazz band took on a focus. Midway through freshman year, I FINALLY got to switch to saxophone, and we got to play ‘Sing, Sing, Sing’ (a la Benny Goodman rather then Louis Prima). After years of playing clarinet I was finally playing sax, and when I hear ‘Sing, Sing, Sing’ I immediately go out and buy a Benny Goodman record and hear … his clarinet. And I suddenly realize how cool clarinet could have been. I sold the instrument short. I remember thinking ‘I should go back to it!’ but then I hear John Coltrane shortly afterwards and am hooked on sax. So while I stuck with the saxophone (and still get my alto out every now and then) it was that first year of jazz band that finally made me appreciate the clarinet, and it is still one of my favorite instruments. And it works so well in modern music as well… such an amazing range of timbre within single notes, and across the whole instrument.

All this of course reminds me when I first started learning how to play in instrument in 6th grade. I’d had a guitar for some time, but never learned how to play it really. And when there were music classes in 6th grade, I really wanted to play alto sax. I wanted to play ‘Tequila’ like the 6th graders the year before me did… but the school didn’t have any left. My parents took me to the local music store, and again, no alto saxes were left. ‘But we do have clarinets’ said the clerk at the store, an guy in his 60s or so. I came wanting an alto sax, and a guy in his 60s tells me all they have is clarinet… I go from thinking I can get a cool alto sax to a stodgy clarinet. Well, that was just how my 6th grade mind thought. Still, I learned how to read music and learned how to play well with others. By the next year in junior high I auditioned into the second best band in the school, and was set to be in the top band the next year when we moved. By that time, I had started to learn guitar as well and I was hooked. Not having a band at the K-8 school I moved into when I moved to Roseville didn’t stop me, and I kept practicing on my own because I really enjoyed it.

I am often asked by other music friends when we are going to start music lessons for Celia (or, a few times, I receive looks of shocked horror that Celia isn’t already in lessons). I don’t think it was my parents intentions to not force lessons on me so I would enjoy making music more, but that is how it worked out. In the over twenty years of playing music, I have always enjoyed it. I’m sure I could be a better musician in many ways (especially a better instrumentalist) but I don’t know what the price I would have had to pay is. What I do know is, right now, Celia is listening to a wonderful pianist play Bach in her room as she goes to sleep. She will probably listen to this CD for a number of weeks, or switch back to Beethoven or Miles Davis. During the day, her and Mira want music on so they can dance. They have instruments all around them. They play on toy pianos and real pianos. Celia has bowed my violin while I practice cello, and has sung along with her toy accordion. If she asks for lessons, we’ll find a way to get them for her. And if Celia or Mira DO play instruments later in life, I look forward to practicing scales with them, then playing duets or trios. But for now, no pressure. Just lots of good music playing in the house.

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The three B’s: Bach, Berlioz and Björk.

Day 157. Toscanini.

Day 156 … Cracker, Counting Crows, Jane’s Addiction and Shostakovich.

Day 155. Charles Mingus, Jean Sibelius.

We’ll just say Day 154… Miles Davis, Grateful Dead… lots more…

Day 153. Some folk / blues collections and some Mozart.

Day 152. Tchaikovsky, Telemann and Tallis.

Day 151. Wagner, Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald.

Day 150. Prince and Nirvana.

Day 149. Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman and Great Pianists!

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