mollusk

Talked with my 88 year old MIL tonight. She knew Charlie Parker and T Monk, but for some reason Miles Davis was a blank. WTF!

mollusk

I saw Zappa many times. The best one was at The Auditorium theater in Chicago. It is a smallish theater with great acoustics. Frank was yelling st the crowd many times to stop smoking dope because playing there was a great thing and he didn't want to screw it up for coming back.

I had second row seats and was not smoking dope.

big john

Remember when Miles was on Miami Vice? Zappa was too!

big john

I had great seats at the Roxy but that place was so tiny and they just packed us in there and I couldn't move much.

I went to The Lighthouse in Hermosa beach several times to see jazz and for a small place it was pretty comfortable. I saw Pharoah Sanders there and it was memorable.

TMonk

On a related note, I've had this earworm in my heat a bit lately.... dat bassline tho. Let's call it an early-modern era Davis piece.

hubcyclist

it's pretty funny how an instrument can inspire playing. Although I've had an acoustic guitar for 8 years now and a strat style guitar for the past 2 years or so, I really wasn't really consistent with playing, but in the past 8 days of having the Les Paul style guitar I've been playing a bit each day, I have about 5 "songs" (basically just riffs I think are cool), going a bit hard rock with my stuff.

big john

Marcus Miller sure sounds like Jaco Pastorius to me.

big john

Hermes

We decided to make risotto and I asked Siri to play Italian opera. My wife and I took turns stirring the rice. During one of my stirs, this piece came on. Amazing. Great risotto...maybe it was the music.

Hermes

TMonk How is your classical piece progressing?

Another lesson today and a much better performance of the Art of the Fugue. Nothing new just more of the same adding on to other pieces and drills. My warmup these days is equal to my old practice sessions. Sound familiar.

TMonk

Non-existent. I'd like to be able to at least do a couple pages with my mom by Christmas and there is still time. Separately I've been working on Debussy's Arabesque 1 and enjoying it.

Last week I played music (jazz) with someone outside of my family for the first time in 6 months which was nice. It was my guitar player. We're playing again tonight as a matter of fact. I'm not sure I'm ready for this to be a regular thing yet or if I'm ready to bring back the rest of the rhythm section, but it's nice to pepper this in while we wait for the tides to continue (slowly) turning back to normal.

Hermes

Another piano lesson today and I have made a lot of progress with the Art of the Fugue. She was very happy. And I got my teacher back into the piece. She was all pumped up with some new fingering that she thought was better based on her playing it again trying different things. I guess her kids do not play from the Art of the Fugue, only the Well Tempered Clavier.

I told her I listened to Gould play the Goldberg Variations from his 1981
Album. She thinks I should start on the Goldberg Variations and I will be ready for them after the Art of the Fugue.

I put up this link before but it is so good it deserves a repost. Here is Gould doing the first 4 variations. The Aria, which is the opening piece, is just too good.

carpediemracing 

This is one of my sporadic "open my soul to BF" posts. I don't know where else to share this stuff.

Over time I realized at work that music is so, so important for my mental health. I hear the right songs and the day is a hundred percent better. It's like flicking a switch, instant mood boost.

In the bike shop days I had, in the shop, a 400w(?) amp/receiver, four big speakers (2 pairs of speakers, 8" and 10" woofers respectively, 3 way), and a (gifted to me) large screen TV with bike race tapes. After closing the store I'd put in a bike race tape (favorite was the with the epic picture of the leadout pointing to the surge - and the insane chase as the 1955 Hungarian Pro RR Champion Andre Farkas said, in absolute disbelief, "the break went for 40 km and never had more than 30 seconds!!), turn on the amp, crank the volume to max, and ride my brains out. The circuit board on the receiver melted one night, brown fluid all over the board, leaving my ears ringing in the sudden silence.

Thing is I haven't been out listening to loud music (and drinking, which seems key if I'm not on the trainer) for something like 9 or 10 years now. Until that time, for the prior 15 years, I had my cadre of understanding and protective friends that I'd go out with and just lose myself. They'd let me let go do my thing without judging or letting me get into trouble, driving me home, etc (and two of them were my co-best men when I got married). Later the Missus was that person, and the last 4-5 times I went out were with her and a couple of specific friends. With my son, work, responsibilities... I can't do that at will, or even sporadically. And I miss that.

The one time I can really lose myself in music is when I'm driving. Problem is that I haven't had a great sound system in my car for a while, and right now, other than when I'm on the trainer, it's the only time I can really lose myself in music. The other time I can lose myself in music is, I realize, when I have a day off and I can absolutely blast music, shake the house, and not worry about disturbing anyone.

TMonk

Very chill Sunday morning vibes with this organ cover of a classic:

Nachoman

This weekend I pedaled 65 miles and blasted Dead & Company the entire time.
Dead & Co is the new iteration of the Grateful Dead.
It's not for everyone, but hard core Dead Heads and hard core John Mayer heads can appreciate it.

TMonk

John Mayer is a seriously good guitar player! Good voice too, def. a modern talent. I know it's kind of soft-rock/new age and cringey, but "Gravity" gives me chills. I'm also a fan of some classic Dead stuff, but not the open jam-band and more the tighter albums like American Beauty but especially Workingman's Dead. That's a kickass album right there and my dad played it a lot growing up. Lots of tight ~3-5 minute tracks.

My (jazz) guitar player OTOH went to see Dead and Co. featuring John Mayer like 6 months before the pandemic hit, and reported that he had a good time. I considered going (Hollywood Bowl) but was busy that weekend.

Hermes

2 hours of piano practice today so my hands and legs are pretty tired. I can play the Bach Art of the Fugue and some parts sound very Glenn Gould like while others languish.

Doge

Just wondering how many here have heard Glenn Gould? I have to admit - I did only because you posted about him months ago.

Hermes

I posted this previously but here is Gould playing it. Gould was a Canadian and his first recording in 1955 was the Goldberg Variations that was one of Columbia’s largest selling albums. He focused a lot of his career on performing and recording Bach but also performed and recorded Beethoven and others. And he did a lot of interviews and discussed his recordings and his interpretations of the music he played. I have listened to all of his interviews and lectures.

TMonk

Glenn Gould is a total weirdo, in like a mad genius sort of way. Especially regarding his Bach work.

Over here, I'm much more simple minded/affectatious/new-school regarding my classical taste, preferring the ornamental and "pretty" sounds of the romantic and impressionist eras. On that note, I might have a problem, I've listened to this orchestral version of Schubert's "The Trout" like every day for the last week, sometimes twice...


The "background" wild piano arpeggios that start shortly after 26:30 are exquisite - a nice, steady melody played by lower-register string instruments (no violin) with decorative, almost cerebral piano lines.

MichelleButler9

I like Schubert, thank you for sharing this video.

Doge

I'm much more geeky about music these days. Certain strings really draw emothion, but in general I think most recordings are poor quality. I can see Mr Gould is special, but I can't really hear much fidelity in his recordings. I would not listen to that recording if not into the art myself. I can clearly hear his talent, but the sound is lost in the recording being sub-par. Tough really. I want both. I want to hear confirmation the musition is a great artist (clearly the case). And I want to hear great sound reproduction which is not the case for what I can find. That can be the instrament, or the recording or both. For him, seems the recordings are just all not so good. I expect that is because he is playing for live performances and the recording is just kinda a record of what he did. Compare that to a recording by Diana Krall (rating recording, not the artist) - I assume that is what gsteinb 's kid has a job for.

mollusk

My MIL bought me the recent vinyl of Ella Fitzgerald's Berlin concerts.

OMG, what a beautiful voice.

And the pressing is awesome. Beautiful and no "clicks". Way better than CD or MP3.

Listening to it now for maybe the twentieth time.

Sometimes little things in life are the best and getting this from my MIL as a surprise was unexpected. Not really her kind of music, but I am bringing her around to it.

big john

I heard this when I was about 16. It was real eye-opener.

mollusk

Pulled this one out of my vinyl bin: Extrapolation by Jon McLaughlin.

I think I haven't spun that disk in 20 years.