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Sampling and tangoing, both honourable past-times, both celebrated on The Signal tonight. The former with sample-rich tunes from the duo Original Recipe, producer Lampshade, and DJ Kid Koala. The latter from Astor Piazzolla, Osvaldo Golijov and the Gotan Project.
Today at BISQC, all nine quartets took their turns in playing "Dark Energy" by Canadian composer Kelly-Marie Murphy. When I interviewed her before the first performance, I asked her why she'd given a big solo cadenza to the 2nd violinist in the quartet, and she gave me an interesting answer.
Traditionally, it's the first violin who has led the string quartet, and early string quartet composers -- for example "Papa Haydn" who invented the form in the first place -- gave the first violin all the best tunes.
But as Kelly-Marie pointed out, it's actually the 2nd violinist who has to keep the whole string quartet engine chugging along -- by co-ordinating the solos in the first with the middle harmonies of the viola and bass line of the cello, and keeping those inner harmonies and rhythms in perfect synch.
Because of this, many people think a quartet's 2nd violin has to be every bit as good as the band's 1st -- or even better! So Kelly-Marie decided to celebrate those skills by offering the normally self-effacing fiddlers a little time in the spotlight. To hear all nine performances of Dark Energy, visit Quartets on Demand.
And don't forget, you can log onto our special Banff International String Quartet Competition website to hear the weekend performance rounds, including the finals.
...there's an Edmonton band that "pays tribute" to 40 years of British pop and other sixties sounds, called Cone of Silence? There is.
But they're not actually first on the Canada Live bill tonight. (Sorry about that chief, I just wanted to use the Would You Believe line as the subject heading.) No, first on the bill are four Edmontonian women – Maria Dunn, Ann Vriend, Colleen Brown and Samantha Schultz – who share the stage to swap songs and stories about being female and being performers, all in aid of the Edmonton Women’s Shelter.
And to cap off the evening, Edmonton’s Stew Kirkwood showcases his poetic pop tunes in one of the last concerts from the now defunct Sidewalk Café.
Ndidi Onukwulu is a powerhouse singer with a captivating stage presence. I say this based on having seen her live several times. I haven't heard this particular concert yet, but I'm pleased to announce that it is now available as what we affectionately call a COD (Concert On Demand) here at CBC R2 online.
Onukwulu’s band includes African Guitar Summit veteran Madagascar Slim, who adds some smokin’ guitar solos (listen to him channel Jimi Hendrix in Weight!) to her timeless songs.
Ndidi Onukwulu at Concerts on Demand
Dearest listeners:
I'm writing this while looking out over a stormy lake. It's raining knives and forks and there's a gorgeous mist draped over what I call my Tom Thomson island just across the bay. Yes I've made the move to Nova Scotia--to a wee lake on the Aspotogan Peninsula called Fox Point Lake. I've moved to be with my partner, my family and friends and to have some better air to breathe. Toronto air is cosmopolitan but rather chewy for folks with asthma. I hope my lungs will improve.
And so I'm a re-purposed Torontonian, or rather, a Come-from-Away Bluenoser now as I settle in to a new music community. Halifax is full of blandishments and although as actors say, I'm "resting" at the moment, I'm already looking forward to some upcoming projects.
I'd like to thank you for tuning in to Here's To You. Every weekday was a joy to me knowing you were listening in. Your letters and cards kept me on my toes, and warmed my heart. What a wonderful conversation we've had in words and music right across this country and beyond, not only you to me and back again, but amongst us all: friends have been re-united, joys and sorrows shared, and there's always been a lot of laughter.
I'll be missing you all and cherishing our special bond--one that wouldn't be possible without our beloved CBC. She will endure and thrive as long as there are listeners as caring as you to support her.
Heartfelt thanks to you all, it's been a privilege to be part of your day. You hold a special place in my heart,
Shelley
OK, I am not a muppet fan per se. I've had certain gaps in my TV watching life, and muppets are among them.
But this hilarious and wonderful "20 best musical moments on the original Muppet Show," complete with video clips, shows me what I missed.
From Alice Cooper to Dizzy Gillespie (or "Izzy Gilleskie, world famous violinist," as Kermit says) to Joan Baez, Victor Borge, Steve Martin doing an "audition" for a spot on the show with the muppets in front of house...and on and on. Most entertaining of a Friday afternoon.
Ever been camping at Banff? Ah, the pure mountain air, the tall pines against the big sky, Banff Park Radio broadcasting safety messages, trail reports, and of course, string quartets!
It's true, Friends of Banff Park Radio have been simulcasting CBC Radio 2's coverage of the BISQC all week, from 1pm - 4pm MST, at 101.1FM in Banff, and online at Park Radio.
Their station manager, Lloyd, wrote to say that they're "pretty excited."
So are we!
Katherine Duncan has been busy busy busy covering the 9th Banff International String Quartet Competition for CBC Radio 2 and on this blog.
Today at noon (noon thirty Newfoundland) she’ll take you to the Eric Harvey Theater to hear the live premiere of Dark Energy, a new work by Canada’s Kelly Marie Murphy. Commissioned by the CBC, it's the test piece that all nine competing quartets must play.
Also, more music from the Romantic repertoire, along with commentary from violinist Geoff Nuttall of the St. Lawrence String Quartet.
Today Catherine Belyea will take over the host chair at Here's to You, as Shelley Solmes relocates to another part of the country and a new phase of her life. So it’s the changing of the guard today as Shelley bids you farewell and welcomes Catherine as the programme’s new host.
What music could possibly be classy enough for an occasion as major as this? Everything from Moe Koffman’s Swinging Shepherd Blues to Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
All the best to Shelley, and welcome Catherine!
If you were a string quartet celebrating your 20th anniversary, how would you mark the moment? Pulling out the old photos of concerts, the recordings, perhaps a few moist-eyed reminiscences, maybe a glass or three of champers?
Well, The Lafayette String Quartet decided to celebrate their 20th with custom-made music, so they commissioned R. Murray Schafer to write a work just for them. Thus Schafer's String Quartet Number 11 was born, and you can hear it tonight on The Signal.
Smithers B.C. is located in the Bulkley Valley of northern British Columbia along Yellowhead Highway 16, roughly half way between the cities of Prince Rupert and Prince George. It's home to all the nice things you might expect, given that location, like good fishing, skiing and hiking.
It's also home to some very fine Latin music, from Alex Cuba who lives there. Fortunately for those of us who do NOT live in Smithers, he also likes to tour regularly. And tonight you can hear him from a Vancouver date at the Media Club, on Canada Live.
And speaking of Latin music, the second concert features Grupo Fantasma, a Latin fusion band from Austin. I see on their website they were recently at the Chicago Summer Dance Series in Grant Park. I can just imagine that, having been last summer. It's pretty magical -- as night falls the picnickers pull up their blankets, and the bands start to play, salsa and merengue and cumbia. And all around the bandshell people begin to dance: couples who can, couples who can't, grandmothers and children, and even people from Toronto.
I blogged yesterday about how some of the string quartets competing at Banff had come up with their names.
If you're advertising in the Yellow Pages, a name beginning with the letter "A" can provide an alphabetical advantage... Perhaps the same holds true for string quartets.
For example, when the Attacca Quartet of the U.S. was choosing a name, a last-minute panic led to a late-night session with the dictionary. They didn't make it past "A" when they came upon the word "attacca" -- a musical term which means to go from one movement to the next without pause. In old Italian, the word translates to "attached" -- which is a very good thing for members of a string quartet to be.
Another A-named quartet is Canada's Afiara Quartet . They tell me the name actually started out as a typo in an email (Adrian meant to write "affair" but wrote "afiara" instead -- it could happen to anyone!)
They liked the look of the word, and since they were looking for a name for their quartet, looked it up to see if it meant anything. What luck that a Spanish dictionary offered up the definition of "in it trusted." The idea immediately took hold for the quartet... as they put it, "The idea of trust was a major concept for us -- we really have to trust each other when we rehearse."
As promised, all performances from the opening Recital Rounds of BISQC are now available for "Listening on Demand" here.
Now that BISQC has moved into the Romantic and Canadian Commission Rounds, you'll be able to hear your favorite quartets performing an even wider variety of music.
Share your thoughts on the music, and the performances, with listeners here in Banff, and around the world!
Tonic plays a version by Joe Sample of Lee Morgan's The Sidewinder this eve, and notes that it sounds "incredibly funky."
I must say that the tune sounded incredibly funky in the hands of Lee Morgan too, which is probably why it was a hit on the pop charts in 1964. Even though in certain jazz quarters it was viewed as, in the words of one anonymous musician, "monotonous and a little silly."
Harsh. I would have said, "irresistible groove and a lot appealing."
Billboard has a good Lee Morgan bio, which includes this b.g. to The Sidewinder.
Continue reading "The Sidewinder Backstory" »
Darcy James Argue's Secret Society (a person, a jazz musician, a blog) has an insightful review of Feist performing at The Living Room in NYC. Here's a couple brief excerpts:
"She's a ridiculously skilled singer with a sweet clear voice, colored with a tiny, heartbreaking rasp." "...you could pick it apart -- 'Oh, here's a bit of folksy Canadiana via Joni Mitchell, mixed with a touch of electroclash on loan from Peaches, laced with some unabashedly retro Dusty Springfield/Burt Bacharach stylings' -- but you don't, because everything is so well integrated and so personal."
Mr. Secret Society also posts an MP3 of Toronto-born jazz singer Amy Cervini's cover of the Feist hit, Mushaboom (authorized by Amy Cervini). Brave of her to take it on, and I quite like it, once she gets past the intro which I find a tad lugubrious.
Funny how Katherine was blogging about the names of string quartets yesterday, and I was doing the same about naming bands.
If you're stuck for a name for your group you can always try the band name generator site.
Plug in a couple key words, and hey presto! An array of possible names are created, based on your word choices. For example, I plugged in a few of my favourite things into the generator: popcorn, scotch and naps.
Now I'm trying to decide whether to call my ukulele quintet: "Popcorn Scotch Naps Of The Devious Math" or "Popcorn Scotch Naps Brutality And The Resistant Meaning."
Today Here's To You poses a question: how could you not love a sonata for bassoon and double bass?
I don't know, how could you not? I find it difficult to imagine having any issues with the idea. Certainly Telemann didn't, not when he wrote a composition for the pair.
And it being Organ Thursday, the show also poses another question: what will Jurgen Petrenko choose to play? All I know is that Bach figures in this, always a good thing.
Well, the last notes of Day 2 of the 9th BISQC have been played here in Banff. That's it for the fascinating and sometimes controversial Haydn & Bartok round.
Now, whether you were here in Banff and want to taste and compare, or whether you are friends or family of competing quartets, wanting to check on their progress from far away, you can now listen to nearly all of the recital round performances on demand.
My previous postings gave you links to the Koryo, TinAlley, and Tokai String Quartet performances. Four others are posted below: for the Attacca, Afiara, Talisker and Zemlinsky Quartets.
(Stay tuned for the final performance by the Ariel String Quartet, later this morning)
Enjoy! And don't forget to check back in, post an opinion, and see how your impressions compare to those of other listeners -- and come Sunday -- to those of the jury!
Continue reading "More quartets available on demand" »
Historically, String Quartets have often named themselves after a favorite composer, music school or local geographical feature -- think of famous ones like the Borodin Quartet, the Juilliard Quartet , or even our own St. Lawrence String Quartet.
But for younger quartets today, it can be a challenge is to come up with a name that hasn't already been taken -- and hopefully one that gives a potential audience (or concert presenter) a sense of the quartet's style or musical approach.
We asked some of the quartets participating in BISQC to tell us about their names, and got some interesting answers.
Continue reading "The Name Game" »
We've posted the Tokai String Quartet's performance in the opening recital round of the Banff International String Quartet Competition right here.
You can listen to their performance of Haydn's G minor Quartet, Opus 20 No. 3, and Bartok's 2nd String Quartet. Then post your comments on our BISQC blog!
Hear the TinAlley String Quartet from Australia in their opening performance at the Banff International String Quartet Competition, by clicking here.
They perform the Quartet Op. 76 No. 5 by Joseph Haydn, and the Quartet No. 2 Op. 17 by Bela Bartok.
Once you've listened, add your comment here!
Mallets are flying tonight on The Signal, in a concert from Lula Lounge in Toronto at the 2007 Cool Drummings Festival. It's called Marimba Madness, and features percussionist Beverly Johnston.
Note -- in case you can't tune into The Signal, this concert is also available online as a Concert on Demand -- also titled Marimba Madness.
But of course there are other reasons to listen to The Signal, for example music from some of this year's Polaris Music Prize nominees, and the latest project from Kieran Hebdan, a.k.a. Four Tet. (Who some like to call "folktronic.")
And by the way, if you've time you should go to Four Tet's website, the way it opens is like watching the beginning of an inventively shot movie -- really quite lovely, and to my mind a perfect reflection of the kaleidoscopic qualities of the music.
The opening concert from the 9th Banff International String Quartet Competition is now available for listening, on demand. Click here to hear the Koryo String Quartet of the U.S. performing Haydn's String Quartet Op 76 No 2, "The Fifths"; and Bartok's Quartet No. 6.
Take a listen and then post your comments here!
Earlier today I was thinking about band names, how they can draw you in, charm, amuse or revolt you. The many lists of bad band names online are a testament to that reality.
Inevitably many of the names on these lists are, how shall we put it, vulgar. Some are just wacky. And sometimes they're very funny. (Just to cite one example of these kinds of "bad band names" lists, here's one published by the Detroit weekly, Metro Times, which begins its list of names that are "a little off the beaten path" with the relatively innocuous "Bunnygrunt.")
And some band names just seem to stay with you, regardless of your relationship to the actual music. For me, it's names like "Sheep Look Up," "Skinny Puppy," and "A Cat Born In An Oven Isn't a Cake."
Do you have any band names that have are lodged in your brain, happily or otherwise? Do tell.
Just a quick note to say that Katie will also be opening the show tonight with a small tribute to Doug Riley, who passed away on Monday. Because Katie is currently suffering from laryngitis, most of tonight's episode of TONIC is a repeat of a favourite past show, but she felt she needed to come in to work today to honour Doug's passing.
...should you need one...is a 1954 recording the show is playing this evening of Art Tatum and Benny Carter doing Gershwin's A Foggy Day.
Oddly enough I was corresponding just minutes ago with someone in London who tells me it has been a "dreary cold" summer. I emailed back to say that here it has been endlessly sunny and hot -- except when I go on canoe trips. Sadly true.
But I digress. Art Tatum is in my top five, when it comes to jazz pianists. I know that some feel his playing was too much about pyrotechnics, (similar charges have been levied against Oscar Peterson for that matter), but for my money, the fleetness of fingerwork did not detract one bit from the incredible musicality.
Legend has it that when Art Tatum walked into a club where Fats Waller was playing, Waller announced, "I only play the piano, but tonight God is in the house".
To hear him with Benny Carter, tune into Tonic.
There's an old saying that in classical music, success is one percent inspiration, and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
Still, inquiring minds want to know -- what inspires all that hard work? We asked several of the quartets competing this week in the The Banff International String Quartet Competition.
Some pointed to the stunning views of the mountains in Banff, or the supportive, nurturing atmosphere of the Banff Centre itself.
Another quartet player answered quite differently, when she said, "I prefer silence over music when I'm not playing. For me, silence is the biggest inspiration."
Today at noon, hear inspired and inspiring performances by Canada's Tokai Quartet, the TinAlley String Quartet from Australia, the Attacca Quartet and the Koryo String Quartet, both from the U.S. as we present day 1 of our special CBC Radio 2 coverage of the 9th BISQC, live from the Banff Centre.
On a very sad note, Doug Riley, the Toronto-born keyboardist, composer and arranger known as "Dr. Music" died on Monday. He was 62.
His passing represents a huge loss to Canada's jazz community, and to the larger musical community as well. Jazz was his first love, but he recorded with an astonishing range of musicians, from symphony orchestras to pop and R&B musicians like Bob Seger (he played piano and organ on Seger's famous Night Moves) and Ray Charles.
I'm sure as days pass there will be tributes of various kinds paid to Doug Riley, but in the moment I'd like to suggest that celebrating a musician's life can't be done better than by hearing that person's music.
This concert was part of a week of celebration recognizing 50 years of Jazz in Edmonton presented by the Yardbird Suite. Composers Doug Riley and Sandro Dominelli were commissioned by CBC Radio to create a Jazz Suite for the occasion.
Doug Riley had a long history of great jazz collaborations at the Yardbird. Sandro is one of the key players on the contemporary Edmonton scene. Their resulting work - “Suite for the Yardbird” -consists of five distinct pieces: three from Doug and two from Sandro.
Longtime collaborators P. J Perry, Saxophone and Jim Head, Guitar, joined Doug and Sandro on stage. This was a hot night in the club: great music and and a memorable vibe.
Continue reading "Canada's "Dr. Music," Doug Riley" »
Sometimes the name of a band makes you want to hear them. Which is probably why there are likely as many intriguing band names as names of race horses. (And some of them just as absurd. I once won $10 on a horse called No Dorp, the bet placed out of pity, poor little filly.) Everyone wants a good name, few manage to find one.
But sometimes people get it just right. Lullaby Baxter, or the Lily String Quartet, for example. Both names seem somehow elegant while still maintaining an air of simplicity. Or maybe the truth is I just like the sound of them.
To hear the sound of them musically, tune in tonight to Canada Live, for part of the annual Combo To Go series presented by CBC Radio and the Epcor Centre, which brings together musicians from different musical backgrounds or styles.
Lullaby Baxter, who, legend has it, got her start singing in between slinging cocktails at Montreal's Jello Bar, (where in days gone by I misspent many a Montreal night), writes her own original pop songs.
And The Lily String Quartet are four young women based in Calgary, none of whom are named Lily. (They're named after the composer Lily Boulanger, sister to Nadia.)
In this program, the string quartet interprets Lullaby Baxter's pop songs, and Ms. Baxter interprets a Mendelssohn string quartet.
Shelley Solmes has a little taste of Gilbert and Sullivan today on Here’s to You, with the overture to Yeomen Of The Guard, which is set at the Tower in London. (And has far too many topsy turvy plot complications to quickly recount, save to say that no one ends up headless.)
Other highlights today on Here's To You include sonatas by Schubert and Elgar, and Faure’s lovely Requiem.
It is with something of the same fascination I feel when watching the Idols that I've been reading reviews of Pattie Boyd's Wonderful Tonight, a memoir which of course touches more than lightly on her relationships with George Harrison and Eric Clapton.
I've yet to actually read the book, but have a hunch the New York Times review is probably accurate when it calls it "spotty but scrumptious."
To read more about the book the woman who inspired Harrison's Something and Eric Clapton's Layla penned, (with a little help from her friends), here's that NYT review.
Some kind of synchronicity -- scarcely hours ago I blogged (whenever I say that I imagine a classroom full of people learning English and conjugating: I blog, you blog, he/she blogs...seems somehow so absurd) about evidence of a ukulele revival.
And now what happens? The Signal plays Ohbijou, the Toronto-based indie band who play, among other au courant instruments (like the ubiquitous glockenspiel) the ukulele!
I should also make note of a non-uke concert tonight on The Signal for Gary Kulesha and Michael Hynes fans -- a concert from Glenn Gould Studio featuring the music of both composers.
The double bill tonight on Canada Live starts with the chamber music organization Via Salzburg, led by violinist Mayumi Seiler, performing music by Arnold Schoenberg and Canadian composer Jose Evangelista.
And ends with the young Canadian pianist Laila Biali, who you undoubtedly have heard on the CBC before as she recorded her very fine recording From Sea To Sky for CBC records. Tonight Biali showcases her own arrangements of songs by various Canadian songwriters.
Barry Schiffman is the new Director of the Banff International String Quartet Competition, which got underway this afternoon. In his new role, he's in a position to make some changes to the way BISQC unfolds over the course of the week.
One of the most obvious change he's made is to have each quartet perform two complete works in their first round -- one each by Josef Haydn, the so-called "Father of the String Quartet" and his 20th Century Hungarian counterpart, Bela Bartok.
On the one hand, this means we get to hear each quartet perform two complete works, in two very different styles of music at their very first appearance. It also means that we have to wait a full two days before hearing all 9 quartets perform.
Some audience members have expressed concern over their two-composer endurance. But commentator Geoff Nuttall considers the change a stroke of brilliance. I'll get him to explain why, when he joins me on the air tomorrow at noon (12:30 NT) on Radio 2's special coverage of the competition.
Earlier this summer I blogged about the state of the ukulele nation, in a post called In Praise Of The Ukulele.
Much to my delight up popped a feature article about that very subject the other day in the Sunday Times.
It points to younger artists and bands (e.g. Stephin Merritt, Conor Oberst and Beirut) as bringing the ukulele to new audiences, and also claims that "the instruments are flying of shelves in guitar shops"in England. (And of course doing very well at the specialty store "Duke of Uke".)
Apparently Britons spent at least 300 thousand POUNDS on ukeleles in the past year. No information on Canadian sales was available at time of blogging.
Tonight on Tonic vibraphonist Gary Burton joins bassist Dave Young's trio for the Duke Ellington tune It Don't Mean a Thing. Of course free jazz went on to show it DOES mean a thing if it ain't got that swing, but that takes absolutely nothing away from the marvelous Ellington tune.
And speaking of the mighty Duke...it was 1943, Ray Nance picked up his violin, he and Taft Jordan shared vocals, Ben Webster soloed...and it meant a thing or two, alright...see for yourself, as The Duke Ellington Band plays It Don't Mean A Thing.
I'm guest hosting Studio Sparks this week, and we're broadcasting from one of my favorite places in the world -- the Banff Centre. It's an extremely nurturing environment for artists of all kinds. (They're pretty nice to broadcasters here in Banff, too.)
The first notes of the 9th Banff International String Quartet Competition will be played at 2pm Mountain Time today. Beginning tomorrow at noon, I'll bring you complete coverage of BISQC, with features on all the quartets, and expert insight and analysis from Geoff Nuttall, first violinist of previous BISQC winners, the St Lawrence String Quartet. It'll be my fourth BISQC, but my first as host, so I'm really excited about sharing the experience with listeners all over the country -- and with listeners in Europe thanks to our collaboration with the EBU.
I've spent enough time here that I can almost imagine what life might have been like for Shauna Rolston when she was growing up. Her parents Thomas and Isobel Rolston, ran the Music and Sound program at the Banff Centre for many years. Talk about going into the family business!
Continue reading "A Cellist in the Family Business" »
Did you miss some of the concerts broadcast this weeekend on Radio 2? They just might be available at Concerts On Demand to listen to whenever you like. Here are some examples from this weekend’s broadcasts:
Follow a link to stream an entire concert or just selected tracks while you read a bit about the concert, look at photographs and read up on the artists. Enjoy!
I hope you've had a chance to read Katherine Duncan's first posts from her week at the Banff International String Quartet Competition. "BISQC" sounds like quite the place to be, and Katherine will be giving us the play by play on the blog and as she hosts Studio Sparks from Banff, revving up for the BISQC main event, which begins Wednesday.
But the day is still young, and there are miles of music before we get to S'sparks. For instance on Here's To You. They have a kind of sky/winged creatures theme on the show today, with music from Offenbach’s ballet Papillon, Postcards From The Sky by Canada’s Marjan Mozetich, Swan Dance by Veljo Tormis, and Green Finch And Linnet Bird from Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd.
Some of you made interesting contributions to potential "tree music," both classical and non, in connection with Here's To You's recent tree-themed show -- perhaps you may have an idea for music connected to wing-ed things? Should you have any suggestions, please feel free to offer via "comments."
After spending a few hours holed up in my room, preparing for tomorrow's Studio Sparks, I wandered out into the residence lobby, which until now had been a quiet, contemplative place. Not this afternoon! More than four hundred people have suddenly arrived at the Banff Centre.
They're the resident audience at BISQC -- a rare breed of dedicated chamber music lovers, concert presenters, musicians, and music journalists. For the next week, they'll spend up to eight hours a day inside the Eric Harvey Theatre, listening to 9 of the world's top quartets play recitals of works by Bartok, Haydn, Schubert, Beethoven, Borodin, Dvorak, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Debussy, Schumann, Webern and Canada's own Kelly-Marie Murphy. Many of these people have attended past editions of BISQC -- most book their holidays three years in advance to be sure of competition tickets and a coveted "room at the Inn" on the Banff Centre campus. They come bearing string quartet scores, an almost insatiable appetite for chamber music, (not to mention those delicious Banff Centre desserts), and strong, well-informed opinions.
Continue reading "Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you, "The Audience!"" »
There's an expression by the 19th Century French writer Brillat-Savarin that my foodie friends like to quote. It goes, "The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star."
Well, much as I love food, I love music even more, and I was thrilled to discover this artist on a brand new CBC records disc.
Her name is Laila Biali -- she's a 26 year old jazz pianist, composer and vocalist. She grew up in North Vancouver and now lives in Toronto, but it's her hometown I think she was referring to when she gave the album the title "From Sea to Sky."
Laila brought together a total all-star cast of Toronto's best jazz musicians for this record -- Guido Basso, Phil Dwyer, Rob Pilch... and she adds her own mellow piano and very distinctive voice to her arrangements of some beautiful songs.
Today in the second hour of Studio Sparks from the Banff Centre, I'll play you a song from Laila Bialli's new album, Tears of Hercules by the ballad man, Marc Jordan.
I know the calendar says it's still technically August, but you'd never know it to step outside into the cool mountain air. Yes it's fresh. Extremely fresh. Mid single-digits daytime high fresh.
Of course not everyone got the memo about this. En route to the Banff Centre's dining hall Sunday afternoon I spotted a woman in a fur-lined parka walking along beside a young man wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Makes for some interesting fashion statements. Funny thing though, they both looked equally cold.
Never mind. It's Banff, and it's the mountains, and forecasters say by Thursday it'll be 27 degrees.
The thing is, we'll be spending the better part of every day this week in the comfort of the Eric Harvey Theatre at the Banff Centre, listening to 9 of the world's best string quartets compete for $20,000 in prizes at the Banff International String Quartet Competition (BISQC).
You can listen in on Studio Sparks today and tomorrow, noon to 3pm (12:30 to 3:30 NT), with full competition coverage starting Wednesday. Still, I'm just as glad I remembered to pack the arctic fleece as well as the sandals!
The 9th Banff International String Quartet gets underway tomorrow. I arrived on the weekend along with a crew of producers and recording engineers from CBC Calgary, Toronto and Ottawa. Together, we'll be bringing live performances from the competition to radio listeners across Canada here on CBC Radio 2, to European countries courtesy of the European Broadcasting Union, and as "concerts on demand" here on radio2.cbc.ca.
Beginning today, I'll be hosting Studio Sparks live from the Banff Centre. Today and tomorow, I'll set the mood with mountain music, and performances from the Banff Summer Festival. Wednesday at noon, our coverage of the competition itself (fondly referred to around here as "BISQC") begins in earnest.
Continue reading "Arriving in the Mountains" »
The Banff International String Quartet Competition begins Monday, and host of CBC's Symphony Hall, Katherine Duncan, will be covering the event on radio and on ye olde bloge. In fact, on Monday and throughout the week she'll be posting about Banff.
I'll be posting about R2 programming and various and sundry as well, as of this Tuesday, but thought I'd leave for my day off with this little find from Beware Of The Blog. (It's nothing so tasteful as string quartets, I must warn you.) The subject heading is Most Inexplicably Nude Album Covers. Ah, the things people do when they're young and it's the 1960s...
You can hear pianist Janina Kuzmas on Canada Live tonight with a concert of Mozart Sonatas and Fantasies. And the second concert of the evening is with bass-baritone Garry Gable, from Convocation Hall at the University of Saskatchewan. It sounds like quite a diverse programme, with songs in four languages -- Chinese, Russian, French and English -- and works by Canadian composers Malcolm Forsyth, Violet Archer and Paul McIntyre.
Speaking of Canadian composers, if you aren't familiar with it already, you may want to virtually visit the Canadian Music Centre, a great resource.
And speaking further of Canadian composers, the great John Weinzweig is celebrated tonight on The Signal. Weinzweig died a year ago at the age of 93, and this tribute to him is a concert called The Radical Remembered, recorded at Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto.
The biography of Mr. Weinzweig at the aforementioned Canadian Music Centre, begins with this delightful quote from the composer about his start in music...thought it was too endearing not to share:
"Between the ages of 14 and 19, I studied the piano, mandolin, tuba, double bass and tenor saxophone, as well as harmony. I played and conducted school orchestras, dance bands, weddings, lodge meetings and on electioneering trucks for a range of fees between two dollars and a promise. I played Pirates of Penzance, Poet and Peasant, Blue Danube, St. Louis Blues, Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies, Chopin waltzes and Tiger Rag. At age 19 I got serious and decided to become a composer."
A plethora of great voices on early evening R2 this Sunday night. First, a woman who has performed for the Queen, Dione Taylor, and a man whose music is self-described as "Stevie Wonder playing a Beatles song with Jamiroquai," db Clifford. (OK, so he hasn't performed for the Queen...yet.) Individually they are soulful, jazzy performers -- and they perform together tonight on Fuse.
And Tonic features tracks by Sophie Milman, Norah Jones, and Shirley Horn. Always wonderful to hear the late Shirley Horn. New York Times music critic John Pareles once wrote that "songs are lucky when Shirley Horn chooses them," and I don't think I could put it better than that.
Andre Alexis asks this question today on the radio: "What does it mean to feel someone else's pain and, in the scheme of things, does it make you a better predator or a worse one?" Hmm, predator, and there I was about to get all weepy, thinking about how he's struggling with an unanswerable question. But maybe he's exploring both empathy and its counterpart...schadenfreude? Will have to tune into Skylarkin' to find out...
It would be interesting to do some kind of study about why people choose the instruments they play. Sometimes the choice is made for you ("no, you won't be practicing drums in your room"). Sometimes by default ("sorry, no flutes left, just piccolos"). But otherwise? It's a choice, and it must arise from any number of feelings and ideas about what an instrument represents. Particularly when it's an instrument that's not exactly a dime a dozen -- like the harp.
A perfect opportunity for such an inquiry presented itself at OnStage's No Strings Attached, a gathering of harpists Sharlene Wallace, Lori Gemmell and Monika Stadler (with special guests Oliver Schroer on electric fiddle, Joseph Macerollo on accordion and George Koller on bass). That concert is broadcast today...OnStage.
There's something special about having the only radio orchestra in North America, as CBC does. (A shame that radio orchestras have all but disappeared, but nice that CBC still has one.) It's kind of classy, don't you think? So is its conductor, appointed last year, trombonist Alain Trudel. And today on Symphony Hall you can hear his debut at the podium with the CBC Radio Orch, with a programme called The Concerto Project featuring three outstanding pianists - Janina Fialkowska, Winston Choi and Jane Coop.
The programme includes the world premiere of Ramona Leungen’s Concerto, plus Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor and Mendelssohn’s Concerto No. 2 in D minor.
Just a quick note about the highlight today on Choral Concert --and what a highlight it is -- Myung-Whun Chung leads the Radio France Orchestra and Chorus in a performance of Verdi’s Requiem.
Sometimes The Signal is themed, sometimes it is not. Tonight it is not, it is what you might call a mixed bag, and inside the bag are some very interesting performers. For instance, Mother Mother, Apostle of Hustle, and a remix of the band Stars, as well as Julie Doiron, Alexis O'Hara and Joanna Newsom.
Speaking of Joanna Newsom, she's one of those performers people seem to either love or hate. (In fact if you google her name and Love Hate you will find pages of entries saying that very thing -- she's that intriguing or annoying, depending on your tastes.) Anyway, those in the love category really, really love the harpist/singer/poet. And for those who it's "love," you will be interested to know that this autumn Newsom tours with a 28 piece orchestra, performing those wonderful Van Dyke Parks arrangements from her last recording, Ys.
I like a bungalow. Never lived in one, no, it's always been apartments and flats in houses and even whole houses, but never a bungalow. Whenever I pass through Leaside, a neighbourhood in east-end Toronto where there are streets and streets of them, I imagine life in a bungalow. For some reason I think it would be a simpler life, one with fresh lemonade. Probably that's just some kind of romanticization of the era in which they were constructed though.
Guess Jim Bryson has an affinity for bungalows too -- he named his last CD after the diminutive dwellings -- it's called Where the Bungalows Roam. Why "roam" though? A cursory investigation did not turn up any explanation -- so if you know, do tell.
You can hear the Ottawa-based singer tonight performing some of the songs from Bungalows on Canada Live.
And when the CD came out, Exclaim magazine said it showed "a more tender side of Bryson," calling it "a lovely evolution for one of Canada’s most underrated songwriters, and one that will hopefully help him finally transcend that unfortunate label."
Well, but it beats "overrated" all to heck.
The folks at Tonic say that tonight host Tim Tamashiro features marches from Kevin Dean and Antonio Carlos Jobim. I wasn't aware that Jobim ever wrote marches, but then I started wondering if maybe they were having a little fun with the title of one of his most popular songs, in English The Waters Of March. (Then I thought no, I'm overthinking this, surely he must have had some marches up his sleeve I just don't know about?)
Anyway, it really led me down The Waters Of March path though, and next thing you knew I was listening to and watching this sublime version of Elis Regina and Jobim performing the piece -- with English subtitles for the lyrics! Kind of an opera surtitle approach I guess, and not sure it's needed. But totally worth it for Elis Regina's performance...
The Canadian Opera Company presents Gounod’s Faust this week on Saturday Afternoon at the Opera. David Pomeroy sings the title role, in a cast that includes Egils Silins, Brett Polegato, Lauren Segal and Ana Ibarra. Yannick Nezet-Seguin conducts.
It's impossible to mention the COC right now without thinking about the late Richard Bradshaw, who passed away last week. Many people paid their final respects at the Saint James Cathedral in Toronto on Tuesday, and if you were not able to yourself, you may wish to read this account of the day.
It's mostly pianos this week on Sound Advice. Host Rick Phillips samples news CDs of piano solos, chamber works and full orchestras, including a new disc of Chopin Scherzos.
In The Library: Cecile Chaminade, an almost-forgotten composer who flourished around 1900 but then more or less faded into obscurity. Apparently she wrote around 400 compositions, including orchestral works, but her most popular works were her piano pieces. But to find out more about her (and who knows, perhaps aid in a Chaminade comeback) tune into Sound Advice today.
Gilles Apap is one of the most versatile violinists today. And as part of the Montreal Chamber Music Festival, Gilles pays homage to jazz-violin great Stéphane Grappelli.
You can hear tunes from the Grappelli/Django Reinhardt songbook, as well as arrangements of Bach, Ravel and Eugene Ysaye. Apap is joined by Chris Judge on guitar along with Brendan Statom on Bass.
Gilles Apap’s Homage to Stéphane Grappelli at Concerts on Demand
You know how sometimes you decide you just can't live without something, a need that others perhaps find difficult to understand? Say, a parrot or a collection of antique salt shakers, or a wood stove...even though you live in a bachelor apartment.
Dave knows about this. Or at least Stuart McLean does -- on today's Vinyl Cafe, brought to you from Yellowknife, Stuart describes what happens when Dave decides he can’t live without his own pinball machine.
Of course Dave is not alone, who wouldn't want a pinball machine like this in their home? (Sorry, couldn't resist, though I guess it's a little "inside baseball.")
Certain instruments seem to be taken less seriously than others. Sometimes, that's a matter of context. (As a former jazz flute player I should know. True, there was Eric Dolphy and Hubert Laws and Canada's own Bill McBirnie, but unless you could play like that you were consigned to being forever covertly sneered at by sax players...)
Sometimes it's a matter of the instrument itself. Like, say, the tambourine. I admit it, I hear tambourine, I think wispy back-up singers. But tonight The Signal makes a case for the tambourine as underrated and under-appreciated, with music by Ammoncontact, Miracle Fortress and Lily Frost.
Who can resist a band called The Hurtin' Albertans, led by a guy who isn't afraid to yodel? Not I. Edmonton based country/roots artist Corb Lund and his Hurtin' Albertans can be heard in concert tonight on Canada Live, from the Jubilee Auditorium in Edmonton.
Tonight's concert includes songs from his two most recent albums, Five Dollar Bill and Hair In My Eyes Like A Highland Steer. (For a preview go to Lund's Myspace site, where you can also hear The Truck Got Stuck...he sure does have a way with song titles!)
Also on the Can Live bill is the fine singer-songwriter Joel Kroeker. (Love that song Patricia Callaghan covers, title track of her CD Naked Beauty.) Guess I'm not alone in thinking highly of his songwriting abilities -- now he's signed to (what I can't help thinking of as "the Bruce Cockburn label,") True North. Tonight's concert comes to you from The Vat in Red Deer, Alberta.
It might seem an unlikely duo - Little Richard and Tanya Tucker – but they did indeed team up, as you can hear on Tonic tonight, to sing a song called Somethin' Else. According to one interview with Mr. Richard:
"That song was very easy for me to do because it sounds just like one of my records, Keep A Knockin'. Plus I love Tanya Tucker and I love country music. I also like the banging piano--that old good-time piano."
And on the Little Richard trivia beat -- did you know that apparently originally his signature tune was supposed to go "tutti-fruity, good booty?" But that was considered too racy for the times. (I didn't actually realize that "booty" was not a more recent linguistic invention. Must do a little research when I have a minute as to its pedigree. Meantime, "Aw Rooty!")
Ever wondered what a band of strapless-gown-wearing marimba players and a completely lunatic slap bass player look and sound like? Well, wonder no more. Reg Kehoe & His Marimba Queens (and one bass playing king) are like nothing you have ever seen before. Guaranteed.
Studio Sparks is in serious summer TGIF mode today. Again, I ask, does anyone say TGIF anymore? I'm thinking of resurrecting it if not, along with dress down Fridays. (Although as someone who frequently works in the home office wearing whatever comes to hand, I'm not sure exactly what that would constitute. But I like the idea for offices -- a sort of subliminal shortening of the work week.) Anyway, getting back to the musical summertime mode, today SSparks host Eric Friesen offers a lazy and relaxing suite of summer music by Debussy, interspersed with madrigals...all celebrating outdoor delights.
Who can resist a band called The Hurtin' Albertans, led by a guy who isn't afraid to yodel? Not I. Edmonton based country/roots artist Corb Lund and his Hurtin' Albertans can be heard in concert tonight on Canada Live, from the Jubilee Auditorium in Edmonton.
Lund is frequently mentioned in the same breath as the word "cowboy." But then, so are other singers, as part of "cowboy chic." (You know, people who've never been closer to a ranch than a truck stop on the side of the Trans-Canada wearing cowboy boots and acting all Brokeback Mountainish. Fashion, in other words.) But Lund is the real deal. Born and raised in rural southern Alberta, comes from four generations of Canadian ranchers and cowboys. He grew up riding horseback, chasing cattle and rodeoing on the prairies and in the foothills of the Rockies.
Then he spent ten years driving across Canada, the States, Australia and Europe in an old van with indie rock band the smalls, playing every funky dive along the way.
Eventually he went a little more country, and tonight's concert reflects that, including songs from his two most recent albums, Five Dollar Bill and Hair In My Eyes Like A Highland Steer. (For a preview go to Lund's Myspace site, where you can also hear The Truck Got Stuck...he sure does have a way with song titles!)
It’s a rare thing when an audience gets to choose what’s on the program for a concert. (This could be a good thing with certain aging rock bands, otherwise they'd never ever get to even dream of playing new material...)
But a concert broadcast today on Here's To You was programmed by the people, and not just a few of them -- 18,000 strong voted on the music through a CBC poll. What did they choose? Barber’s Adagio for Strings, Respighi’s Ancient Airs and Dances and Harry Somers’ North Country, among other compositions.
Tune in this morning to hear guest conductor Geoffrey Moule leading the CBC Radio Orchestra in The Twentieth Century Top Twenty.
When you think of the Rheostatics guitarist Martin Tielli chances are the first thing to come to your mind is not the music of Arnold Schoenberg. However, Tielli does Schoenberg tonight on The Signal.
And I can't resist posting this Schoenberg trivia Tielli has on his website about the composer who invented the 12-tone compositional technique. (Taken from Uncle John's Ahh-Inspiring Bathroom Reader.)
"Schoenberg was born September 13, 1874, and believed he would probably die on the 13th as well. He predicted it was most likely he would die on a Friday the 13th, and in 1951, when he was 76 (7+6=13). July 13, 1951 fell on a Friday, and Shoenberg stayed in bed that day, awaiting death. In the evening, his wife went to his room to scold him for wasting an entire day so foolishly. When she opened the door, Shoenberg looked up at her, uttered the single word 'harmony,' and dropped dead. Time of death: 11:47 p.m. ... 13 minutes before midnight."
The captivatingly named Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir (were they the Atheist Gospel Choir it might be a harder sell) performed at the Calgary Folk Music Festival this year, and that concert is now available on this very website. AMGC appeal to both folkies and punk rock kids with their ferocious combination of traditional blues, Appalachian folk, and ragged gospel.
Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir at Concerts On Demand
Some Tonic tunes tonight include a funky remix of Junior Walker and the All-Stars Motown hit Shotgun, a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald by Etta James with Do Nothing 'Til You Hear From Me. And Laila Biali sings a tune written by Canada’s Ruth Lowe Sandler - I'll Never Smile Again.
Musical Heritage Moment:
Ruth Lowe Sandler was a Toronto girl, (born in 1914) who began her career as "a songplugger," playing piano in Toronto music stores to sell sheet music -- while still in her teens. She went on to have a career as a musician, and a composer -- I'll Never Smile Again was her big hit. But she also had other successful songs, like Put Your Dreams Away (For Another Day) used for years by Frank Sinatra as his closing song.
Ruth Lowe Sandler...a part of our heritage.
There are many great, many mundane, and many just plain many music blogs on the World Wide Web. Those who read blogs tend to discover favourites, and much like tuning into a radio show, read their blogs on a regular basis.
But just as I am drawn to cute pictures of animals on wine bottle labels (the little Pinot Grigio dog, for example) so am I sometimes lured to a blog because of the name. You can't judge a blog by its cover, but sometimes it's what makes you want to flip through.
Musically, some of my fav names are no longer extant, such as I Really Should Be Practicing. (Guess he/she is. Practicing, I mean.)
But composer Matthew Guerrier's Soho The Dog is still going strong.
As is harpist Helen Radice's Twang Twang Twang. (Although shouldn't that be pluck, pluck, pluck?)
The Well Tempered Blog has obvious name brand appeal, as does opera writer Maury Dannato's My Favorite Intermissions. (Worth it for the cat piano alone.)
And of course the blog with the ultimate blog name (and some very interesting essays on a wide variety of music), The Church Of Me.
Award names tend to be hyperbolic, but this one takes the cake: Singer of The World. The biennial contest, organized by BBC Wales, was first held in 1983 is now one of the most important operatic competitions anywhere.
The American soprano Nicole Cabell was awarded the title two years ago, which didn't hurt her career one little bit. (That Decca recording contract the same year, for example.)
Today you can hear Ms. Cabell in a live studio session on Studio Sparks, featuring music by Puccini, Gershwin, Weill and Forrest. She and host Eric Friesen talk about what it was like for her to be crowned Singer of the World, and what it was like for her growing up in L.A., among other things.
The ECMAs, as the East Coast Music Awards are affectionately called, are an annual tribute the breadth of music originating on Canada's right side. Going on 20 (that anniversary will be held in Fredericton, New Brunswick in February 2008), some of #19's highlights are presented tonight on Canada Live.
First, CBC Radio brings together 13 musicians from very diverse backgrounds in a world music summit. Then Chris Norman bends the boundaries of folk music when he plays the wooden flute with David Greenberg and Tempest. And finally, one of Canada’s jazz legends – Mike Murley – leads his trio in a set at Staynor’s Wharf in Halifax.
Not many composers have laboured over a Concerto for Six Tympani – but George Druschinsky did -- and you can hear how it turned out this morning on Here’s to You. Shelley also has (no mere) Bagatelles by Dvorak, Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2, and Stanford’s Requiem. For the ever popular Organ Thursday, Jurgen Petrenko has a recording of Gillian Weir playing Charles Ives’ Variations on America.
A few musical highlights on The Signal tonight you might want to tune in for. (Oh go on, tune in for the whole show, Laurie's so cool.)
From (prepared) pianoman Hauschka, the song Belgrade, and "a cowboy’s recollection on his first visit to the Wild West" in Dodge City, performed by the Maple Mountain Sunburst Triolian Orchestra. Now there's a name. Not quite as associative as Conway Twitty of course.
City and Colour fans take note -- Concerts On Demand has a performance online from the Calgary Folk Music Festival. And if you're not familiar with City and Colour but are curious, here's the thumbnail:
C&C originated when Dallas Green, whose Platinum-selling band Alexisonfire won a 2005 Juno Award for New Group of the Year, released a limited edition solo EP. Widely circulated on the net, the release caused such a buzz that fans as far away as Europe and Australia were emailing the Alexisonfire site asking how to get copies. Et voila, the birth of City And Colour, based on the performer's name. (Get it, city=Dallas, colour=Green.)
City and Colour's first full-length album, Sometimes, came out in 2005, went Platinum in 2006, leading to any number of critically acclaimed solo performances, a special appearance at Burton Cumming’s Songwriter’s Circle during the 2005 Junos, and a performance at the 2006 MuchMusic Video Awards, where Green won “PEOPLE’S CHOICE FAVOURITE CANADIAN ARTIST.”
City And Colour at Concerts On Demand
Some names seem like a perfect representation of the person carrying them, a sort of conceptual onomatopoeia. For instance, what else could Robinson Cano be but a baseball player, or Conway Twitty but a country singer?
I haven't thought much about Twitty lately, (or ever, I admit it) but I love the song that Tonic is playing tonight, Twitty's famous duet with Sam Moore, Rainy Night in Georgia. So I thought I should remedy my lack of Twitty lore, and here are just a few nuggets:
-The singer had 55 No. 1 singles!!!
-As a child he saved the life of another child who was pinned beneath a tombstone!
-He showed a natural inclination for music at the age of FOUR, after being given a guitar from Sears & Roebuck.
-He was drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies! But sadly did not get to play, because then he was drafted by "a much bigger team, the U.S. army."
-Originally called Harold Jenkins, he based his stage name on two cities -- Conway, Arkansas and Twitty, Texas.
I'm so glad he did. Harold Jenkins doesn't make one think of anything other than...Harold Jenkins.
A couple of times recently I've blogged about Clint Eastwood's jazz interests, and his name caught my eye today when I saw this announcement that he's produced a DVD called Tony Bennett: The Music Never Ends, to be released on November 13, 2007. It's written and directed by Bruce Ricker and chronicles Bennett's life.
Naturally there is also a "collector’s edition" which includes, among other things, Tony Bennett’s most recent concert performance at the Monterey Jazz Festival.
I can't claim to being a Bennett-ite, but those recordings he did with jazz pianist Bill Evans (The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album was remastered and re-released not long ago) were really great. And I have a feeling the Eastwood produced doc will be good viewing.
The featured work on Studio Sparks today is Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2, played by the Concertgebouw Orchestra under the direction of Vladimir Ashkenazy.
And here's a Rachmaninoff tale for those creative souls who regularly do battle with crisis of confidence.
Apparently when Rachmaninoff wrote No. 2 (in Dresden and at Ivanovka in 1906 and 1907) he wasn't at all thrilled with his first draft. In fact, he had to force himself to complete the score, telling people he didn't think he had what it took to write symphonies. But he managed to write three, not to mention numerous other compositions.
I'm feeling better already.
Celtic music was around long before its fifteen minutes, a decade or so ago. (Remember the sudden infatuation with Riverdance/Rankins/Enya/early MacIsaac etc. etc.?) The good news is that Celtic music is still around, and many of the artists who were so heavily glommed onto in the "revival" era continue along just fine, thank you very much, whether or not they make front page news. And it is rare that they do.
But what's not rare is the evolution of the tradition. In fact, I have a feeling that creativity and musical exploration flourish when there is less scrutiny. It's a theory, anyway. And you can hear some support of it tonight on Canada Live, with music from the 4th annual Vancouver Celtic Fest. Tune in to hear members of the Paper Boys, Mad Pudding, Spirit of the West, the Shona LeMotte Band, Daniel Lapp and Ashley MacIsaac.
Here's To You leaves no stone unturned (or should that be bark unturned?) when it comes to whimsical musical themes in their show. I'm always curious to see what Shelley and her crew will come up with next.
Well, today, it's what they're calling "the treehouse" -- music that in some way, (however tangential that may be!) relates to trees. Tune in to hear everything from John Williams’ Five Sacred Trees to the Vienna Woods Waltz by Strauss and Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag.
Karaoke and Idols have meant that listening to people performing covers of well known songs can be, well, let's be generous and just say "a tad wearying." And even instrumental cover versions (where one is not forced to endure unwanted singing) can be egregious. (So much for generosity.)
But tonight The Signal plays a couple of cover tunes which I think you'll find neither wearying or egregious, quite the opposite in fact. Bill Frisell’s version of the Bob Dylan classic A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall, and The Bad Plus with a beautiful, slow take on the Tears For Fears hit Everybody Wants To Rule The World.
(Remember all the fuss made by The Jazz Police about Miles Davis covering Cyndi Lauper's Time After Time, whether or not it was a discredit to his integrity as a jazz musician? Were he with us still I wonder if he'd be covering contemporary pop songs, or if he would have moved onto something else, now that practically every jazz band and their dawg are doing it.)
One of the singers featured tonight on Tonic is Fontella Bass – who you may recall from her sixties hit Rescue Me. What a voice. Since the 1970s she's been in and out of (musical) view, but a few years ago she re-emerged for a series of collaborations with England's Cinematic Orchestra. They must have thought they'd died and gone to heaven when they recorded
All That You Give with Ms. Bass.
You may have heard about I'm Not There, a movie coming out November 21 about Bob Dylan, wherein Dylan is played at various stages of his life by different actors -- including one woman, Cate Blanchett.
As a film with that kind of star power (the cast also includes Richard Gere and Heath Ledger), you might expect it to open in hundreds of theatres, right? But then again, it is about "an enigmatic occasional recluse who is being portrayed by four actors, an actress and a 13-year-old boy." Hmm.
Consequently the movie is opening at Film Forum, a très exclusive art-house cinema.
You can read the whole story at The New York Times.
On Sunday I posted a link to this spectacular performance by Sonny Rollins and Leonard Cohen, on Cohen's Who By Fire.
Where I live, Sunday afternoon was beautifully sunny and comfortably warm. Naturally I had to go to the afternoon game, which we won.
Today it is Tuesday, and here it is moody and cool. All over town people are either reluctantly admitting summer is drawing to a close, or embracing the notion that we are, after all, a northern country.
Consequently I felt this link should be posted again. Because who knows how many of you had beautiful Sundays on which to go to the game, walk the dog, sleep or otherwise ignore this blog? So click on that link above, you won't be sorry. (Unless you can't stand either Rollins or Cohen, and hard as that may be to accept I will try. Taste in music is as individual as, well, taste in music, after all.)
P.S. After watching the video one viewer says Rollins' playing "re-calibrated my DNA and now I can speak 14 languages and I can fly."
Clara Schumann played her husband Robert’s Piano Concerto in A Minor more than fifty times in concerts across Europe. (And I bet she practiced it a few more times in private, as well.) Anton Kuerti follows in her footsteps today on Studio Sparks. (Not literally, presumably just the once.) And Mr. Kuerti is joined by the CBC Radio Orchestra under the direction of Mario Bernardi.
The first thing you need to know about the Hannaford Street Silver Band is that they're brass. (In the tradition of 19th century brass bands, at least in terms of instrumentation.) The second thing you need to know about them, is they're very good. (American Record Guide called them "the finest brass band on the continent.") And the third? You can hear them tonight on Canada Live.
Although they're known for their work in new music, commissioning compositions from Canadian composers including Gary Kulesha and John Beckwith, tonight the two-dozen strong HSSB present a program of Russian classics – Mussorgsky’s Pictures At An Exhibition, Khachaturian’s vivid ballet suite Gayane and Shostakovich’s Festive Overture. Horn virtuoso Amie Sommerville makes his debut conducting the HSSB.
Oh, and the fourth thing -- they actually do have a recording called Heavy Metal!
Canadian pianist André Laplante is one of the great Romantic virtuosos. In this concert for the LMMC (for the uninitiated, that stands for Ladies' Morning Musical Club, soon to begin their 116th season!) Laplante performs Schubert, Beethoven, Chopin to tumultuous ovations from the audience at Pollack Hall in Montreal.
André Laplante at Concerts on Demand.
The Signal plays highlights tonight from a concert at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music, featuring the Quinsin Nachoff Quintet. Nachoff blends jazz, classical, new music (and the proverbial more) into his composition African Skies, heard tonight.
I recall that the last time Nachoff's music was featured on R2 some listeners wanted to know more about the sax player, but had a hard time figuring out how to spell his name -- so there you have it, Nachoff's myspace page and all too, just in case you want a little preview.
And of course if you are looking for info about what was played on any show, don't forget there is a link on the left hand side of the website to the playlists...
Tonight Canada Live broadcasts two great pianists, from two different musical genres. First Andre Laplante performing in a concert recording from McGill’s Pollack Hall, featuring Chopin’s F Minor Fantasy along with Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata and Prokoviev’s Sonata in B Flat Minor Opus 83.
And then the Lorraine Desmarais trio, playing some Miles Davis in front of a capacity crowd at the Maison de la culture Frontenac in Montreal. (Helping to make this an extra special night was Japanese trumpet virtuoso - Tiger Okoshi who joined Lorraine and her band.)
Tonic highlights tonight include Nigel Kennedy on the electric (violin) playing Kenny Burrell's Midnight Blue; John Coltrane playing While My Lady Sleeps and the theme from the film A Touch of Evil, played by the Jazz-at-the-Movies Band.
There's so much great music in movies, guess it was only a matter of time before people began re-recording and remixing (for example, just the other day a CD called Cinematic: Classic Film Music Remixed slid across the transom). If you're interested in all things movies and music, you will want to check out the website Music From The Movies.
On it I learned that the orchestral score for the new movie, Skinwalkers, is by Canadian composer Andrew Lockington, who among other things has worked with the brilliant Canadian film composer Mychael Danna. (If ever I hear the score it will have to be on the soundtrack recording though -- can't get past the whole dripping fangs thing -- talk about a touch of evil!)
The Wordless Music Series is a programme in New York City based on the idea that "sound worlds of contemporary and classical instrumental music -- in genres such as indie rock, free jazz and electronic music -- share more in common than conventional thinking might suggest." As a concept, it shares a certain amount in common with our own R2 programme, Fuse, albeit with different kinds of music being brought together.
Anyway, Wordless Music looks like a great series. But it's in New York, and I'll wager most of you reading this are not. However, they also have a very nice music-connected-to-art blog online too, which is why I brought it up in the first place. The blog is called Good Vibrato, and features paintings that either directly connect to composition and to music, or, from what I can tell, just seem to reflect music in some way. (Providing a most satisfying way to procrastinate whoops I mean spend reflective time.)
Somehow I missed this "A Life In The Day: Anna Netrebko" piece published by The Sunday Times, earlier this month.
So often print journalists "clean up" the way someone speaks, particularly if they are interviewed in a language they do not speak very well. (I had an experience recently where a woman I interviewed for a magazine article actually asked me to "make it sound nice," which puzzled me until she explained further, that she wanted her English to sound better than it was.)
In this case, The Times went with a straight transcription of their interview with the soprano -- questions omitted though -- -- and I have to wonder about the decision. (You end up with a lot of lines like "Breakfast I am eating a hot sandwich, like with the cheese, toasted.") So is it to amuse the English-is-my-first-language speakers, or an honest attempt to present Netrebko as her unvarnished self? Certainly she doesn't hold back in her opinions on pretty much anything, from opera singers with bad breath, to her own sexuality...
A quick Sparks-plug: The folks at Studio Sparks counsel us to unleash our inner Bohemian today as the show features Dvorak's Symphony #8 In G, a celebration of Bohemian life in high summer. (I don't know about you, but where I am high summer is already feeling suspiciously like low autumn. Probably a blip though, and soon we'll be back to the days of the dog.) Anyway, regardless of the weather, this performance of Dvorak is played by the Oslo Philharmonic under the direction of Mariss Janson.
Writing about music isn't easy. (You know that "it's like dancing about architecture" line? Yup, that's about how difficult it is. Not impossible, but difficult.)
Which is why I enjoy what Ken Winters, writing about Andre Laplante in the Globe and Mail, has said about the pianist on two occasions, first in 2003:
"Laplante is not only a great pianist, but also a great musician, aurally absolutely inside the music's fabric and momentum..."
And then in 2006: "..bone deep musical sensibility; a perfection of detail in the meaningful context of the whole. Nothing, neglected, nothing inflated, and everything brimming with life...."
You get a sense (at least I do) of what kind of pianist Laplante is from this -- and I can think of no higher praise for a review -- then that you can almost hear the music in your mind.
Tonight you can hear it in actuality, in your home, car, wherever -- as Canada Live broadcasts Andre Laplante performing in this concert recording from McGill’s Pollack Hall, featuring Chopin’s F Minor Fantasy along with Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata and Prokoviev’s Sonata in B Flat Minor Opus 83.
Shelley Solmes promises to deliver "a little substance" on this morning's Here's To You. She’ll have excerpts from Wagner’s Lohengrin, plus Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 8 - the Pathetique. Then she’ll lighten the mood with Hungarian Dances by Brahms. (Hungarian Dance No. 5 trivia note of the day: Its many musical lives include audio appearances in Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator and the video game, Donkey Konga.)
Music seems to run in the family. Your mother plays the kazoo, so you play the autoharp. Your great-great-great grandfather wrote sea shanties, your "Disco Lives" band plays aboard cruise ships. And so on.
But seriously, folks, there is often a familial musical link, and tonight on The Signal that link is explored in the form of music composed by fathers and performed by their children. So tune in to hear the offspring of Malcolm Forsyth, Harry Freedman and many other classical composer dads -- tonight, on The Signal.
A few days ago I posted some examples of jazz players soloing in non-jazz music, from a little thread I was enjoying reading on a jazz listserv.
Well, here's a pretty spectacular example --on video -- that was recently drawn to my attention, Sonny Rollins playing with Leonard Cohen, on Cohen's Who By Fire. If you are either a Sonny Rollins or Cohen fan (or both, as is my case) I can't say recommend strongly enough that you take a look (and a listen).
After watching the video one viewer says Rollins' playing "recalibrated my DNA and now I can speak 14 languages and I can fly."
Hooo weee, think I know what he means.
Iffen you're wondering what you might be able to hear late Sunday afternoon on R2, here are a few of the highlights:
Roots & Wings: French singer Camille is known for, among other things, having created an album with one drone note running throughout the entire work. R&W host Philly Markowitz describes the results as "stunning and playful," and I believe her.
Fuse: Today the musically welded are David Gogo, a master of old-school blues, and Elizabeth Shepherd, a hepcat these days on the jazz vocal scene. Both were nominated for Juno Awards this year, and Fuse nabbed them when they were in Saskatoon for the ceremony, put them into the studio together and voila, the results are on your radio today.
Tonic: The jazz ABCs today, with Jay Boehmer's A is for Adam and Oscar Peterson's C-Jam Blues. (Hey, no "b." Maybe they should have played the old Lambert Hendricks and Ross' The New ABC to cover the whole thing off.) But there's more than just spelling on the show, you can also hear Mississippi style blues from Phontaine, and what are billed as "intriguing covers of Jobim tunes." (The Boy from Ipanema?)
Ever find yourself skipping merrily home? Laughing because the sun's shining on a cricket crawling on your back porch?
Not me. I'm more of the sloping down the street, staring at rooftops kind. The "worrying about how I'm going to get that cricket out the door without actually touching it" sort of person.
Yes, what is viewed as one of "the wonders of the world" is a pretty individual thing -- one man's sun-glinting cricket is another woman's squeamishness about bugs.
However, I completely relate to the subject of Skylarking today -- that the wonders of this world can at times make one almost unbearably happy. Host Andre Alexis explores this notion: "Happiness, curse of the sensitive class."
Now, has he ever noticed how, at a certain time of day in mid-winter, the sky above the roof line becomes tinged with pewter, cast in the yellow early setting sun, and the snow begins to flurry, a gentle frenzy of tiny snowflakes that is so perfectly ephemeral that suddenly the unbearable happiness strikes? No? Well, maybe he's still happy it's summer, unbearably happy even. Like I say, to each his or her own wonders.
Oi mi lasso (Ah, poor me) is the title of a lauda (a vernacular sacred song) commissioned from Gavin Bryars in 2002 by CBC Radio to mark the September 11th anniversary. And you can hear that composition today on On Stage.
Bryars, a fav. of Canadian audiences, has a summer home on Vancouver Island, but hasn't performed in Toronto in years. Well, a few months ago he returned for this performance at the Glenn Gould Studio, featuring Swedish soprano Anna Maria Friman and English tenor John Potter, (known for his work with Red Byrd and the Hilliard Ensemble), as well as Canadian instrumentalists Max Christie on bass clarinet and Douglas Perry on viola. File under contemporary meets early music...
This week's Symphony Hall features the world premiere of a work by the late John Wyre, called Remembering Ornulf.
Also featured on the programme, a concert called Eastern Pulse, with Alain Trudel conducting the CBC Radio Orchestra with the Safa Ensemble, flute soloist Kathleen Rudolph and marimba player John Rudolph. (And here's a very favourable review from from the LA Times.) The program also includes Bartok's Romanian Dances, along with works by Amir Koushkani and Witold Lutoslawski.
Much great listening this morning on Choral Concert, including the following music from a range of Russians, (sort of the musical equivalent of a gaggle of geese I guess).
Tchaikovsky's Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, sung by the St Petersburg Cappella under the direction of Vladislav Tchernuschenko. The Maxim Film Suite by Shostakovich, performed by the Czech Philharmonic Chorus and the Brno Philharmonia, conducted by Petr Fiala. And finally, a performance of Prokofiev's Ivan The Terrible by the Radio France Orchestra and Chorus under the direction of Vladimir Fedoseyev.
What exactly does "electronic music" mean, anyway? Is it different in classical and in pop music? Tonight The Signal asks the question and plays some answers, from electronic pioneer Hugh le Caine's Dripsody (an etude for variable speed recorder) to some of Canada's newer electronic players, like Caribou and Inclination.
Also, Bryce Kushnier, a.k.a. vitaminsforyou, drops by to give his take on electronic music making. Later, a concert from the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art that explores the possibilities of electronic toys and mechanical instruments, in the hands of Duo Travagliando. That link, btw, will take you to a video of a performance in 2000 at the MMCA.
The passion for jazz in the Eastwood clan does not stop with Clint, who directed the biographical movie Bird, helped finance the Lester Young tribute 'Round Midnight, was Executive Producer for the Thelonious Monk doc Straight No Chaser etc.
Tonight on Tonic you can hear Clint's son, Kyle Eastwood, (who studied film but became a bass player) with Jamie Cullum's brother Ben, and other tracks from Eastwood After Hours, a two disc set taken from a 1996 concert at Carnegie Hall, honoring Clint Eastwood for what I guess you could call his jazz advocacy. (Play Misty For Me aside.)
Kyle, btw, is now in his late thirties -- and here's a Q&A with the bassist from The Guardian, asking, among other things, if he ever gets tired being asked about his dad....
Angela Hewitt returns to her hometown for a solo recital at the The Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival. The Ottawa Citizen’s Richard Todd found the performance “beyond praise!”
CBC is happy to present this Concert On Demand of Beethoven and Schumann performed by one of the world’s finest pianists. Note: The concert is also something of a web special -- as it has not yet been broadcast on the radio. Enjoy!
Angela Hewitt at Concerts On Demand.
Saturday Afternoon At The Opera will broadcast a special live tribute to Richard Bradshaw in the last hour of the programme today.
And I'd also like to point out Robert Everett-Green's tribute to Mr. Bradshaw, in today's Globe and Mail.
The opera itself comes to you from Vienna this week, with the Vienna State Opera's production of Donizetti's The Daughter of the Regiment. Natalie Dessay and Montserrat Caballé head the cast, which also includes Juan Diego Flórez and Carlos Alvarez, and Yves Abel conducts.
Today on the best of Sound Advice, Rick Phillips has new discs of symphonies, including the Prague by Mozart and the Italian by Mendelssohn. And In the Library, part of Rick's series on pianist Sir Clifford Curzon, featuring Curzon's recording of the Trout Quintet, made fifty years ago - and still a classic!
These are the days when the seas boil, wine turns sour, dogs grow mad, and all creatures become languid...all, apparently, traditional symptoms of the dog days of summer.
But not at music festivals or on the radio broadcasts of same. There the seas are high and bright, the wine is dry, dogs fetch when asked, and the listening is easy, but not lazy...
Let's cut to the chase, here's the weekend festival outlook for Canada Live:
On Saturday, from the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival flute-based funk/jazz fusion of the Sam Mitchell Band, reggae from Sean Viloria, Tim Vaughan's original soul and R&B, and blues singer Suzie Vinnick.
Later on the show, from the Ness Creek Music Festival, Saskatoon rock band Sexually Attracted to Fire. (Yes, that's what they're called.) Also, Kyrie Kristmanson, a singer who has been billed as "quirky and whimsical," (nothing I could relate to) and the Indian fusion band Galitcha, alt-country singer-songwriter Dustin Bentall and the C.R. Avery Band's "high energy fusion."
And that's just Saturday. On Sunday, songwriter Karla Anderson headlines from the Edmonton Folk Festival, there's a set by country mainstay Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives (love love love the fabulous fabulosity of the name) and the infrequently heard and excellent Mary Margaret O'Hara, plus Cameroon/Celtic fusion band Baka Beyond, and R&B from James Hunter.
Now ideally I'd like to tell you more about all of these artists, and link to each of their websites, but that would take (virtual) pages and pages, not to mention inducing carpal tunnel syndrome. So I recommend you go to the festival websites if you'd like more info on any of the performers. Or just listen, but not too languidly.
...could keep Stuart McLean from heading north to the Arctic circle, and today on CBC Radio 2 he talks about his recent trip. He ate whale meat! He hiked down 30 feet into the permafrost! He flew in a small plane over the Beaufort Sea! He battled the mosquitoes in the Land of the Midnight Sun! (But did he get cold and scratchy and cranky? That's what I want to know.) All will be revealed today on the Vinyl Cafe.
Pat Carrabré plays with hair tonight on The Signal. This does not totally surprise me, clearly he knows from hair. I have long admired his own "do," which you can see for yourself if you click on the previous link.
But kudos to him for finding a hair/music connection, as he does on tonight's show with music from Caribou, Blonde Redhead and a remix of Nina Simone... all on the topic of hair, hair colour and haircuts.
The Signal folks also sent a note saying that apparently Mr Carrabré has had a trim! Not too much, I hope. The world needs fun hair. Not to mention hair music.
Highlights tonight on Tonic include a mix of bossa nova and rock & roll, from Glambeats Corp with their version of You Could Be Mine. Also what has been described as a "heart-rending version" of My Cryin' Eyes, (and I should hope it would be, given it's not, like, My Laughin' Eyes, after all), from Divine Brown. And Montreal's Doxas brothers push back the boundaries with their take on Cole Porter's Night And Day.
Speaking of, I've always wondered about the "under the hide of me" line in Night And Day. "Deep in the heart," yes, but "under the hide?" Seems somehow, well, not so romantic.
Ring Lardner, who you may remember from his BASEBALL writing (it's been a while since I've been able to work baseball into the blog, thus the happy CAPS), apparently found the whole song amusing -- he did a number of parodies, including lines like: "Night and day, under the fleece of me / There’s an oh, such a flaming furneth burneth the grease of me."
Yesterday was tough, hearing about the deaths of two tremendously talented men of music. Of course here in Canada we are keenly feeling the loss of Richard Bradshaw, who died before his time, at only 63.
And in case you missed my earlier mention, tomorrow Saturday Afternoon At The Opera will have a live tribute in the last hour of their programme, so do tune in for that.
The great jazz drummer Max Roach was 83, and had been ill for several years. Nonetheless, it's hard to watch that era of jazz musicians passing -- Max Roach was the last living member of the band that played Massey Hall's "Greatest Jazz Concert Ever," and one of the people who created bebop.
There are of course many pieces about Max Roach in the wake of his passing, including this one at the New York Times.
But do have a look at this wonderful tribute by composer Darcy James Argue, on his blog, Darcy James Argue's Secret Society.
I've just learned that Saturday Afternoon At The Opera will be doing a live tribute to Richard Bradshaw tomorrow, in the final hour of the programme. I don't have any details yet, but I will post any more information as it becomes available.
Attn. Vaughan Williams fans! Today Studio Sparks has a veritable feast of Vaughan Williams in the second part of the show, with host Eric Friesen showcasing many sides of the English composer's output, from symphony to song.
I like what Wayne Shorter, one of my favourite jazz sax players, once said about Vaughan Williams's Symphony No. 1: A Song for All Seas, All Ships, (in conversation with Ben Ratliff at the New York Times).
"After the fanfare, 20 seconds into the piece, as the strings began to rise dramatically, Mr. Shorter smiled. 'Life, that's what he's saying. It's a metaphor for life.'"
To the disgruntlement of some, but the pleasure of many, the blues have become a wide-ranging form that goes far beyond the 12-bars and the Windy City, or even the deep south. Tonight Canada Live broadcasts some of the eclectic music that's on the blues scene these days, recorded live at the Ottawa Bluesfest. (I like their slogan this year -- the "attack of the killer bluesfest.")
You can hear Ontario's Basia Bulat -- with strings; original songwriter and powerhouse singer Ndidi Onukwulu, with a backup band including Canada's number one Malagasy bluesman, Madagascar Slim, and Xavier Rudd, an Aussie solo artist who plays guitar, foot percussion and didgeridoo.
It is likely you will have heard by now that Richard Bradshaw died on Wednesday. If not, I'm sorry to break this sad news. He was 63, and died of an apparent heart attack.
His impact on opera in this country (he moved here in the late 1980s to become the principle conductor of the COC), and on the cultural life of Toronto was remarkable. It is a shocking loss, particularly after the glorious success of the new opera house, and its inaugural production last season of Wagner's Ring Cycle.
I didn't know Mr. Bradshaw personally, although I did meet him as a radio producer with a show called The Arts Tonight. I remember that he and host Eleanor Wachtel had a marvelous conversation -- his passion, vision, and ability to articulate the same -- in that mellifluous voice -- are what stay in my mind. He was charismatic, in the best sense.
Richard Bradshaw's funeral will be held Tuesday morning at 11 a.m. at St. James Cathedral in Toronto.
Like many children and some of us supposed grownups, I was sad when they made Pluto an un-planet. This happened a year ago, and I'm still disheartened. What could sound better than Planet Pluto, after all? Planet Saturn? Boring.
Anyway, time passed. And one day on this very blog, for reasons which now escape me, I recall suggesting that perhaps some composers should take up the Pluto cause.
So I am delighted to hear several have, including folksinger Christine Lavin, and the theremin-weilding band One Ring Zero. (And in a TOTAL COINCIDENCE, I recently blogged about One Ring Zero member Michael Hearst, who is the man behind the charming Songs For Ice Cream Trucks. Though it does not surprise me he would be sensitive to the Pluto issue.)
NPR has the full story on Songs For The Unplanet.
An evening of diverse voices tonight on Canada Live, first from Prince Edward Island's Indian Rivers Festival. Performers include vocalists Kiran Ahluwalia and Patricia O'Callaghan, Juno Award-winning bassist Andrew Downing and Halifax-based sax player Danny Oore.
The second concert of the evening is from the Atlantic Jazz Festival, with music from another Haligonian, violinist, composer and singer Chris Church. He considers his music to be a "world-wide fusion of classical, jazz, middle-eastern and fiddle music."
Richard Bradshaw, general director of the Canadian Opera Company and the man who brought an opera house to Toronto, has died.
Bradshaw died Wednesday evening of an apparent heart attack, the company has confirmed. He was 63.
Ah torch songs, those smouldering songs of "he/she's just not that into me." Funny to think that the phrase actually comes from the 19th century, when political followers showed support for a candidate by literally carrying a torch in campaign parades.
So when did it become associated with unrequited love? Not sure exactly, but it was at least as early as the 1933 Claudette Colbert movie, The Torch Singer. Guess it was only a hop skip and a sob before it became the vocalist's domain, deep in the land of "is that all there is?"
Tonight singers on Tonic including Sarah Vaughan, Mark Murphy and Doris Day carry the torch, specifically about the one that got away. (Although of course as any good torch singer knows, it's more likely the five or six or seven that got away...to truly give the emotion verisimilitude.)
Just a quick note to point out the highlighted performance you can hear today on Studio Sparks -- Symphonie Fantastique by Berlioz, performed by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Charles Dutoit.
Unless you are living in a hermetically sealed media-deprived environment, you have noticed that today is the 30th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley. So much of the press I've read, leading up to the day, has not taken Elvis seriously -- either his music or his life. And while I'm as down with the Elvis kitsch as the next person, I've also been moved to tears seeing clips of the singer's early performances -- he really was an incredible singer. So I was grateful to read Lynn Crosbie's insightful and moving tribute to Elvis in the Globe and Mail, called Elvis, My Dead King.
But today is also another anniversary, one that you would be hard pressed to read about in most media. Ten years ago on August 16th, the great qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan died. I remember exactly where I was when I heard -- sitting in a television newsroom, where my job was to write short news stories for "the hourlies," including "obits," of any significant public figure who had died. I had a bit of a job convincing my boss that yes, the passing of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was in fact obit-worthy, but in the end, the hourlies that day concluded with a brief tribute. Probably the first time Sufi devotional music made it to the news, on that station at least.
Continue reading "Remembering The Kings -- Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan...And Elvis" »
Andrew Burashko, pianist and leader of the Art Of Time ensemble, likes to push perceived musical boundaries. And tonight he joins Laurie in studio on The Signal, to talk about just that. Specifically, about a concert called Franz Schubert: Source and Inspiration, where five noted Canadian singer/songwriters from non-classical musical genres were asked to come up with original music inspired by the Second Movement of a Schubert Piano Trio. You can hear how Martin Tielli, Sarah Slean, John Southworth, Andy Maize, and Danny Michel weave Schubert's music into their own.
And if The Signal leaves you wanting more, the entire concert is also available online at CBC.ca, also called Schubert, Source And Inspiration, as part of Radio 2's Concerts On Demand.
In related matters, should you wish to hear Art Of Time with singer-songwriter Sarah Slean in concert, that too is available on the website at Concerts On Demand.
One ring to rule them all, one soundtrack to awe them -- today on Here's To You , guest host Catherine Belyea plays music by Howard Shore from The Lord of the Rings.
And one style to bind you, possibly, if you are a film composer with success on your hands. That's apparently the case with John Powell, who wrote the music for the recently released Matt Damon movie,The Bourne Ultimatum. There's an interesting interview with him at CNN.com about what happens from the composer's perspective when music becomes firmly linked to the appearance of a character on screen.
Signature music is nothing new, though, in the "golden age" of Hollywood the great minds there used to try and manufacture that effect -- in a certain number of Lauren Bacall's early movies when she appeared on screen they'd play a snippet of Hoagy Carmichael's Baltimore Oriole, hoping it would become her audio calling card with the public. It didn't stick. The Look, however, did.
Which came first, the words or the music? If you can answer that question definitively, in terms of the evolution of humankind, you will get some kind of prize. Probably one that says Nobel on it. (And if you are a journalist and ask that question in an interview with a musician, ach, for shame...)
Tonight on The Signal host Laurie Brown examines the former question, exploring how we form words and thoughts, and how our vocal cords affect our musical tastes. Fascinating stuff. (I've heard that dementia may affect musical taste, but never that vocal cords might be the culprit.)
btw, examples on the show as part of the language/music/taste theme include the music of Tunng, Jason Moran, and Questions in Dialect.
Guitars meet marimba tonight on R2 from the Festival of the Sound, as The Canadian Guitar Quartet perform with marimba virtuoso Beverley Johnston on Canada Live .
Then we turn our thoughts to shrimp dumplings, sesame balls, maybe a few of those squishy buns, pot stickers...whoops, sorry, dim sum not literally included. But the music recorded at this summer's Dim Sum Chinese Festival in Toronto sounds pretty savoury, with erhu master George Gao and his ensemble. The programme mixes traditional and modern Chinese music, and includes special guests, B.C.-based guzheng virtuoso Wei Li, and Grammy-winning Kitaro's pipa master Tu Shan Xiang from Japan.
Gao (and you must check out his website, if only for the picture of him leaping like a rock god with the erhu) is almost single-handedly responsible for sharing the erhu word here in Canada, and is much sought after by film and television producers -- among other things he's featured in the soundtrack for Earth: Final Conflict.
A few days ago I posted an article from The New Statesmen about the remarkable amount of classical music education reportedly going on in Venezuela -- and mentioned that I was curious to see if the publication had also written about music education in Cuba, a system which has turned out some amazing musicians. (Some of whom have settled in Canada, and are making their mark, particularly on the jazz scene.) I finally got around to poking about in their archives earlier today, and it looks like the answer is a no.
However, I did come across a few related matters, including the fact that a Canadian, Lisa Lorenzino, who teaches at McGill, has done academic work exploring what makes Cuba consistently produce such fine musicians. As well as this related piece by musicologist, author and producer Ned Sublette, pointing to a more extensive report by Sublette on Cuban music, in case you're interested. And finally, a detractor of the Cuban music education system, in the form of a travel article about music in Havana in which the writer, Douglass G. Norvell Ph.D, seems to be suggesting that the high level of music education in Cuba results in overly-sophisticated musicians. Hmm....for everything a multitude of perspectives...
With the ongoing hand-wringing about declining sales of classical music, Henry Fogel raises some interesting points on his blog, On The Record, countering some of the despair. (One point being the need to replace recordings is lower because of more durable technology being available...although that doesn't account for new releases...)
But what I find more interesting are his reflections on the history of electronically reproduced music and its connections to the way we hear music. For instance, this anecdote recalling the old multi-disc 12# packages, when each disc played about 4 minutes a side. (Hey, before my time but I've heard tell...)
"Symphonies were broken up into segments, sometimes rather oddly. My favorite example was an old set of 78s of Bruckner's Fifth Symphony, with Karl Böhm conducting. Side 11 was the scherzo and side 12 the trio section of the third movement. Since the scherzo section then was a pure da capo repeat, the label of side 12 gave the instruction: "Please play side 11 again before proceeding to side 13!" I doubt that Maestro Böhm ever gave a real performance of the piece where the repeat of the scherzo was precisely the same in every way as the first time through - but there it was."
I remember when I used to make cassettes from other people's LPs and not quite make it to the end of a song on side A., so you'd get half a song, then switch over to side B., restart it, and hear it in its entirety. Shudder. No one can make a case for that being a primo listening experience.
But what I think is more interesting, ultimately, than the rage against the machine (eg. CDs being supplanted by digital downloading) is about the sound itself. What quality of sound are most of us, apparently, happy to live with? Joel Selvin, writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, explores this thoroughly in a piece called MP3 Music, It's Better Than It Sounds.
Studio Sparks heads north today, with music by Sibelius played by violinist Joshua Bell with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Speaking of ringtones, as we weren't, on Joshua Bell's website, Sony BMG is happy to point you to their favourite ringtones, none of which are classical. But out of curiosity I googled "most popular classical ringtones" to see what was out there. First site? kickassclassical.com Kickass are not just selling the rings, they're also educating their clientele: "Learn all about the most popular Classical Music used in pop culture! You've heard these famous Classical works in movies, commercials, cartoons, songs, video games and ringtones."
High on the popularity index are the expected, for instance the "intense, almost evil sounding choir music," of Orff's Carmina Burana, and "Mozart's most famous piece," Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. (I could live with never hearing that on a crowded streetcar again, myself.)
Also what is billed as the "K9 Advantix theme song," because of some dog food commercial I must have missed using the theme from La Gioconda. (What were they thinking, don't they know that's really "hello muddah, hello fadda?")
Shrimp dumplings, sesame balls, anything with sticky rice...sorry, I forgot momentarily that this is not a food blog, but the very mention of Dim Sum sends me down that path -- where at every juncture there is a laden cart rolling towards me with more small delectable things.
This summer's Dim Sum Chinese Festival in Toronto turned out to be less about things to eat though, and more about large delectable listening experiences. And tonight Canada Live broadcasts one such, with erhu (the two-stringed bowed instrument with an unforgettable sound) master George Gao and his ensemble. The programme mixes traditional and modern Chinese music, and includes special guests, BC-based guzheng virtuoso Wei Li, and Grammy-winning Kitaro's pipa master Tu Shan Xiang from Japan.
Gao (and you must check out his website, if only for the picture of him leaping like a rock god with the erhu) is almost single-handedly responsible for sharing the erhu word here in Canada, and is much sought after by film and television producers -- among other things he's featured in the soundtrack for Earth: Final Conflict.
Out on the left coast, presumably most are sleeping as I write. But Here's To You is all about Vancouver today, so in every time zone you can hear guest host Catherine Belyea playing music from B.C. Pianist Robert Silverman joins the Vancouver Symphony to play Michael Conway Baker's Piano Concerto, and the Orchid Ensemble play Jin Zhang's Lantern Riddles.
Speaking of the Orchid Ensemble, they have performed a couple of times at the John F. Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C., and you can view those performance online at their website.
Thinking about gamelan, as I was when I saw that Canada's long-standing gamelan ensemble, the Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan, was being played tonight on The Signal, I found myself wondering what was new lately in the gamelan world. Or to be more accurate, what was making news.
So giving into temptation, (wasn't terribly difficult to fail to resist) I did a google news search on gamelan. The results? Less than, well, newsworthy. A few concert reviews, some articles no longer available in The Jakarta Post, a clutch of references to gamelan being one of about a billion influences in this or that composition of non-gamelan music.
But search on video and it's another story. You could spend days watching and listening to gamelan concerts, all from the comfort of your own computer chair. And not just concerts -- also came across this quite lovely video showing how gamelan instruments are made.
Speaking of how jazz insinuates itself into everything, as we were earlier today, tonight swing, blues and pop meet head-on, on Canada Live. The Susie Arioli swing band mixes jazz, blues, cabaret, and in this concert, Suzie welcomes special guest Michael Jerome Brown.
And the second concert provides a great way to hear some of what's going on in Quebec's singer-songwriter scene. Jim Corcoran, host of A Propos, gathers some of Quebec's hottest singer-songwriters to swap songs and talk about their craft. This session, with Louis-Jean Cormier (lead singer of the band Karkwa), Antoine Gratton, Vincent Vallières and Sylvie Paquette, was one of the highlights of A Propos' 19th season.
And another in the series of concerts recorded at the Hillside Festival is now available as a CBC Concert On Demand...rock band Do Make Say Think. DMST started life about a decade ago, as three roommates and childhood friends who decided to form a band. Today they're an eight member band who play mostly instrumental music, music that has been heard in a number of movies, including Mark Akbar’s The Corporation, Velcro Ripper’s Scared Sacred and Stephen Gaghan’s Syriana.
Do Make Say Think at Concerts On Demand.
Tonic, as you will have noticed if you are a regular listener, does not style itself strictly as a jazz show, in any purist sense you care to apply. They play jazz and jazz related music. For instance soul and funk -- tonight in the person of Canada's Shane Philips. And Latin-influenced music (this evening from that renaissance man, Gregory Charles), as well as music most anyone would call jazz.
Of course elements of jazz turn up in all kinds of music most NOT anyone, if that's not a grammatically hideous construction, would call jazz. Recently I read a list of examples of jazz solos in music most would consider pop -- a fascinating reminder that jazz is really everywhere, in some form or another:
Continue reading "Spot That Jazz Solo" »
Studio Sparks travels to the Iberian Peninsula today, with music from Spain and Portugal, including works by Rodrigo, Branco and de Falla.
I had the good fortune to literally travel to the Iberian Peninsula not long ago myself, hearing flamenco in Seville, watching fantastic Andalusian horses in Jerez, and being lazy near Malaga.
Being in a place can make you feel and hear the music that comes from that place differently, I think. It's less abstract than if you'd never been; it leaves you with a visual memory, of course, but also a taste and a smell of the place that might be evoked when listening to its music.
Continue reading "The Six Senses Of Music" »
Talk about seeking new audiences. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic has announced they'll be be performing in Second Life. On September 14th the orchestra, led by Vasily Petrenko, will perform a concert only available in real time -- online. It will feature Ravel, Rachmaninov, and two premieres, by Liverpool composers Kenneth Hesketh and John McCabe.
Continue reading "First Symphonic Performance In Second Life" »
In case you getting going on your day and find yourself wondering, hmm, what will Shelley be playing this morning, here's the answer. Highlights on Here's To You this fine morning (at least, it is fine where I am -- bright, beautiful, not a dog day in sight) include Schumann's setting of Faust, and music by Dvorak, Albeniz and Scott. Happy listening.
Did you hear the news today that British record sales abroad are flourishing, led by the Fab Four?
Part of that is down to the release of the Beatles remix-CD, Love, part of it likely the attention given the Cirque Du Soleil show of the same name. And the third part (parts generally come in threes) is probably just because The Beatles music is so good, and continues to inspire other artists. Case in point, you can hear jazz pianist Brad Mehldau's interpretation of Martha My Dear tonight on The Signal.
And although I have no specifics, I hear there will be "some surprising tuba music" broadcast on The Signal tonight. (As opposed to the unsurprising kind, presumably.)
Jenny Whiteley, a fine singer rooted in country/folk/bluegrass, is one of the featured concerts tonight on Canada Live, from a show at Vancouver's Cafe Rime. It's a trad countryish set, with banjo, fiddle and saw. Yes, saw. Vancouver-based guitarist Steve Dawson, who also produced her latest CD, Dear, joins Jenny and the band.
And in another music direction entirely, you can also hear internationally-acclaimed pianist Pascal Rogé from a concert presented by the Vancouver Chopin Society, exploring the links between Chopin and the works of 20th century French composers such as Ravel, Debussy and Satie.
Tonic goes south tonight, not as far as the previous post took us (eg. Venezuala) but to Georgia, with guitarist Russell Malone, and to Maryland (hey, they were split in the Civil War) with pianist Cyrus Chestnut, and finally to Alabama with Dinah Washington.
Speaking of jazz in the American south, there was a nice feature on trumpeter Terence Blanchard about going back to New Orleans in the New York Times on the weekend. And if you're interested in the rebuilding of New Orleans, culturally, you may want to check out the blog Culture Gulf.
Venezuela's pioneering classical music programme for kids seems to be working -- with the emergence of artists like the young conductor Gustavo Dudamel. And according to an article in The New Statesmen, it has "also quietly transformed the social fabric of the country."
The article is a bird's eye view into the world of kids studying classical music in the country -- and I do mean kids -- there are 12-year-olds quoted in the piece.
It's been thirty years since the programme, called El Sistema (and even if you don't speak Spanish you can probably guess at the meaning) was put in place, and they estimate 250,000 children are studying music through it across the country.
José Antonio Abreu, the man who founded the programme, believed that musical training could help overcome what he saw as the "spiritual poverty" inherent in being economically disadvantage. Fascinating. (I wonder if there's something in the New Statesmen's archives about the music conservatory programme in Cuba -- which has produced some fantastic musicians -- some of whom now live in Canada, and are changing the musical scene here. I'll take a look and report back.)
Music from Mali continues to reach wider audiences, from Vieux Farka Toure (son of the late Ali Farka Toure), to Amadou and Mariam, to Toumani Diabate's Symmetric Orchestra -- who some of you probably heard on the Canadian festival circuit this summer.
And at the Hillside Festival this year they were pleased to host the North American debut of kamal n'goni (or hunter's harp) player Jah Youssouf. CBC Radio 2 has that concert online now, in our ongoing mini-series of concerts from Hillside.
Jah Youssouf at Concerts On Demand.
Always interesting to see (hear) the uses music is put to - which were not part of the composer's original vision. Saint-Saëns' Third Symphony, for example, which you might recall turned up in the soundtrack to the movie Babe. (Viewed by some as "a revisionist take on barnyard politics," Orwell updated and animated.)
Today the Saint-Saëns symphony turns up in a more expected place, on Studio Sparks, from the recent recording by Montreal's Orchestre Metropolitain under the direction of Yannick Nezet-Seguin. Four legs good; music good.
I've always liked Jenny Whiteley's music. She's got one sweet voice. And there's a kind of direct honesty to her music that's impressed me since first hearing her at the venerable Silver Dollar with the band Heartbreak Hill. It was the era of bluegrass gettin' hip with a new generation of urban kids -- the club was packed every week for Jenny, Dottie Cormier and the band.
But then Jenny moved on, and established herself as a solo act, although I've never felt she's gotten the full recognition she deserves. Most likely because her style is more rooted in country/folk/bluegrass than pop. Not to say I'm a Whiteley fan club of one or anything -- she's won three Juno awards. Maybe it's just wishful thinking -- that the "roots" music circuit got as much public attention as the indie rock.
So it's good to know she'll be featured tonight on Canada Live, from a show at Cafe Rime on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive. It's a trad countryish set, with banjo, fiddle and saw. Yes, saw. Vancouver-based guitarist Steve Dawson, who also produced her latest CD, Dear, joins Jenny and the band.
"Symphonic klezmer" is one shorthand for symphonic music inspired by klezmer. It's musical territory explored by number of Canadian composers or performers, Sid Robinovitch, Andrew Burashko and Srul Irving Glick to name a few. (Glick won numerous awards for his contributions to Jewish music in Canada, as you will see if you click on the preceding link.) Today on Here's To You you can hear Glick's Old Toronto Klezmer Suite. Two other highlights to mention, from the classics of classical music department: Schubert's Trout Quintet and excerpts from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker.
Host Pat Carrabré celebrates composer and teacher Robert Turner Sunday night on The Signal.
In the first hour, Pat looks at one of Turner's past students, David R. Scott. (If I'm not mistaken Pat also studied with Mr. Turner, so I imagine he will have a particularly interesting perspective on this subject.)
Pat also will showcase other Canadian student/teacher composer duos in Canada, including Allan Bell and Kelly Marie Murphy. And to cap things off, highlights from a Groundswell concert in Winnipeg celebrating Robert Turner.
Brave singers do Charlie Parker, and Emilie-Claire Barlow is definitely one. And she has the chops to back up the bravery! Hear her tonight on Tonic, with Parker's Billie's Bounce.
Also on the show tonight, a celebration of Stax Records 50th anniversary.
If you don't live in my hometown you might not realize what a huge, huge deal Caribana is, each and ever year. It's like the jazz fest in Montreal -- it kind of takes over the city, with a major influx of tourists, and music playing all over town. Actually, its organizers say it's North America's largest street festival!
Canada Live has a little audio slice of related music tonight, with music from Toronto's Island Soul Festival, Harbourfront Centre's Caribana-related celebration. There'll be vintage calypso performances by Black Stalin, Lord Superior, Singing Sandra and Valentino. And they're backed by Kobo Town, a six-piece Toronto-based outfit that explores the musical heritage of Trinidad and the Anglo-Caribbean. (btw, I happened to be in a CBC studio last week when Kobo Town were playing "unplugged," and they were completely charming on their own -- imagine they'd also be great backing up all the above.)
A quick mention of one more feature on tonight's show -- a classic concert based on a recording called Jamaica To Toronto, a tribute to the musical explosion that took place in Toronto in the mid-1960s, thanks to an influx of musical talent from the Caribbean.
Three completely different and yet satisfying listening experiences ahead this afternoon. In other words? Same same, but different.
First Skylarking host Andre Alexis turns Book Reviewer and tackles three weighty tomes, of which his favourite is "Aaargh, Billy: Piracy in the Work of William Shakespeare". ("Ever been to sea, Willy?")
Then Roots & Wings features Zack Condon (a.k.a. Beirut) a 19-year-old trumpeter and singer who had a soft spot for The Smiths and then discovered Lou Reed's album Berlin and the trumpet sounds of Balkan brass superstar Boban Markovic. The musical results? Dreamy Balkan music.
And in the hole, Fuse, with singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist Royal Wood's encounter with Priya Thomas, also a singer-songwriter multi-instrumentalist, but musically the two seem about as different as could be. Think romance/heartbreak vs. barb-wire guitar and scotch-soaked drums. Should be very interesting to hear what they come up with together.
Concerts by Brazilian-born multi-instrumentalist Celso Machado are always fun. Really, I've been to or heard many of them, and based on that empirical evidence I'm willing to go out on a limb and say it: concerts by Brazilian-born multi-instrumentalist Celso Machado are always fun. He's inventive, imaginative, playful, and a great guitar player.
Today OnStage presents a concert called Brazilian Pathways where Machado is joined by his brother, Carlinhos Machado, and Cuban-Canadian piano whiz David Virelles. The concert is billed as an "exploration of some of the musical traditions that have contributed to the music of Brazil - African, Portuguese and indigenous sounds." And it will be fun.
And another fine concert is up on the CBC R2 website from the Hillside Festival. Emily Haines is a singer-songwriter (and daughter of the late writer and composer Paul Haines) who may be best known for her work with the band Metric. Lately she's been gaining new listeners as a solo artist though, in the wake of her fine 2006 release, Knives Don't Have Your Back.
Listen to Emily Haines on Concerts On Demand.
Sunday morning R2 listeners, take note, much to listen to this a.m.
On Choral Concert Sir Simon Rattle leads the Berlin Radio Choir and the Berlin Philharmonic in Brahms' German Requiem, plus Four Sacred Pieces by Verdi, performed by the Berlin Radio Chorus and the Monte Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, under the direction of Marek Janowski.
Then on Symphony Hall: A feast for Mozart-lovers as bass-baritone Gerald Finley joins the National Arts Centre Orchestra in an all-Mozart program. Finley sings arias from several of the composer's great operas. And Mario Bernardi conducts the CBC Radio Orchestra in a concert of music by Mozart and his contemporaries - C.P.E. Bach, Salieri, Michael Haydn and Joseph Haydn.
According to journalist Gareth Huw Davies: "British musician David Hindley slowed bird song down and discovered parallels between the skylark's blizzard of notes and Beethoven's Fifth Symphony; between the woodlark's mind-numbingly complex song and J.S.Bach's 48 Preludes and Fugues. It changes its tune according to the rules of classical sonata form."
How fascinating. Me, I just like to lie awake at dawn and hear the birds begin to sing. (Well, sometimes not so much the lying awake part, but definitely the listening to the birds waking up with song.)
Tonight The Signal is for the birds. Veda Hille calls in to explain about birdcalls and love, Andrew Bird plays around with the meaning of his name, and Signal host Pat Carrabré finds an old bird-inspired piece from the Rheostatics.
Keeping jazz venues and recording co.'s going in Canada is no mean feat. They come, they go. Sometimes they don't even come -- when's the last time you heard of a new label being started, for example?
But there are a handful that have tenaciously hung on, and really made a difference in the musical landscape of the country. It's great that Tonic is acknowledging two mainstays on the Canadian jazz scene tonight -- Montreal's Justin Time Records and Edmonton's premier jazz venue since 1957, Yardbird Suite.
Aida, La Scala, kind of says it all, don't you think? Today SATO broadcasts Verdi's classic Aida, performed at what is arguably the world's best-known opera house, La Scala in Milan, under the direction of Riccardo Chailly.
And in case you're thinking, Aida, sure, I've heard it, isn't that the one about troubles in love, no wait a minute, aren't they ALL about troubles in love here's Aida, the ten second version:
It all begins in Memphis. No, not that Memphis. Think, Egypt, a long time ago.
Aida, an Ethiopian princess, is captured and made a slave in the other Memphis. A military commander, Radames, struggles between his love for her and his loyalty to the Pharaoh. (Isn't it always the way?) Somewhat problematically, Radames is loved by the Pharaoh's daughter Amneris, but he's just not that into her, as they might say today.
File Under: No one ever said life would be simple.
Rick Phillips has sound advice about music, so you can bet his best of Sound Advice is very good advice indeed.
Today, the bests include a tribute to violinist Angele Dubeau,issued by the Analekta label in honour of her 30th anniversary as a pro. Plus some gorgeous choral music, including Renaissance polyphony. And "In the Library," it's Symphony No. 6 by Sibelius (showing the influence of that same polyphony).
As promised, more concerts for you to enjoy at your leisure from the Hillside Festival. Check out this concert by Blackie & The Rodeo Kings, a.k.a Stephen Fearing, Colin Linden and Tom Wilson. What began as a collaborative tribute to Canadian songwriter Willie P. Bennett, has become a popular ongoing concern.
Blackie & The Rodeo Kings at Concerts On Demand.
Interesting how few things seem to signal Canada (to the rest of the world) as strongly as our north.
Tonight Canada Live has an audio peek into that world, with musicians from the north who perform in a number of styles.
First, Juno-nominated singer-songwriter Kim Barlow. Love what Alexander Varty, writing in the Georgia Strait said about her music:
"Humour, lust, and empathy are the themes that run through Barlow’s songs; living in an environment where you can die if you wear the wrong clothes seems to have impressed her with a sense of life’s fleeting fragility."
Continue reading "The Great Musical North" »
This just in! Sam McGee was NOT from Tennessee! On today's programme, Vinyl Cafe host, Stuart Maclean, will tell all.
Not only that, Stuart also gives us the lowdown on his recent tour across the Canadian prairies, where he saw everything from Douglas Cardinal's wonderful church in Red Deer, to a giant sausage in Mundare, Alberta.
I just took a look at that sausage, it's a little scary, don't you think? But I bet Stuart will have the sausage back-story.
Ah, the tap tap tap of the keys...some of us, of a certain age, can still get nostalgic at that sound. For me it conjures my father's Underwood typewriter, the one where the "b" always got stuck. (The quick fox jumped over the lazy bbbbbbbbbrown dog.)
So I'm happy to hear that Winnipeg's trio of poets, Poor Tree, incorporate the clickety-clack of old keys on their vintage typewriters into their music.
Phones also enter into music played on The Signal tonight. (That I'm less enthused about, how can one get nostalgic about phones? Unless it's the 1940s two-piece phones, the kind you'd call a horn, and be obliged to say something like "Operator, get me Pennsylvania 6-5000...)
Anyway, more contemporary phones make it into music this eve -- Andy Creegan records a phone conversation with his dad, and vitaminsforyou transform phone messages into interludes.
Just a reminder, great concerts coming up from the Hillside Festival on Canada Live tonight.
Starting with the Bebop Cowboys, purveyors of fine western swing,"followed by Mali's Jah Youssouf, making his North American debut. Then it's Blackie & The Rodeo Kings - Stephen Fearing, Colin Linden and Tom Wilson, art-rockers Do Make Say Think, and it all wraps up with a set from singer/songwriter Emily Haines, backed up by members of Broken Social Scene and Stars. Holy lineup!
I remember the year when Lou Bega's Mambo No. 5 came out. So unabashedly not politically correct, so musically annoying to some, sublime to others. (Like moi, I loved it.)
But regardless whether you loved or hated it, Mambo No. 5 was everywhere. And everywhere, I suspect, most people thought that Bega originated the music. But what really makes that song is down to one man, Perez Prado.
Check out this video of Perez and the boys playing the original mambo the Bega tune is based on, it's amazing. And the sleeves, the sleeves!!!
Then tune into Tonic tonight to hear Bega's version.
As noted just yesterday, thousands of music lovers travel from across Canada and around the world to attend the largest chamber music festival in the world, The Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival. Some of the concerts CBC recorded this year are now available on demand, like this one, featuring Israeli-born clarinetist Guy Yehuda and friends.
Music of Israel at Concerts On Demand
Are strings becoming more meaningful in pop music? Times writer Sophie Harris makes a case for strings in pop no longer being the "sonic equivalent of the highlighter pen." (Great line.)
Her explanation as to why strings are having their day (citing examples in bands like The Good, The Bad and The Queen and, yup, you guessed it, Arcade Fire) is interesting.
"Certainly there’s a feeling that in this most dramatic year of war and floods, only a mighty soundtrack will do. Equally, pop’s relentless, synthesised technical evolution has made many people start longing for a more organic sound. And in a way, the sound of violins is revolutionary; punk was once synonymous with electric guitars and shouting, but since that’s now the norm, it’s no longer shocking. It’s far more innovative to use a classical instrument in a way it’s never been played before."
Dunno about the war and floods theory, but I agree that in part it's a reaction to too much wall of guitar/drums/bass.
Addendum: If we're talking trends though, what about the glockenspiel, huh? Enough with the plinky plinky, already.
Do you think Great Performers ever say TGIF? (Actually, does anyone ever say TGIF anymore?) Anyway, casting whimsy aside, this is in fact the last day of the Great Performers series, reprised all week on Studio Sparks, and from the audience perspective I know no one is too happy about that -- great series, as some of you have pointed out here on the R2 blog. However, there will no doubt be plenty more programming of that calibre in the season to come.
But getting back to today's show. Eric Friesen talks with French pianist Pascal Rogé, and the musical programme includes excerpts from Rogé's Vancouver recital, which combined the music of French composers with the music of Chopin. Think I'll "dress down" for it. (They'll never know. Radio is so good for that.)
You know, it would be impossible to say which festival in any part of Canada is the best, but it's not impossible to say which festivals seem to always have lots of buzz around them. And for sure the Hillside Festival on Guelph Lake Island is on that short list.
Named as one of the Top 50 (50!) Ontario Festivals for the last 3 years, on Canada Live tonight you can hear a few reasons why, starting with the Bebop Cowboys who call themselves "purveyors of fine western swing."
And they are. Led by guitarist Steve Briggs, who's well versed in jazz and C&W, the band has great chops, tight arrangements, and a lot of love and respect for the western swing tradition from whence they came. I have a feeling Bob Wills would be tickled.
No, not the Bug Music of jazz clarinetist Don Byron, wonderful as it is. This bug music is influenced by the good, the bad and the incredibly ugly of the bug world -- by Offenbach, Scarlatti, Faure, Grieg, Chatman, Vaughan Williams, and Johann Strauss. (Curiouser and curiouser, have to get up with the birds to hear the bugs, I guess.)
And as the folks at Here's To You point out, the black flies are gone, but the deerflies are still around and mosquitoes just never seem to go away -- in a Canadian summer. So Shelley Solmes needs no more reason to pay musical tribute to the insect world today...slap. That's right, they never go away...
An exhibition of paintings by Bob Dylan will go on display this fall at the Kunstsammlungen art museum in Chemnitz, Germany.
"Dylan has produced more than 200 sketches and watercolours over the years... The collection, entitled The Drawn Blank Series, will hang in an exhibition alongside works by various European masters, including Picasso."
Read the whole story at The Independent.
Chris Paul Harman took the last of J.S. Bach's collected chorales (number 371) as musical inspiration for his composition, 371.
The instrumentation might have intrigued Bach -- piano, toy piano, and celeste.
Tonight on The Signal you can hear pianist Gregory Oh (whose myspace "motto" states, "Celine used to be a really cool name") with the new music ensemble, Toca Loca, (their motto? "saving the world one 14/37 measure at a time"), performing Harman's 371.
How deep is the ocean? The average depth is apparently around 12,200-12,900 feet.
I can't fathom it, myself. No, really, not just a cheap pun, it just seems impossible to imagine.
You can understand then why Irving Berlin posed the question: How can I tell you what is in my heart/How can I measure each and every part/How can I tell you how much I love you/How can I measure just how much I do?
If what was in his heart twas going to be compared to the ocean depth. Really, you couldn't make a stronger declaration of love.
And you can hear Wynton Marsalis "discovery," the very lyrical pianist Eric Reed, plumb those depths musically, tonight on Tonic.
Over at The Rest Is Noise, Alex Ross takes issue with those who believe recent reportage that Hitler was not the Wagner nut we've long believed him to be. Says Ross:
"A three-volume index to Hitler's main record library can be found in the Rare Book and Special Collections division of the Library of Congress. A few Russian records are listed there — including Chaliapin singing Boris Godunov — but they are far outnumbered by the Wagner records, of which I counted around four hundred. Furthermore, the fact that Hitler owned such records does not mean that he enjoyed them; many of these items were sent to him as gifts."
Thirty years ago, this August 16th, The King left the building.
I wonder if in 2007 he's any less famous than back then. Seems to me his place in popular culture (funny that phrase, as though there must be distinctly UNpopular culture, and I suppose there is) is almost bigger.
Naturally media all over the place is jumping the anniversary date with tributes and the like. But I think the best way to remember him is by the music. Times critic Bob Stanley does this with an annotated list of the Best 50 Elvis Songs Ever.
Let the debates begin.
Studio Sparks Great Performers series continues today with a salute to Sir André Previn, celebrated for his work as a pianist, composer, and conductor. What about blogger, huh? I don't see "celebrated blogger" on that list. Boy, I bet Sir André feels low about that.
But seriously, folks, tune in. It should be a fabulous show, if yesterday's Great Performers with Yo-Yo Ma is any indication.
Italian opera star Luciano Pavarotti is admitted to hospital in his hometown of Modena. A spokesman said the star was admitted with a fever, and could "be released in the next few days".
Read the whole story at BBC News.
That The Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival is an institution is not news. But I love this description of its institutioness, as reported by the Ottawa (X)Press:
"Like most cities, summer in Ottawa has its own distinct signs and rituals. The tour boat operators hawking their services in front of the Château Laurier. The rickshaw guys loping around the Market, towing their cargo of giggling, hammered girls. And the lines of people queuing up morning, noon and night for the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival.They come from all over, prepared to stand cheerfully for hours in the sun to attend the world's largest chamber music festival."
Tonight Canada Live has three concerts recorded at this summer's festival:
Concert 1: Pianist Angela Hewitt and cellist Daniel Müller-Schott perform music by de Falla and Franck.
Concert 2: St. Lawrence String Quartet, playing Beethoven.
Concert 3: Israeli-born clarinetist Guy Yehuda in a concert of new music and klezmer.
If you were asked to name the top three most widely recognizable classical pieces what would they be? (I'm voting for certain compositions by Vivaldi, Pachelbel, and Orff -- you know the ones.)
Today on Here's To You, one of the three gets a new treatment, by The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet. They call it Loose Canon, heh.
Shelley also plays Sound Of Sound (wonderful name) by Chan Ka Nin, Ravel's Piano Concerto in G Major, as well as the new live recording of the German Requiem by Brahms, performed by the Berlin Radio Choir and the Berlin Philharmonic, under the direction of Sir Simon Rattle.
One of the things I love about The Signal is the way the show takes little side-roads, journeys through ideas, creativity...and music.
For instance tonight they look at music and machines, including the mechanical contraptions of Maxime Rioux, aka Maxime de La Rochefoucauld, and the futuristic sounds of The Books. (I hope they play their composition Smells Like Content, a personal favourite.)
Nice to see NPR celebrating Canadian folk/pop, with an interview and live performance of Great Lake Swimmers, a band they describe as "warmly melancholic."
Speaking of GLS, they have a neat little campaign going, asking for :30 second video submissions of favourite travel footage -- they plan to edit them together for a video of one of their songs.
But back to the recognition stateside, here's the rest of the NPR billing: "Armed with a deep catalog of sad, sweetly rustic folk-pop, the Ontario band Great Lake Swimmers has become something of a word-of-mouth sensation, as well as a frequent award-winner in Canada.
For the whole story, go to NPR
Ed Thigpen's Scrambled is a spirited, bop-ish tune in the Charlie Parker mode, and it's also been declared the Wednesday anthem for Tonic -- as played by Oliver Jones. Presumably in a version Thigpen plays on, like Jones' appropriately named Justin Time recording, A Class Act.
In an indirect leap -- here's something I found myself wondering about earlier this week, on the muggy holiday Monday at the ballpark. Is Curtis Thigpen (backup catcher for Gregg Zaun) related to Ed Thigpen? Couldn't be that common a name. Maybe Oliver Jones knows. Or maybe the heat has me scrambled. Or maybe the Jays homestand with the Yankees does, argh. Runs would be nice, but at least let's get a few more two bass hits. (Hey, if the pun was good enough for Dizzy Gillespie and John Lewis, it's good enough for me.)
Came across an interesting show of photographs of jazz musicians at home, exhibited originally at The Knitting Factory.
The artist, Lourdes Delgado, provides interesting and thoughtful commentary -- it's her intent to reveal the normal, daily life that jazz musicians have. To her thinking, much of the history of jazz photography serves to glamorize the lifestyle.
The photos online include shots of Regina Carter, Butch Morris, Dave Douglas, Leroy Jenkins, Kenny Barron, Benny Golson and others.
Apparently the video game Sousaphone Hero is not the success Guitar Hero was. If, that is, you believed the "news story" that was making the rounds in the past couple of days.
Best quote: "In the career mode, you can rise from playing in park gazebos for church picnics to performing in the halftime show of the Harvard-Yale game...if you score enough points, you can unlock the ultimate level: playing in the John Philip Sousa–led Marine Band at Grover Cleveland's inauguration."
I think next in the series should be "Spoons Hero," myself. (What would the career mode goal be, do you suppose, playing an authentic kitchen party?)
Few contemporary performers seem to have captivated such a cross-section of audience as Yo-Yo Ma. Or become so widely known. (Proof of Yo-Yo's household name status, if you need it, can be found recently in reportage of criminal charges against rapper Remy Ma, when at least one news source felt obliged to say "no relation to Yo-Yo Ma." (Perhaps joking, but still.)
Hear the cellist today in conversation with Eric Friesen on Studio Sparks' Great Performers series. (Thursday it's André Previn, Friday, Pascal Rogé.)
Diversity, thy name is Canadian music festivals. Check out this lineup on Canada Live's broadcast tonight alone, from The Vancouver Island Music Festival in Courtenay, B.C.:
Carmen Souza, a Cape Verdean raised in Portugal. (You'll know if you've been in Lisbon, for example, that although Fado is everywhere, you can also hear Cape Verdean and Brazilian music in local bars -- quite wonderful.) But back to Souza. She's an original singer songwriter, not working close to the tradition a la Cesaria Evora et al -- I like how this reviewer (Matile Dias) describes the experience of hearing her:
“... A voice that whispers in the ear, songs that we miss even without ever hearing them - the identification is immediate because it’s Cape Verdean music with a different clothing in soul/afro jazz.”
The second concert is by Aditya Verma, a virtuosic young sarod player who grew up in Montreal, was steeped in the traditions of India, and is now gaining audiences in North America, India and Europe.
And the third: Bedouin Soundclash who mix up reggae with rock and ska. They're from Kingston...Ontario. “We wanted to try to make something that was ours and was our experience ... to incorporate the music we love in a new way,” say the Bedoin Soundclashers.
Here's To You guest host, Catherine Belyea, drops by Unionville High School, famed for their arts programme (artsyork). The students had many requests, some of which will be heard on today's show, music by Harry Somers, Grieg, Mozart, John Williams and Bela Bartok.
Interesting that artsyork's homepage opens up with a quote by a scientist, Albert Einstein: "Imagination is more important than knowledge." (Bet he'd still tell them to practice though.)
Ah summer, and childhood. So easy to wax nostaligic. Memories called up by the sound of bicycle bells, the call of a loon, the dull roar of traffic from beneath the expressway.
Anyway, I'm willing to put money on it that says there's one sound that unquestionably says summer for any urban North American kid.
Funny how the same sound makes other, older people not wax nostalgic, but just feel crazed. So a composer named Michael Hearst decided to compose new songs for ice cream trucks. He wasn't really expecting anyone to use them, but after posting some of his ice cream music online he started getting calls from ice cream truck drivers. (Likely not Mister Softee drivers though, apparently Mister Softee rules with an iron hand, impelling their drivers to adhere to the Softee signature tune, Mister Softee Jingle and Chimes.
Now, I know this blog is about Radio 2 programming, but allow me to do a little cross-network boosting here...in case you want the full scoop, as it were, tomorrow R1 has an interview with Michael Hearst all about his new songs for ice cream songs, on the arts/culture show, "Q."
The Song of Songs, the rapturous and much debated love poetry from the Old Testament, is the inspiration for some of the music you can hear on Canada Live tonight, with a concert from the CBC/McGill series featuring countertenor Matthew White, a quintet of internationally acclaimed singers, and an instrumental ensemble under lute virtuoso Stephen Stubbs, performing music from Renaissance England to 20th century Canada.
Later on the show, pianist Steve Amirault's trio performs a concert at the Jazz and Justice Series at the Unitarian Church of Montreal. What, you may ask, has jazz to do with justice? I asked too, and the answer is that it is a fundraising effort by Montreal Unitarians and friends, as the Montreal Mirror explains.
Always interesting trying to find info on the Information Superhighway.
Case in point. Curious to find out more about drummer Sandro Dominelli's version of what I assume is the classical guitar student standby, Classical Gas, (much of my adolescence was spent listening to my brother obsessively practicing the tune), I was thwarted, finding only results such as these:
"Firefighters use duct tape to stop a gas leak in a Regina neighbourhood ...Sandro Dominelli, best jazz artist)"
"Sandro Dominelli Quintet...... Santa's Got Gas· Shivkumar Sharma, Brijbushan Kabra AND Hariprasad ..."
So I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that however odd it seems, it is the same Classical Gas composition I grew to know so teeth- clenchingly well. I look forward to a refreshingly different take on the tune tonight on Tonic. (Arranged for drum kit?!?)
Lee Hazlewood, who wrote Nancy Sinatra's These Boots Were Made For Walking, and produced Gram Parsons, among others, died on August 4th at age 78.
There's a good article about Hazlewood's life and career in the Guardian Unlimited Music, which also quotes his pithy and explicit instructions to Nancy Sinatra as to how she should sing These Boots. (You'll have to go to The Guardian feature to find out though, this is a family blog.)
A two-hour special today about internationally-acclaimed pianist Murray Perahia on Studio Sparks. This broadcast includes Perahia in conversation with host Eric Friesen, as well as live and recorded performances by this remarkable performer.
I imagine Perahia must have rather a lot to say about music. According to one interview about the great pianist, his fascination with music started very young. Perahia's father, a tailor, took his young son along to Metropolitan Opera performances on Saturday nights.
"The next day I would sing the arias I heard at the opera," Perahia said. "That's what started it. Next thing I knew, we had a piano and I was taking lessons." He began taking lessons at the age of four, but says his parents never pushed him to play: "It was always my idea."
A full hour of guitar music tonight on The Signal, recorded at the 2007 Newfound Music Festival in St. John's. Guitarist Sylvie Proulx coaxes the sound of dolls and toy soldiers from her guitar in her performance of Russian composer Nikita Koshkin's The Prince's Toys.
If you're not familiar with the piece, here's one reviewer's take:
"It seems strange that emotions can be aroused by a piece of music based on clocks but this is just what Koshkin manages to achieve, to capture the mechanical flavour of his 'Piece with Clocks' (Tempo di Tick-Tock is indicated on the score). Koshkin uses an eleven string guitar which he describes as 'prepared' using cork, a foam mute and matchsticks to extend the effects that are already a feature of Koshkins music. Tambora, left hand slurs, pizzicato, string bends, various percussive techniques together with the full range of dynamics and sound colour available to the guitarist are all part of his formidable technique. Yet at no time are these devices used simply for novelty value or randomly. They all have their place always enhancing the musical structures."
1960s musical satirist (and mathematician) Tom Lehrer recalls “Bright College Days” today on Here’s to You. As I kid I heard a lot of Lehrer, but only recently thought to look and see if there were online video clips of him performing his songs. Well, guess what, there sure are, including this one of him doing his no holds barred National Brotherhood Week. (Take note, Lehrer fans, there are also, somewhat to my surprise, any number of oddball mashups using his music...like a Tom and Jerry cartoon to his "Clementine.")
Shelley will also play another childhood favourite of mine today, Prokofiev’s Peter And The Wolf. (From Poisoning Pigeons In The Park to "What kind of a bird are you if you can't fly," just the kind of musical childhood I had.)
Another one of the concerts broadcast on the weekend from the Edmonton International Jazz Festival is now available to listen to when you please.
It features accomplished Edmonton composer and pianist Andrew Glover. Glover's worked with Mike Rud, Jack Semple, Scott Hamilton, and toured extensively with the late Clarence "Big" Miller. And here's a feat -- this year Glover simultaneously released two discs: Smooth, and Not So Smooth.
For this performance Andrew Glover was joined on stage by John Taylor on bass, Jamie Cooper on drums, and Bob Tildesley on trumpet.
Concerts from out west tonight on Canada Live: Paul Lewis, a busy piano-man, plays classics like Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, in a performance for the Vancouver Recital Society.
And jazz vocalist Denzal Sinclaire, sings with a quintet co-led by tenor-man Mike Allen, recorded at Capilano College.
This is how the radio-woman at Canada Live describes Sinclaire's voice: "It sounds like a fine port wine tastes, velvety and rich." Can someone pass me a glass please?
Tonight on Tonic you can hear Canadian jazz singer Dione Taylor singing Prince's Nothing Compares 2 U. A tune that has been well-covered, including Sinead O'Connor's hit with it (which apparently inspired Prince to resurrect the song in his shows).
The cover that really sends shivers for me is by Jimmy Scott. So intense it's almost hard to listen to. Can't seem to find any performance clip of it in the usual places, and I'm not prone to sending people to commercial sites, but if you want to hear a sample I will say you can do that at the place named for the big, big river.
p.s. Just went to Ms. Taylor's website and heard a bit of her version of Nothing Compares 2 U. All I can say is, nothing could persuade me to even begin to compare the two interpretations, they're truly musical apples and oranges. Each powerful in their own way.
I belatedly heard the news over the weekend that Art Davis passed away last week. I remembered his name from Coltrane recordings -- and that he was known as Coltrane's favorite bassist. But I didn't know anything about his life until reading this article at BBC News.
Not only was a a great jazz musician, he was also a classical bassist with the New York Philharmonic, and a psychologist who continued to see patients during his musical career. On top of that, he was famously outspoken when it came to racism.
Nat Hentoff, writing for Jazz Times while Dr. Davis was still alive, said that he would "challenge symphony orchestras to pit him against any classical bassist of their choice. There was no response. He kept speaking and writing about this form of exclusion–including the steep hurdles for women in those orchestras."
Dr. Davis died of a heart attack. He was 73.
Well, Studio Sparks is celebrating Colonel By Day with the "Studio Sparks Chill Mix," a collection of cool, refreshing, and calming music for midsummer. (I wonder if this translates to putting on long cuts of music and heading out to the cottage? Pure speculation.)
Despite the Civic Holiday you may be working today, but if not, consider Galeventing. What's Galeventing, you may ask? Studio Sparks held a contest challenging listeners to invent a word that described the act of going to summer arts festivals. Ottawa author Elizabeth Hay was the contest judge and she picked GALEVENT as the winning word. So go on, galevent, you know you want to.
Ask me how do I feel about something called (in these parts) Simcoe Day? I haven't given it much thought, actually. But I do support the attitude suggested by the subtitle of this article explaining why some of us have the first Monday in August off work, A Holiday With History: "On Simcoe Day it's your civic duty to have fun." Alright! Whoo hoo! If I were a bell I'd be ringing! I knew there was a reason I should play hooky and go to the ball game this aft.
Speaking of bells, (nifty segue, eh), they are the inspiration for much of the music tonight on The Signal. Incessant Bells is the name of one of the featured concert pieces tonight, composed by Marcel Bergmann. Interestingly, it was not inspired by bells, per se, but by Indonesian gamelan music. And you can also some bell-like music from Henry Kucharzyk.
So happy listening on Simcoe Day to all. Hope you have a ringa-ding-ding time.
Here's To You Guest host Catherine Belyea plays the lovely waltz from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake this morning. No doubt a lot less bizarre than this version -- the "Beautiful Baseball Dance", performed to Tchaikovsky's music. Charming and deeply odd. Can anyone shed any light on the backstory here?!?
Canada Live celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Lanaudiere Festival with a special thirtieth bday concert -- Virtuosi Reunited - featuring some of Canada's best instrumentalists under the direction of violinist James Ehnes, performing concertos by Bach and Vivaldi.
And a little b.g. on the festival -- it was founded by Father Fernand Lindsay, focuses mainly on classical music, and brings both Canadian and International artists to different stages of the Lanaudière region, just north of Montreal. Some of the concerts are heard in churches, and bigger events are heard at an outdoor amphitheater in Joliette. (Home of La Bottine Souriante, among other greats!)
Clint Eastwood's jazz side (he directing the biographical movie Bird, helped finance the Lester Young tribute 'Round Midnight, was Executive Producer for the Thelonious Monk doc Straight No Chaser etc.) is usually overshadowed by his own film work. But tonight Tonic celebrates some movie music associated with Mr. Eastwood.
Other highlights: a quick trip through the history of Ska music, a chance to meet the power force behind musicians like Jacksoul and Kobe James, and tracks from PJ Perry, the John Roney Trio and the Toasters.
I remember talking with a friend once about creating a radio show dedicated to musical families -- working title, "I Hate You, Let's Sing." Needless to say, it didn't fly. Besides, there seem to be (not dysfunctional) musical families out there in abundance -- and a couple representatives are featured on Fuse tonight. The Baird brothers, who between them play trumpet, saxophone and drums. And Jill and Matthew Barber -- Fuse describe their roles in the family as "sweet sister and rockin' brother." (Yeah, but who did Mom love best?)
I can't imagine what it would be like to be Bob Brozman. (And not just because of the beard.) Let's see, Sunday morning, practice Hawaiian slack-key, Finnish kantele, ukulele, Bolivian charango and Greek baglama. Sunday afternoon, form own orchestra and record all parts. Monday to Saturday, travel the world for more input. You can hear some of the results of multi-multi-instrumentalist Bob Brozman's work today for yourself, on Roots & Wings.
No, it's not St. Andrew's Day, but OnStage feels no compunction to only celebrate Scottish music on that occasion. So today it's "Scots Wha Hae", a celebration of Scottish music with soprano Meredith Hall, members of Toronto Masque Theatre, and Shaggy Haggis, a six-member folk ensemble with a Celtic repertoire.
Shaggy haggis, eh. I was relieved to find out they consider themselves "a great Irish session that's left the pub with a Eurail pass in hand ready to stop in each of the seven Celtic Nations," nothing more literal than that.
Vocal music from the 12th century today on The Singer & the Song , with music from the Medieval to Monteverdi, from the 'cansos' of the early Troubadours to courtly Italian love songs and a great 'battle madrigal' by Claudio Monteverdi.
Symphony Hall goes pops this morning, with The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and a programme called "Fiddling Around" featuring music by Sir Ernest MacMillan, Leroy Anderson and Irving Berlin.
Hearing music and seeing it in literal colours is a fascinating form of synesthesia. Apparently there's research suggesting that a number of composers (Liszt, Scriabin and others) were in fact "synesthetes." And there are also modern day musicians like Laura Rosser who are said to have the condition. She hears D-flat as periwinkle blue. How nice.
Tonight The Signal exlores synesthesia with Ottawa composer Kelly-Marie Murphy's This Is The Colour Of My Dreams. Speaking of Kelly-Marie, her "They Hate Me, They Really Really Hate Me" section of her website, featuring less than positive reviews, is a nice touch, v. funny...(There are some great reviews on the site too, so don't let that put you off at all.)
But I digress. Also on The Signal tonight: four world premieres from Winnipeg's contemporary music chamber series, Groundswell, including music by Jerry Semchyshyn and David R. Scott.
Don't miss this special, extended edition of Choral Concert this morning. Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir, under the direction of Ivars Taurins, will perform a masterpiece by Handel, the oratorio Solomon.
There's Joy Luck Club, then there's No Luck Club, a hip hop/sound-scapey trio. (There's also "If I Didn't Have Bad Luck I'd Have No Luck At All Club," a blues band just waiting to be formed.)
You can hear the No Luckers tonight on The Signal, as well as producer/DJ Susumu Yokota, Toronto duo Feuermusik and minimalist master Arvo Part.
All contribute to tonight's theme of carnivals, where they know something about luck.
In the Extra! Extra! Read All About It! file: No Luck Club is working on a musical, a show based on Brian Eno and David Byrne's seminal album, My Life in the Bush Of Ghosts! We'll be staying tuned...
Who's the worst pop band ever? You'd be hard pressed to answer that, I can think of more than a few contenders. But The Worst Pop Band Ever aren't shy about claiming the title. This is how they describe what they do:
"The Worst Pop Band Ever is an attempt to blend improvisation and pop music in an organic and painless manner. It works... sometimes."
So that means influences from Radiohead and Dave Douglas, Prince and Miles Davis...sometimes. In other words, they're not a pop band, they're an interesting improvising ensemble.
To hear The Worst Pop Band Ever you can tune into Tonic this evening.
You may have heard saxophonist Dave Babcock on Canada Live on Friday night -- now's your chance to hear him again, and again, with this Concert On Demand.
Babcock has been a central figure in the Edmonton music scene for over 20 years. Versed in many styles, Dave’s musical flexibility has found him on stage with a very impressive array of musicians, including Solomon Burke, Taj Mahal, Cornell Dupree, and Jimmy Witherspoon, and on recordings with Jay McShann, Long John Baldry, Duke Robillard, and Ian Tyson.
For this performance, Dave Babcock was joined on stage by Jim Head on guitar, Sandro Dominelli on drums, and Doug Organ on Hammond B3.
Les Troyens is considered by many to be Berlioz’s largest and most ambitious work, something of a summation of his entire artistic career.
Today on SATO, as we affectionately call the show in acronym land, The Paris National Opera presents Les Troyens, with Sylvain Cambreling conducting a cast including Deborah Polaski, Gaële Le Roi, Anne Salvan, Jon Villars, Franck Ferrari and Nicolas Testé.
You can never have too much good vocal music, in my opinion. Maybe Rick Phillips agrees. Today at least, as he spotlights vocal music - especially music written for women's voices - on Sound Advice. You can hear the latest from Anonymous 4, and from one of the finest singers of either gender - Renee Fleming.
Plus, In The Library, Rick pulls out another volume of the Great Shostakovich Recordings: this week, the two piano concertos.
Over in jazz kibitzing land, (for instance the forums at All About Jazz) there's been some discussion about the fairness or unfairness of this satirical article on The Onion, titled No One Sets Out To Be A Smooth Jazz Musician.
Here's how the piece begins:
"Look, I'm not going to lie to you. Nobody ever just woke up one morning and thought, 'Of all the things possible in the vastness that is life, what I'd really like to do is play smooth jazz 250 nights a year.' It just doesn't work that way."
Heh.
What is Sangah? A group, or an assembly. A Buddhist festival. Or a quartet? Answer: All of the above.
Sangha the quartet is made up of Tar, Oud, Tombak and Tabla. If you're familiar with these instruments you'll know this assembly implies a combination of cultural influences, including Arabic, Persian and Indian.
And if you aren't familiar but would like to be, you can hear some of Sangah's music tonight on Canada Live, from the Vancouver Jazz Festival The performance also features special guest vocalist Fatieh Honari.
I've not heard them with Fatieh, but as an instrumental quartet they have a lovely (and sometimes quite energetic) sound -- plus some pretty flashy improvisation.
To the dump to the dump to the dump dump dump...now who didn't hear The William Tell Overture upon reading that? (No one who's ever asked the burning question: where does the Lone Ranger take his trash, anyway.)
Today on Vinyl Cafe Stuart goes dumpster diving, not with lame jokes as above, one hopes, but by explaining why the Yellowknife Dump is, in his opinion, the best in the country. Didn't know there was a rating system, but I'm sure Stuart has the inside scoop on that. (Though maybe "scoop" is not the word we want to use in this context?)
Anyhoo, tune in today for this cautionary tale as well: what happens when Dave tries to boost business at Kenny Wong's Scottish Meat Pies by starting a contest.
Plus musical guests -- Blues Ladies of the North, a.ka.Tracy Riley and Brodie Dawson.
Apparently one of Giuseppe Verdi's favorite things was to give his friends his best recipes (and send along the groceries so they could cook them up just right). And this well before that gruesome term, "foodie."
The Signal celebrates the culinary composer tonight, with what they're calling a full-course meal:
Nu-Jazz and House producer Rise Ashen brings the chicken soup, Joanna Newsom the sprouts and beans, and Hawksley Workman tops the meal off with his delicious chocolate cake. Bonus, Pat's trademark recipe for chicken wrapped in prosciutto. (Presumably we get to that before the chocolate cake.)
p.s. Want to sample some of Verdi's work? Here's a recipe for Giuseppe Verdi's Delicious Soup, or La Squisita Minestra di Giuseppe Verdi!
Tonic seems to be on a bit of a disco, funk and soul kick -- earlier this week there was a little Average White Band, tonight disco meets funk when Robson Jorge and Lincoln Olivetti get together for a number called Aleluia.
Other highlights include Italian pianist Fabio Miano with a tribute to Duke Pearson. And what the Tonicians call "pure magic" when Rosa Passos picks up her guitar and sings Molambo. Beats impure magic, any day.
According to the BBC Simon Cowell is going to make a movie about a reality TV contest. Using actors, not real people.
Now on a post yesterday I was taken to task for dissing the whole Idol phenom without explanation, so here it is, plain and simple, no fancy dancy theories about 21st century existential angst, or the desperate and conniving music industry, or even the end of the world as we know it:
Much of the singing is awful. Pitchy, you might say. The show promotes a histrionic version of what sophisticated contemporary R&B singing is all about. And sometimes they humiliate people. That's not nice.
Now you're going to ask why I watch it at all, right? At first it was curiosity. Then it was loss of moral fiber. At one point I think it was to develop my theories about the desperate and conniving music industry, and once I recall it reinforced my own feelings of existential angst. But these days I don't watch it much. After all, So You Think You Can Dance is so much better. And I don't know anything about dance, so I can't tell if they're really good or bad. Plus, no one sings.
I was amused to read the following comment about this marvelous video of Glenn Gould and Bernstein:
"OMG! Glenn Gould rocks! He is soo cool at the end!"
But before I got to the comment I was a little weepy watching the performance -- it's really remarkable. And the physicality of the ending is such a delight.
In other words? Glenn Gould rocks.
Here's today's Sparksplug: Guest host Andrew Craig presents Prokofiev's Classical Symphony, and an encore presentation of Stradissimo.
Don't you love that, an "encore presentation?" So much classier than "repeat." And you know, sometimes things really do deserve to be heard twice. In this instance that's a definite, as Eric Friesen presents from the stage at the National Arts Centre, and winners of instruments from the Canada Council Instrument Bank perform works by Bach, Handel and Dompierre.
One of the things that's notable about the Edmonton Jazz Festival (formerly known as the Yardbird Jazz Festival) is its support of local talent. Case in point -- Edmonton-based jazz/R&B saxman Dave Babcock.
You can hear Babcock and his quartet tonight on Canada Live, moving all over the musical map -- from the aforementioned jazz n' R&B to hip-hop, house, funk and Latin grooves.
It's a double Edmontonian bill too -- second up, composer and pianist Andrew Glover, who's played with everyone from Jack Semple to the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.
There can be something intensely pleasurable about the first few minutes before dawn when you're lying there, half-awake, and you know you're half-awake because you're sleepily conscious that the birds have started singing. One, then another, and another.
Shelley Solmes wakes up with other kinds of birds this morning on Here's To You, from Haydn's Lark Quartet to Hoagy Carmichael's Skylark, to Lennon and McCartney's Blackbird.
Rumour has it there are also ducks, swallows and swans.
Curious about those ducks. Surely it couldn't be that Raffi classic, Ducks Like Rain?
A different kind of musical cover than the best and worst cover songs chatted about earlier on the R2 blog: literal literary covers.
Inspired by their favourite novels, six musicians (including Beck) have illustrated books with their own artwork for a "design your own cover series" project for the publisher Penguin.
For the full story, go to The Guardian.
Just a wee reminder, in case you missed this earlier post, that the Calgary Folk Music Festival, described by some as "a musically blissful little festival"(check out these photos of the fest by CBC Radio 3 contributor, Charles Gunn, if you'd like visual proof) is the focus of tonight's Canada Live broadcast.
Some of the music you may hear: City & Colour, the Rembetika Hipsters, The Cape May, the Sadies, Cowboy Celtic, Cam Penner & the Gravel Road, Don McLean, and the Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir.
Paris has been a draw for North American jazz players for decades -- and why not, the French appreciation of jazz has certainly at times out-ranked the American. And besides, the brandy is better at night, the fresh croissants in the morning, well, they're actually fresh. Anyway, a result is that Paris has inspired many a jazzer.
Tonight Tonic celebrates music inspired by the City of Lights: Clifford Brown and Max Roach play Parisian Thoroughfare (love that busy tune) and Peter Cinotti sings I Love Paris.
Then a quick dip into Spain with No Way Out, a bluesy number from Barcelona diva Big Mama, and Mallorcan harmonica player Victor Uris. Big Mama and Mallorcan harmonica! Now I've heard everything.
Yesterday there was a bit of chat on the blog about the WORST cover versions of songs; today I came across a recent BEST 50 cover versions list from The Observer.
And hey, Cowboy Junkies cover of the Velvet Underground's Sweet Jane is sitting in the number three spot.
The feelings of insulted Jeff Buckley fans (see WORST list) may be assuaged by the fact that on this BEST list Buckley's cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah comes in at #16.
Despite calls of "sacrilege" when the news broke, initial response in England to Mark Ronson's remix of Bob Dylan's 1966 song Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine), has been positive, according to the Times Online.
Yup, the first ever Dylan-sanctioned dance remix was premiered on BBC Radio 1 yesterday, and like everyone else who read the news but didn't hear the broadcast I hustled on over to Mark Ronson's myspace site to hear a sample.
What do you think? Personally, love those horns...
You could make a sport of picking seemingly unlikely subjects to base a musical on. The Australians have, according to The Age a couple of years back.(Orgasm, The Musical, anyone?)
Typically the plots to musicals are not extraordinarily complex though, Lord Of The Rings aside. (And we all knew the gist: hobbits. elves and Gandalf good, everyone else bad, one ring to screw them all up.) But a new musical called Bookends ups the ante on both unexpected subject matter, odd plot, and a great backstory.
Try this: Katharine Houghton, the actress who played Katharine Hepburn's daughter in Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, (and was her niece in real life) is directing Bookends, a musical based on the true story of two women who were rare-book dealers in New York in the 1940s. The pair discovered that Lousia May Alcott, author of the wholesome, beloved girls' classic Little Women, wrote salacious material ...under a pseudonym.
For the whole story, go to the NYTimes.
When someone tells you, as I was told by the purveyors of music at Canada Live, that the Calgary Folk Music Festival is "a long weekend of bliss," you might think:"hyperbolic or what?" But I've been, and I can attest -- in the right conditions it can be pretty blissful.
Sure, if you happen to be having a fight with your significant other, or you're at the festival all on your lonesome wishing you had a significant other (and all those happy couples holding hands at workshop stages are making you crazy), or if you just waited wayyyyy too long in the line up getting in, you might not rate it high on the bliss-ometer.
But putting aside these less than salubrious scenarios, it really is a musically blissful little festival. (Check out these photos of the fest by CBC Radio 3 contributor, Charles Gunn, if you'd like visual proof.) It likes its music eclectic -- this year there was blues, Celtic, dub, bluegrass, funk, country, hip-hop, R&B and old-timey music, among other genres and sub sub sub genres. And Canada Live was there, mics on stands, producers in truck. Tune in tonight to hear some of the results, from the following artists:
City & Colour, the Rembetika Hipsters, The Cape May, the Sadies, Cowboy Celtic, Cam Penner & the Gravel Road, Don McLean, and the Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir.
Some big names with some big hits today (can you call classical favourites hits, without sounding like a cheesy discount label?) on Here's To You. Take a boo at these highlights:
Pianist Murray Perahia with the New York Philharmonic playing Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1...
Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 played by Tafelmusik...
and Renee Fleming singing music by Strauss, accompanied by the London Symphony Orchestra.
In honour of the passing of filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni, who died on Monday, I was watching part of Blow-Up yesterday. And was amused all over again at the scene of the Yardbirds in an ultra cool 1960s club, with Jeff Beck getting more and more frustrated with a faulty amp, until he finally smashes the guitar in sheer frustration.
Guitars do have to take it on the chin sometimes. But rock isn't the only genre to give the electric a little rough treatment on stage. Tonight on The Signal, Elliott Sharp bows and plucks and pounds on his guitar in his live improvisation Sixteen X, recorded in Beijing.
I'm pretty sure no instruments were harmed in the making of music by Tandava and Zakir Hussein, also on tonight's show.
Two outstanding performances from the Montreal International Jazz Festival tonight on Canada Live.
The first is from Richard Bona, Gérald Toto, and Lokua Kanza, each known in his own right, but here they join musical forces as Toto-Bona-Lokua. (Note the Miracle on 34th Street Macy's moment -- that link takes you to NPR. But I just know you'll come back for the CBC broadcast...)
The second concert is from Femi Kuti and The Positive Force. In case you're not familiar with Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, here's the thumbnail: he virtually created the music known as Afrobeat, and was a larger than life political hero to Nigeria’s poor and oppressed. Son Femi is a little less on the political side (as you will hear if you clicked on the previous link) but great music, proving the Afrobeat marches on. (Well, dances on.)
And we're not talkin' bad moods among the bloomin' heather...no, this Scottish funk is from the Average White Band, in the shape of the hit, You Got It.
Yes, the always-eclectic Tonic gets funky tonight. And quirky playful big-band loungy, with China Forbes and Pink Martini. And of course, straight ahead jazzy too, with Anita O'Day and the Buddy Bregman Orchestra.
Tonic, any way you want it, you got it...
In case you didn't get around to that Times piece I blogged about earlier, (Classics Put Through The Mincer), a deconstruction of cover tunes, you might enjoy the addendum -- a list of the 20 worst cover songs, according to writer Rod Liddle.
I'm sure there are many more, but for some reason all I can think of right now is a bar band (who shall remain nameless) doing R.E.M.'s Losing My Religion. How I wished it was just a dream. Meantime, here's Liddle's list:
1. Madonna: American Pie
2 Michael Bolton: Dock of the Bay
3 Tori Amos: Smells Like Teen Spirit
4 Creedence Clearwater Revival: I Heard It Through the Grapevine
5 Duran Duran: 911 Is a Joke
6 Ronan Keating: Fairytale of New York
7 Boney M: Heart of Gold
8 Jeff Buckley: Hallelujah
9 The Eagles: Ol’ 55
10 Sting: Little Wing
11 Gareth Gates: Spirit in the Sky
12 J Geils Band: Where Did Our Love Go?
13 All Saints: Lady Marmalade
14 UB40/Chrissie Hynde: I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
15 The BBC: Perfect Day
16 Will Young: Light My Fire
17 Beck, Bogert and Appice: Superstition
18 Bruce Springsteen: Chimes of Freedom
19 Tom Jones: Kiss
20 Rod Stewart: I Don’t Want to Talk About It
I don't know if you happened to see Fred Kaplan's article (Still Married To The Music), about the work that Sue Mingus and Laurie Pepper -- wives of Charles Mingus and Art Pepper -- continue to do in perpetuation of their husbands' legacies. It was both touching and kind of sad -- lives subsumed, some might say, in the service of the past. (A quote from Laurie Pepper: "There’s a part of me that’s forever connected to Art. He’s my muse. He made me feel like somebody, and he still does.”)
If you're a Mingus or Pepper fan check out Kaplan's blog on Stereophile -- he has a supplementary post about three new CDs of previously unreleased concerts from both artists.
Toronto’s Masala Mixers combine Bollywood hits with jazz and electronics. In this performance at Lula Lounge, the band showcases vocalist Devika Mathur, sax player Sundar Viswanathan and percussionist Gurpreet Chana.
btw, for those who don't know it, the Lula Lounge is a great venue for music from around the world, and this past spring it celebrated its fifth anniversary with the Lula World music festival.
Lula World 2007 delivered 16 nights of world-class live music featuring visiting artists from Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, New York, Uganda, Guinea and Italy, plus Toronto-based musicians with roots in India, Indonesia, Cuba, Trinidad, Venezuela and more.
Check out Masala Mixers at Concert On Demand.
Although I take issue with certain attitudes (slightly ageist, slightly sexist) in Rod Liddle's (mostly very funny) piece about cover tunes in the Times online, his analysis of the "art" of covering well-known songs is entertaining, not to mention provocative.
Here's a brief excerpt:
"Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah was written with the ghost of an ironic smile on its pretty lips. Poor Jeff Buckley, with his precious voice and his drama-queen gasps and sighs, played it absolutely straight. Duh. And what would Lord Reith say about the BBC commissioning pop music’s most boring performers to cover a paean to heroin? Did they even know? Madonna, meanwhile, sings American Pie with all the fervour and commitment of a bar of soap: that really was the day the music died. And Will Young – we can’t light your fire, I’m afraid. We’ve tried, but it just won’t catch. Maybe a large can of paraffin is the answer."
Did a bit of a double take earlier this summer when I saw that not one, but two sons of the great Fela Kuti were touring. (If you're not familiar with Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, here's the thumbnail: he virtually created the music known as Afrobeat, and was a larger than life political hero to Nigeria’s poor and oppressed.)
Much to my dismay turned out I couldn't make it to either Sean or Femi Kuti's concerts. The good news, Femi Kuti and The Positive Force as recorded by Canada Live at the Montreal Jazz Festival is being broadcast tonight on the show. (Go ahead, click on that Femi Kuti link, you won't regret it, that Beng Beng Beng song is infectious...albeit more than a bit dubious on the p.c., let alone political activism side...)
btw, the Femi Kuti concert is actually the second of two great African music shows being broadcast tonight -- the first is from Richard Bona, Gérald Toto, and Lokua Kanza, each known in his own right. As Toto-Bona-Lokua they promote a message of both "diversity and oneness." (Now this is a Miracle on 34th Street Macy's moment -- note that link takes you to NPR...but I just know you'll come back for the CBC broadcast...)
Ah, the ongoing dilemma of reaching out to new and younger audiences. It's a tough one. Well one way to get 'em while they're young is to go the streets, or more specifically, the schools. Catherine Belyea, Here's To You guest host, does just that today when she visits the Regent Park School of Music, and the children give her their own requests.
A couple of additional music notes about today's H to Y: You can hear Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D major op. 61 -- played on piano. Also on the show, Dvorak's New World Symphony.
(Of course, were he writing today that might be "Nu World." Speaking of younger audiences.)
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