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It used to be that musicians who played music that was not easily described tended to hate having to attempt to do so. These days it seems to have become a creative process unto itself. (Just trawl through the self-descriptions on MySpace for proof...)
Take the the minimalist "neurotic sci-folk" of Laura Barrett, for example. Perfectly evocative, and no one has to stumble around going 'well, kind of you know, folkish, but not really, and then there's that kalimba thing she has going...' Anyway, tonight neurotic sci-folk (and annoyingly non-neurotic, earthbound folk too) are welcome to hear her music on The Signal (10 p.m.).
You can also hear music from Hylozoists, recorded live-in-concert. Shan't offer any description, though they have been known to write soundtracks for imaginary movies, so if pressed I'd say (on MySpace the band says "crucial hang," as well as indie/classical/emotronic) "Imaginary Soundtrack Music."
One more highlight to mention -- Laurie features some music by Gowns called Red State. It's been called (not sure by whom) "a digitally ruptured, gospel valentine to the heartlands." Which sounds vaguely terrifying, and for some reason reminds me of the movie Paris, Texas. But that's neither here nor there. Also not the heartland, but still. I get what they mean though, listening to the music on the Gowns aforelinked MySpace page. But you can also tune in tonight to hear just what a digitally ruptured gospel valentine sounds like.
Earlier this summer I heard an interview on Q with the great jazz pianist, Hank Jones, who was witty and funny and pretty much stole the show. All that at 89. Well, today he's all that at 90.
On Tonic (6 p.m.) Katie pays tribute to to Hank Jones. Right now, right here, El Blog pays tribute as well, by sharing this lovely solo performance of Willow Weep For Me.
If you just watched/heard the above and you're interested in learning more about this really magnificent pianist, a project called OctoJAZZarians ("an on-going series celebrating these living legends, pioneers who were first hand participants in the evolution of America's greatest art form") has a brief (but kind of charming) update on what Hank Jones has been up to of late.
Here's an interesting thing to ask yourself -- are you listening to more or less older music because of newer technology? Funnily enough two things in the space of a day made me ask that question.
First, The Editor's Box in fROOTS magazine ( a Brit publication devoted to world and roots music), where Ian Anderson (the editor, not the leader of Jethro Tull) writes about how the iPod actually liberated him from only listening to new releases -- since he had old mixed CDs around that he easily loaded up.
Then, getting to the vast backlog of Bob Lefsetz columns (The Lefsetz Letter) that accrued while on vacation (hey, a week to Mr. Lefsetz is a lifetime in terms of the creative output of most bloggers) I read through a post called Mr. Moonshine. He beautifully (if meanderingly) explores the notion of how digital downloads are helping people rediscover music from their past -- in his case leading him back to Fat Mattress playing Mr. Moonshine. (Not the definitive album version, he points out, but a live take, which does underscore some of the points he makes about the music.)
Best is his description of the experience of buying albums though:
Suzie LeBlanc's voice has been described thusly: "Dulcet, clear and free but, a voluptuous catch that shows most in the upper register can instantaneously pull that lovely sound into areas of seduction or pain and she takes advantage of every ornament in the 17th century toolkit to enhance the meaning of the words..."
Wow. That was Elissa Poole, writing in the Globe & Mail, by the way.
To hear that dulcet, voluptuous etc. voice live tune in today to Studio Sparks (12 p.m.). The show is broadcasting music all this week from the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival, and today Suzie LeBlanc (also artistic director of the new Montreal Baroque Academy) joins Eric for conversation and song. (LeBlanc, that is -- on the song side of the equation!)
"I got an English speaking folk musician who sings in French. We'll get him to host an English radio programme about French music and send it out in English. Can't miss!"
The above is a paraphrase of the opening to an interview I heard the other day on Sounds Like Canada. It was with Jim Corocoran, host of À Propos, heard on CBC Radio 1 for 20 years.
That intro was tongue-in-cheek -- suggesting what the original pitch for À Propos might have been, two decades ago. Indeed, the show didn't miss -- twenty years later it's celebrating with a musical party put on in conjunction with another two-decades celebration -- the 20th edition of Les FrancoFolies de Montréal.
Tonight the concert is broadcast on Canada Live (8 p.m.) À Propos De Nos 20 Ans, and features live performances by francophone artists (and collaborations between the guest musicians) as well as special performances by Jim Corcoran himself.
And the lineup is stellar! Michel Rivard, Karkwa, Marie-Jo Thério, Jérôme Minière, René Lussier, Marie-Pierre Fournier, Geneviève Paris, Bernard Falaise.
Now, you could interpret that subject heading in any number of ways. First, that everyone is charging en masse to listen to The Signal (10 p.m.), which may well be true. Or maybe it is a kind of rallying cry. (Although that would work better if there was a comma: Rush On, The Signal!) On the third hand, maybe it means Geddy Lee is putting in an appearance?
If you picked Door #3 you'd be almost right, since tonight on The Signal (10 p.m.), Laurie will indeed be playing some music by the iconic Canadian rock trio, Rush. Not with Mr. Lee singing though, in this case it's some Rush interpretations, from bands like The Bad Plus and The Section Quartet.
Speaking of Rush, they were in the news recently with their appearance on the Colbert Report -- their first TV appearance in 30 years -- which you can watch here.
And for those of you who have been following the saga of the woman who was obsessed with dish washing, the third and final installment of Lullaby Baxter's musical Garden Cities Of Tomorrow, recorded live at Calgary's One Yellow Rabbit Performance Theatre, will be aired on the show tonight.
This scenario will be familiar to anyone who has ever attended a folk festival:
It's 10:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning after a late Friday night in front of the mainstage. Coffee has barely kicked in, but you and a dozen others straggle into a workshop tent to hear some early morning music from musicians who have equally propped open eyes to play at this time of day. But once they begin, suddenly everyone wakes up, and hears the music.
A reprise of that very moment of festival moments takes place tonight on Canada Live (8 p.m.) from the 31st Newfoundland And Labrador Folk Festival. The two bands in question both like old timey/Americana music, Crooked Stovepipe from St. John's and Dyad, from Vancouver. If you tune in you'll hear both this evening (playing to more than just a dozen people I should add).
And then it's the Ladies Of Jazz (that link takes you to a feature article about the Ladies) from the St. John's Festival, a showcase for three of Newfoundland's award winning singers: Dana Parsons, Janet Cull and Heather Bambrick. It's a tribute to some of the great female jazz singers who have gone before them, from Ella Fitzgerald to Shirley Horn. So, loads o' standards, loads o'ladies. (Well, three, anyway.)
p.s. Yes, the photo is more of a main-stage moment, possibly a testament to the dearth of reporters up at 10 a.m. taking festival shots.
Personally, I am liking (now there's an interesting phraseology) all of the highlights on today's edition of Tonic (6 p.m.):
The excellent pianist Cyrus Chestnut (pictured here) plays music by Elvis Presley (jazz embracing rock n' roll).
Vocalist Stacey Kent with a classic Serge Gainsbourg song (which might explain why I heard Stacey Kent on practically a daily basis when in France earlier this year).
Canadian guitarist Jason Crawford paying tribute to Wes Montgomery (the world needs more acknowledgment of Mr. Montgomery).
Brazilian music from Paulo Ramos and Monica Freire (via Montreal, which gives it a whole new Quebec-Brazilian flavour).
And the live set is from pianist Gene Harris and his Alley Cats -- funky, jazzy, bluesy --who could ask for anything more?
The Cairo-Toronto Collective features some of Toronto's best middle-eastern-jazz fusion musicians with two prominent Cairo musicians -- oud and violin master Alfred Gamil, and oud player Mohamed Aly. And they'll play -- and talk about their music -- today on Studio Sparks. (You can also hear an earlier concert of theirs at the Glenn Gould Studio online at Concerts On Demand -- Maryem Tollar: Cairo To Toronto)
Live Music Report was at that show at the Gould, and reported (since that is what they do) that "all the arrangements swept languidly back and forth, stirring sensibilities, carrying the listener effortlessly, dreamily as if ascending and descending a lovingly handcrafted circular staircase." Lovely.
You know the dog days of summer are upon us when the biggest music news of the morning (not counting yesterday's Maria and the Maria judge story) is that as the BBC and everyone else reports, Alicia Keys and Jack White have recorded the next James Bond movie theme, for the upcoming Quantum Of Solace. (It's a damn shame that Amy Winehouse does what she does since if she didn't she would be the one -- her Bond theme-in-progress was scrapped, as she was "not up to recording.")
Neat that it's the first Bond duet in history though -- and that it pairs two such disparate singers. And this made me think of some other possible duet partners for future Bond movie themes:
Joanna Newsom and Tom Waits
Feist and Michael Bublé
Anne Murray and Bob Dylan
"An essential element of any James Bond film is the theme song. And not just because it’s set to a title sequence full of barely shadowed nude women gyrating around huge guns and bursts of flame and lasers.
No, each Bond theme carries a lot of important weight for the film it’s representing. The best Bond themes are entertaining songs on their own, but also provide valuable insight and foreshadowing regarding the film’s content, plot twists, and featured villainy. They should also effectively communicate that James Bond is the bee’s knees, the coolest cat in the alley, the unstoppable suave secret agent who is freedom’s last hope against billionaire tyrants and insane captains of industry. "
p.s. Roger Moore in The Spy Who Loved Me...if you squint hard enough.
Laurie plays some of her favourite spoken word artists tonight on The Signal (10 p.m.), including Shane Koyczan and Christian Bok. (btw, you can hear samples of both of their work on their respective websites...strong stuff... )
As well, a musical tribute to the women known as the Hiroshima Maidens (pictured here). These young Japanese women were seriously disfigured at Hiroshima in 1945, and were subsequently taken to the U.S. for multiple reconstructive surgeries. (That link will take you to a CBC archives feature about these women, with excerpts from radio broadcasts of the time.)
As for the musical work connected to the "Hiroshima Maidens" that you can hear tonight -- it's by composer Robert Een, and was written for a puppet/theatre piece on their story.
Tonic (6 p.m.) is featuring music from the late Henri Salvador on the show this evening. I was in Paris when Salvador died this winter, and I don't think I've ever seen such national mourning (and celebrating) of a musician before -- you saw pictures of him for days in all the papers, a video featuring him in his comeback years (while in his eighties!) in heavy rotation in bars.
Salvador was said to introduce rock n' roll to France in the 1950s, with songs like Rock'n'roll Mops, Dis-Moi Que Tu M'aimes Rock, Rock Hoquet and Va T'Faire Cuir Un Oeuf, Man. (With titles like that, no wonder.) Later he became a comedian/TV star, and as previously mentioned, hugely beloved. Mitterrand made him a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur and Jacques Chirac, Commandeur de l'Ordre National du Mérite -- just to give you some context of how he was regarded, if you're not familiar with Salvador.
Here he is towards the end of his very long career, with Jardin D'Hiver.
Beautiful. (And I don't mean the girl, although she is too. But that voice!)
And speaking of Studio Sparks, as I was in the last post, pianist Gabriela Montero (who was on the show earlier this year) is the subject of a feature article in the Times, which explores her predilection for improvising in the context of classical music -- or improvising in the style of various composers.
"'Give me Happy Birthday by Tchaikovsky!' challenges one man...'Yesterday by Bach!' says a journalist..."
Montero has used her interest in improvisation to build a strong, interactive relationship with her audiences, in part because of the "we take requests" portion of her concerts -- and the Submit Your Improvisation Requests Here segment of her website. Fabulous proof of this connection is below:
Day two of Studio Sparks' (12 p.m.) week-long coverage of the Ottawa Chamber Music Fest -- and today you can hear special guests violinist Mark Fewer and cellist Denise Djokic live on the show. By the way, all performances are in the second hour of the programme.
Now here's a weighty question. Every time I type the word "programme" I wonder if I really should just give in and drop the second "m" and the "e." And yet I find it so difficult to do so. Even though on the relevant page of Radio 2's own website we have programme spelled, you know, that "other" way. It's not out of any parochial linguistic viewpoint that I cling to the extra "m" and "e," more an aesthetic thing -- the lovely length of the word, I suppose.
But I digress. (No kidding, eh?) Back to the music. Mark Fewer, should you not be familiar, is an eclectic guy.
Earlier you may have read a post about some music coming your way tonight from the Atlantic Jazz Fest. Well, true confessions, it turns out that was broadcast last night. However, that means you can hear the following show tonight, which I wrote about yesterday.
Too confusing? Don't worry -- this is what's on the show tonight, really truly: A calypso concert by David Rudder, Lord Superior and Drew Gonsalves. It's a good one -- having listened to it over on Concerts On Demand I can attest to that. However, I'll let other, less partisan types attest on my behalf:
"David Rudder has the passion, Lord Superior, and Toronto's Drew Gonsalves have the youth of mind as creative calypsonians, to give up music to troubled hearts." --Gerry Bequia
"Listened to the broadcast on Saturday and even my teenage kids were glued to the radio, flabbergasted by Lord Superior's witty extempo." --Vincent
"I'm from Trinidad, but was not very familiar with Lord Superior's compositions. It surprising how some of his old tunes are still relevant today and the insight and wisdom that he exhibited so effectively through the medium of calypso." --Frank Best
Thanks to the above listeners/blog readers who wrote in with those comments about the show.
The show itself features music from more than 60 years of calypso, from the wartime calypsos of the 40s through the golden age of calypso of the 50s and 60s, right up to modern soca of the 21st century. And the accompanying all-star band is made up of musicians from Trinidad, Canada, and Guyana.
Tonight The Signal (10 p.m.) rebroadcasts part one of a three-part performance -- Lullaby Baxter's musical Garden Cities of Tomorrow. Among other things, it's about a woman who just adores doing dishes. (I always knew there had to be one, somewhere.) You can also hear this concert online at Concerts On Demand: Garden Cities Of Tomorrow: Lullaby Baxter.
Laurie also features music from Third, the latest recording from the band Portishead, whose sound was inseparable from the mid-1990s. But then they went away -- it's been ten years between albums. One reason is the band hated performing live, in part because vocalist Beth Gibbons is deeply private.
But they're back, and tonight on The Signal (10 p.m.) Laurie will be playing music from the newish CD. As well, some music from Canadian band Plants And Animals, including a tune that has the perfect response to an axiom I've never really believed: "that which doesn't kill us makes us stronger." The P&A song is called What Doesn't Kill Us Can Only Make Us Stronger... That Is Of Course If It's Not Making Us Weaker.
Plants And Animals were recently Pitchforked, btw -- their recording making the "Overlooked Records Of 2008" list.
Despite the rather desperate lack of places to play, let alone money to be made, there are always a certain number of young musicians who gravitate to jazz -- and more power to them. One of those up and comers is Chantale Gagné, a pianist based in both Montreal and NYC. Tonic (6 p.m.) calls her "a new star on Canada's jazz horizon." Tonight the show features music from her debut indie recording --for a preview check out Gagné's MySpace page.
Also, the concert portion of the show is from Brazilian jazzers Trio Da Paz (with vibraphonist Joe Locke), recorded live in Germany last year. Trio Da Paz, by the way, are one of a number of jazz groups to avail themselves of Jazz Corner, self-described as "the largest portal for the official websites of hundreds of jazz musicians and organizations." Plenty to check out there for jazz fans too.
Late last week the bebop great, tenor sax player Johnny Griffin , passed away, apparently just hours before a scheduled concert. Jazz fans will know Griffin from his work with the Lionel Hampton big band, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, and the Thelonious Monk quartet.
As Ben Ratliff says in the NYTimes obituary his "speed, control and harmonic acuity made him one of the most talented American jazz musicians of his generation."
Griffin was nicknamed the "Little Giant," the first because of his diminutive stature -- the second because of his incredible chops. Hear for yourself...truly a jazz giant.
On the weekend, passing through our nation's capital, I was struck by how much press there is about the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival (which opened on Friday). Nice to see. Among the coverage was the Ottawa Citizen's round up of musicians at the festival talking about what performances they'd most like to see, a piece called Performers' Picks. It's a fun way into the festival, even if you can't attend.
More fun still, as it comes with audio attached, is Studio Sparks (12 p.m.). All week long the show brings you musicians from the festival, starting today (live in front of a studio audience) with The Gryphon Trio. The trio are this year's artists-in-residence and artistic directors of the festival. No sloth vacation time for them!
In fact Gryphon cellist Roman Borys told the Toronto Star (see New Blood Energizes Annual Festival) he's pulled more all-nighters getting ready for the festival than he did at University. But I'm sure he'll be bright eyed and busy tailed on S'Sparks today. Or at least running on a lot of adrenaline.
Good sleepy morning. (Or maybe just sleepy for those among us who have been on vacation hours. Amazing how quickly one can get in touch with one's inner sloth again.)
A big thanks to the un-slothful Philly Markowitz for hosting the blog for the past week and posting many an interesting post, including this neat post on a musical response to the floral symbols carved into the stone of Rosslyn Chapel. (The first video in Philly's post provides a soothing entry into your week, the second, perhaps best not viewed during breakfast.)
But getting back to this morning. Today Here's To You (9 a.m.) is for the birds, as Catherine caters to avian music-lovers. (Not the whole show, I don't think, but a goodly segment.) This is in response to a request from a woman in Pickering, Ontario whose parrots click their beaks in time with music. (Yes, but are they really musical, or just parroting?)
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-28-08 at 01:33 AM
Well, this will be my last post for the time being. Before I hand this blog (and your kind attention) back over to the vacation-mellowed Li Robbins, I'd like to give you a quick heads up about a couple of programs coming your way this evening on Radio 2.
On Tonic tonight Katie Malloch will sample the excellent debut recording by Canadian jazz pianist Chantale Gagné and feature music from guitarists Kevin Barrett and Larry Coryell and singer Nancy King. She'll also have a set of tunes from Trio Da Paz with special guest vibraphonist Joe Locke recorded live at the 2007 Jazz Baltica Festival in Salzau, Germany.
Tonight on Canada Live, you'll hear an encore presentation of a special concert Toronto-based calypsonian David Rudder (pictured) gave with the equally legendary Lord Superior and up-and-coming calypso revivalist Drew Gonzalves at the CBC's Glenn Gould Studio. Rudder has been proclaimed "a Trinidad national hero on the order of Marley in Jamaica, Fela in Nigeria and Springsteen in New Jersey" by Rolling Stone Magazine, and his all-star show at the GGS was sweet and hot.
In the meantime, I'll say thanks to you, dear readers, for your good company this week. It's time now for me to turn my attention away from the screen and back to the garden where the weeds are... my oh my, bigger than I thought. I think I might just have another coffee first and enjoy Li's next post.
Sunday's concert feature on The Signal is by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer George Crumb (pictured circa 1968) and includes the stunning composition for electric string quartet entitled "Black Angels, Thirteen Images from the Dark Land".
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-27-08 at 06:28 PM
Just as folk festivals these days invariably include so much more than what we might call "folk music", jazz festivals of late have become more and more inclusive of music from various at-arms-length-from-jazz genres. Drop in on any one of this country's jazz fests and you'll hear a lot more than just be-bop and big bands, from world music to chamber to blues to electronica.
First we'll hear Junetta Jamerson, leader of the Black Pioneer Heritage Singers, as she delves into her family roots to bring to life the southern black gospel music of Alberta at the turn of the 20th century.
Then it's a set from Victoria's Dixieland Express, who came to perform at the at the request of Edmonton's first lady of vocal jazz, Rolanda Lee. Banjo, clarinet, trombone, trumpet...you'll hear all the flavours of a classic Dixieland band plus the playful vocals of a classy performer.
To round out the show, the Strathcona String Quartet join forces with Edmonton jazz greats Joel Gray on trumpet and John Taylor on bass to play music from their new jazz CD, Blue By Four. The concert featured jazz arrangements and original compositions by Edmonton composer and violinist, George Andrix.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-27-08 at 04:26 PM
Tim's all about fingers - and toes - this Sunday evening on Tonic. He'll have "Tickle Toe" from Lyle Lovett and his Large Band, John Scofield's "Heel to Toe", and Dave Young's version of "Tale of the Fingers". You'll also hear a spotlight on pianist Brian Dickinson and great music from the Sex and the City Soundtrack.
There's a surprise as well - Oscar Peterson performs the theme song from a very popular children's show!
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-27-08 at 11:53 AM
Kiss me, make me drunk with your kisses! Your sweet loving is better than wine. - Song of Songs 1:2
...and leaves less of a hangover, I hasten to add.
Apricots and pomegranates, figs and vine blossoms…the sensuous love poetry of the Song of Songs has inspired glorious music for time immemorial. Today on Sunday Afternoon in Concert, members of the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir and special guests explore this ancient Hebrew poem in a concert titled “In the Garden of Delights.” The concert features music by Buxtehude, Monteverdi, Vitali, Purcell, Schütz, J.C.F. Bach, J.S. Bach and Healey Willan, traditional Arabic and Hebrew music, and a new commission by Toronto composer Christos Hatzis. Host Bill Richardson is joined by a member of Tafelmusik, bassist Alison Mackay, who developed the program.
Also: last year the founding pianist of the Beaux Arts Trio, Menachem Pressler announced that the 2007-2008 season would be the final one for the fabled ensemble, after 42 continuous years:
The time has come to let my devoted and beloved colleagues, Daniel Hope and Antonio Meneses, go out on their own. They have given me and the world of chamber music such enormous commitment over these past years. I, of course, will not stop, but will look to new ventures.
In the spring, Vancouver's Friends of Chamber Music welcomed the Trio back to the Playhouse for a final perfomance, which included Schubert's Trio in B flat, D898, Opus 99, and the Trio in E flat, D929, Opus 100.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-27-08 at 10:22 AM
Just a quick reminder that Gary Cristall continues his 5-part series about the development of folk music in English Canada - The People's Music - today on Inside the Music. Today's episode called If I Had a Song features the music of Wade Hemsworth, Sylvia Tyson and Bruce Cockburn (to name a few) and is not to be missed.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-27-08 at 12:34 AM
No 'ands' or 'buts' . . . it's all about it's all about the 'if' on this week's In the Key of Charles. Ah, 'if', the word that launched a thousand great songs (give or take).
Join host Gregory Charles this week as he explores the conditional, with gospel from Mahalia Jackson, jazz from Andy Bey, the 'a capella' stylings of Take 6, a Canadian pop classic from The Barenaked Ladies and the acoustic-soul of singer/songwriter Justin Nozuka, along with legendary voices like Leonard Cohen, Johnny Cash, Shirley Bassey, Gino Vinelli, Tony Bennett, Stevie Wonder, Ella Fitzgerald and Gordon Lightfoot.
Oh dear, I don't see David Gates and Bread on this list. Remember "If a picture paints a thousand words / Then why can't I paint you?". Or Joan Osborne, for that matter, who penned "What if God was one of us / Just a slob like one of us?". Guess we'll just have to tune in and see if Gregory plays them, too.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-26-08 at 09:20 PM
Catch the fresh electronica of Vancouver's The Hermit this Saturday night in the concert portion of The Signal. FYI - The photo shows Gottfried Scholenateuer, the bell ringing hermit of Saalfelden, in the mountains of Austria, dated 1955... not the band.
As well, guest host Odario Williams will take the new Brendan Canning (of Broken Social Scene) CD for a spin, sampling five off-beat tracks. Also, music from Ratatat, Tippy Agogo and Kathleen McLean, to name just a few.
Playing everything from Gypsy Swing to Russian rags, the virtuosic music of Victoria's Marc Atkinson Trio warmly welcomed all listeners aboard an intriguing, exhilarating and unforgettable ride, without ever leaving the Grassy Knoll at the Vancouver Island MusicFest.
Cassius Khan is the world's only professional performing artist who plays the tabla and sings Ghazals simultaneously; a phenomenon unheard of in the Indian classical music scene. He was accompanied on harmonium and with dance by Amika Kushwaha on the Island MusicFest's peaceful Woodland Stage.
Dirk Powell is one of the world's leading experts on traditional Appalachian fiddle and banjo styles. This "Renaissance Mountain Man", who learned with his grandfather, entranced the crowd with a spirit and energy that rang out from the banks of the Tsolum River to snow topped Mount Washington.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-26-08 at 02:41 PM
Here's something I'd like to hear: The Tuba Triathlon or The Wind Sprints. Turns out athletes aren't the only ones heading off to Beijing thus summer. This week on In Tune, host Katherine Duncan has the skinny on an Olympic event especially for musicians.
Also, a new iPod that's perfect for classical music fans, and why soprano Renee Fleming will have a new "aura" about her when she takes to the stage of the Metropolitan Opera this fall.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-26-08 at 08:21 AM
Why get out of bed? Lay about instead and listen to 3 great shows coming your way this morning:
Stuart devotes all of this week's edition of the Vinyl Café to cover tunes. You'll hear Stuart's faves, plus a couple of - how can we say this politely? - ill-considered re-workings of well-known tunes. There's also one song Stuart had heard more than a hundred times before he learned, to his shock, that it was - you guessed it - a cover.
Today on Deep Roots Tom Power will uncover the music of Eva Scow, a young mandolin phenom who focuses on the music of Brazil. Eva started playing piano at age 3, later adding violin and mandolin. After studying classical music for 10 years, she discovered Brazilian music and her fate was set. She has played with the likes of David Grisman and Bela Fleck, and has even graced the stage of Carnegie Hall!
There's also music from a movie-star bluesman Chris Thomas King, who creates music that echoes the characters he’s played in such films as O Brother Where Art Thou?; James Hill, the Canadian Ukelele master (as he likes to say, "seriously!") who pushes the limitations of the four-stringed chordophone; and the latest from stalwart Canadian songstress Kathleen Edwards. Her latest album Asking for Flowers is garnering raves here at home, in the USA and worldwide.
And finally, today on Inside the Music we’re taking a look at legendary blues musician Buddy Guy, an artist whose dynamic guitar playing helped to define the sound of Chicago’s Chess Records. While he was on that label, Guy played with Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Sonny Boy Williamson.
“First Time I Met the Blues: The Buddy Guy Story” is hosted by Dan Aykroyd, the Canadian actor who was one-half of The Blues Brothers. You’ll hear how deeply influential Guy has been, especially with English rock musicians who grew up worshipping his work. In addition to an extensive interview with the blues master himself, the program features comments from his longtime partner Junior Wells, Robert Plant, Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana and Mick Fleetwood.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-26-08 at 03:00 AM
It's a good thing it's already day-time, or you might have wanted to put the lights on around the house. This week on Saturday Afternoon at the Opera, Bill Richardson brings us a gruesome-twosome of operas based on the legend of Bluebeard - Ariane et Barbe-bleue by Paul Dukas and Bluebeard's Castle by Bela Bartok.
Both operas are based on the legend of Bluebeard, a 17th-century fairy tale by Charles Perrault, in which a young bride goes looking for skeletons in the closet of her new husband - and finds them!
In Dukas's opera Ariane et Barbe-bleue, Ariane's curiosity leads her to find his previous five wives, alive but imprisoned. She offers them freedom, but they can't break the mysterious hold that Bluebeard has on them. Dukas' opera was first performed in 1907 at the Opera-Comique in Paris, with Georgette Leblanc (the companion of librettist Maurice Maeterlinck) as the female lead.
Bartok's one-act opera (and his only opera), Bluebeard's Castle, (1911) has received far more attention on stage and recording. Here the protagonist, Judith, is less of a liberator. She has to know all her new husband's past, and that compulsion will not rest. By opening doors into his past, she closes herself off from his present, until she herself becomes confined within the labyrinth of what he was. After alternatively finding horror and riches behind a series of doors, Judith joins three previous wives, locked deep within the castle walls. Bluebeard's curse is to remain alone, having lost each of his wives to his dark past.
In the production from Opera national de Paris, bass Willard White is the voice of Barbe-bleue, mezzo soprano Deborah Polaski, carries the bulk of the singing as Ariane, and Julia Juon, mezzo-soprano, portrays the Nurse. Bartok's work is represented by the Decca recording starring Christa Ludwig and Walter Berry.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-25-08 at 08:54 PM
What's in a name? Well if it's the name of the band in tonight's concert feature on The Signal, the name poses a bit of a problem. The name contains a word not generally used on radio - especially on CBC. So how about a clue? It begins with "Holy" and the second word rhymes with "duck". (Pictured is "catboy", the band's official mascot.)
I'll admit I've said it - on air, in fact (in the wee, wee hours on Nightstream, and not without a little hesitation) - and your regular blogger Li Robbins reproduced the name in this very blog when she noted that the band had been short-listed for the 2008 Polaris Prize. But why push the point? Needless to say, the band name must pose a real problem on the marquee any place they play.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-25-08 at 02:31 PM
This evening Tonic gets your weekend started with a set of tunes that singer/pianist Carol Welsman recorded last month at the Lion D'or in Montreal.
The multi-faceted, multi-lingual and multi-award winning Welsman has gone from success to success over the last few years, with a 2008 Smooth Jazz Award and 600,000 records sold in Canada alone. She's worked with everyone from Herbie Hancock to Brazil's Djavan and two very different musical "Georges" -- Benson and Shearing. She's written songs for Ray Charles and Celine Dion. These days she's based in California, but still I remember the week-long stints she used to play at Toronto's fabled Top of the Senator jazz club in her home town not too many years ago.
To get you primed for her set today, here's a taste of a CBC documentary from 2006 called "the Language of Love". You'll hear Herbie and Carol in a duet performance, complete with a "mutual appreciation" intro that'll help you listen to Carol's playing with informed ears.
Although the tune isn't identified, I'm pretty confident in saying that it's Herbie's classic Cantaloop Island - a little slower and smoother off the top than he used to play it, but maybe it's Carol taking the stylistic lead? It certainly gets cool and crunchy in the middle. Have a listen:
The Royal Opera House announced that it would reserve all the tickets for this season's opening night for readers of The Sun tabloid; at discount prices, no less! Seats for the production of Mozart's Don Giovanni, which would normally fetch up to £195, would be given away at bargain basement prices of £7.50 to £30.
Witty comments about opera vs. soap operas ensued in on-line forums, with one opera fan calling the move "a noxious stunt". But then came another side of the public response. As one Guardian reader pointed out: ...I read about the Royal Opera House's first night and I could not suppress a giggle... Don Giovanni is about seduction, rape, murder, vengeance, retribution and - conceivably - justice, with a hint of metaphysics thrown in. All with its roots in class structure. Which makes it Sun reader territory.
With the idea of "opera for the masses" in mind, I offer you this loving, Python-esque "opera 101" film from Toronto animator Kim Thompson. This short film was made as a final year project in 1992 when Thompson was studying at Ryerson University, and enjoys deserved cult status in opera circles. The plot for Don Giovanni is summarized in under 60 words, and I especially enjoy the description of Wagner's Ring Cycle as "a mini-series":
(Note: you may want to watch this on the YouTube site in case this page auto-refreshes while you're viewing).
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-25-08 at 08:04 AM
In my experience, the folk music community is an unusually egalitarian oasis at the edges of the music industry.
Sure, there are outstanding folk musicians who go on to become stars, but generally speaking, you don't hear much about folkies behaving like stars: throwing backstage tantrums when the food is too hot or cold, trashing their hotel rooms or brawling with paparazzi. Mostly they're just folks, and treat others that way. Likewise, the folk community is one in which the people who support the artists - the publicists, promoters, agents and festival directors - are thought of as smart, hard-working, honest and decent people rather than parasitic status seekers. (How unlike the popular Hunter S. Thompson quote: The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.)
A handful of the behind-the-scenes people in Canada's folk music community have engendered the kind of awed respect usually reserved for the stars. One of those people is Gary Cristall. He has been at the forefront of Canada's folk music scene for close to 4 decades (if one can be in the forefront and behind the scenes at the same time), and we're thrilled to have him as our guide for Inside the Music's 5-part series The People's Music. Cristall founded the Vancouver Folk Music Festival over 30 years ago, and for the past ten years has been collecting interviews for a book about folk music, many of which are integrated into The People's Music. The series takes a long look at what we call "folk" music in English Canada.
This weekend, Gary shares his intimate, insider knowledge in Sunday's episode of The People's Music.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-25-08 at 01:44 AM
Back in the 1960’s, largely conservative "white-bread" Toronto experienced a wave of migration. Young Jamaicans were looking for a chance at a better life, bringing with them the hallmarks of many immigrant communities: tasty recipes, a funky patois and an abiding love of the music from home.
In the 60's and 70's, several of these Jamaican-Canadian newcomers went into Toronto recording studios to cut 45s which went on to become hits in the Caribbean community here in Canada and abroad. In 2006, Light in the Attic Records compiled several of these vintage singles into an compilation album: Jamaica to Toronto – Soul, Funk & Reggae 1967 – 1974. The disc was a massive hit (especially among the DJ set), prompting some of the original artists to create a “super-group” which is touring the songs some 35 years later!
Jamaica to Toronto is that group. Back when they first made recordings, the musicians fused the sounds of their Jamaican homeland and the then-new sounds of American funk and soul to create a fresh new sound that still stands the test of time. We caught up with them at Sunfest. Now in its 14th year, Sunfest is Canada's premier free-admission festival of the global arts.
I happened to be at Sunfest this year to see Jamaica to Toronto's set, and can assure you that the audience was spellbound by the band's funky rhythms and feel-good vibe as they played a set combining original compositions and hits by Bob Marley, James Brown and Otis Redding.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-24-08 at 09:05 PM
Tonight, the Signal takes us on a one-way ride to Paradise. Among other things, you'll hear music from Patrick Watson’s 2007 Polaris Prize winning CD, Close to Paradise. Music from Jeff Bird'sSelf Mastery will get us going in the right direction, and along the way we’ll also hear the heavenly voice of counter-tenor Daniel Taylor, in a song by Bob & Bill.
This may not qualify as music from Paradise per se, but this interesting video demonstrates what is considered by some to be a heavenly musical system found on the walls of Rosslyn Chapel in Midlowthian, Scotland. The previously placid chapel has been over-run by tourists lately, ever since it was used as a location for the film version of the DaVinci Code.
As interpreted by Scottish composer Stuart Mitchell, the vaguely floral symbols carved into the stone of Rosslyn Chapel create an ingenious form of musical notation based on cymatics and give rise to beautiful "new-old" music. You'll hear excerpts from Mitchell's Rosslyn Motet in this video.
Post-viewing fun: if you've never done it before, try singing to a drum covered in fine sand or salt some day. You'll be amazed at the beautiful patterns you can create.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-24-08 at 07:28 PM
On Canada Live tonight, we have 2 concerts from 2 formidable musical voices: one known and respected worldwide, and one so new to the music scene she doesn't have a recording yet!
Vocalist, pianist and composer Ivan Lins is a superstar in his native Brazil, most famous for his song "Magdalena." His bossa nova styles brought him worldwide attention in the 1970's and to this day he's adored by those who fell in love with his Brazilian rhythms.
He's known as a "musician's musician", loved around the world. Case in point: A Love Affair - The Music Of Ivan Lins, a tribute album featuring Ivan Lins songs covered by Sting, Chakka Khan and Dianne Reeves (among others). The album won Sting a Best Male Pop Vocalist Grammy award in 2001.
Most recently, Lins appeared on Michael Buble's album, Call Me Irresponsible. Appearing at the Centre as part of the Vancouver International Jazz Festival, Lins performs with a crack band and sings, among his most famous songs, "Love Dance." It's soft, sentimental, and atmospheric jazz.
Twenty-something Vancouver singer Alita Dupray (pictured) allows you to feel the meaning of every word in a song. She has a rare voice that can soar high but can also wrap you in a smoky 2AM contralto. This recording from the CBC Studio One Jazz Series represents the first network radio coverage for an uncompromising young artist who, surprisingly, doesn't have a website or CD to trumpet her substantial talent. This set mixes Radiohead and Led Zeppelin covers with jazz standards. Alita Dupray leaves you with the feeling that big things lie ahead for her.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-24-08 at 01:57 PM
Here's a quick peek at this afternoon's line-up on R2:
On Disc Drive with Jurgen Gothe, it's music by Richard Strauss along with tunes from French 5-string bassist Renaud Garcia-Fons, guitarist Daniel Bolshoy and more.
And on Tonic with Katie Malloch you'll hear some classic hard bop from saxophonist Harold Vick, gentle Latin sounds from the Alex Cuba Band, nu-jazz from the group Koop, and jazz vocals from Chantal Chamberland. Plus there will be a set of tunes from the trio of pianist Ahmad Jamal recorded live at Joe Segal's Jazz Showcase in Chicago back in November, 1992.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-24-08 at 10:44 AM
As some of you may know, before switching over the the Radio 2 overnight show Nightstream, I hosted a world music disc show, Roots & Wings, for 16 years on Radio 1 and 2.
I've always imagined that if I didn't get into broadcasting, I'd enjoy being an architectural designer. I love design and I love problem-solving and I especially love puzzling about how things get put together. When a friend told me about a webcam that follows the progress of a world music festival site being built from the ground up, I was thrilled. Two of my main interests - world music and architecture - together at last!
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-24-08 at 07:57 AM
When Liis in Winnipeg requested some music to honour the 90th anniversary of Estonia’s Independence, Here’s To You decided to do better than that and take its listeners on an excursion. Sit back and savour music and performances of the who's who of Estonian composers and conductors, including Veljo Tormis, Arvo Part, Tonu Kaljuste as well as the Jarvi family: Neeme Jarvi, Paavo and Kristjan.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-23-08 at 06:55 PM
Pity Steven Page. BNL's front man has been all over the news of late, and not for any of the right reasons. With all the clamour and gossip, it may be difficult to focus on what is still very much the case: Page remains a fine musician and an entertaining storyteller.
Tonight on The Signal with Laurie Brown, Steven Page joins Andrew Burashko (pictured) and the Art of Time Ensemble for a concert from the AoT's ongoing "Songbook" series. For this special concert (which took place over 2 nights on June 20 and 21, 2008), Page created a list of his favourite songs, and CBC Radio commissioned completely new arrangements of those songs by a variety of musical minds. We’ll hear Leonard Cohen arranged by Gavin Bryars, Philip Glass & Paul Simon arranged by Phil Dwyer, and Jane Siberry arranged by Glenn Buhr.
The all-star ensemble boasted some of Canada’s finest musicians including Phil Dwyer (sax), Rob Piltch (guitar), Igor Gefter (cello), Joe Phillips (bass), Steven Sitarski (violin) & Andrew Burashko (piano).
N.B.: Tonight's Signal concert is also available as a Concert on Demand.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-23-08 at 01:28 PM
Jurgen has an aria by Bach from Shannon Mercer's new Analekta disc today on DiscDrive. You'll also hear Calgary's No Guff (pictured) play a tune about a Ten Dollar Guitar.
Let's face it, most guitarists don't start out playing high-end Gibsons or Fenders. For example, Randy Bachman still remembers his first guitar fondly. It was "a shiny black, Les Paul-shaped instrument with gold fleck and white binding. It was made by the Harmony guitar company for the Simpson's-Sears Company of Canada and was called a Silvertone." Recently Bachman made the headlines when he announced he was donating his multi-million dollar collection of Gretch guitars (plus amps, dobros and other instruments) to the Gretch museum in Savannah, GA.
Here comes my six-degrees-of-separation story. I'm not much of a musician: none of the instruments I ever tried to master (piano, French horn, string bass and most recently accordion) seemed to stick for very long. But for a while, back in high school, I had the use of a cheap instrument once owned by one of this country's finest guitarists (and Randy Bachman's hero), the late Lenny Breau. Lenny was astonishing fingerstyle jazz guitarist who could play as if he had 4 hands. A child prodigy, he appeared on radio with his parents' country band when he was just 11 years old. By his teens he was playing in jazz bands, where he started as a bass player before switching back to his first love, the guitar.
My family lived in Winnipeg for several years in the 1960's, when Lenny was playing the jazz circuit and Randy was crafting pop hits. Through those long-standing Winnipeg music scene connections, when I announced at 15 or so that I wanted to play bass, my dad make a few phone calls and managed to get his hands on a bass once owned and played by Lenny. It was a cheap flat-top hollow body instrument made by Kay guitars, a company known for producing low- to mid-quality instruments from the 1930s to the 1960s. I never really mastered that bass, although I treasured it - rusty strings and all - until the loan expired.
Other than me and Lenny, who else has played Kay guitars? Eric Clapton, Sarah Mclaughlin, Paul McCartney and Jack White, to name just a few. I'm willing to bet some of them bought them for $10.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-23-08 at 11:21 AM
According to an article in today's New York Times, Itzhak Perlman has withdrawn from some of his upcoming concerts while he recovers from rotator cuff surgery, including 2 concerts intended to celebrate the maestro's 50th anniversary in the United States.
For the full story, see the original article here (you may need to register if you have not visited the site before).
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-23-08 at 09:24 AM
Are you someone who would make a photo shoot at the pedestrian crossing in Abbey Road a vacation priority?
If so, have a look at this clever and ever-expanding Google Map with pins marking the exact locations of over 800 album cover photos. Abbey Road is there, natch, and so is Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison (Sacramento County), Cheap Trick's Budokan (Tokyo) and Ron Sexsmith's Grand Opera Lane (Toronto).
When you're done enjoying your virtual world tour of rock, you might want to look at a couple of online collections of Abbey Road parodies, here and here. There aren't 800 of them, but there are at least a few dozen. I think my personal favourite is the one made from Lego.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-23-08 at 07:59 AM
On Tonic this evening, there'll be vocals from DK Ibomeka and Melody Gardot, nu-Braz from the group Zambe, and a Chris Shaw re-mix of a classic Sarah Vaughan recording.
Sarah is among the most avidly re-mixed vocalists these days, with her sultry vocals floating above re-interpretations of several of her hits. Some of her other "revivers" include Gotan Project, Ufo and Max Sedgely. I don't want to give away this evening's song, so instead I invite you to watch Max Sedgley's re-mix of Sarah and Henry Mancini's Peter Gunn Theme here:
You'll also hear music by Stevie Wonder played by jazz pianist Johnny O'Neal. Plus, a set of tunes from singer Mel Tormé recorded live in Tokyo in December, 1988.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-23-08 at 03:00 AM
Ever since the 1960's Maceo Parker's name has been synonymous with funk music. Back then it was James Brown who uttered the phrase "Maceo, I want you to blow" - and blow he did - some of the hottest and most rhythmic sax licks around. Over the years Maceo Parker has collaborated with countless musicians including the Godfather of Soul and P-Funketeers George Clinton and Bootsy Collins. He's also played sax with the likes of Ray Charles, Ani Difranco, James Taylor the Red Hot Chili Peppers and even guested with - wait for it - Perry Farrell and Jane's Addiction (Farrell had a cat named Maceo).
These days Maceo leads his own band nick-named "the tightest little funk orchestra on earth." Their show at the Calgary Jazz Festival was as funky as they come.
Continuing in a funky groove, Canada Live captured The Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir at last summer's Calgary Folk Music Festival, where they entertained young and old, folkie and funky with their combination of ragged gospel, traditional blues and Appalachian folk.
And finally, Lynn Olagundoye and the Guerrilla Funk Allstars are all Canadian born, but they present the rhythm of their roots in full on rhythm and blues hip hop party to rock the house. Last year's show from the Calgary Jazz Festival at Quincy's was out-of-control!
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-22-08 at 07:48 PM
Tonight on The Signal, film composer Danny Elfman turns his hand to a large-scale contemporary work, Serenada Schizophrana.
The first thing you need to know about Elfman is that he is entirely self-taught and has never had any formal musical training. Perhaps this contributes to his unique signature sound. The Serenada is Elfman's first work written specifically for the concert hall, although since it's Carnegie Hall debut in 2005, the music has been appended to the IMAX film Deep Sea 3D. Elfman found the creation of this music an interesting challenge. Cut adrift (so to speak) from the confines of visual prompts, Elfman said of the process: I began composing several dozen short improvisational compositions, none of them related. Slowly, some of them began to develop themselves until I had six separate movements that, in some abstract, absurd way, felt connected.
Elfman's playful and dramatic themes are among the most recognised in the world: he penned the catchy theme to "The Simpsons", scored virtually all of Tim Burton's films (which included singing the songs of the lead character, Jack Skellington, in The Nightmare Before Christmas) and created the music for Sam Raimi's Spider-Man film franchise. For a real treat, sit down with the Corpse Bride DVD one day and go exploring in the "extras" section. There you'll find beautiful documentary footage showing Elfman at work with a full orchestra in a Hollywood studio. Truly a master at work.
Off the top of my head, there are a few other film score composers I can think of whose music is as instantly recognisable as Elfman's: Nino Rota, Philip Glass, Ennio Morricone, A.R. Rahman, Tan Dun, Bernard Hermann, John Williams and yes, Randy Newman. After jotting down the arbitrary and incomplete list you see here, I went online and googled "film score composers". That's how I found this user-created list of the "100 Greatest Film Score Composers", which ranks Elfman at #15 out of 100.
Also on The Signal tonight: “Thru The Wounded Sky” by The Glenn Buhr Ensemble, and “My Greatest Fear” by The Tiny, and concert highlights featuring two musically open-minded virtuoso artists, violinist Parmela Attariwala and percussionist Shawn Mativetsky. Together, as the Attar Project, they weave a tapestry of sound that combines contemporary composition and classical virtuosity with improvisation and traditional Indian rhythms.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-22-08 at 06:20 PM
This week's Canada Live podcast is available for download. You'll hear jazz singer Alita Dupray show off her smoky voice at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival, and indie rock darling Danny Michel performing songs from his new album, "Feather, Fur & Fin."
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-22-08 at 10:40 AM
There are three "encore" sessions from Montreal singer-songwriters On Canada Live tonight:
Songwriter Angela Desveaux (pictured) has said all the residents of Cape Breton are music lovers and players, and that's what I inherited from them. Tonight, she combines her Montreal roots with her Cape Breton upbringing in memorable original tunes captured in a Routes Montreal concert.
Fellow Montrealer Katie Moore has been called an alt-country crooner although she plays in a number of different ensembles, from country to hip-hop klezmer (including a group called Yonder Hill, a trio with Angela Desveaux and Dara Weiss). Tonight Moore leads her own rootsy band in a Routes Montreal performance.
Then it's one of A Propos' unforgettable Songwriters' Sessions, featuring the respected songwriter Fred Fortin and inventive multi-instrumentalist René Lussier in an intimate exchange of tunes and memories about everything from love to a particularly tasty sandwich.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-22-08 at 10:16 AM
When last I checked, the video for Barack Obama's un-official campaign song "Yes We Can" had been viewed upward of 17 million times on YouTube and DipDive alone. The star-studded (and, yes, moving) mash-up song by will.i.am of Black Eyed Peas and friends went viral on the internet several months ago.
Yes We Can is by no means the only Obama song around these days. The mildly titillating parody "I Got a Crush ... On Obama" by the fictitious "Obama Girl" features a hot and bothered young woman crooning about watching C-SPAN and following the Democratic convention. It went on to spawn a whole series of satirical songs lip-synched by actress Amber Lee Ettinger.
However, Obama songs also exist outside the realms of Hollywood tributes and domestic satire. Obama is a star around the world and his supporters can be found far and wide. My friend Daniel Rosenberg (a compiler of discs for The Rough Guides to World Music) has been looking for Obama songs and found them in some unlikely places.
Grenada's calypso king Mighty Sparrow has written one, so has Jamaican dancehall reggae star Cocoa Tea. My favourite is a catchy reggaeton number by a group called Los Amigos de Obama, led by Mexican-American artist Miguel Orozco. Listen to the lyrics and you'll hear a lot of hope (plus some outright wishful thinking and a few mis-interpretations) bound up in these songs.
I can certainly remember pop stars jumping on political bandwagons and hanging around the hustings in campaigns past. But can you think of the last time a politician inspired so many international and multi-lingual musical tributes? Me either.
You'll find the calypso, reggae and reggaeton songs mentioned above, below -- just click on the "continue" link.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-22-08 at 07:53 AM
Here's to You pays homage to the Grand Old Lady of Canadian music today - not a performer who's advancing in years, but a concert hall - Massey Hall, to be exact. Massey Hall opened more than 114 years ago, one of the first halls in Canada to be designed expressly for concerts. Today on Here's to You, recordings of some of the artists who've brought the hall to life over the years.
This panoramic image of Massey Hall was created by Ian Mutoo from 9 photos and is reproduced here courtesy of a Creative Commons licence.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-22-08 at 12:40 AM
On TONIC this evening you'll hear music from the First Lady of France, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.
Prior to becoming Mme. Nikolas Sarkozy, the Italian-born, French-and-Swiss raised industrial heiress (nee Carla Bruni Tedeschi) enjoyed a successful career as a high fashion model. In 1997 Bruni switched careers and recorded a collection of breathy French chanson, followed by an album of songs based on the poetry of Yeats, Emiliy Dickenson, and Dorothy Parker (to name a few). An avowed "polyamorist", Bruni was linked romantically to Mick Jagger and Donald Trump before her marriage to the French President in February of this year following a whirlwind romance.
Bruni's popularity as a French icon has largely eclipsed that of her husband's ever since, although given his plummeting ratings, that is not too difficult a feat. The press has largely had a field day with Bruni, the French because she is married to that man, and the rest of the world because she sings a particularly French style of music that has never really caught on elsewhere. (That may be changing, with Feist possessing a certain French-inspired "je ne sais quoi" that appeals globally and Yael Naim catching on worldwide following her appearance in the MacBook Air commercials).
I'd like to suggest we all take a giant step back and judge Bruni on her music alone. I've been listening to her for several years, ever since she caught my attention on a compilation of new French songwriters. Sure, the kitten-ish purr might put a person in mind of a breathless Brigitte Bardot at times, but there are enough lovely melodies, smart arrangements and sexy "sly winks" to let us know that Bruni is more than just fluff.
Is Bruni the real thing? Tune in to Tonic and decide for yourself, and in the meantime, have a look at her in an acoustic setting here.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-21-08 at 09:45 PM
Tonight The Signal’s post-modernist hero returns to present his latest masterpiece!
Toronto’s John Kameel Farah is a virtuoso musician: he fuses elements of jazz, techno, classical, ambient, and middle-Eastern music into his own large-scale works. Tonight we’ll hear the new work “Unfolding” – it’s been called “a lifetime of knowledge distilled into 50 minutes of pure inspiration!”.
Want some inspiration of your own? Watch this 2-handed origami artist's work unfold -- well, fold -- before your eyes. This has nothing whatsoever to do with tonight's music, but I enjoyed watching it. Hope you do, too.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-21-08 at 06:46 PM
Many of my favourite musicians are artists who play "in the cracks" -- not in the spaces between the notes (although that can certainly be said for some of them), but artists who make music that straddles genres.
Mixed-genre music may be easy to enjoy, but marketing it to the public can be a bit of a problem. How do you describe yourself if you like to rap about train stations and small town junkyards? Buck 65 coined the phrase "hick hop". What about playing hard rock-inspired versions of folk tunes on traditional acoustic instruments? Sweden's Hoven Droven invented a sub-genre called "heavy wood".
Tonight on Canada Live you can hear Vancouver's Headwater, a band that describes it's music as "tractor jazz".
What does jazz sound like from the cab of a combine-harvester? I bet you have an image in your mind's eye already, and it's not mixed cocktails or The Savoy Ballroom. Headwater's "tractor jazz" evokes the hot dusty chaff of the prairies. It's a mix of rootsy country, folk and good old-fashioned rock & roll music -- all brushed off and gussied up with some hot licks from players who've studied the jazz greats, but choose to stay true to their western country roots.
The second concert is a studio session featuring the delicate and artful string-driven roots-pop of Vancouver's Attics and Cellars (a performance that can be enjoyed any time as a Concert on Demand).
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-21-08 at 05:09 PM
This evening on Tonic, Katie is ready to brighten your Monday with music from vocalists Amos Lee, Jully Black, Dione Taylor and Anita O'Day.
Don't miss the concert set of great tunes from the Ray Brown Trio. Here's bassist Ray Brown in fine form in 2001 at his 75th birthday concert (he died in 2002).
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-21-08 at 01:58 PM
Join DiscDrive today to hear Asza musically define a Dulcimer Stomp. What's a dulcimer, you ask? Well, that's a very good question, because the answer varies depending on who gives you the answer.
The dulcimer is in fact a family of instruments with 2 main branches: 1 branch is played by strumming or plucking with fingers or plectra, the other is played with hammers. The strummed type tends to be held in the lap, the hammered type is usually constructed as a table-top instrument (and may be called a "zither", "cymbalom" or "santoor" to give just a few of it's many names). Dulcimers may be oblong or trapezoidal in shape: no strict rules apply to dulcimer construction. Confused? Try here.
What all dulcimers have in common is a sweet tone, hence the name "dulcimer". My dictionary says the word originated in the late 15th century from the Old French doulcemer, probably from the Latin dulce melos meaning ‘sweet melody.’
Asza's Randy Raine Reusch plays a mean dulcimer. He plays a mean EVERYTHING, truth be told, as this entertaining video demonstrates (watch for the Appalachian or mountain dulcimer at 0:11):
For the last few years, Randy has been -- well, instrumental -- in co-developing the world's first museum of pan-global instruments, the Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) in Pheonix, Arizona.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-21-08 at 10:50 AM
Since time immemorial, music has been made by people from all walks of life gathered around campfires and kitchen tables, in fields and forests and at gatherings from births to funerals. With the possible exception of shamans and concubines in royal courts, it really didn't matter how a musician looked while making music.
In the west, the 20th century changed everything. A massive confluence of new technologies and ideas shifted us from the oral (and aural) realms into the visual, and from musical participation to music consumption. The simultaneous development of new visual technologies (photography, moving pictures, TV and advertising) and mass media delivery systems for music (commercial recordings and radio) pushed music out of the parlours and into the public gaze.
Is it any wonder that - for the first time in history - what a musician looked like was just as important as he or she sounded?
Cameras began to follow musicians wherever they worked. Today's vampiric paparazzi could take a lesson or two from the mid-century documentary photographers who quietly captured artists at work on stage or behind the scenes (stopping short of taking lurid telephoto shots of cleavage and panty lines or the contents of a star's garbage bin).
On Friday July 18, a new photography exhibit opened at the Morrison Hotel Gallery in New York City.
The show features candid black and white photos of artists at work in the Columbia Records 30th Street studios in the 1950s and 1960s (pictured). It is a magnificent exhibit of portraits of some of the century's greats: Aretha Franklin, Glenn Gould, Thelonius Monk, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, Duke Ellington and Igor Stravinsky to name just a few. The photos were taken by various stills photographers and are now held by the Sony BMG archives. While you might not be able to hear the music as you view the pictures, you sure can see the contemplation and joy and passion each artist brought to it.
If a trip to New York is in your plans this summer, you may want to mark this exhibit as one of your "must sees". If you can't make it to NYC to see the show, you can enjoy the photos online and purchase prints from the gallery.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Jul-21-08 at 08:12 AM
As you may have heard, legendary Grammy-Award winning big band singer Jo Stafford died last Wednesday at the age of 90. Stafford was a versatile singer with brilliant precision and beautiful tone who shone in front of big bands including Tommy Dorsey's.
Thanks in part to the late Clyde Gilmour, I remember Jo Stafford fondly in character as her alter ego, Darlene Edwards. Darlene was one half of the musical duo Jonathan and Darlene Edwards with her real-life husband Paul Weston, himself a gifted piano player, big-band leader and arranger.
Jonathan and Darlene created some of the worst music of all time. Simply put, their music was an affront to a listener's sensibilities. Darlene swooped and warbled her way - shrill and consistently off pitch - through countless pop songs while accompanist Jonathan bashed away at the piano warping tempos, throwing extra beats into bars, stumbling during vamps and fills and sliding in and out of key as deftly as Darlene.
In 1961, Jonathan and Darlene won a Grammy for best comedy album for their live recording of a concert in Paris. You can hear some of the marvellous off-kilter songs from that album on a MySpace fan page, along with music from their many other discs.
For a listen to the real Jo Stafford, here's a very early television concert appearance.
Pat is back in the host chair on this evening's edition of The Signal (10 p.m.) and he celebrates, (belatedly), the 60th birthday of composer Marjan Mozetich, as well as paying tribute to the late Canadian composer John Weinzweig. And as usual he has a Soundtrack Sunday feature, tonight with music from Deepa Mehta’s film Water, written by Canadian composer Mychael Danna.
Now, maybe because it is so hot while I am writing this I find it a bizarre coincidence (rather than utterly trivial) that just as I wrote the word "water" I happened to glance down and notice something on my desk about the band Headwater, who are featured in concert Monday night on Canada Live (8 p.m.). They play what they like to call "Tractor Jazz," which has forever endeared them to me.
But I am getting ahead(water) of myself. Ms. Philly Markowitz will be around tomorrow to tell you more about this band, as well as lots of other great music coming your way for the next seven days, since I am signing off now for a week's vacation. Which, come to think of it, will involve lolling about in water. Cool, clear water. (Clearly it's time to say goodnight now. Goodnight now.)
Elizabeth Shepherd is one of a new breed of Canadian jazz singers, less focussed on standards, more into original material. Tonight you can hear her in a concert that was recorded at the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival, broadcast on Canada Live (8 p.m.). She does some songs from her latest, excellent recording Parkdale, as well as some older material. This show is also now up on the website, at Concerts On Demand: Elizabeth Shepherd Trio.
And it is a jazz evening on the show, with two other jazz concerts, first, Saskatoon's Brett Balon Quartet (you can hear this concert online too, at Concerts On Demand: Brett Balon) with a guest turn by Saskatoon singer Carrie Catherine. And then some music from the Andy Bey Trio -- who during his long career has counted among his audience members people like Aretha Franklin and Sarah Vaughan -- earning him a rep as a "musician's musician." This concert features Bey performing mostly original material.
Speaking of hounds (see previous post), not so long ago I came across a blog post that posed a question I'd never thought to ask: Where Have All The Dog Songs Gone. The writer of that post felt that there aren't good country songs about dogs. And she went on to ask why:
"Is it because listeners would rather listen to songs about love gone wrong than songs about the unconditional love between man and beast? I highly doubt that. According to my amateur research, about 90 percent of country fans own dogs. So wouldn’t it make sense to have some songs about the one thing artists and fans really have in common?"
A Radio 2 blog reader named Bill Walker took issue with this notion:
"No good country music about dogs? Are you serious? Perhaps your definition of country music is too narrow. Try Bugler, from Further Along by the Byrds."
I think Bill would approve of the theme Tonic (6 p.m.) has going this evening -- as Tim tells me he will play the music of "Lost Dogs, Hank Dog and Lucky Dogs."
James Ehnes performing Mozart's Violin Concerto, recorded in his hometown, Brandon Manitoba, is just one of the highlights from the regular season of Sunday Afternoon In Concert (Sunday 1:00 p.m., 1:30 NT) re-broadcast today.
Another is a performance by pianist Stewart Goodyear, whose sources of inspiration range from Mozart to Robert Johnson. You can hear both sources at play today, as Goodyear partners the aforementioned James Ehnes in a recital for the Women's Musical Club of Toronto. (Described, by the Toronto Star, as "one of the best Toronto recitals of 2007.")
As for those influences, you'll hear some Mozart, and an original Goodyear piece called Dogged By Hell Hounds, a reference to Johnson's great HellHound On My Trail. (What exactly is a hellhound, anyway? Is it a dog that barks incessantly when its owners leave it out for hours at a time? Or no, I guess that would be hellneighbours.)
And finally, a conversation with two of the surviving children of Arnold Schoenberg, father of serialism and the 12 tone row, as well as of Nurya and Larry.
It may seem counterintuitive that folk music should be paired with the word "industry," but of course there is a business to folk, just as with any other kind of music.
Today on Inside The Music (Sunday Edition 2:00 p.m., 12:30 NT), The People's Music, a documentary series by Gary Cristall continues with Part Three, Birth Of An Industry.
It looks at the era when folk as a genre blossomed, in the 1950s and 60s, when solo artists and groups flourished on radio and television (yes, really!) as well as at coffee houses and on college campuses across the continent.
You'll hear Sylvia Tyson (pictured here about five years ago) describing how she and her former partner Ian Tyson came to be managed by Albert Grossman, manager of Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul and Mary. As well, Gary talks with people behind many of the folk clubs that flourished across Canada in those heady days. In these heady days, I'd recommend you also check out Tom Powers' show Deep Roots on Saturdays, for some of the new music being made by a whole new generation of folkies.
Today on In The Key Of Charles (10:00 a.m.,10:30 NT) Gregory plays music fit for a king – or queen – taking us from Shakespeare to The Sex Pistols.
You probably can make some educated guesses as to what that playlist might include, say Nat 'King' Cole, B. B. "King," Les Violons du "Roy," Freddie Mercury and "Queen," but to see the entire playlist, please go here.
Your Choral Concert Bulletin: Today Choral Concert (Sunday 8:00 a.m.) presents internationally-renowned Paul McCreesh leading the Gabrieli Consort & Players in a performance of Haydn's Creation.
Richard Wigmore at Gramophone said this performance was "exciting, moving and wonderfully sung." File that under "not damning with faint praise!"
Odario Williams guest hosts The Signal (10 p.m.) again tonight, and presents some of Lullaby Baxter's musical Garden Cities Of Tomorrow.
It's said to be a fable about a woman who just adores doing dishes. Clearly that is indeed a fable. (Though perhaps it would be more so if it had been about a woman who loved to wash walls, or scrub behind the toilet. ) Odario, by the way, will also be showcasing music from SoCalled, everyone's favourite klezmer hip hop artist.
Abigail Washburn is one of the most inventive singer-songwriter/banjoists around these days, and some of you lucky folks who attended last weekend's 35th anniversary of the Winnipeg Folk Festival got to hear her live. But hey, lucky radio listeners -- tonight you can hear that concert on Canada Live (8 p.m.).
Washburn's latest is pretty great -- it's produced by Bela Fleck (who also plays -- major endorsement there) -- and has some beautiful tunes on it. I've not heard this concert yet but would imagine it too would have the musical bar set high.
You can also hear a couple of workshop concerts from Winnipeg on the show tonight. Don't let that word "workshop" put you off, some of the best music at folk fests goes on at the workshop stages.
The first is a gospel workshop with Jim Byrnes and a slew of gospel singers, called Sacred Sunday Morning. And the second is a tribute to the late Willie P. Bennett, performances of some of Bennett's songs from Jaxon Haldan, Chris Whitely, Russ De Carle, Don Zeuff and Pat Temple. Bennett was such a good songwriter -- and it's very nice to see his songs are living on.
If you don't want your own perfume, what's the next best thing? Running shoes. (Though you could make a case for integrating the two, running shoes which provide you with a fresh spray at the end of each run.)
Celebrity endorsements of both are commonplace, but one of the latest celebs to get his own shoes is from the less-tapped world of music stars -- classical pianist Lang Lang (no stranger to publicity "efforts," of course).
But that's just the teaser. To hear more about this story, plus news about Joan Sutherland and musical Order of Canada recipients, tune in today to In Tune (Saturday 5:00 p.m., 5:30 NT).
Ys is one of those mythic cities, it's to Brittany as Atlantis is to the Atlantic, (or the Mediterranean, depending on which theory you subscribed to), a place submerged beneath the waves.
Le Roi D'Ys is the opera by Edouard Lalo (libretty by Edouard Blau) based on the Breton folktales of the lost city, and today Saturday Afternoon At The Opera (Saturday 1:00 p.m., 1:30 NT) presents the tale of what lies beneath the Bay of Biscay, in a production conducted by Canadian conductor Yves Abel,from the Théâtre du Capitole, Toulouse. It features mezzo soprano Sophie Koch, soprano Inva Mula, Charles Castronovo, tenor, and bass-baritone Paul Gay.
The story is based on a Breton legend about Margared and Rozenn, the daughters of the King of Ys. Both princesses love the warrior Mylio, but he has eyes only for Rozenn. In revenge, Margared betrays her father's city to Karnac, his enemy. She gives Karnac keys to the sluice standing between the town and the sea. Just as the town and all of its inhabitants are about to be swept away, Margared throws herself into the sea in remorse. St. Corentin, the patron saint of Ys, accepts her sacrifice and the waters abate. A happy ending in an opera? Is it possible?
For the plot synopsis and opera background, please continue reading:
Photo: Margared and Rozenn, played by Sophie Koch (left) and Inva Mula
I always remember the slight shock of first seeing the Klezmatics recording titled Rhythm + Jews, and I suspect for some the title of today's documentary on Inside The Music(Saturday Edition 12:00 p.m., 1:00 AT, 1:30 NT), will have a similar impact: Jews And Blues: Inside Out.
Both are reflections of the story of African-Americans and Jews in the creation of American pop music, a complex and sometimes painful history. With the Klezmatics recording, it was about the input of American jazz in European-derived klezmer. With today's documentary, by Michael Goldfarb, it's a look at how and where in what was a segregated society black and Jewish musicians exchanged musical ideas. The doc takes you on a journey through ragtime, jazz and popular song, and includes performances from Willie the Lion Smith, Cab Calloway and the Original Dixieland Jazz Band.
But was this an easy thing for Goldfarb to pull off? Here's one thing he had to say about his initial impetus to make this radio piece:
"My idea was to look at why, overwhelmingly, the history of American popular music over the last 100 years had been a story of Jewish and black interaction. What in the groups' respective musical traditions fit so well together, and what in their social interactions made this musical exchange possible. It seemed an innocent enough idea and one that could be spun out into a multi-part series. As there were plenty of people alive who had lived that history, I thought it would be an easy piece to pull together. Wrong."
The lines between what is folk and what is not have never been blurrier, but this Saturday on Deep Roots (11:00 a.m., 12:00 AT, 12:30 NT) you can hear an artist who is better known as being part of the indie scene -- Jason Collett of Broken Social Scene -- who Tom characterizes as having gone "a little bit folk."
Going a lot blues is banjo-wielding Canadian bluesman Michael Jerome Browne, (actually he's a multi-instrumentalist) who you can also hear on the show today. And going a whole lot "gypsy rock" is Devotchka, a band that Spin magazine regards as being at the "forefront of the burgeoning gypsy rock movement." (Always strikes me as funny how within this movement it's somehow OK to say gypsy rather than Roma, but there's not really room to get into that here.)
Anyway, if it's not a scene you're familiar with, Devotchka is one way in -- though it also includes music like the “gypsy punk” of Gogol Bordello, the “gypsy brass” of Slavic Soul Party, and what the Village Voice described as the “Balkan hyms” of Zach Condon and his Beirut project, so there are a few other portals, as they would say in I.T. land.
Meanwhile, you can check out today's Deep Roots (11:00 a.m., 12:00 AT, 12:30 NT) for Tom's take, and for the music, of course.
The last time Odario Williams guest hosted The Signal (10 p.m.), one listener/blog reader wrote:
"Williams really knows his music and has obviously done his research. Enjoyable guest-host with intelligent commentary and nice addition to the new Radio 2."
Tonight is his first stint as weekend Signal host though, sitting in for Pat Carrabré, and he'll be featuring a concert of music by Caribou, whose recording Andorra is on the shortlist for the Polaris Prize.
Right now Caribou is/are (Caribou being the alter ego of Dan Snaith) on tour, with dates in the U.S., Switzerland, Taiwan, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Germany, France, Belgium, England and Wales.
The concert you can hear tonight was a club date from Toronto's Lee's Palace (see photo) that den of, well not iniquity (though maybe that too), much good music. You can also hear the show online, at Concerts On Demand: Caribou.
Today is Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday. (And R. Murray Schafer's 75th!) Mr. Schafer has been celebrated all week on The Signal (10 p.m.), and tonight you can hear a special concert in honour of Mr. Mandela, broadcast on Canada Live (8 p.m.)
The Nelson Mandela 90th Birthday Concert, also known as the "46664" Concert (after Mandela's prison number when he was on Robben Island) was recorded at Hyde Park in London, where almost 50,000 people paid their respects to Mandela.
The broadcast has highlights from a concert that included Queen + Paul Rodgers, Annie Lennox, Simple Minds, Leona Lewis, the Sugababes, Dame Shirley Bassey, Razorlight, Andrea and Sharon Corr, Eddy Grant, and Jamelia, along with Italy's Zucchero and Spain's Amaral.
Naturally there were some fine South African performers on the bill, including Johnny Clegg, Sipho Mabuse, multi-South African Music Awards winner Loyiso, Kurt Darren, the Soweto Gospel Choir, AIDS orphan choir The Children of Agape, the legendary Papa Wemba and Sudanese 'war child' rapper Emmanuel Jal.
Last day, you Montrealers, to get on over to Jean Talon Market to hear Jurgen Gothe broadcasting DiscDrive live. (As for the rest of us -- there's the radio!) Today's guests are Swift Years and Karen Young.
Who is Karen Young? Well, as she will tell you, she is not: The Hot Shot disco singer who was also born in 1951, but who died in 1991. Nor is she the star in Heading South, she wasn't eaten by a shark in Jaws, and she didn't play an FBI agent in The Sopranos. And on and on.
Apparently there are a lot of Karen Youngs out there! But this Karen Young, the one you can hear on Jurgen's show, is a very, very good jazz singer.
As for Swift Years, they're a folk/roots group who quip that they play music "from the back porch to the front steppe." Bets no one ever asks them "which Swift Years are you?" though.
Music news rarely seems like real news, you know, the stuff of actual life and death and taxes. And yet within many music news stories lurks an actual issue. Take the situation of the Canadian musician, Steven Page, for example, currently up on drug charges. (See Ladies Frontman...)
Much of the coverage seems so oddly heightened (he was allegedly using a Canadian bill to inhale illegal substances -- Canadian, how outrageous).You could put it down to the fact that his band, The Barenaked Ladies traditionally have a clean image, as does he -- his involvement with environmental causes and the like. (As if these things are incompatible with a darker private life.) But more than that, the reaction seems to be because he has a kids album out. (The implication being that kids would be by association lured into unsavory ways.) But really, it comes down to an age old issue -- can you separate the artist from the art?
Then there's another music story that's gaining momentum as the weekend approaches is Paul McCartney's impending and criticized-in-some quarters performance on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City. The CP story on this quotes Premier Jean Charest saying to those who feel this is inappropriate, given it's a celebration of the 400th anniversary of Quebec, after all, "Relax, have a good time. If Paul McCartney can have a good time here, so can you.”
Somehow the issue doesn't really seem to be about Sir Paul's ability to have fun though, does it?
Some politicians and artists are protesting -- saying the concert represents a "Canadianization" of the celebrations. (See McCartney's Free Quebec Concert Ruffles Sovereigntists.) But really, if you want to go down that path, shouldn't that actually be "Britishization?" It will be interesting to see if on Sunday night Sir Paul follows one suggestion that's been made, to invite Quebec folk legend Gilles Vigneault to sing Gens Du Pays.
It would probably be a safe bet to say that Latin music is most frequently described as "hot," whatever the music is actually like. You'll always hear someone in the dead of winter spinning some Latin track to "heat things up," conversely, because it's hot in the midst of summer, the "hot Latin music" will get played to reflect this. (Pretty sure there's a case to be made that not enough Latin music gets played in Canada in spring and fall -- statistically difficult to prove, but hey, it's a theory.)
In the interests of accuracy Tonic (6 p.m.) did not bill the Latin music they're playing on Friday this way, which actually struck me as an appreciated exception to the rule, and that's what sent me down this mental path.
As for the Latin music that Katie will be playing, you can hear percussionist Poncho Sanchez, and a live set of latin jazz from the Quebec Jazz Orchestra.
So as a preview of the former, one minute of music from Sanchez. Let me just say this -- it's simmering, it's temperature elevating, it's actually pretty caliente.
After last night's broadcast, one listener wrote in to say that the featured concert work, the Credo from Apocolypsis was, and I quote, "amazing." Tonight's concert may well amaze too -- it's Schafer's Scorpius, performed by the Esprit Orchestra. (In fact the Esprit commissioned the piece back in 1990, with some help from the Canada Council -- you can hear it on the Esprit's Iridescence.)
The concluding segment of Eitan Cornfield's documentary about Schafer is also broadcast tonight, and in it Schafer talks about what's involved in creating massive and multi-disciplinary works, as well as blurring the traditional separation between performers and audiences, something Schafer is famous for. Plus you can hear some selections from his Patria cycle, including the evocatively titled And Wolf Shall Inherit The Moon.
Here's where you can find out more about Schafer's large scale environmental music-theatre, the Patria Cycle. And here's where you can hear some of the fine concerts CBC R2 has recorded of Schafer's music, available online at Concerts On Demand.
Jimi Hendrix once said that Kenny Burrell's sound was the sound he was looking for. The last time I posted something about this connection, one very knowledgeable blog reader, Mike Lewis, pointed out the following:
"Hendrix had a very open mind when it came to jazz and there are bootlegs of him playing with people like John McLaughlin, Dave Holland and Tony Williams. And there are rumours that he recorded with Rahsaan Roland Kirk. It's well known that he was scheduled to record with Gil Evans. I've also heard that he had discussions with Duke Ellington about collaborating."
Info and insight much appreciated. Tonight on Tonic (6 p.m.) you can hear Kenny Burrell, a live set from the 75th birthday bash held for him at Yoshi's in Oakland, California two years ago.
Once again, in Montreal's Jean Talon Market Jurgen Gothe will be broadcasting DiscDrive live today, with special musical guests.
Today you can hear the Montreal Guitar Trio or MG3 (pictured here) as they are also known. They claim to "marry passionate virtuosity with a stealthy sense of humour," and I have no reason to doubt them, particularly as Jurgen is having them on the show. Also performing live, James Gelfand, tv/movie composer and jazz pianist.
btw, Jurgen has a column in the Georgia Straight today about one of his other passions -- wine -- and he comes out awfully strong on the side of chardonnay: "Chardonnay all the way—and every which way," he claims.
As a Pinot Grigo gal I cannot agree, but then what do I know about wine? Almost nothing. Jurgen, on the other hand, does, as you will see if you go to Grapes Of Gothe.
Just a couple weeks ago the Canadian (mostly) jazz label, Justin Time records, celebrated their 25th anniversary, mentioned on the blog in a post called Quarter Century Of Jazz. Huzzah!
And I hate to say it, but after that I thought, well, that's it for Canadian jazz labels in the news for a while. Canadian jazz labels, like Canadian jazz clubs, are not what you'd call flourishing. (Can't resist at this point steering you to Darcy James Argue's recent editorial at New Music Box, Dispatches From The End Of The Jazz Wars, which has this very entertaining opening: We've heard it all before: Classical music is dead. Punk is dead. Hip hop is dead. Jazz is dead. Whatever the musical genre, you can be sure that someone somewhere is saying it's dead. Apparently, musical death is, like death in superhero comics, both ubiquitous and impermanent.)
But back to the main point. Given the lean state of jazz and the business of making the music widely available, it was nice to see this feature at All About Jazz today about Alma Records, which features artists like Roberto Occhipinti and Hilario Duran.
Harris Newman, self described "Montreal guitarist and mastering guy" is one of the featured artists on Thursday night's edition of Canada Live (8 p.m.). If you need anything mastered, or want to know what the a mastering guy is, go to his Greymarket Mastering. (Note Polaris Prize trivia watchers, according to Harris and friends, 20% of this year's list was mastered by Greymarket.) But I digress. As a guitarist, Harris is known for having crafted a fairly unique style of playing, that has been described quite nicely like this:
"From delicate paper chords that break in his hands to the lightning finger plucking of speedy passages where notes blur into each other, Newman covers a spectrum of sound."
And I would credit that lovely description except I'm not sure who gets the credit -- if you are the writing guy who wrote it, let me know.
Also on the show this evening, a concert from pianist Ms. Marianne Trudel's septet, performing at the OFF Jazz Festival a few weeks ago, featuring vocalist Anne Shaefer from Vancouver, trumpet player Lina Allemano from Toronto, trombonist Jean-Olivier Begin of New York, and Quebecers Jocelyn Veilleux on French horn, Normand Guilbeault on bass and Jim Doxas on drums.
And bonus, a third concert, also from OFF, Oktoecho, an ensemble that mix up many styles of music including jazz, folk, Middle Eastern traditions and more. Musical diversity, thy name is Canada Live.
Canadian composer, writer, educator and musical philosopher R. Murray Schafer is featured all week on The Signal (10 p.m.), and tonight you can hear a performance of the Credo from his massive work, Apocalypsis -- 500 voices strong. Robert Sund conducts twelve (!) choirs in a live performance recorded at Massey Hall in Toronto.
And it's also part 3 of Eitan Cornfield's documentary on Schafer -- in it he talks about what he sees as the beauty of communal ritual, and the experience of music in the natural environment.
Note, there are some great concerts of Schafer's music online at Concerts On Demand.
As mentioned earlier this week, in a post called the Cuban-Canadian John Mayer?, a concert by Alex Cuba opens up Canada Live (8 p.m.) this evening. Alex Cuba is a Cuban-Canadian singer living in Smithers, B.C., getting considerable attention south of the border these days too, possibly helped by the fact that his own indie label is now more widely distributed by EMI.
When he first came to notice in Canada though it was as one half of The Puentes Brothers. Now he's working as a soloist, a singer/songwriter performing original Cuban-based music that's got funk and rock and jazz influences too. Note: this concert is also available online at: Concerts On Demand: Alex Cuba.
Second up, Sophie Milman (born in Russia, moved to Israel at 7, to Canada at 16) once described as having "the kind of deep, warm buttery toast voice that had earlier generations of jazz fans falling in love with Sarah Vaughan, Rosemary Clooney, and Dinah Washington." (Actually, you could say Alex Cuba's voice is in the buttery toast realm too. Not crunchy though.)
With that kind of response it's no surprise that Milman's career has taken off since her new recording Make Someone Happy came out. She's appeared on Entertainment Tonight, CBC CTV, BBC, BET Jazz and NPR. And of course, CBC Radio 2, as you can hear tonight, or online at Concerts On Demand: Sophie Milman.
And the evening will be concluded by a concert from Iranian-Canadian Amir Amiri, who performs on the santur - the 72 stringed Iranian hammered dulcimer. He's collaborated with jazz and new music performers, and has composed music for santur and orchestra. If you go to that last link you can hear some of his music -- or for that matter, check him out online at Concerts On Demand: Amir Amiri The Alberta Sessions.
Pianist Horace Silver has said that he's been "blessed to walk among and perform with some of the greatest geniuses in this music we so call lovingly call jazz." Since he's one of them, that's very generous.
Silver is the guy who wrote tunes like Nica's Dream, Song For My Father, The Preacher, songs that are part of the jazz repertoire today, and have been sampled by musicians working outside of the jazz sphere as well. And even more than that, he helped create one of the fundamental jazz sounds, hard bop, which he then went on to funkify.
Tonight on Tonic (6 p.m.) some vintage Horace Silver live, recorded at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival.
A quick reminder that today until Friday, down at Montreal's Jean Talon MarketJurgen Gothe will be broadcasting DiscDrive live, with special musical guests.
Today you can hear pianist Mimi Blais, who has been called, among other things, "the French Canadian Liberacette…" thus explaining the accompanying (marvelous) photo. You can also hear the Susie Arioli Band. And Jurgen, of course.
Speaking of, I like what Jurgen says on his afore-linked Grapes of Gothe website: "The whole idea is very simple: wine is fun, right? Let’s push that."
A funny cluster of Canadian music news in the past day or so. (Well not so funny for Barenaked Lady Steven Page, facing a drug charge, as reported by CBC.ca news.)
But the flap about Feist and the Sesame Street thing (she'll be on the show on August 11th performing her song 1234) is a tad over the top. (The Sesame Street version of the song was posted over the weekend.) This morning she appears on the front page of the Globe And Mail. (Honestly, front page news?)
Anyway, of course the song lends itself perfectly to Sesame Street, and that is not being snide in the slightest. Many great musicians have appeared on Sesame Street, from Johnny Cash to Ya Yo Ma, and many great songs Sesamized. (It's also quite sweet seeing Feist with her #4. Who needs a Grammy.)
One other Canadian music story in this mini-roundup: k.d. Lang's most recent recording is now out in the U.K., and she will be touring there shortly. Accordingly The Guardian ran a feature interview today, called I'm Mistaken For A Man Every Day.
Good Wednesday morning. And as it is the morning after the All-Star Game, it seems the perfect moment for a little Baseball Music. And I don't mean a discussion of Sheryl Crow's performance of the U.S. anthem, although it was decidedly odd. (Could she not hear herself? Maybe that was it.)
Baseball Music, to the uninitiated, isn't a genre per se. It's more a frame of mind, one in which anything connected to baseball and music holds a certain amount of interest, perhaps even fascination. (Other posts in the series include A Dying Fan's Last Request, and In Tune At The Plate.)
So what's making Baseball Music news this morning? Not the book Baseball And The Music Of Charles Ives, that's been out for four years or so. Although it does impel me to share this nice quote: "Thus, to understand Ives's life as an artist fully, the art of baseball must be viewed as a serious component of his life, rather than a game. Ives's love for baseball permeated his entire life and was an inseparable component of his character and his music..."
No, it is the fact 100 years ago this season (baseball season, we're talking here) the song Take Me Out To The Ballgame was composed. According to CP, it's the third most frequently sung song in the U.S. I figure this makes it about the fourth most frequently sung song in Canada, but that's probably being optimistic.
And you knew what was coming next -- here you go -- Gene and Frank doing a little singing, and little hoofing:
Musical Pointers says that Eitan Cornfield's "admirable" documentary about R. Murray Schafer, (in CD form with the relevant music also provided) provides "an engrossing picture of the creation of a new music culture in a country without an earlier tradition to build upon or challenge."
That culture is thriving in no small part due to Schafer, whose work is celebrated all week on The Signal (10 p.m.). In Part Two of the documentary, broadcast tonight, Schafer discusses his feelings about how music was taught when he was a student, and how he developed his own approach to teaching -- what he calls "creative hearing."
You'll also hear about some of his involvement with other composers, including Barry Truax, through the World Soundscape Project. As far as the music goes, the playlist includes Epitaph for Moonlight and a concert feature - a performance of Schafer's String Quartet No. 3.
Tonight on Canada Live (8 p.m.), three concerts, starting with Polaris nominated hip hop performer Shad). His most recent recording, The Old Prince has gotten a lot of attention - Polaris, but it's also landed him in Exclaim’s Top 10 Hip Hop Albums of the Year, among other things.
Next, music from Melissa Laveaux, an Ottawan with a Haitian heritage, currently based in Paris, where she's recording for a Paris music label. She's also been gigging in Japan and New York City, things seem to be going well! (And she's said to have an "undying love for Eartha Kitt," which can't be a bad thing.) This performance was her farewell to Canada concert before taking off for the City of Lights.
And finally, a singer with a powerful set of pipes, and that's Kellylee Evans (pictured here, albeit at a distance). In 2004, Kellylee was awarded second place in the Thelonious Monk Institute's prestigious Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocals Competition (judges included Quincy Jones, Al Jarreau, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Kurt Elling, Jimmy Scott and Flora Purim). But she hasn't followed the jazz standards path, instead she's chosen to write her own music, with elements of jazz, soul, etc. The concert you can hear this evening comes to you from the Museum of Civilization.
P.J. Perry's playing has been described as "eloquent as Shakespeare," and you get a chance to hear some of that eloquence this evening on Tonic (6 p.m.). Katie will feature what she says is a "show-stopping set of tunes," recorded live at the Cellar in Vancouver. (Shakespearean AND show stopping, doesn't get much better than that. )
And as you know if you are a jazz fan, Mr. Perry has been a significant player on the Canadian scene for a long time. So given that longevity, here's a little flashback, to a CBC TV production in 1966, and the Bobby Hales Orchestra. Yup, there he is in the sax section, on Can't Buy Me Love.
Too bad he doesn't get to solo, but still fun to watch...
Attention Montrealers, and those visiting Montreal in the next few days. From Wednesday to Friday you can head on down to the Jean Talon Market to watch Jurgen Gothe broadcasting DiscDrive live, with special musical guests.
Tomorrow, (July 16th), he'll begin the live broadcasts with pianist Mimi Blais, who has been called "the female Victor Borge, The Céline Dion of the keyboard, The French Canadian Liberacette…" but prefers to go by a title that's been used to describe her since 1990: "The New Queen Of Ragtime."
Jurgen will also feature the Susie Arioli Band, who play jazz, blues, western swing, and have been doing so for about a decade.
(And yes, that is the French Canadian Liberacette -- a.k.a. The New Queen Of Ragtime.)
Possibly the best thing to come out of the proliferation of blogs is the exploration of specifics. For instance, a blog like Africlassical, which is a companion to a website devoted to the "African Heritage in Classical Music."
Or Hugh Sung's blog, all about "helping musicians adopt technology to enhance their art and lifestyle."
And Dewey21C, a brand new blog about arts education.
It's dedicated to "the belief that the arts are part of our genetic code. That the arts are in the DNA of every child, and that our job as teachers, parents, mentors, advocates, and administrators is to provide quality, sustained arts learning pathways for every child to develop fully as a human being. "
Hear hear. And that's just what emerged from the wide world o'bloggin' this morning.
It wasn't so many months ago that a few posts appeared on the R2 blog about road trip music. But this morning, a fine sunny summer morning in these parts, I found myself wondering if Road Trip Music (will give it the Caps in honour of its significance for many a summer) is an endangered species. As endangered, say, as road trips themselves.
Others are of course musing on this same thing. At The Tyee, in a post called Spring Road Trip! ("songs for the beginning, middle and end of your journey") one writer asserts that the era of the road trip is definitely coming to an end, but still proposes that as long you can fill a tank, you can take one last road trip -- and then goes on to suggest the three ultimate road trip scenarios and the music that should accompany them. (An environmentally indefensible pov, but I agree strongly with his choice of Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings' 100 Days 100 Nights.)
Meanwhile, yesterday over at NPR I noticed a post called Songs For The Gas-Guzzling Blues, a short list of songs that "go well with a ride in an old fashioned luxury gas guzzler." It's part of a series they're running called Road Trip: Songs To Drive By, subtitled "gas may cost a fortune but you still need music for the road." Other fun entries in the series include Jazz For A Summer Rental Car.
It seems there's a kind of pre-mourning going on, not so much for the potential loss of the road trips themselves, as for the feeling of listening to music on the road. And that's kind of sad. On the other hand -- I can attest to the fact that there is also something glorious about getting on a train and heading out of the station with your travelin' music playing as the scenery flashes past. And I should note that having already "rail tested" it, Sharon Jones makes for excellent train trip music too.
The Signal (10 p.m.) continues its week long Schaferathon, in honour of composer R. Murray Schafer's 75th birthday this week.
Tonight, part one of Eitan Cornfield's documentary on the life and career of Schafer. In it Schafer talks about the notion of "authentic" artistic experience and the creative process, among other things.
You can also hear several Schafer works, including In Memoriam Alberto Guerrero and his Concerto for harpsichord and winds, and Cortege, performed by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra at this year's Winnipeg New Music Festival.
Schafer is famous for (among other things) projects involving music in natural settings, and most recently some of his music accompanied the unveiling of a sculpture in Cambridge, Ontario. Called Solar Collector, it gets its energy from the sun -- and responds to public input. You're probably curious about how this works, and you can find out more at Solar Collector.
Tonight on Canada Live (8 p.m.) from Halifax, the: East Coast Celtic Guitar Summit.
This concert took place in the spring when CBC R2 assembled some of the finest and fastest guitar fingers on the right coast: J. P. Cormier, Scott Macmillan, Jamie Gatti, Brian Doyle and Dave MacIsaac. Fingers, men and guitars congregated for a concert at CBC Halifax's "Studio H." More specifically, they assembled to play music from the Celtic tradition, adapted to the guitar. You can also hear this concert online, at Concerts On Demand: Celtic Guitar Summit.
Also on the show this evening, also celebrating Celtic music, Puirt A Baroque. As you may have guessed, (or perhaps remembered, if you knew the group in their earlier years when they were an ongoing concern) they connect Celtic music with baroque, thus the name. (A play on puirt a beul -- Gaelic for "mouth music," or literally "tunes from the mouth.")
The concert you can hear tonight comes from a tour of four Maritime communities, and features guitarist Scott Macmillan (again!), violinist David Greenberg, and David Sandall performing on harpsichord and harmonium.
Here's what you need for your music-festival-going summer, courtesy of the Vancouver Folk Music Festival's brief guide called How To Survive The Folk Festival. Granted, some of the advice is specific to the Vancouver festival, but not all -- the following are universal bits of advice:
"Make yourself a dream schedule. You’ll never keep to it, but the exercise will lead you to dozens of web sites with audio clips and all the bumf you can swallow."
"Spend a few days considering just which is the exact right carry-all bag."
"What to put in that bag - be optimistic and start with the 30-weight sunscreen, shorts, long pants, t-shirt, sweater...hat, rainwear, festival cup, paper, pen, watch, binoculars..."
Just as a point of comparison, I thought it might be interesting to review some injunctions for surviving a summer music festival in the UK. But it turns out much of the advice is similar, "loo rolls," "paracetamol" and carrying a "torch" aside.
And although it's true that on a Monday you may have your mind on more serious matters, it's never too early to start planning your summer music activities. That's why I was glad to come across this guide in the Ottawa Citizen about surviving the blues festival. It has practical tips regarding loo roll and whatnot as well, but also this bit of advice re: the musical reason for getting into those mosquito-infested lineups with your loo roll and your headache tablets in the first place:
"The American composer and music critic Virgil Thomson put it extremely well more than half a century ago: 'Whatever deceptions life may have in store for you, music itself is not going to let you down.'"
Of course it must be said that if you wish to attend some of Canada's many summer music festivals without having to fret over knapsacks vs. those oh-so-attractive canvas shopping bags, you could always stay home and listen to Canada Live At Canada's Festivals all summer long.
Just a brief bulletin to note that yes, we are having some technical difficulties on the website today -- most notably with some of the Concerts On Demand and the Listen Live streams. So it is us, not you, and rest assured people are working feverishly to fix this, even as we speak. Thanks for your patience.
Smithers B.C.'s own Alex Cuba caught the ear of the NYTimes' Jon Pareles over the weekend, not an insignificant ear to catch, Bob Lefsetz griping aside. And since I'm already making an aside, here's an aside to an aside. If you're interested in building a career in music, read Lefsetz, he'll give you plenty to think about. (Besides, there's rarely a non-provocative moment with Lefsetz, which makes for fun reading.)
But getting back to Alex Cuba. He appeared at the annual Latin Alternative Music Conference, and Pareles had this to say about his performance:
"The Bowery showcase also included Alex Cuba, a Cuban-Canadian with a 1960s fashion sense and a hollow-body guitar. He led a trio in songs that have affectionate lyrics and genial, lilting grooves that can be as much Brazilian as Cuban.
His voice was suave, while his guitar leads had a hint of bluesy bite that he would do well to cultivate. Then again, his label (Caracol, which released his album “Agua del Pozo” last year) might not mind if he turned into a Cuban John Mayer."
Please, the Cuban-Canadian John Mayer. (Though actually I'd second Pareles' hopes for the bluesy bite.)
By the way, you can hear Alex Cuba online here at R2, at Concerts On Demand: Alex Cuba, and on Wednesday night on Canada Live (8 p.m.).
La Marsellaise, orchestrated by Hector Berlioz, was dedicated to its composer Rouget de Lisle, who, when he wasn't busy composing, was captain of engineers in the French army. (Although that Britannica entry describes him as a "lowly army officer.") Although he apparently wrote a lots of other music, including a number of operas, he died in poverty. But he does indeed live on through La Marseillaise.
Why the brief historical note? Because, of course, today is Bastille Day in France, and this morning on Here's To You (9 a.m.) Catherine features two works by Berlioz in its honour, including his orchestration of La Marseillaise. Options to celebrate the day include re-watching Casablanca.
Here is an early-in-the-day notice that Monday evening on Tonic (6 p.m.) you can hear music from some of Canada's top jazz musicians, recorded live at the (now sadly defunct) Top Of The Senator Jazz Club in Toronto -- guitarist Ed Bickert, sax player Mike Murley, and bassist Steve Wallace.
Sadly I can't find a performance of this trio to play for you, but here is a very nice way to swing into your week -- Ed Bickert, playing Do Nothing Till You Here From Me, year not mentioned, but obviously from a considerable number of years ago.
As one person who watched it said: "Look up 'cool' in the dictionary & you'll find Ed Bickert's photo there." And it still is true.
How legendary is he? Well, Yehudi Menuhin put it this way.
"His strong, benevolent, and highly original imagination and intellect, a dynamic power whose manifold personal expressions and aspirations are in total accord with the urgent needs and dreams of humanity today."
I don't think I need to say much more, other than to tell you that all week The Signal (10 p.m.) will celebrate Schafer's music, on Sunday night with some of his "greatest hits" (as well as a kind of companion piece of music inspired by Schafer’s great passion - the environment.
And Monday night you can hear the first part of Eitan Cornfield's documentary on the life and career of Schafer. In it he talks about the notion of "authentic" artistic experience and the creative process, among other things. And you'll also hear several Schafer works, including In Memoriam Alberto Guerrero and his Concerto for harpsichord and winds. As well, Cortege, performed by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra at this year's Winnipeg New Music Festival.
The Schafer special continues until next Friday, July 18th, when hopefully there will be champagne and cake. Or at least cake.
By the way, there are some fun photos of Schafer at Dyanne Wilson Photography -- Wilson photographed him in action, conducting a choral workshop at the U. of Ottawa this past winter. The accompanying post says it's "always such a joy to photograph people doing what they love and being who they are." That is plain (and a joy) to see.
There's a justifiable pride in Canadian songwriters, stemming from the likes of Lightfoot, Mitchell, Cohen and others. I think it's because these songwriters, and many who have followed (Cockburn, Harmer and on and on) write songs that stand up, poetic songs, songs with memorable lyrics, whatever the topic.
The singers (some of whom are also songwriters themselves) were Alex Cuba, Luke Doucet, Molly Johnson, Danny Michel, Mikel Rouse, Ron Sexsmith, Nikki Yanofsky, Dan Zanes, Kim Stockwood and Damhnait Doyle -- quite the lineup -- and they all performed Canadian songs from some of the aforementioned songwriters, and a bunch of others too -- including Shirley Eikhard, Gene MacLellan, (Ron Sexsmith sings Snowbird!) Jim Cuddy and more. The concert was held at Massey Hall, and Canada Live (8 p.m.) recorded it -- you can hear it this evening, and some of it online as well, at Concerts On Demand: Canadian Songbook.
Today, host Gary Cristall looks at folk in the fifties -- including a national tour by the United Jewish People’s Organization. You'll hear from two of the participants, and some very treasured tape from one of their 1953 concerts in Edmonton. Gary also traces the origins of The Travellers, who got people from coast to coast to coast singing This Land Is Your Land -- the version with Bonavista to Vancouver Island, rather than California to New York Island, that is.
By the way, if you go to The People's Music website you can see a photo gallery of some really neat folk memorabilia from Gary Cristall's own collection. (Did I mention he's writing a book about folk music in this country that he's been working on for about a decade? And that he co-founded the Vancouver Folk Fest 30 years ago? Safe to say he has a fair bit of folk memorabilia.)
Today on In The Key Of Charles, Gregory gets a little blue, musically speaking that is.
Yup, it's "music in the key of blue" which includes: choral music by Charles Villiers Stanford, jazz by Miles Davis, (hmmm...possibly beginning with the words "Kind Of?") rock 'n' roll by Fats Domino, crooning by Harry Connick Jr., country by Shania Twain and even some blues by Quebec's own Offenbach . . . not to mention Sarah McLauchlan, the Cowboy Junkies, Crosby, Stills & Nash, and some of Gregory's favourite singers like Ann Murray, Ella Fitzgerald and Peter, Paul & Mary.
Should you wish to see it, here's the detailed playlist.
And fyi -- that photo of the beautiful dark blue sky? It's of balloonist Steve Fossett landing in a field near Menham, Saskatchewan, following the first solo balloon flight across the Pacific Ocean.
All summer Sunday Afternoon In Concert is featuring highlights from the past year, maybe thematically, maybe not. Today is a definitely thematically, and the theme is geographic -- music from Newfoundland.
So you'll hear the Barrett Brothers of Cornerbrook, tenor Michael and baritone Peter, recorded at Memorial University, and violinist Mark Fewer taking the stage back home in St John’s with the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra. He plays a concerto by Edgar Meyer and chats with host Bill Richardson about his life “away” in Vancouver and Montreal.
Then there's the Tuckamore Chamber Music Festival, an annual event in St John’s since 2001. From this festival you'll hear Tchaikovsky’s Souvenirs De Florence featuring the Shanghai Quartet with violinist Nancy Dahn and cellist Vernon Regehr.
Let's see, what else. Sister Mary Perpetua Kennedy, the guardian of the Regina Music Box in the convent of the Presentation Sisters in St John’s talks to Bill about the history of this music box. She's quite delightful.
And then, just to be kind to the folks in Toronto who always get a chip on their shoulder about the rest of the country ignoring them, a non-Newfoundland performance. It features guest conductor Yannick Nezet Seguin leading the Toronto Symphony in a program featuring the sensational young Chinese pianist Yundi Li. (Note: this concert is also available online at Concerts On Demand: Yundi Li.)
Your Choral Concert Bulletin: This Sunday Choral Concert presents a unique multi-national take on the Requiem by Berlioz. This performance is from Berlin, with Donald Runnicles conducting the Berlin Philharmonic and the Atlanta Symphony Chorus.
It's a huge work, for chorus, orchestra and additional brass ensembles, and also had huge importance to Berlioz, who once wrote: “If I were threatened with the destruction of everything I have created except for one work, I would beg mercy for the Requiem.” No begging would seem to be necessary.
Tonight's concert feature on The Signal (10 p.m.) is the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Seht Die Sonne by Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg. The title, which translates to See The Sun, comes from Schoenberg's Gurrelieder. Its finale features a huge chorus saluting the rising sun. No, not like downward dogs, and it probably doesn't end up with anyone saying namaste, either, since the conclusion represents the night in which "the ghosts of the cursed king Waldemar and his men have ridden the sky."
Also on the show, also from a northern country -- Pat samples music from Icelandic iconoclast Mugison’s newest, Mugiboogie.
Nextfest is a week-long festival featuring what are commonly called emerging artists, which always makes me think of a bunch of playwrights, painters, musicians etc. all getting sleepily out of their cocoons to create, but of course really means they are up-and-comers in their respective scenes.
Tonight Canada Live (8 p.m.) presents a songwriter's circle from Nextfest called Old School, New School, pairing some elder statesmen types on the Edmonton music scene with some of those coming out of the chrysalis.
And then the show goes back to the last Nextfest for some more music -- from Nextfest 2007, and Halifax performer Rich Aucoin (you may remember him as the guy who biked across the country last summer with laptop and keyboard), singer-songwriter Christian Hansen, and native hip hop group Reddnation.
Today's version of In Tune is a little shorter than usual because of the opera broadcast. (I suspect it will be rare that it's the other way around, eg. The opera today is very short..) But Katherine will get to a few of the stories making classical music news of late.
And here's a hint about one of those stories:
If your shoe phone rings, and the ringtone plays Beethoven's 9th with full orchestra popping up on the shoe phone video screen, and there is a piano prominently featured in that visual display -- would you say, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
Here's a question posed by Matt, a colleague of mine who happens to be the music producer at SATO: "Did you watch Brad Pitt in CBC Summer Movie Troy last Sunday?" Well no, Matt, missed it. (A shame, given Mr. Pitt is never, ahem, too hard on the eyes.)
But Matt's question was meant to prompt more of an opera-related response, which you may have already had -- the aha, Berlioz, Les Troyens reaction. And yes, "The Trojans" is indeed the opera being broadcast this Saturday afternoon. It stars tenor Kurt Streit as the Trojan hero Aeneus, mezzo soprano Anne Sophie von Otter as Dido, Queen of Carthage, and Canadian tenor Jean-François Lapointe as Coroebus, Cassandra's ill-fated fiancé. The production comes from the Geneva Opera, courtesy of the European Broadcasting Union.
But Les Troyens covers much of the same territory as the movie, and is set on a similarly grand scale - so much so that SATO pre-empts the first half hour of In Tune with Katherine Duncan.
Also, SATO host Bill Richardson will speak with baritone Jean-François Lapointe, and to military historian Andrew Burtch, from the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.
For more about the opera, please continue reading.
The series Live By The Drum concludes today on Inside The Music, with The Origins of Rhythm. A fascinating topic -- what are they, after all? I'd hazard a guess that rhythm as an organized principle (as opposed to the way it occurs naturally in life) was created for communication and to underscore ceremony or ritual, but whether this guess is likely correct or not will be explored today.
And as is my wont of late, I'm all about the drums, even when it's just people singing about them, as is the case with the Ting Tings. (See also Songs Of Summer.) But that doesn't take us back to the origins of it all -- tune in to Inside The Music for that, when host Wab Kinew will.
P.S. That's Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a.k.a. Lula...in case you're wondering.
Folk having morphed into a much more rambling genre than in the heyday of, well since we're talking rambling say Ramblin' Jack Elliot, today's edition of Deep Roots brings you music from a wide range of young folk performers:
A member of "rock royalty" who's gone solo (Jakob Dylan), an undergrad student at McGill who moonlights as a fiddler -- Sarah Burnell, a kalimba-playing young woman who wowed them at SXSW -- Laura Barrett, and a Grammy nominated band -- The Duhks -- who are going to be releasing their much-anticipated new recording in August.
Tom being on the inside track (of folk, that is, not sports radio) he has an advanced copy of that Duhks release, and will play something from it today. And it being a moment of impending Duhkness, here's something to entertain yourselves with all the day long. The Duhks, from a couple of years ago -- Mists Of Down Below.
Montrealer Mitchell Akiyama describes himself as an "avant garde electronic musician, who incorporates "traditional instruments and real world sound sources in his compositions, fusing the organic and digital."
Tonight on The Signal (10 p.m.) Pat explores some of that fusion, as well as the beats of Grand Analog, (those beats are mostly hip-hop, dub and soul) led by sometime Signal guest host, Odario Williams.
Organic and digital, sounds like a slogan for the 21st century, doesn't it. Or maybe for The Signal itself...
It is true there are three concerts tonight on Canada Live (8 p.m.), and it is equally true that the first two come from the Montreal Chamber Music Festival, the three week event that's been around for about thirteen years, started by Denis Brott, and apparently inspired by a series his father (conductor Alexander Brott) ran up on the mountain during the 1950s.
The chamber music festival is eclectic in its definition of chamber music, as the first concert shows -- it's from Budowitz a klezmer ensemble whose repertoire includes "pieces gathered through intensive fieldwork in more than 15 countries" -- 19th century music for rituals, and dance music by Jewish folk composers -- but also original works.
The second concert is by a classically trained violinist who explores a whole bunch of styles, from fiddle tunes to rock -- Rachel Barton Pine. The concert you can hear covers the gambit, and as such is appropriately named From Mozart To Metallica.
And a third show comes from Montreal's Constantinople, who frequently collaborate with musicians of various cultures --this performance features guests from Seville, Spain -- flamenco singer Rosario "La Tremendita" and guitarist Jose-Luis Rodriguez. Ah Seville, ah flamenco. Sorry, just a lapse into a memory of being in that city last year -- during a heat wave, that part was less fun -- and hearing flamenco. Quite amazing. And great that some of that music --via Constantinople and Canada Live -- will be on the R2 airwaves tonight.
Katie Malloch has one of the most mellifluous voices on CBC radio, so I believe her when she says that tonight on Tonic (6 p.m.) the music is designed to ease listeners into a mellow weekend mood. (Just listening to Katie is a guarantee of that, in my books.)
The musical mellowness will be found via vintage soul from the O'Jays, Latin jazz from the quintet of guitarist Andrew Scott, and some blues from Dizzy Gillespie.
But perhaps most mellow-inducing of all, Katie also presents a live set of music performed by John Legend, recorded in New York City.
Legend, by the way, may be pretty mellow, but he's also something of an activist -- his Show Me Campaign, an anti-poverty effort, was one of the reasons Mr. Legend recently received a CARE Humanitarian Award for Global Change.
Talking to the Washington Times about the award he said, "I've always been socially and politically aware...the more I read, the more I know that we must all somehow become involved in helping others."
A note from the Department of Fun Summer Music Activities. (We're still working on infrastructure and staffing.)
If you are in Montreal this weekend you can go to the first ever Reggae Bike In on Saturday evening. And if you are like most of us, you probably just thought, huh? What the heck is a reggae bike-in?
This is how it works. You get your bike (banana seats recommended), ride to the Lachine Canal, head to 5080 rue St. Ambroise in St Henri. When you arrive you watch classic flick Rockers as the sun goes down, and then dance to reggae all night long. And it's free!
Funny how only one season seems to demand that it be accompanied by songs. No one ever says "songs of winter," for example. But people seem to like having "songs of summer," catchy pop songs that get played over and over and everywhere and come to define that year's steamy season. Partly because soaring gas prices aside, people drive to summer songs -- and also café-sit to them, garden to them, lie on beaches dripping in sunscreen to them.
A recent post by the New Yorker's Sasha Frere-Jones, Dropping Gems, pointed to New York Magazine's quest for the summer song of 2008 -- a song that would "rule the pop charts, be inescapable on radio and in the streets, and probably wind up on your mom's iPod sometimes in October."
Moms, I apologize on NY Mag's behalf.
What they seek is a song that is "immediately catchy, evocative of the season, and as universally loved as last year's de facto warm-weather anthem, Umbrella by Rhianna. "
This makes me a little blue. Ubiquitous it surely was, but a great summer song? No, a great summer song is something more along the lines of, say, Dancing In The Street, or Gnarls Barkley's Crazy.
My own vote this summer is for the Ting Ting's Great DJ. Admittedly it's possibly hampered by the inclusion of the word "indigestion," but nonetheless I campaign for it. At least for the chorus...the drums, the drums, the drums... So catchy, so perfect for blasting and annoying others -- but is that not part of a summer song?
It must have been an incredible concert. In 1945, Yehudi Menuhin performed for an audience of people who had recently been released from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
One woman who was in that audience wrote to Here's To You (9 a.m.) recently, to request some of Yehudi Menuhin's music, which Catherine will play today on the show.
And that brings me to these words from the Menuhin foundation website, which seem especially fitting:
"Each human being has the eternal duty of transforming what is hard and brutal into a subtle and tender offering, what is crude into refinement, what is ugly into beauty, ignorance into knowledge, confrontation into collaboration, thereby rediscovering the child's dream of a creative reality incessantly renewed by death, the servant of life, and by life the servant of love".
The Signalites describe some of what you'll hear tonight on The Signal (10 p.m.) as "perplexing music," from Montreal guitarist and composer Bernard Falaise. Perplexing in a good way:
"Falaise blends elements of jazz, chamber music, noise, and free improvisation into something unlike anything you've heard before."
"Falaise name checks Anthony Braxton, Captain Beefheart, Igor Stravinsky and Robert Wyatt as influences, so you know there’s never a straight path between two points. Sometimes the writing is a little tight assed, with strangled, carnival-esque riffing from the horns and trombone redeemed only by drummer Jean Martin’s powerful groove in Tricheur. There’s a Zappa influence at work as well, with a knack for snaky, highly orchestrated melodies and sudden shifts into loopy solos evident especially in Falaise’s guitar work."
The latter, I would say, is not perplexing but is quite satisfying, particularly if played when your nerves are feeling a tad jangled. (So tonight's show will potentially both perplex and satisfy, which is really what a good radio show should do.)
And finally, in the second hour of the programme a concert performance, Art of Time Ensemble’s Source And Inspiration, featuring new songs from Kyrie Kristmanson and Nick Buzz, inspired by Robert Schumann's Piano Quintet In E flat.
Sounds like a soulful version of Tonic (6 p.m.) tonight, with Katie playing music from the Meters, Stevie Wonder and Remy Shand.
Oddly enough just the other day someone was asking me what had become of Remy Shand, who went from Winnipeg to Motown, not something too many Winnipegers can claim. (I know I can't. Though I'm a former Winnipeger.) Yes, his first recording, The Way I Feel, was released on Motown Records about six years ago amd it was quite a hit, for good reason -- what talent. It was also quite a story, he essentially put together the recording in his Winnipeg home. He won a Juno for that album, and was Grammy nominated. And after a couple of years, he seemed to disappear.
So prompted by Tonic playing Shand, and this question (coming as it did from someone who also liked Shand when we heard him live about five years ago) I started looking...and finding almost nothing. A message board thread asking "whatever happened to Remy Shand," from years ago. A slightly more recent blog post asking the same question. (Actually, there are numerous blog postings asking Where Is Remy Shand? ) A Remy Shand MySpacepage devoted to keeping his sound alive, in the absence of another recording. And the news section of his website giving an error message.
Obviously there's a story there, perhaps one I totally missed. Possibly a not very happy story, I suspect. But at least there's still music from that one great, soulful album to listen to, as you'll hear tonight on Tonic.
Browsing through some info about what's being played on R2 shows today, a mention of a five-piano version of the Sorcerer's Apprentice coming up on DiscDrive (3 p.m.) caught my eye. Well, whose eye would not be caught by the notion of five-pianos playing Dukas? (It also reminded me of an image I came across recently -- look right.)
I'm pretty sure that this performance is by the 5 Browns, a family of piano playing wiz kids (all five siblings went to Julliard at the same time) who do five-piano transcriptions of classical music "hits."
So, as a prelude to Jurgen presenting them on DiscDrive, here is the family Brown, playing Rhapsody In Blue.
Brings a whole new meaning to the idea of the family gathering around the living room piano...
In light of this week's meeting of the G8 and the many ensuing discussions as to its future impact, or lack thereof (in terms of climate change), it seems quite timely that tonight Surya, the world's first "Eco Disco" will open in London.
Actually, they're not really calling it an "Eco Disco," it's just fun to say that. Surya, which bizarrely seems to have no website, is being billed as "the world's first ecological club."
Among many other "green" initiatives, the club is powered by wind and sun. But best of all, they're hoping to harness the "dancing motion of clubbers to generate part of the club's energy requirements." (Maybe they can throw some of that power to Electric Avenue in Brixton, and have an Eddy Grant revival at the same time, which would be nicely ironic in any number of ways.)
As is often the case with these kinds of seemingly good news stories, there is another side. Some of Surya's neighbours are complaining about another kind of pollution -- noise pollution.
You may recall a few months ago a buzz about the Hendrix House Concert, recorded for future airplay on Canada Live (8 p.m.).
Well the future is tonight, Thursday, when you can hear a two hour special including much Hendrix music and also stories about the Hendrix connection to Vancouver. Particularly the the locale known as the centre for Vancouver's black community in the early part of the 20th century, Hogan's Alley in Strathcona (Vancouver's oldest neighbourhood).
The guest host is Maple Blues/Juno winner Jim Byrnes, who knows the Hendrix-Vancouver connection inside out.
And if you are someone who hadn't a clue that Jimi Hendrix ever spent time in Vancouver -- here is the nutshell: Hendrix's grandmother, Nora, settled in Vancouver in 1911 and went on to help create the city's first black church, The American Methodist Episcopal Church. She was close to her grandson, Jimi, who stayed with her for a while. Even when most of the rest of the family re-located to Seattle Jimi and his father, Al Hendrix, regularly visited Jimi's grandma. For much, much more, tune in tonight to Canada Live (8 p.m.).
And should you wish to read a review of the entire concert, The Gazette's Arthur Kaptainis was there. Of Brian Cherney's piece, a premiere, Kaptainis said it "invited us to notice the similarities between Bach's right-hand decorations and Mussorgsky's, all in the context of a Debussian sonority balancing the extremes of the keyboard. I think. It was a clever synthesis rather than an original composition, but effective enough."
Hmm, not exactly damning with faint praise. Maybe piquing curiosity with perplexing praise, not always a bad thing to do, in the world of music criticism.
Someone once called Cal Tjader the "Clark Kent of jazz," a mild mannered guy who became a superman onstage. The west/coast meets latin style of vibist Tjader sure has lasting appeal for some folks, like the people involved in Soul Vibrations (the "definitive internet resource for Cal Tjader admirers and collectors").
Despite no one maintaining any kind of official posthumous Tjader website (as is often the case with jazz musicians), Tjader seems to have inspired a kind of cult like devotion and loyalty. (In part because, I think, of his influence on later forms of music related to jazz, namely acid jazz.) Space Age Pop Music, for example, call him "the greatest Anglo musician in Latin music," quite a claim.
Tjader died in 1982, but the year before he played a concert at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, and tonight on Tonic (6 p.m.) you can hear a set of music from that performance.
Sidebar: Tjader's daughter, Elizabeth, has become a kind of artist in her own way -- a garden artist. As well as being inspired by Monet, she was also inspired by her parents. "I grew up in a family who surrounded itself with beauty,” says Tjader. For the whole story, go to Critter-Friendly Gardens.
Remember when Complaints Choirs first came on the scene? No? Well, that's just one more thing you could sing about in your very own Complaints Choir, should you form one -- the information overload that makes it impossible to keep track of every new trend and fad.
However, this is one trend or fad that may not be quite as trendy or faddish as one might think, if today's article in the Times about one man's venture into the world of Complaints Choirs is any indication. He joined the Kvetch Choir Of London, and has nothing but praise. (How counterintuitive.) Not only that, his investigative journalism work proves that "there are now complaints choirs from Jerusalem to Buenos Aires, Budapest to Toronto."
Toronto, now there I could see grounds for complaints. But what about the Gabriola Island Complaints Choir, what the heck do they have to complain about? Do they not live in paradise? Ah, watching the Gabriola Islander's video it seems that too much rain and deer are chief among their complaints. Poor, poor Gabriolaers.
And I would post a video of the Kvetch Choir, except the only one I can find is cast in such darkness and with such bad audio that I cannot do that in good conscience. Feh, why are videos frequently so poorly shot? Why don't some choirs rehearse more before performing? Etcetera.
Meanwhile, here is a well-produced video from the original Helsinki Complaints Choir, still one of the best.
Don't know what your attitude is towards Facebook -- love, hate, indifference? Only the vaguest idea as to what it actually is and why you should care? My own -- resignation to its existence and usefulness.
But for those who love love love the social aspect of such things, and are also huge music fans, you may want to check out the Social Music List, which is kind of an aggregator of sites designed with social networking about music in mind. It's a little scary how many there are -- be prepared never to exchange info about favourite music with people you actually know again, if you go down this path.
By the way, although grouchiness about social networking may be a sign of mental health, this does not mean hiding away entirely, or subscribing to "anti-social networking" (wherein you gather together in dislike over any subject matter, musical or otherwise) is therefore a sign of some superior state of being.
Mind you, the hiding philosophy proposed by bugroff does have a certain appeal. Among other things they suggest you: "Post no pictures of yourself or friends," "Invite no one else to join," "Switch status between 'unavailable, 'hiding' and 'dead.'" Tee hee.
A press release came in today with news that turns out to be kind of an addendum to the earlier post, Oliver Schroer Tribute Tonight (about this evening's broadcast on Canada Live):
"In an effort to promote Oliver Schroer's legacy, a scholarship is being set up in his name to sponsor young string players who are pushing the boundaries."
One thing that Oliver Schroer became very involved in during the last five years of his life was something he called The Twisted String -- what he called "fiddle squads," groups of 8-12 young aspiring violin players, incorporating his philosophy of teaching and inspiring young musicians. This trust fund is intended to continue that effort.
For those interested, here's the full press release:
About 11 years ago I went to interview Oliver Schroer about his then new CD, Stewed Tomatoes. Recently I dug out the article that resulted, and as well as recalling that a violin case can be dissolved by 12 litres of stewed tomatoes (Oliver discovered this preparing for the album cover shoot), the piece also recalled the conversation. Funny, intense, and exhilarating.
"I'm a floater," he said. "Even though the fiddle world and the traditional world embraced me to a certain degree, I've always had the feeling 'I'm not from here. I can't really call this my address.' So it forced me to go out and create my own thing in my own way."
He did go out and create thing is own way. And gradually others learned to love that way.
Wednesday night on Canada Live (8 p.m.) tune in for a benefit/tribute concert that was held in his honour. You'll hear Oliver Schroer's music spanning his entire career and played in many different configurations, by artists such as The Stewed Tomatoes (Anne Lindsay, David Woodhead, David Travers-Smith, Ben Grossman, Colleen Allen), James Keelaghan, Jaime RT, Michelle George, Two Left (Tosh and Kit Weyman) and Bill Brennan.
Tonight on The Signal (10 p.m.), proper acknowledgment of things small. (Coming from a long line of short people, this has special resonance.)
The celebration of it's a small small world after all includes music from the Swedish alternative group The Tiny, a selection of Little Things from Norway's Hanne Hukkelberg, some Micro Melodies from California's The Album Leaf, and a remix of Lali Puna's Small Things by Montreal-based Sixtoo.
p.s. Abbott and Costello, circa 1955, playing a Uke and a child-sized gardening tool.
Tonic (6 p.m.) features music tonight from Dianne Reeves, pianist Lorraine Desmarais, R&B legend Louis Jordan and guitarist Charlie Byrd, but also, the piece de resistance, a set of tunes from pianist Oscar Peterson recorded live in Germany in 1968.
And speaking of the late and great (one time when the cliché make sense) Oscar Peterson, a slightly belated congratulations to bassist Dave Young, who was presented with the Oscar Peterson Award on the weekend at the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal.
The prize has been going for almost a decade, to "honour Canadian musicians for the quality their art and their outstanding contributions to the evolution of jazz in this country." And Young is a most worthy recipient.
After this year's Tony awards made it clear that the musical is clearly very much alive, albeit usually in revival form (South Pacific, anyone?) it should not have come as a surprise that there is a new musical opening at the end of this month about the Nigerian musician and leader, Fela Kuti.
And yet, a certain amount of surprise registered, in these quarters at least. Possibly because although his life (he died in 1997) was an incredible story, it's difficult to imagine plot advancement via musical numbers. Still, it will be very interesting to hear how it turns out -- and for those lucky enough to be in NYC later this summer, to check it out first hand.
It's just called Fela!, and it promises to explore "Kuti's controversial life as artist, political activist and revolutionary musician."
Meanwhile, here is a short documentary about Fela Kuti -- featuring him in performance and interview, and in political and social context. Well worth watching, even with slightly dated sounded narration. (By the way, all videos posted on the R2 blog are congregated over at Radio2Tube.)
Yesterday, after posting "Polaris Short List Announced," I came up for air to think about other music news. Only to discover there was no other music news. In Canada, that is, the rest of the world was largely remarkably impervious to the initial announcement re: Polaris.
Yes, here in Canada there seems to be a very strong appetite for all things Polaris Music Prize. One reason was suggested by The Signal's Laurie Brown, guest hosting "Q" this week. In her show opener (the "essay" as they say over in current affairs) she pointed out something about the prize that makes it uniquely appealing. Blindingly obvious too, but until that moment, for some reason, not to me.
The Polaris Prize is literally a prize. ONE prize. Not the forest of categories found in music awards like the Junos and Grammys. Just the one, big, impossible prize: Best Canadian Album of the Year. Not that Polaris necc. calls it this, in fact if you read the mission statement you'll find it's not quite that specific. But that is how it is perceived.
How could anyone possibly say that one recording in any genre of music is the best Canadian recording of the year? Anyone couldn't. But what the Polaris Prize can do is point to a bunch of recordings that are very good, and to me that is ultimately more important than who actually takes home the $20,000.
Although the musician taking it home might say otherwise. In fact, one did. While many of the short-listed musicians talked to the media about it being "special" and "a great feeling" to be nominated, Liam Corcoran of Charlottetown's Two Hours Traffic was more blunt, as quoted in the Montreal Gazette:
"[The money] is really necessary. We're always applying for grants," says the singer. "We've done a lot [of touring] in Canada, so it's time to look internationally. And the cost of travelling is big. ... You really rely on people supporting you, different organizations."
Note: Image stolen from the generous folks at Radio 3.
Who doesn't like a mimosa. The fresh fruit juice, the bubbly, the illicit brunch-time drinking...whoops, not the Mimosa in question actually. Mimosa, the band, who you can hear Tuesday night in concert on Canada Live (8 p.m.), describe their own music as "equal parts French Lounge, West Coast Swing and Brazilian Samba."
The band is from Vancouver, in fact they're said to be "very Vancouver," which to me says more coffee than bubbly, but on the other hand, also beautiful flora and fauna. And that gets closer to the real source for the band's name and aesthetic -- Mimosa is named for the flower. Aha, makes more sense now, as the flower is one of the headiest scents on the planet. The band hopes to be equally captivating, or, as they put it, blend their various styles and influences together in "an extraordinary bouquet." Hear for yourself tonight, or check it out online at Concerts On Demand: Mimosa At WinterSong Festival.
Also on the show, a concert from guitarist, singer-songwriter and producer Steve Dawson, known too for co-creating "strang music" with Jesse Zubot. "Strang" is a hybrid of jazz, bluegrass, swing and more. "And more?" We haven't got a strict definition for that yet.
Just a typical night on The Signal (10 p.m.). Starlight, Delusions and High Romance. Sort of Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, 21st century style.
But actually it's Starlight as in a composition by Jillian Lebeck, Delusions by violinist Jesse Zubot, and High Romance by guitarist Michael Occhipinti. (Still, a nice phrase.)
Speaking of Occhipinti, his Sicilian Jazz Project was just released, and he's touring with that music this summer. You can find out more about that at Occhipinti's MySpace site. (It's a neat musical project mixing Sicilian folk and jazz.)
Tonight from the Lion D'Or in Montreal, Canada Live (8 p.m.) presents a sold out performance by pianist and singer Carol Welsman (whose latest, self-titled recording shows off both talents, as well as her multi-lingual abilities -- she sings jazz and pop in five languages).
Welsman, who Variety magazine described as having "gentleness and grace, imbued with a girl-next-door personality," has seven recordings under her belt, and is now on the Justin Time label. (Which also provides me with an excuse to steer you towards this post: Quarter Century Of Jazz, noting the recent 25th anniversary of that Canadian indie label.)
Also on the show tonight, Manteca Canada's best-known Latin/jazz/funk big-band until they disbanded about a decade ago. But this concert features a reunion of the band, and music from a recent recording, called Onward!. Leader Matt Zimbel describes the current music of the band as "a little like Gil Evans, a little like Sergent Garcia and a little like Manteca. There’s a certain retro vibe circa 2012.”
Manteca, btw, is doing a bit of touring this summer -- and you can see where if you check out the afore-linked Manteca website. Oh what the heck, here it is again.
Pianist Michel Camilo is a guy who loves to play live, as this road story shows:
"I will never forget something that happened when I was performing a few years ago at a theater in Malaga, Spain. In the middle of our show, with a thousand people in the audience, we suddenly lost power. Not just amplification, but all lights, air conditioning -- everything. We were truly 'Unplugged!'
With our eyes, we could not see each other on stage, we could not see our instruments, and we could not see the audience. But we could see all of these things with our hearts. So what did we do? What else could we do? We played. We played and played, sending notes into that warm Spanish night. And we listened, as the audience – mostly strangers to one another – came together as one."
Lovely.
Tonight Tonic (6 p.m.) gives you a chance to hear a live performance by Camilo, from the Blue Note in New York City. And as a bit of a preview, here's Camilo performing From Within. As one listener/viewer said: "When I see this performance my hair gets curled."
This just in. The Polaris Music Prize, a jury-voted prize for "best" Canadian recording based solely on artistic merit, has just announced its shortlist for the past year's recordings, courtesy of Radio3.
And it is:
Black Mountain In The Future
Basia Bulat Oh, My Darling
Caribou Andorra
Kathleen Edwards Asking For Flowers
Holy Fuck LP
Plants And Animals Parc Avenue
Shad The Old Prince
Stars In Our Bedroom After The War
Two Hours Traffic Little Jabs
The Weakerthans Reunion Tour
Well, for those of us following the Polaris process (disclosure -- I'm on the jury) no real surprises. But for those of us with leanings towards music that includes but also extends beyond indie and roots, some disappointment -- it would be nice to see some world, some jazz, some classical, some "pop" that is more unorthodox. That said, there are some excellent albums on this list. (Including two from my own shortlist, though I'm not divulging.)
Ultimately, one of the above recordings will be deemed "best Canadian album," with a $20,000 prize. More accurately, it's "Best Canadian Album As Chosen By A Bunch Of Music Journalists." While not a perfect system, it is at the very least a good way to draw a considerable amount of attention to certain areas of Canadian music.
Congratulations to the nominees -- and to folks at Polaris who work hard to get more focussed attention paid to new Canadian music.
Photo of Polaris Prize creator Steve Jordan taken by Pedro Mendes.
Did you know that it's the 25th anniversary of surtitles? Not only that, but the concept "Surtitles" is as Canadian as mosquitoes in July. (Can't figure out how to get the little "tm" in the right place to make the point, but Surtitles-TM is actually a registered trademark of the Canadian Opera Company.)
Yesterday I was amused to see a photo of a scene from the COC's 1983 production of Elektra reprinted in the NYtimes, the surtitle looming above the stage, saying: "Do You Belong To The Household?" Such drama.
Which is not to say, of course, that surtitles are not of great value to many. If you've been to a production featuring surtitles you no doubt have an opinion on that value, and their aesthetic appeal (or lack thereof). This winter, at a French production of an English opera (Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress at the Opera Garnier) I encountered the oddness of listening to an opera in my own language, but occasionally looking at the surtitle just to see if I could figure out how literally they'd translated it into French.
This was strangely compelling, but also neck crick inducing. Fortunately the opera and its staging was more compelling, so eventually I forgot all about the surtitles. (Particularly once the couple next to me started having an argument, but that's another story.)
The Times article, by Anthony Tommasini, takes an overall sort of look at the pros and cons of surtitles, 25 years in. Personally, though I think surtitles (or Met Titles, as they call the NYC version) are very useful, on some Luddite level I agree with the sentiment expressed by Tommasini:
"Yet opera connects with listeners on a mysterious and deeply emotional level. Think of the audiences in 18th-century London who flocked to hear Handel operas performed in Italian, a language few patrons understood. And every living operagoer who fell for the art form during the pretitling era has memories of uncomprehending epiphanies at the opera house."
p.s. The photo is from the COC's Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk. Was at that production too. Have no idea what the surtitle might have said, although I do vividly recall the bed.
At around the time of the tribute Now Magazine did a brief interview with one of the performers, Randy Bachman, (Q&A : Randy Bachman). Bachman's description of what it was like being stage with Healey is pretty neat to read:
"I thought I knew a lot of guitar tricks – slapping and tapping harmonics and everything else – but whenever I was trading licks with Jeff, he could do whatever I did, only better! When Duke Robillard, Jeff and I played Massey Hall together last year, he pretty much stole the show. Toward the end of the night he did this version of B.B. King’s Early In The Morning that was absolutely phenomenal... Jeff had such a jump-out joyful spirit whenever he was playing that you couldn’t help but focus on him."
The Concert On Demand of the Jeff Healey celebration includes Bachman, Colin James, David Wilcox, Jack Bruce, Ian Gillan and others, performing with the Jeff Healey Blues Band.
(Photo of Randy Bachman at the Jeff Healey Tribute by Stephan Sloboda)
Sunday night The Signal (10 p.m.) with Pat Carrabré presents a three hour special devoted to a composition by Olivier Messiaen.
There are many reasons to be interested in Messiaen's work, but one of the greatest ("imho," as they say) is because of his fascination with birdsong. Messiaen (born 100 years ago this December) thought of birds as being pretty much musicians themselves -- unlike some who think of birdsong as some sort of automated natural response to daybreak or hunger or mating or what have you. From his teens Messiaen collected birdsongs, notating them in great detail. And he famously incorporated birdsong into his own composition.
"I speak of faith to atheists, I speak of birds to people who never got up at four in the morning to listen to the awakening of birds," Messiaen once said.
Tonight you'll hear Halifax’s Scotia Festival Of Music's presentation of Catalogue D'Oiseaux (Catalogue of Birds). The seven "books" of Olivier Messiaen's Catalogue D'Oiseaux were composed between 1956 and 1958, and because it's such a massive piece it's rarely performed in entirety -- so tonight is your chance to hear it performed as intended. The work is performed by pianist Simon Docking and narrated by CBC host Peter Togni, reading Messiaen’s poetry.
There, I've just conflated the names of two Manitoba music festivals for my own bloggin' purposes. The Back Forty Folk Festival, whose mission is to "keep homemade music alive" is held in Morden Manitoba, about 90 minutes southwest of Winnipeg. The Groove Jazz Winnipeg Festival, whose mission is to "be a leader in furthering an appreciation of jazz music through presentation, promotion and outreach" is held in, no surprise, Winnipeg.
It sure is summer festival time! And highlights from both the above festivals are being broadcast tonight on Canada Live (8 p.m.).
From the former you'll hear singer/songwriters Kayla Luky and Kerri Woelke, blues band Linc & The Moustaches, (Linc, Moustaches, I'm so sorry but I can't seem to find a website for you guys and your 'staches) Chris Carmichael & the Swag, and a Cajun band from St. Boniface called Johnny Cajun.
And from the latter, you can hear Flin Flon native Jennifer Hanson, who now lives in Atlanta, Georgia (now that must have been a bit of culture shock), sings standards, and has performed at the festival before, with the likes of guitarist Greg Lowe. And Sophie Berkal-Sarbit a 17-year-old whose debut jazz album was produced by Toronto jazz stalwart Bill King. Also Heitha Forsyth, a newish name on the scene, though old enough a name that she's already performed with the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra, the University of Manitoba Jazz Orchestra, the Ron Paley Big Band, and Papa Mambo.
Gary Cristall has been researching the history of folk music in English Canada for close to a decade -- working on what promises to become a major book.
But today Gary -- the co-founder of the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, some thirty years ago -- presents some of the research and interviews he's done in the first of a five-part radio series, on Inside The Music. The series is called (and a lovely name it is) The People’s Music.
This is how Gary describes this project, and his passion for it:
“For the last twenty years I’ve been scratching a terrible itch - how did folk music in English Canada start and get to where it is today? I started thinking about it when I was programming the Folklife Pavilion at Expo 86. How did this all start? I kept wondering.
Then, eight years ago, I started interviewing folks and squirreling away documents, tapes, records and anything else I could lay my hands on. Today I’ve got a five hundred page chronology, boxes of magazines, festival programs and photocopies, and over two hundred hours of interviews. I’m nowhere near done."
Part One, called Birth Of A Genre, airs today on Radio 2 at 12 noon (and at 8 p.m. on Radio 1), and it "traces folk music from the 1910’s, when it was unknown to all but the folk themselves and a handful of collectors, until 1949 when Newfoundland joined Canada and brought with it some of our best loved folk songs."
Although In The Key Of Charles is in summer repeats (fear not ITKOC fans -- Gregory will be back in the fall with new shows), today's show was not originally heard on R2, only R1. (This was due to a special broadcast that day on R2, way back when.)
It's a show devoted to the ‘little’ things in life. Maybe that moment when you first walk outside on a beautiful morning, or maybe the exchange of smiles with a stranger at the sight of a child dancing, or perhaps just the little internal musings that one amuses oneself with. (Not that I'd know a thing about that.)
Of course it being Gregory's show, that means a musical interpretation of the pleasures of the little things in life -- and performers include the Choir of King’s College Cambridge, the Swingle Singers, the Modern Mandolin Quartet, Nina Simone, Joni Mitchell, Coral Egan, The Mamas & the Papas, Ozzie Nelson, Bebel Gilberto...here's the entire (but not too big) playlist.
No, I'm not being cheeky. Well, maybe a little bit. It's just that today on the "Best of" Sunday Afternoon in Concert, Robert presents such diverse music. You can hear music from three different eras: works by Schubert and Beethoven (starring "Manny" Ax) from the Vienna of the early 1800s, antiphons (what a marvelous word for "response") from a 500-year-old Belgian convent, and compositions by Edgar Varese and his disciple, Chou Wen-Chung.
As to that 500 year old convent, early music vocal ensemble Anonymous 4 performs selections from the 500-year-old Salzinness antiphonal, (that would be both response and call), which resides at St Mary's University in Halifax. During the regular radio season Bill Richardson visited the manuscript, undergoing restoration, and today you can hear a rebroadcast of what he learned about the Saint Mary's Antiphonal on that trip.
And as to Varese -- CBC producer Madonna Hamel joins Robert to present a conversation she had with Varese's student Chou Wen-Chung, a composer and teacher now in his 80s.
Naturally you can also hear music by Varese,including Hyperprism, Intergrale, Ionisation and Deserts. (And Madonna and Robert will also play music by Chou Wen-Chung.)
And here 'tis, the weekly Choral Concert Bulletin: This Sunday they set out on what the show is calling a Summer Oratorio Odyssey. Doesn't that sound idyllic? I imagine lolling about in meadows of soft clover and listening to music, all around the world.
First meadow to loll about in is fairly urban though -- San Francisco, and a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, (the Symphony Of A Thousand), featuring the San Francisco Orchestra and Chorus under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas.
Kiran Ahluwalia grew up in Toronto, got her MBA at Dalhousie, and then became one of the best known ghazal singers in the world, outside of India. You can hear her tonight on The Signal (10 p.m.) in concert with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra.
For this concert composer Glenn Buhr arranged pieces Ahluwalia sings, and showcased two of his original compositions "inspired by the east." Of those new works, What's On Winnipeg's review said the following:
"Buhr's new works, Chant of Wind and Thunder and Chant of Water and Sky, received world premieres, the latter a beautiful, pastoral song representing an idyllic day at Lake of the Woods. Ahluwalia sang in unison with the strings as modal changes transitioned into an Eastern tune, cellos taking the melody. The song came to rest softly, with Ahluwalia's lovely vocals soaring above."
P.S. Pat also features some new music from jazz multi-instrumentalists Jean Martin and Colin Fisher on tonight's show, for you fans of jazz multi-instrumentalists, and I know you are legion.
Two concerts involving Latin music tonight on Canada Live (8 p.m.) for your listening pleasure -- first, Amanda Martinez. She's a Canadian singer (with one parent originally from Mexico, the other from South African) who grew up listening to the music of Cuban trovadores -- people like Pablo Milanes, Sylvio Rodriguez -- and the larger-than-life voices of people like Mercedes Sosa, Elis Regina and Chavela Vargas.
The second concert features the 10-member vocal and percussion ensemble, Desandann who focus on the legacy of Haitian cultural traditions in Cuba -- formed in response to a request by members of the "Association of Haitian Residents and Cubans of Haitian descent." (Apparently current estimates of the Haitian population in Cuba range from 300,000 to 1 million.)
Also, a newer, Canadian-based group called Soul Influence, five vocalists who sing in an Afro-jazz style. Desandann and Soul Influence performed separately and together in this concert, recorded at the recent Art Of Jazz Festival.
One of the stories In Tune covers this evening is about a little experiment by The Guardian wherein sportswriters traded places with music critics.
Not so far fetched as it might sound. It could go something like this:
The conductor crowded the podium, making it a challenge for the woodwinds to field his tempos. And yet they executed their plays beautifully, hitting each motif right out of the park.
Anyway, Katherine will tell you what really happened the day the writers changed places.
And some of the other stories Katherine explores on the show today include a celebration of Banff Centre's 75th birthday, and how famed percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie, as a deaf musician, listens to and plays music.
It's been an odd day or so in terms of thinking about music and death. First there was the news that Oliver Schroer had passed away. (Please see Oliver Schroer -- He Burned Brightly.) Then last night The Signal featured music from Meredith Monk's recording, Impermanence, a musical response to the death of her partner (which has been compared to Joan Didon's The Year Of Magical Thinking, an interesting notion).
Today, the third part of the four-part series Live By The Drum, running on Inside The Music, is about how cultures of the world use drums as they encounter death. Host Wabanakwut Kinew takes a look at "the final journey" ... and the drum.
Figured that subject heading might get your attention. No actual beer served on Deep Roots today though, but some klezmer is served up from a very idiosyncratic klez-guy who likes a bit of a beer hall approach to the music. That's Geoff Berner. (You may remember his seminal piece, Whiskey Rabbi? I know I do.)
Among the many other, non klezmer tunes that Tom will play is a sweet and catchy song about mixed tapes by Daniel Ledwell. Even though he's probably too young to have ever made one. (Guess a song called "I Have Made You An iTunes Playlist" wouldn't have the same ring to it.)
And on a more serious note, Tom will salute the late, and very special fiddler, Oliver Schroer, who passed away this week. (Please see Oliver Schroer -- He Burned Brightly.)
“A fiery horse with the speed of light! A cloud of dust and a hearty ‘Hi-Yo, Silver!’"
By this point you are no doubt singing to the dump to the dump to the dump dump dump I mean, the music to the William Tell Overture by Rossini. But an overture is just the precursor, and today SATO offers rare opportunity to hear Rossini’s last opera, the tale of the Swiss patriot Guillaume Tell, sung in French in a concert performance for an Italian audience. (How very European!)
The performance features baritone Michele Pertusi as William Tell, and tenor John Osborn as Arnold Melchtal.
For more details about the opera and the production, please keep reading.
Meredith Monk has a new recording out, Impermanence (also the title of her most recent inter-disciplinary work); this may have been the impetus for Pat to profile her work in depth tonight on The Signal (10 p.m.).
And there is much depth to plumb. Four four decades she's been an unconventional performer who has moved between music and theatre and dance and film, winning awards for her groundbreaking work, including a MacArthur "genius award."
But despite all the many-arts, much of Monk's work comes back to the voice. As John Knelman points out so aptly in his review about Impermanence:
"The human voice may well be the most expressive instrument of all, capable of the subtlest of nuance and the most dramatic exclamation, but few have explored its full range as thoroughly as Meredith Monk."
Puro Son play the traditional Cuban song form known as "son" (the music that the Buena Vista Social Club popularized to staggeringly large audiences in the late 1990s) and you can hear them tonight on Canada Live (8 p.m.).
They're led by trumpeter Miguelito Valdes, who in fact has shared stages with the BVSC -- he also toured for years with Omara Portuondo. Now based in Vancouver, this concert featuring Valdes and his band was recorded as part of the CBC Studio One Series at the 2008 Vancouver International Jazz Festival.
From the same festival you can also hear Altered Laws, a jazz quartet (whose website is trilingual -- English, French and Italian, so that tells you something about the makeup of its members) who say they explore many sounds, "Latin, pop, Brazilian, mainstream and avant-garde jazz."
It's festival time on Canada Live, so enjoy the next best thing to being there!
Just a note to acknowledge the not inconsiderable achievement of an independent Canadian jazz label -- Justin Time Records -- turning 25 years old, with a celebration today at the Festival International De Jazz De Montreal called A Night To Remember, featuring artists like Ranee Lee, the Montreal Jubilation Choir, Coral Egan, Yannick Rieu, Chet Doxas, Lorraine Klaasen, and the guy for whom the label was started -- Oliver Jones.
As quoted by Larry Leblanc in his Leblanc Newsletter, West says: "I only did the label because of seeing Oliver perform...I was blessed to have recorded him first, and he's the reason I continued the label. I thought all artists were like him."
In the last year of his life fiddler Oliver Schroer sent out sad and funny and wise missives about living and dying, to those of us who knew him, to his fans. Even when it became clear that dying was close at hand, or maybe especially when that became clear, he continued to communicate his thoughts and to find humour in life. He also played music to the end -- his final public concert was in June.
Oliver Schroer died yesterday of leukemia.
A colleague of mine forwarded this note:
"His doctor told us that he went out just how he would have wanted to. He was carrying on with the nurse in his usual fashion and said 'Well, I guess no excursions today!' and left. Very fast and no suffering. He looked very beautiful and peaceful.' Last night he whipped off his last tune entitled 'Poise.' How apropos."
A few months back, some of Oliver Schroer's musical friends and students gathered together for a tribute concert. The concert will be re-broadcast July 9th on Canada Live, and it's also online at Concerts On Demand -- Oliver Schroer Tribute Concert. I hope you can listen to some of it -- or get some of Oliver's music -- perhaps his Camino recording that affected people so strongly.
You know how sometimes you meet someone and they're embroiled in a fascinating project, then a few years later you bump into them again and they're still embroiled in that fascinating project, going deeper and deeper into it? That's my experience of Gary Cristall and his research into the folk music of English Canada, destined to become a book.
And the great thing is that Gary -- the co-founder of the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, some thirty years ago -- has wisely turned some of that research and some of those interviews into a living breathing entity while the book is still in progress -- via a five-part radio series that begins this Sunday on Inside The Music, called The People’s Music.
This is how Gary describes this project, and his passion for it:
“For the last twenty years I’ve been scratching a terrible itch - how did folk music in English Canada start and get to where it is today? I started thinking about it when I was programming the Folklife Pavilion at Expo 86. How did this all start? I kept wondering.
Then, eight years ago, I started interviewing folks and squirreling away documents, tapes, records and anything else I could lay my hands on. Today I’ve got a five hundred page chronology, boxes of magazines, festival programs and photocopies, and over two hundred hours of interviews. I’m nowhere near done."
Still, he's "done" enough to share some of this with the radio audience, and this Sunday you can hear Part One, which airs both at 12 noon Sunday on Radio 2 and at 8 p.m. on Radio 1. It's called Birth Of A Genre and it "traces folk music from the 1910’s, when it was unknown to all but the folk themselves and a handful of collectors, until 1949 when Newfoundland joined Canada and brought with it some of our best loved folk songs."
In June at the Music Gallery as part of the soundaXis Festival, the newish new music group, Transmission (Lori Freedman, clarinet; Guy Pelletier, flutes; Clemens Merkel, viioin; Julie Trudeau, cello; D’Arcy Gray, percussion; Brigitte Poulin, piano) performed a programme of late 20th century composition.
Tonight on The Signal (10 p.m.) you can hear some of that concert, including works by Iannis Xennakis and Claude Vivier.
Showtimemagazine.ca had a sparky review of the concert; here's just an excerpt of the part of the review concerning the Xenakis:
“Plekto (1993) by Xenakis is a confrontation of strong materials of contrasting textures, meters, and chording whose overlapping variations suggest hostile aggression, such as one associates with land-and-sky war. The satirical, hallucinatory and horrifying albeit riveting paintings of Goya, Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud came to mind. This music is not shy. It ended with a bray and a loud bang and the audience loved it."
When alto sax player Frank Morgan died last December, the world lost another living link to bebop. His life was also an extraordinary tale of hardship and survival -- the final chapter being a stroke in 1998 -- after which he continued to tour and perform.
But the hardships started back in the height of the bebop era. Not only a Charlie Parker disciple, he sadly also had Parker's heroin addiction. Only in his case, he ended up spending a fair bit of time in jail, since his habit led to theft. This didn't mean he stopped playing music though. In fact, he once said that the greatest big band he ever played with was in San Quentin:
"...Art Pepper and I were proud of that band. We had Jimmy Bunn and Frank Butler, and some other musicians who were known and some who weren't, but they could play. We played every Saturday night for what they called a Warden's Tour, which showed paying visitors only the cleanest cell blocks and exercise yards. But people would take that tour just to hear the band."
Towards the end of his life Morgan also worked with prison inmates, recovering addicts, and at-risk youth, playing music and talking about his life -- quite an extraordinary man.
Tonight you can hear for yourself, as Tonic (6 p.m.) showcases some of Morgan's music, recorded live at the Jazz Standard in New York City.
The lead story this morning I heard on English language newscasts was about the controversy surrounding Henry Morgentaler's induction into the Order of Canada. My SRC listening other half pointed out that the lead story there, on the other hand, was that today, July 3, officially commemorates Quebec's 400th birthday. On this day, back in 1608, Samuel Champlain founded the first ongoing French settlement in North America.
So it seems timely to point to a concert that just went up as a COD, Francophonia: French Chamber Music -- not just music from Quebec composers, but it does include three Canadian premieres.
I'm especially chuffed about Paul Bley. Nice to see the "avant garde" recognized in such a decidedly mainstream way. So it seems like the perfect moment to put up this small feature about Paul Bley, where he talks about the main concerns of an artist. (In which he states, "art is the way to identify a decade.") He also plays, and very beautifully at that.
Last weekend, perusing the NYTimes magazine, I was struck by this ethical dilemma, sent to the weekly column by Randy Cohen called The Ethicist.
"My friend, a young artist at the start of his career, offered to sell me a 1 percent share in him for $9,000. I would receive a portion of his lifetime earnings but would have no say in the sort of work he did. This seems like a good deal for us both, but it does feel a bit like slavery. Is this agreement ethical?"
Maybe Ashley MacIsaac was reading it too? On Monday the fiddler announced on his website that he's selling half of his future revenues -- to the highest bidder on eBay. The bidding started at $1.5 million -- and as of this morning, that's where the bidding stands.
MacIsaac told the Chronicle Herald that he originally put it in the "weird and strange categories" on eBay, but then realized that might be "too hard to find," so he switched it to business.
But is it ethical? Well, Cohen thought the artist's ploy was, and would no doubt agree that so is MacIsaac's -- and the latter is more of a known quantity. (As long as you don't mind that the quantity is partly known for unpredictability.) But MacIsaac is shrewd when he says ""The asset is me. The asset is my celebrity."
Still, it might be smart for the bidder to verify MacIsaac's claim that "Even when I was bankrupt, I’ve always had six-figure years."
btw, if you outbid the current 1.5 mill as a bonus MacIsaac will perform 10 concerts in a town or city of your choice for the next ten years. AND you get to be the guest of honour, should you so wish.
Last March guitarist Jeff Healey died at the age of 41, and his passing saddened music lovers and musicians around the world -- such a tremendous and unique talent, gone so prematurely.
His friends and family and fellow musicians wanted to hold a tribute for him -- in fact they ended up holding two concerts -- and Canada Live was there to record the May 3rd event held at the Sound Academy.
It was a stellar lineup -- Colin James, Randy Bachman, David Wilcox, Jack Bruce, Ian Gillan and many others performed with the Jeff Healey Blues Band.
Thursday night Canada Live (8 p.m.) presents the music that was played that night, and also some backstage interviews with some of the performers, reminiscing about Healey and the impact he had on their lives. (The concert will be available as a Concert On Demand very shortly.)
When I first wrote about Mr. Healey's passing, on a post simply called Jeff Healey, there were many insightful comments, but this one stands out, from listener/blog reader Kip Bonnell:
"Jeff seemed to have it all: Wit, personality...deadpan humour. Whether it was on an album, or through the airwaves, his passion for music and for the people who made it was tangible. He may have lacked the physical ability to see, but he was locked in to something much more precious: feeling."
Argentinean-Canadian composer, conductor, pianist, teacher Alcides Lanza has long been committed to promoting new music performance.
Tonight The Signal (10 p.m.) pays tribute to Lanza, with a concert that features several works, including Sensors Six. It was inspired by the first moon landing by the Apollo Eleven astronauts, or more specifically, by the devices that sensed the astronauts’ vital signs and then transmitted them through space to technicians on the ground. That, and by the connections between the sensors and the astronauts’ senses. Fascinating.
btw, for a brief but interesting interview with Lanza, go to Yakity-Yak.
It all began in Quebec. Or maybe it was Israel…perhaps Poland? When it comes to the music of Montreal-based Paul Kunigis it’s not easy to say what the precise musical origins are. Kunigus is Polish born, raised in Israel by a Catholic mother and a Jewish father, and went to a French school in an Arab city. Talk about multicultural.
Kunigis sings in Polish, Hebrew, Arabic, French -- although as I recall from having seen him a few years back, his in between song patter is in English. Or maybe it depends who the audience is -- that was a show in Toronto, so my presumption is probably just that. That was also a concert with his band, Jeszcze Raz, who did a kind of cabaret-ish mix up of material drawn from klezmer, French chanson, and all his other various influences. Not sure what tonight's concert holds -- but he's a very interesting musician.
And tonight's concert from Kunigis is on Canada Live (8 p.m.), recorded at the Palais Montcalm in Quebec City.
Also, a band described as "creative…mystical…exotic…bluesy…joyful" (by Jazz Times) is featured in the second half of the show -- jazz pianist François Bourassa with a quartet, from Jazz En Rafales.
Cuban-Canadian Hilario Duran, one of the big winners at this year's National Jazz Awards has been doing some touring of late, getting positive press wherever he plays -- for example in Montreal, where the Gazette included him as a critic's pick in advance of his performance at the Montreal Jazz fest.
"Pianist Hilario Duran has monster chops and the kind of fertile imagination that only Cuba's musical hot house can breed."
And then following his recent performance in Vancouver, as reported in the Vancouver Sun:
"Cuban-born Toronto pianist Hilario Duran never lacks energy, and his trio show Sunday at Performance Works had people dancing in the rear doorway. With a firm grip on all forms of Cuban jazz, Duran's fingers flew over the keyboard as bassist Roberto Occhipinti and drummer Mark Kelso kept pace."
When a concert given by 14-year-old Nikki Yanofsky was broadcast on Canada Live not long ago, it was to très positive response.
Here's just one example, from a listener/blog reader simply identified as "J":
"This girl was ridiculously good, not just "good for her age", but actually really good."
For those who want to hear it again, or missed it and are curious about the jazzwunderkind -- it is now available online as a Concert On Demand -- Nikki Yanofsky At Studio 12.
Getting tickets to the annual Bayreuth Festival, dedicated to the music of Wagner, makes getting tickets to Leonard Cohen's tour (or just about anything else) seem like a snap. Apparently would be Bayreuth goers can wait up to ten years to get one of the 2,000 tickets. And for that privilege they shell out up to 208 euros, roughly $335 Canadian.
So the headline Bayreuth Festival To Be Webcast does rather catch one's eye. And it is indeed true...after a fashion. It will be the festival's opening performance only that's webcast though -- and to a limited number of people. (10,000.) And to the tune of 49 Euros for that opportunity (about $79 Canadian). Still, it does mean more of a chance to (virtually) attend.
As summer heats up...so does garbage. Or compost, depending on where you live. Now this does not seem like a friendly subject with which to start the day, particularly post-Canada Day when many are in post-day-off-during-the-week mode, which is to say sleepy and grumpy.
But having had a discussion on Canada Day with a neighbour about his dog, my compost, and the city's finest raccoons, garbage is on my mind. So it seemed all too timely that today on Here's To You (9 a.m.) there is a request from a garbage truck worker. Not only that, but a cello-playing garbage truck driver.
He's a fourth year music student at the University of Alberta, and to pay his tuition he's working the stinky shifts all summer long. He'd like to dedicate Rachmaninov's Cello Sonata In G Minor to all university students across the nation who are studying music. As for those of us hoping that the garbage truck guys get to our garbage before the raccoons do (or the neighbour's dog), that goes out to them too.
Speaking of garbage and music...as you probably know the greening of music festivals has been going on for some time -- I'd venture to say that music festivals were at the forefront of trying to make large events more environmentally friendly. (To varying degrees of success.)
The Roskilde Festival, starting tomorrow in Denmark, has a new twist on the festival garbage aftermath situation -- they're giving hand-held PDA mobile phones to garbage collectors throughout the festival. These hand held devices report to the "waste offices" computers, the computers analyze how critical the waste situation is -- which then is analyzed by festival workers so that they can better coordinate cleanup.
If you need one reason to tune in tonight to the The Signal (10 p.m.) here it is: Veda Hille singing Neil Young. (Or as she puts it, "gently attacking neil young.")
Hille sings songs such as Ohio and After The Goldrush, inventively arranged for orchestra by Giorgio Magnanensi. (OK, so that's two reasons.) Hope you enjoy this nightcap to R2's day long Canada Day programming!
Canada Day celebrations continue on Tonic (6 p.m.) with music from guitarist Jake Langley, vocalist Molly Johnson and pianist Oliver Jones.
It being into the thick of festival season I thought I'd post a video of one of these performers playing live at a festival. When I came across this video I just had to put it up -- it captures such a truly classic summer music festival moment. (Poor woman, you can practically feel her frustration!)
It also captures some nice, very mellow playing by Jake Langley.)
For Richard Thompson fans just that subject heading is enough. Yup, the legendary Brit songwriter is on Canada Live (8 p.m.) tonight with a solo set. First famous as part of Fairport Convention, he's revered now for his guitar playing, wit, and great songwriting.
Now here's a confession. While I number some huge Richard Thompson fans among my friends and acquaintances, I was never that keen. But then I heard him perform live, and completely got it. So that's my endorsement to listen -- while I've not heard this concert, Thompson is a consummate performer.
Second on the show is a woman who's performed with everyone from David Bowie to Roseanne Cash -- blues singer Catherine Russell from New York.
And third up, a showcase from the funky little label Six Shooter Records, whose pithy slogan is "because life is too short to listen to shitty music," a POV I heartily agree with. (They also have a cool store in my neighbourhood where t-shirts with this slogan can be purchased -- they make a lovely gift for budding musicians and others who don't mind being stared at.) With this showcase from Ottawa's Bluesfest you can hear Luke Doucet, NQ Arbuckle, Hawksley Workman, Royal Wood, Melissa McClelland, and Martin Tielli.
Canada's Dominion Carillonneur, Gordon Slater, rings the Canada Day edition of DiscDrive (3 p.m.) by playing the show’s theme on the famous bells. The whole show features "Canadiana" with music from the Calgary Philharmonic, Quartetto Gelato, Rick Scott, Chor Leoni Men's Choir, Joe Trio, Stan Rogers and more.
And speaking of Canadiana, in poking about on the CBC website (a regular pastime for the R2 blogger), I happened upon a Canada Quiz. It's from a few years ago, but that doesn't make it any easier. (Well, actually some of the questions are pretty easy, others less so). Here's an example:
Q: Due to a shortage of coins in New France in the 17th century, settlers used which non-traditional form of currency?
a. Playing cards
b. Birch Bark
c. Muskets
d. Croissants
D., right? But they had to be the traditional, classic croissant au beurre, not the croissant ordinaires. Tricky, given they were very big on margarine in New France.
Today on Studio Sparks (12 p.m.) the music reflects Eric's love of his boyhood home on the prairies, in Altona, Manitoba.
And the S'Sparks Canada Day show also includes a rebroadcast of Eric's conversation with artist Joe Fafard, he of the bronze cows.
I walked by some of those cows just the other day, in Oscar Peterson Place, near the TD Centre in downtown Toronto. I'd post a picture of the sculpted herd, but copyright issues would conflict, so here's the next best thing -- a link to The Pasture.
Note: Fafard has also sculpted human beings, including dignitaries such as the prime minister. But we all seem to love his cows best. I guess he does too, since he's done so many. Although here's what he says about the quantity of cows, from the FAQ on his website:
Opus One is the name of the special Canada Day show today on Here's To You (9 a.m.)
Catherine and her colleagues are going to play nothing but works performed by Canadian musicians, but they're featuring the music that launched that particular composer’s career, or was their first published piece.
So it's a celebration of the new and the promise of greatness...along with great Canadian musicianship. A very nice idea, and sounds like it will be an interesting aural journey.
How will you celebrate Canada Day? The time-honoured sleeping in followed by lazing around followed by wavering over whether or not to get off the couch for fireworks? Or perhaps you are made of more patriotic stuff, and will follow the injunctions of the afore-linked Canadian Heritage website and "rejoice in the discoveries of our scientific researchers, in the success of our entrepreneurs."
This is how we will celebrate it on Radio 2 -- with a day of programming that focuses on the fine music made by Canadians in many genres -- and that does give us real reason to rejoice since there is so much excellent music available. (Plus it enables you to laze about all day with your radio on, guilt-free.)
Although Canada Live (8 p.m.) comes up in the evevning, I'd like to point out the concerts they'll be broadcasting now, so you can have even more impetus to waver about going out for the fireworks.
The first concert is called The Great Canadian Songbook 2 and it is an orchestral/pop collaboration, featuring tunes by Randy Bachman, Burton Cummings, Leonard Cohen and Michel Rivard.
The second concert comes from Ottawa, and is called Canadian Divas, featuring an array of contemporary Canadian women performers, including Kellylee Evans, Kathleen Edwards and Alanna Stuart, reinterpreting work from much earlier eras of Canadian song.
Here's an interesting thing to ask yourself -- are you listening to more or less older music because of newer technology? Funnily enough two things in the space of a day made me ask that question.
Now, you could interpret that subject heading in any number of ways. First, that everyone is charging en masse to listen to The Signal (10 p.m.), which may well be true. Or maybe it is a kind of rallying cry. (Although that would work better if there was a comma: Rush On, The Signal!) On the third hand, maybe it means Geddy Lee is putting in an appearance?
This scenario will be familiar to anyone who has ever attended a folk festival:
Personally, I am liking (now there's an interesting phraseology) all of the highlights on today's edition of Tonic (6 p.m.):
You know the dog days of summer are upon us when the biggest music news of the morning (not counting yesterday's 
Good sleepy morning. (Or maybe just sleepy for those among us who have been on vacation hours. Amazing how quickly one can get in touch with one's inner sloth again.) 
Tonight on The Signal, film composer Danny Elfman turns his hand to a large-scale contemporary work, 
Pat is back in the host chair on this evening's edition of The Signal (10 p.m.) and he celebrates, (belatedly), the 60th birthday of composer 
Speaking of hounds (see previous post), not so long ago I came across a blog post that posed a question I'd never thought to ask: 
It may seem counterintuitive that folk music should be paired with the word "industry," but of course there is a business to folk, just as with any other kind of music. 
Today on In The Key Of Charles (10:00 a.m.,10:30 NT) Gregory plays music fit for a king – or queen – taking us from Shakespeare to The Sex Pistols. 
If you don't want your own perfume, what's the next best thing? Running shoes. (Though you could make a case for integrating the two, running shoes which provide you with a fresh spray at the end of each run.) 
Today is 
Music news rarely seems like real news, you know, the stuff of actual life and death and taxes. And yet within many music news stories lurks an actual issue. Take the situation of the Canadian musician, Steven Page, for example, currently up on drug charges. (See 
Tonight is the last night of The Signal's (10 p.m.) "Schaferathon" ( a tribute to composer 
Just a couple weeks ago the Canadian (mostly) jazz label, 
A funny cluster of Canadian music news in the past day or so. (Well not so funny for Barenaked Lady Steven Page, facing a drug charge, as reported by 
It wasn't so many months ago that a few posts appeared on the R2 blog 
The Signal (10 p.m.) continues its week long Schaferathon, in honour of composer 
Here's what you need for your music-festival-going summer, courtesy of the Vancouver Folk Music Festival's brief guide called 
This Friday legendary Canadian composer 
Today on 
Today's version of 
The series Live By The Drum concludes today on Inside The Music, with The Origins of Rhythm. A fascinating topic -- what are they, after all? I'd hazard a guess that rhythm as an organized principle (as opposed to the way it occurs naturally in life) was created for communication and to underscore ceremony or ritual, but whether this guess is likely correct or not will be explored today.
Montrealer 
Katie Malloch has one of the most mellifluous voices on CBC radio, so I believe her when she says that tonight on Tonic (6 p.m.) the music is designed to ease listeners into a mellow weekend mood. (Just listening to Katie is a guarantee of that, in my books.) 
A note from the Department of Fun Summer Music Activities. (We're still working on infrastructure and staffing.)
Funny how only one season seems to demand that it be accompanied by songs. No one ever says "songs of winter," for example. But people seem to like having "songs of summer," catchy pop songs that get played over and over and everywhere and come to define that year's steamy season. Partly because soaring gas prices aside, people drive to summer songs -- and also café-sit to them, garden to them, lie on beaches dripping in sunscreen to them.
It must have been an incredible concert. In 1945, 
Sounds like a soulful version of Tonic (6 p.m.) tonight, with Katie playing music from the Meters, Stevie Wonder and Remy Shand. 
Browsing through some info about what's being played on R2 shows today, a mention of a five-piano version of the Sorcerer's Apprentice coming up on DiscDrive (3 p.m.) caught my eye. Well, whose eye would not be caught by the notion of five-pianos playing Dukas? (It also reminded me of an image I came across recently -- look right.)
In light of this week's meeting of the 
You may recall a few months ago a buzz about the 
Don't know what your attitude is towards 
Tonight on The Signal (10 p.m.), proper acknowledgment of things small. (Coming from a long line of short people, this has special resonance.) 
Did you know that it's the 25th anniversary of 
Sunday night The Signal (10 p.m.) with Pat Carrabré presents a three hour special devoted to a composition by 
Although 
And here 'tis, the weekly Choral Concert Bulletin: This Sunday they set out on what the show is calling a Summer Oratorio Odyssey. Doesn't that sound idyllic? I imagine lolling about in meadows of soft clover and listening to music, all around the world. 
One of the stories 
It's been an odd day or so in terms of thinking about music and death. First there was the news that Oliver Schroer had passed away. (Please see 
Just a note to acknowledge the not inconsiderable achievement of an independent Canadian jazz label -- 
Last weekend, perusing the NYTimes magazine, I was struck by this ethical dilemma, sent to the weekly column by Randy Cohen called 
Last March guitarist 
As always the programming on Tonic (6 p.m.) includes some great Canadian musicians, tonight you can hear the Geoff Lapp Trio, saxophonist PJ Perry, trumpeter Kevin Dean and pianist Hilario Duran.
Getting tickets to the annual 
As summer heats up...so does garbage. Or compost, depending on where you live. Now this does not seem like a friendly subject with which to start the day, particularly post-Canada Day when many are in post-day-off-during-the-week mode, which is to say sleepy and grumpy. 
If you need one reason to tune in tonight to the The Signal (10 p.m.) here it is: 
For 
Canada's Dominion Carillonneur, 
Today on Studio Sparks (12 p.m.) the music reflects Eric's love of his boyhood home on the prairies, in Altona, Manitoba. 
Opus One is the name of the special Canada Day show today on Here's To You (9 a.m.) 
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