[Steve999]

That is absolutely terrifying.

First of all, I want to apologize for frightening and even terrifying @PointyFox so.

This evening I was checking out Haley Reinhart, who I had never really listened to before—I don’t watch the voice or stuff like that. And this was not because she is very, very, very, very, very easy on the, I mean really, just extremely easy, it would be hard to understate, let’s just say it, she’s easy on the eyes, yes, she’s kind of pretty. It was because I was checking out new releases and young people music.

But quite honestly (no, really) I was looking for artistic development over the years and was a little disappointed. Obviously she has astonishing command of her voice and is very intuitive and serious with music and punched a bouncer in the face once. I was looking for original performances or songwriting or goose bump emotions, I mean she seems capable of all that. And she looks good,

So here is a song she wrote in part—and I think the lyrics are clever—she wants to start over again not like it never ended, but like it never ends—the huge difference in the emotion that conveys, an inevitable disappointment but let’s go for it in this very upbeat way. And she channels the 60s feel but with original material. And I like the line about just don’t forget to breathe, like wow are you in for it now. That I can get into. Much of the album is covers but I wanted to see her stretch out a little. So presumably this song is a little more her than some of the other stuff, since she helped write it. She’s not showing off her incredible voice to the max but instead she’s really putting the song across.

The video is super cool too.

 

[GearMe]

No need to explain why this is great. RIP Roy

Yep...tremendous talent! Love that he always mixed things up (genres, people he played with, instruments, interpretations, etc. But most importantly, by many accounts, a great guy!







And....where else can you hear a countrified version of Take the A Train w/Clarence 'Gatemouth' Brown?
Cowboy hats and all!

 

[Laura80]

Hypnotically beautiful.

 

[taffy2207]

Paul Pena. The man who inspired Jeff Healey to be a Blind Guitarist (Okay he didn't but it sounds fun). He wrote the Steve Miller Band song 'Jet Airliner'. He never gained Commercial success in his lifetime and lived largely off royalties from SMB's version of 'Jet Airliner'. His song 'The River' is one of my all time favourites.

In my teens I was a massive fan of Soul and Metal, go figure.





Live performance of 'Jet Airliner' from 2001, 4 years prior to his Death.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Pena

 

[Steve999]

This is all about John Coltrane's Giant Steps. If you want to take the time to watch all of it, it's worth it for what you'll gain in that amount of time, IMHO.

@GrussGott put up a post about John Coltrane's tune Giant Steps today. IMHO it's worth taking this song and seeing it from a few different angles. I had fun going over the piece for a little while today.

So I'd thought I'd post the full recording:



Here's the full recording, with John Coltrane's part set forth in animated musical notation. If just the listening doesn't make your jaw drop this might:



Here's a video program about the piece that @GrussGott put up:



Here's my reaction to the video piece, for what it's worth to anyone:

Watched John Coltrane video. Cool. . . It seems as though Giant Steps was an extremely creative and demanding abstraction. I didn't hear Tommy Flanagan having the same troubles the other guys were talking about. John Coltrane was ripping off torrents of eighth notes at a breakneck pace and it was his song, I'm sure he had practiced it. Tommy Flanagan chose to phrase differently. He got a short solo and was not well-miked in my view and if he would have just continued on with a torrent of eighth notes as John Coltrane did it would not have been a very creative act on his part. He just chose to phrase more conventionally I think. He even got in a nice chord solo at the end to bring Coltrane back in. He knew who the star of the show was and what he was witnessing, I would venture to guess. Coltrane's solo seems to be in eighth notes--the tempo is flying by so fast it seems like it must be sixteenth notes but it sounds like eighth notes at a breakneck pace to me. As I've been listening to jazz for 40-plus years Giant Steps is somewhat of a cliche to me so ironically I probably haven't listened to it enough. But I did just give a close listen on Spotify, and yes it is a work of art, a very deeply complex and challenging and highly patterned musical abstraction.

I don't like the images they conveyed. It's not an illusion like Escher. It's not like driving down obscure alley-ways. It's not like a color wheel. It's not like speaking in different languages--it's the same language, even bordering on monotonous in some ways (so shoot me), but in modulating through rapidly changing keys. The language is just transposed or you might say the key modulated so that the root (the note you feel like you want to get back to) is on different pitches. It's a beautifully symmetrical abstraction. An abstraction. SOMETIMES SOMETHING IS JUST AN ABSTRACTION!!!! In the pop song where they were pointing out the modulations they were just modulating up a half step each time which I often consider just a cheap amateurish trick to gin up excitement. It's nothing remotely as complex as what Coltrane was doing.

I think Hendrix's Hey Joe uses the circle of fourths. Fourths are inversions of fifths. You get a similar type of deal going on. But this is a case where what Coltrane was doing was just on the level of historical art and Hey Joe doesn't really get you that far.

Here's another video about improvisation in the context of Giant Steps that is a lot different than the video above--it assumes a lot more knowledge on the part of the audience.

 

[Steve999]

So now that I have bored you with the venerable Giant Steps (above), I was going through young people music today. After 33 songs I found some music I liked. I found one song I sort of liked by this group I never heard of and then I found this song by them which I liked a lot more. Nice chord changes, nice runs, good on their instruments, nice groove, creativity, great stuff, at least to me. If I understand right it's a song called Cory Wong by the group Vulfpeck, but these young folks always keep me confused.

 

[Steve999]

Is it just me, or is this going around in circles? With new irrelevant analogies sporadically salted (or peppered) in.

If you have to ask (as far as I know these are the three greatest versions of these three greatly circuitous songs, chock-full of (irrelevant? maybe not) analogies!. . .)

Live!
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x16pvor

--or--



--or--

 

[Laura80]

Simply amazing.

 

[bigshot]

I got to see Pavarotti live in recital. His voice was phenomenal.

 

[Steve999]

Simply amazing.

That was amazing. Classical voice music is a huge blind spot for me. If anyone has a specific entry point that might be good for someone work their way into the music I would really appreciate it. I am not familiar with the classical voice technique or mannerisms and have very little context to understand what is going on when I watch classical singing, so it's a good opportunity to pry my mind open a little and get into it. The language barrier presents somewhat of an obstacle to me as well--I regret to say that I speak only English competently. It seemed like he was really feeling it and playing off the emotion of the audience--or does he just do that every time? I need something accessible to start with--I know I can relate to other music that is not accessible to a lot of other people but here is something where the tables are turned for me. I'll read up on Pavarotti--I guess that's at least one place to start.

 

[bigshot]

Continuing on the opera theme... Here is one that never fails to grab me. Maria Callas “O mio babbino caro” by Puccini

 

[Steve999]

Continuing on the, um, shall we say, dramatic vocals theme, I thought maybe this might be powerful enough to work its way into the social consciousness for decades to come. Tonight is for me a young people's music night. This is a clean version, with just a few views. I almost never like rap but this seems pretty powerful.



For the real bomb I'll just provide a link to an article that links to the song, so it's hopefully attenuated enough not to to violate the head-fi TOS. Be forwarned-it's explicit and political. The age recommendation is 14 years old, but I don't want to provide easy access to someone too young:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/ice-cube-trump-arrest-the-president-754182/

 

[GearMe]

Who doesn't love a good opera! ...or do they?

 

[bigshot]

I listen to the Chandos Opera in English series in my car. No need for subtitles or librettos and it makes rush hour traffic downright pleasant! I especially like Donizetti in a traffic jam.

 

[Steve999]

I listen to the Chandos Opera in English series in my car. No need for subtitles or librettos and it makes rush hour traffic downright pleasant! I especially like Donizetti in a traffic jam.

Thanks, I really appreciate it. I'll check it out.