Tag: Music

Drug Testing Music Critics

On his desktop, he opened a database of all the live gigs that he has ever attended. There was a time when he would see two hundred a year. He took it seriously. “I’ve never done drugs,” he said. In the nineties, as the pop-music editor at New York Newsday, he cranked out reviews and features. When he was hired, the paper made him take a drug test. “I didn’t know whether I was meant to pass it or fail it,” he said.

A D.I.Y. Fanzine, Fifty Years On
When Ira Robbins was publishing Trouser Press, he got mail from Pete Townshend and Joan Jett (who told him to get lost). Now he’s publishing a compilation.

Mockingbirds – Grant Lee Buffalo

Devastation at last finally we meet
After all of these years out here on the street
I had a feeling you would make yourself known
You came along just to claim your place on the throne
Now I have been overthrown
Overthrown

And I thought if I towed the right lines
But these mockingbirds won’t let me shine

Devastation my door was left open wide
You brought me into your heart then you swallowed my pride
I had a feeling you were hiding your thoughts
I made a note to myself I nearly forgot
Now I am overwrought
I’m overwrought

And I thought if I towed the right lines
But these mockingbirds won’t let me shine

And I thought if I towed the right lines
But these mockingbirds won’t let me shine

One day this ground will break
And open up for me I hope it will, I hope it will

Salutations at last down on my knees
I heard the bugle this morn blast reveille
Woke from a dream where I was in a terrible realm
All my sails were ablaze I was chained to the helm
And now I am overwhelmed
I’m overwhelmed

And I thought if I towed the right lines
But these mockingbirds won’t let me shine

And I thought if I towed the right lines
But these mockingbirds won’t let me shine

And I thought if I towed the right lines (Devastation at last)
But these mockingbirds won’t let me shine

Red Rocks Attendance – Nov. 1, 2022 to Sept. 30, 2023

MORRISON, Colo. — Colorado’s famed Red Rocks Amphitheatre was the most-attended outdoor venue in the United States and one of the five busiest venues in the world this year, according to data released by Billboard magazine.

According to Billboard, a total of 1.4 million people attended 174 shows at the amphitheatre between Nov. 1, 2022 and Sept. 30, 2023. The venue’s capacity is 9,525 people.

Red Rocks was among the most-attended venues in the world this year
In terms of attendance, Red Rocks was the fourth-ranked venue of any type or size, according to Billboard rankings.

Booker T. Jones – What’s In My Bag?

 

Soul legend Booker T. Jones went shopping at Amoeba Music in San Francisco before the pandemic. His latest album ‘Note By Note’ is available from Edith Street Records.

Check out his picks:
Steve Cropper – Dedicated: A Salute To The 5 Royales (CD)
Jimmy Smith – The Sermon! (CD)
Gil Scott-Heron – The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (CD)
George Shearing – My Ship (CD)
Itzhak Perlman – Vivaldi: The Four Seasons (CD)
Ashkenazy/Stein – Sibelius: Finlandia (CD)
Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited (LP)
Ray Charles – In Person (LP)
Marc-André Hamelin, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Litton – Shostakovich: Piano Concertos Nos 1 & 2 / Shchedrin: Piano Concerto No 2 (CD)
John Coltrane – Giant Steps (CD)
Luciano Pavarotti – Pavarotti’s Greatest Hits (CD)
Albert King – King Of The Blues Guitar (CD)
John Coltrane – Blue Train (CD)
John Coltrane – Live At The Village Vanguard: The Master Takes (CD)

Integration in Las Vegas

In 1955, limited integration came to heavily segregated Las Vegas when the Sands first allowed Nat King Cole to stay at the hotel and perform.[2] Sinatra noticed that he never saw Cole in the dining room, always eating his meals in solitude in his dressing room. When he asked his valet George to find out why, he learned that “Coloreds aren’t allowed in the dining room at the Sands”. Sinatra subsequently stated that if blacks were not permitted to eat their meals in the dining room with everybody else he would see to it that all of the waiters and waitresses were fired, and invited Cole to dine with him the following evening.[28] Cole was allowed permission into the casino, as was another black performer, Harry Belafonte, who took a more aggressive approach by walking into the casino on his own accord and sitting at a blackjack table, which was not challenged by the bosses. Belafonte became the “first black man to play cards on the Las Vegas Strip.”[29]

Sammy Davis Jr. was instrumental in bringing about a general change in policy. When the Will Mastin Trio began performing at Sands in 1958, Davis informed Entratter that his father and uncle must be allowed permission to stay at Sands while he was performing there. Entratter granted them permission but continued his objection to admitting other black guests.[30] In 1961, an African-American couple entered the lobby of the hotel and were blocked by the security guard, witnessed by Sinatra and Davis. Sinatra told the guards that they were his guests and let them into the hotel. Sinatra subsequently swore profusely on the phone to Sands executive Carl Cohen at how ridiculous the situation was, and the following day, Davis approached Entratter and demanded that Sands begin employing blacks. Shortly afterwards the hotel changed its policy and it began hiring black waiters and busboys and permitting blacks entry into the casino.[30]

Wikipedia

Jon Batiste on Thelonius Monk

Five Minutes That Will Make You Love Thelonious Monk
We asked Jon Batiste, Arooj Aftab, Mary Halvorson and others to share their favorites.

Jon Batiste, pianist and composer

“Introspection”

It’s not possible for me to choose a favorite Monk song. At 19, I became obsessed with everything Thelonious and spent a year focused exclusively on absorbing as much as I could. Monk is a world. “Introspection,” from the album “Solo Monk,” is borderline atonal while still distinctively melody-rich. The melody is akin to a nursery rhyme in its playful logic and symmetry, all while whistling overtop a bed of through-composed dissonance. Those chords! The way he constructs the harmony to shift between at least three identifiable key centers creates a trance-like quality to the recording that rides the borders of Eastern mysticism and some obtuse sanctified hymn. The chord voicings are constructed for every note to have a deliberate intention. There’s no room for harmonic interpretation here — if you add or take away any of the notes from his chord voicings, the song risks completely losing its identity. Monk’s way of “super syncopation” is utilized significantly in this tune as well, making his charismatic approach to aligning the harmony and melody a defining characteristic of the composition.

He named it “Introspection” ’cause he certainly had a lot on his mind with this one. Very concentrated in all harmony, melody and rhythm. The master of repetition. Over the years it’s the least played Monk tune of all. This is significant given that he is one of the most covered and influential composers of the modern age. I love the “Solo Monk” version because he doesn’t even improvise over the chord changes, he just states the melody twice and walks out of the studio (or at least that’s how I envision it). Sometimes that’s all that needs to be played: the tune.

Yarling – Vocal Style, Defined, Examples of

To “yarl” is to sing melodramatically with a sort of barely suppressed letter “r” sound lurking beneath every other syllable. When I mention it, people always know exactly what I mean. Steve Turner describes it as singing as though your lower lip is stuck way out.
…
Who can we point the finger at today? The singer for Creed is the current expert. “Crahn yrou trake mree higharr” he yarls in their big radio song. Days of the New come to mind. Godsmack. There are plenty of others. The problem is that the current crop of yarlers are copping their shtick from our homeboys Layne and Eddie V, who are actually quite restrained at yarling; Eddie hardly did it at all after the first PJ album. Chris Cornell never did it, nor Arm. Lanegan and Cobain sure as hell didn’t need to. Nonetheless, it’s now “Seattle Singing” to some people. Sigh.

Friends don’t let friends yarl. Please, stop the madness.

https://www.endino.com/archive/yarl.html

The Singers Talk – Some Quotes from

Simon LeBon
How are you with hearing your own voice?
I don’t dislike my own voice, but I don’t like watching myself and I don’t like listening to myself because it’s not natural. It doesn’t help. It just makes me feel self-conscious. And I’d rather not. I’d rather be inside the singer, singing out, communicating something than standing outside of the singer, trying to watch myself and see myself as other people see me.

Michael Stipe
It’s pretty amazing how people can connect so deeply to a vocal.
I love the power of music. Singing along to a favorite song, finding harmonies and melodies within it that you love, that’s such a powerful thing. That’s such a powerful community thing. It really helps bring us together in a beautiful way. Singing is one of the most natural and beautiful things we all share. What we don’t share is the ability to hold a note. [Laughter]

Bryan Adams
Yeah. Hitting that note and sustaining it, while staying in pitch? That’s tough!
One thing about my voice: I don’t sing.

What do you mean?
Note. Note. Note. Note. I scoop practically every note that I sing. I sing [subtly ramps the note upwards] “ALL FOR ONE” Every single note is a scoop.

But all the music stops and you have to hit that note.
It’s not, [sings, hitting the note dead-on] “Let’s make it ALL.” It’s [runs his voice up to the note] “AAALLL.” So, you scoop up, that’s how you do it. I’ll do it slower for you. [Starts small and eases his voice up into the note] Everything I sing has a scoop to it. I don’t sing any note straight on.

The Singers Talk: The Greatest Singers of Our Time Discuss the One Thing They’re Never Asked About: Their Voices
Jason Thomas Gordon