Last night I went with some friends to hear the Joshua Redman Trio at the Festival de Jazz de Madrid 2007. Opening for Redman was a quartet lead by Carles Benavent. Benavent, a veteran who has played alongside Paco de Lucía and Jorge Pardo, was pretty good, but the contrast between the first and the second shows was enormous. Continue reading
Filed under Jazz
I have significantly slowed down my leisure reading and substituted it with podcasts. I haven’t given up reading altogether, but I generally go through a period each year where I take a little break from books. Now one of my favorite podcasts for listening to while falling asleep or traveling is NPR’s Jazz Profiles.
Even if you’re not much of Jazz fan, I think that listening to Jazz Profiles is still fairly entertaining at least for anyone who is interested in 20th Century U.S. history. Jazz is such a unique American experience and art form, and the stories of its musicians are very much a part of that experience. Continue reading
Filed under Jazz
Yesterday I finally arrived home to Maryland/Washington, DC. For some reason the eight hour flight seemed longer than usual — and I was taking a direct flight from Madrid for the first time in six years. One thing that I found interesting while looking at those maps they show on the screen on the flight was just how immense the world was. I was about two hours out over the Altantic and the map was showing cities like Paris, Madrid, Santiago, Rabat, and others. The couple sitting next to me where Indians who had emigrated to the US about 10 years ago and had three very nice boys. Two rows ahead of me was my co-worker Gon’s sister and two daughters. I was thinking about how rich the world was with such diversity of people and places.
Anyways, I arrived home saw my father, cleaned up a little, and about one hour later left to Bethany Beach with my mom where her youngest son and his girlfriend were waiting for us. As when I am always about to go home, I go onto Amazon and buy all of those books I have trouble locating in Europe and all of the music I can’t find on iTunes. So when I arrived yesterday afternoon, I found the following books and music waiting for me, which I put in my bag and set out for the beach: Continue reading
Filed under Digressions, Friends / Family, Jazz, Literature
Jazz drummer and innovator Max Roach has just passed away. Roach, along with Elvin Jones and Roy Haynes, is one of my all time favorite drummers. In particular, I am fond of his work with the late Clifford Brown and the album Money Jungle with Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus. His We Insist! Freedom Now Suite was one of the first jazz pieces to cover issues such as racism and slavery at the very commencement of the Civil Rights Movement. Continue reading
Filed under Jazz
While on the farm in Menorca this weekend with William, Yasmine, Sanaa, Waya, and little Leo, William put on Joe Henderson’s Page One (with McCoy Tyner on piano!), and I loved it. William was also telling me about how he subscribes to and downloads podcasts from iTunes onto his iPod. He has pretty much the same taste in radio and news as I do, so once I got back to Madrid, I decided to go through the iTunes podcast library to see what I could find.
What I found were some of my favorite shows that I always look forward to seeing or hearing whenever I am back home. In particular, I enjoy watching the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS every evening at 7:00pm with my father. They just don’t have news shows, debate and analysis this good anywhere on European TV. Next, I love driving in my car and listening to NPR. Once I subscribed to my favorite stuff, I then proceeded to download Henderson’s Page One. I am afraid (figuratively, not literally) that the music and podcasts will distract me from finally finishing My Name is Red. Anyways, here is a list of the podcasts I have just subscribed to (if you have any other good ones, let me know): Continue reading
Filed under Digressions, Friends / Family, Jazz
The last few days I have been looking for Asmahan’s version of the song “Emta Hata’raf”. Actually, I already have a different version of the song on the album Orient Express by the Yuri Honing Trio and really love it (I also love the song “La Inta Habibi” from the same album). I hadn’t originally known that “Emta Hata’raf” was a fairly well-known Arabic song sung by Asmahan (I didn’t even know who she was either) from the 1930s. I was also looking for a good solo oud player and singer like the music my Bro and I heard in Marrakech. In looking, I came across Farid El Atrache (who happens to be Asmahan’s brother, go figure).
In any event, Fadi recommended the oud virtuoso/jazz fusionist Anouar Brahem, but I already had three of his albums (Barzahk, Astrakan Cafe, and Le Pas du Chat Noir). Nevertheless, I hadn’t listened to any of them in years as they have always been a little too much on the mellow side for my tastes. Then today while browsing through my iTunes library, I came across Astrakan Cafe and decided to give it another go. It’s really a great sound, but what is really great is the cover photo on the album Le Pas du Chat Noir.
Filed under Jazz
My personal jury is still not out yet on Rashsaan Roland Kirk. My friends, William and JB, are dedicated Roland Kirk fans, but I still am not sure how I feel about his music. Kirk played multiple wind instruments, many of which he would play simultaneously (some even with his nose). Although the general criticism of Kirk is that he is more of a gimmick than a true artist, I would disagree. What I dislike most about his music is that too much of it sounds dated (like 60s and 70s B-movie soundtracks), and is a little more on the bluesy than Jazzie side for my taste. In any event, he definitely has a sound of his own, unique, and compelling.
Filed under Jazz
For the past two years or so, I listen to all over my music in iTunes, and that’s about 40G or some 9000 songs. Ironically, the majority of music I listen to these days is Jazz, yet amongst the top 25 songs that I have played since installing iTunes, none of them are Jazz. They are mainly pop, rock, R&B, and a little reggae. This seems a bit contradictory, but there’s a logical explanation. Continue reading
Filed under Digressions, Jazz
“Softly as in a Morning Sunrise” is one of my most recent favorite Jazz standards. Here I have taken pieces from five separate versions and put them together. This is a nice way to see how different musicians approach and interpret the piece differently. Each version coincides with the photo from the album from which the version comes, as listed here:
Filed under Jazz
I have taken the metro to work everyday this week which is not always a pretty site (but that’s for another post). One thing that gets me through the one hour ride (with three changes) is listening to music on my iPod Shuffle (courtesy of FON). This morning I was listening to one of the four versions of “India” from John Coltrane’s The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings. What an amazing work of intensity, not only from the three other members of Coltrane’s Quartet (McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones), but also from Eric Dolphy. Coltrane on soprano sax and Dolphy on bass clarinet both really push the limits. It takes a while to start appreciating music this intense, but once you do, there really is no going back.
Both Coltrane and Dolphy died way before their time, Coltrane of cancer and Dolphy of a diabetic coma. I know that the video isn’t too exciting, but I wanted to share this music. Most of the images are of Coltrane and Dolphy, but there are also some of Tyner, Garrison and Jones.
Here is All Music’s review: Continue reading
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