Sound Science Music Thread: Pass it on!

[Steve999]

@GearMe introduced me to the Big Phat Band. They're awesome! Great arrangements, great musicianship, great recording quality as far as my non-expert ears can tell, endlessly clever and expressive music. Really great. Hopefully easily accessible to people who listen to classical and pop music a lot--I have a hard time guessing on that one, I listen to all three. The only thing they might be missing is any kind of top tier individual world-class virtuosity, but everything here is absolutely first-rate. I haven't read the critic reviews so I don't know what I'm officially supposed to think. I try to do that when I can. Here's a cut I was listening to this morning:

 

[bigshot]

I like retro stuff, and hearing old forms of music in modern digital sound is certainly attractive. But I have to admit that there is a special spark to the spontaneous sense of discovery the old guard exhibited when they were creating it for the first time... like when Benny Goodman's Carnegie Hall concert was beginning to tank and Gene Krupa digs in and raises the whole band up to the stratosphere by going off the charts. (I guess that's where the term "off the charts" came from.)

Modern bands have musicians of the same calibre as in the past, but there's a feeling that they're dressing up in grandpa's old suit and pretending to be him. It's tight and rehearsed and sourced from the best of the past. But their focus isn't on making new music for today,; it's about mining the past for moments to recreate. I firmly believe that when you try to imitate and recreate, the best you can achieve is "almost as good as the original". You can't take music forward without adding something new and personal to it.

That said, this is great Tonight Show style playing. I bet these guys are a lot of fun to see play in Vegas. I like that whole style of canned "TV band" album that they released a lot of in the 60s. There were so many talented people making the stuff I call "Dad Music" ...like Les Baxter, Quincy Jones, Henry Mancini, Mike Post, Nelson Riddle, Lalo Schifrin, Neil Hefti, etc. Those guys are in the same category of music as this. It's fun stuff.

 

[bigshot]

RIP Andre Previn



I recommend his recordings of Russian and British composers, particularly Elgar, Walton, Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky and of course Gershwin, which fits in neither of those categories. He was a vastly underrated conductor.

 

[GearMe]

Another young guy keeping the 'Big Band' flame burning

Some traditional stuff...






Has some interesting arrangements as well...




And some duets...

 

[castleofargh]

the hunting season for the Bublé is throughout December. first warning!
my Grandma loved him and she didn't like that many youngsters. to get her favor a guy had to dance well and/or sing well. and be white...

 

[sonitus mirus]

the hunting season for the Bublé is throughout December. first warning!
my Grandma loved him and she didn't like that many youngsters. to get her favor a guy had to dance well and/or sing well. and be white...

My grandma was born in 1923. She was born in the US, but her family is Polish or Russian. (those times were tricky, and there is still some mystery surrounding her ancestry) I believe she shares a similar requirement to win a man's favor.

We are not our grandmothers.

 

[bigshot]

Right now I've decided to explore Disco. I got a great collection that sounds really good loud in my car stereo... Circus Disco.

 

[taffy2207]

Blues Arcadia. New discovery for me, I'm loving what I'm hearing. It's like James Morrison formed a blues band. I can hear echoes of Soul, Funk & Southern Rock too. I'm hugely impressed by this so far :-

 

[Steve999]

Blues Arcadia. New discovery for me, I'm loving what I'm hearing. It's like James Morrison formed a blues band. I can hear echoes of Soul, Funk & Southern Rock too. I'm hugely impressed by this so far :-

Very cool. Thanks. It reminds me of a great blues bar after a few beers at about 11:30 PM with the smell of danger in the air and beer on the floor! Not that I was ever in such a place.

Just to change things up, I've always loved the Handel organ concertos but only recently am trying to get more familiar with them. . . there is a lot to take in. . . from the kaleidoscope organ playing to the symphonic accompaniment and the interplay. . . so I did a quick search on YouTube to share them with the people here--they really seem remarkable to me.

 

[bigshot]

I just got a new blu-ray restoration of this film, The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach, and it's very interesting. It's sort of a biography, but most of the picture is top performers dressed in period style performing in locations where Bach actually lived and worked. It's pretty amazing.

 

[GearMe]

An old soul (at 12)! Always liked this song...



And for good measure...i know, i know, i know

 

[castleofargh]

An old soul (at 12)! Always liked this song...



And for good measure...i know, i know, i know

it was an exasperated response to Rihanna's constant nagging: "work work work work work".
meanwhile Deep Purple pretended they couldn't hear a thing "oooo oooooo oooooo, ooooo oooooo oooo", and when she insisted they went all "AAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAA, AAAAA AAAAA AAAAA...." to cover her voice even better. that got Rihanna pretty mad.
Rage Against the machine were going all "FU I won't do what you tell me" like they did 9000 times a day, everyday, so she didn't pay much attention.
but Otis Redding looking her straight in the eyes while going "fafafafafafafafafa", that was the last drop. she lost it and soon after she was all "mama mama mama" after she shot him down.


true story!




when I really love a song, I usually hate hearing a cover of it. it's really rare when I don't think:

 

[GearMe]

Never got the chance to see Alvin Lee...

 

[sonitus mirus]

A big influence for Alvin Lee, Tony Iommi, and many others. (@ 0:41, what!?)

 

[bigshot]

The greatest jazz guitarist of all time and he did it without the use of half the fingers on his fretting hand!