Movies We've Just Watched discussion
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Stuff We've Just Listened To
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Phillip
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Aug 12, 2014 08:46PM
drove from seattle to port townsend (and enjoyed the ferry to edmunds .. so nice!). anyway, on the road we listened to CANTO EN RE, a wonderful compilation of sardinian folk music that was curated by my pal paolo angeli, who grew up in sardinia.
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Loaded up on Coltrane during recent travels -- LIVE AT THE VILLAGE VANGUARD AGAIN!, CONCERT IN JAPAN, ONE DOWN ONE UP, IMPRESSIONS, and a compilation containing OM, KULU SE MAMA and SELFLESSNESS.I suspect major revelations will soon be mine.
that's quite a cast there, sir! it's incredible how much music he was putting out and how consistently high the quality is on every one of those recordings. OM might be the only one that doesn't ring with the intensity that the others have - but it's been decades since i listened to it, i am probably so wrong in that assessment. his health was in decline when that record was made ... if there is anything off with it, i think that's the mark. it's his last recording.i know you just loaded up with a LOT of music, but one of my favorites from the mid-60's is INTERSTELLAR SPACE. if you have the inclination, check it out. it's a mind blower - a duet with rashied ali on drums. i've listened to it so many times.
Ok.. can I get some help from you all movie/music lovers? I plan on making an updated Taming of the Shrew for my drama bums, but for some reason my brain isn't firing on the things I'm usually good at--finding music that relates to story line: too much vino this summer? Remember it's for school.. some just bumper clips.I need songs about bad (rebellious or Cantankerous) Girls, Bad (Drunken, crazy) Boys, and overbearing Fathers, and shallow but pretty girls
So far I have The Cramps: "All Women Are Bad" and possibly The Beach Boys "I'm Bugged at My Old Man"??
I have considered, and Rejected as too obvious, boring, or too auto tuned: Joan Jett "Bad Reputation", The Cops theme song, Rihanna, Pink, Avril Lavigne, KE$HA, Donna Summers, The Britney, MIA, Salt 'n' Pepa, Eminem, George Thorogood, and almost all gangster rap...
Plus the Shrew is a comedy, ultimately, with a lot of slapstick...urrg. Maybe I should just keep looping the Looney Tunes theme.
i would prefer missy elliot over any of the hip hop crew you mentioned ... UNDER CONSTRUCTION is a nice disc. let me think about this for a minute.
"shallow but pretty girls" ... doesn't katy perry's entire discography fit in this category?
picked up bill monroe's OFF THE RECORD (live recordings) VOLUME 1 1956 - 1969 on the smithsonian folkways label, because sometimes i need to get my blazing bluegrass on ... just fantastic.
Phillip wrote: "i would prefer missy elliot over any of the hip hop crew you mentioned ... UNDER CONSTRUCTION is a nice disc. let me think about this for a minute.
"shallow but pretty girls" ... doesn't katy pe..."
Thanks for helping me do my job--at least I've now written most of two acts and dredged up T. Rex for Bad Boys--it is really sad how slim the pickings are for smart-but-not immoral-rebellious -thinking girls==Missy Elliot is the right direction).
Katy Perry? I just can't--except in emergency. I did find newish guy called Jesse McCartney who wrote a pseudo punk song called "Daddy's Little Girl" that I think I can live with. Unless something better comes along, the lyrics are perfect.
Phillip wrote: "picked up bill monroe's OFF THE RECORD (live recordings) VOLUME 1 1956 - 1969 on the smithsonian folkways label, because sometimes i need to get my blazing bluegrass on ... just fantastic."Mentioned copiously in Dylan's auto bio.
i was kidding about the katy perry thing ... thought that was obvious. i'd rather listen to a garbage disposal.
Phillip wrote: "i was kidding about the katy perry thing ... thought that was obvious. i'd rather listen to a garbage disposal."!!! :D I did get that you were kidding: I just love to stomp on the pop princesses who whore themselves out via the industry. It's my hobby. I can't help the automatic startle response to boring new hair colors/dos.
transcribed the complete music from IN A SILENT WAY, which was, i am pretty sure, the first miles davis record i ever owned. it's such a beautiful record - read through it all yesterday with my jazz ensemble students and they seemed into it. happy for that.also downloaded scores and music for j.s. bach's ORCHESTRAL SUITE IN D MAJOR, for the orchestra that i lead. we listened to the three movements i think are a good fit for them and our program. we were less successful in reading through everything. two of the students are bringing some pop music - an orchestral arrangement of the beatles' ACROSS THE UNIVERSE and a regina specktor song i haven't heard yet ... might be a nice cross section of material. kind of rare that i have the winter concert program all figured out the first week of school.
in addition, i've been listening to IN RAINBOWS and OK COMPUTER - my favorite radiohead records. that's some good stuff right there.
Phillip wrote: "transcribed the complete music from IN A SILENT WAY, which was, i am pretty sure, the first miles davis record i ever owned. it's such a beautiful record - read through it all yesterday with my jaz..."Well, I heard this for the first time tonight and really dug it. John Lurie. I know about the other guys he plays with: Medeski Ribot Martin (sp?) and the Russian Band they play with AUktyon who I really really like. So this was a nice surprise for my movie viewing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oMF5...
in addition, i've been listening to IN RAINBOWS and OK COMPUTER - my favorite radiohead records. that's some good stuff right there.
One of my art teacher friends who works at a DC boarding school for middle schoolers was looking for classroom music for his boys, and OK Computer and Flaming Lips' Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robot were my go to suggestions. Robots and Computers Taking over--middle school boy fantasy stuff?
Today at the gym, I listened to the last movement of John Adams' NAIVE AND SENTIMENTAL MUSIC followed by Coltrane's "My Favorite Things" from the VILLAGE VANGUARD AGAIN album -- mind officially blown.
is that the new john adams' recording you were talking about recently? all the village vanguard recordings are dope! i'm going back to practicing right now, but when i finish (you never finish, right?) i'm going to put on the first village vanguard record, with dolphy ... might be my favorite, but so hard to choose!
Tom wrote: "Today at the gym, I listened to the last movement of John Adams' NAIVE AND SENTIMENTAL MUSIC followed by Coltrane's "My Favorite Things" from the VILLAGE VANGUARD AGAIN album -- mind officially blown."Like that one, too.
Phillip: John Lurie: This is the one that I liked..he is new to me, keep in mind and I sometimes get taken with new toys. I also liked the soundtrack to DBL. Liked the blues-jazz piano/guitarhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oMF5...
cool, but waits offered up most of the songs that show up in DOWN BY LAW ... the more sound-tracky cuts are from lurie. and i'm super critical of saxophone players, so don't mind me.
Phillip wrote: "is that the new john adams' recording you were talking about recently?..."Nope, NAIVE AND SENTIMENTAL MUSIC goes back about 8 years. The recent one was CITY NOIR, I think.
thanks for clarifying ... i don't know N&SM.
super busy week - performed the music of ornette coleman last night with ornettology, a group i have been active in over the past few years. we have been compiling a pretty impressive book of his compositions. last night we played BUG POWDER - THE MILITARY - BUG POWDER II (from NAKED LUNCH soundtrack and from ornette's SKIES OF AMERICA symphony) - my arrangement of FOLK TALE - LAW YEARS - SADNESS; HAPPY HOUSE - THE GOLDEN NUMBER - and we closed with THREE WISHES. so, naturally, i was listening to a lot of ornette earlier this week - not necessarily the recording mentioned, but lots of the atlantic stuff from that big delicious box set BEAUTY IS A RARE THING.
tonight and later again this week i am playing TIPS - a composition by steve lacy based on aphorisms by george braque - beautiful music, really. was listening to that record on the hat art label and some other lacy earlier today.
the lost trio's MONKWORK CD was released today, and lots of CD release shows are coming up in the next few weeks. i'm ALWAYS listening to a lot of monk, and lately i have been listening to the various trio recordings he made on prestige and riverside - oddly, columbia never released any of his trio recordings, i guess that classic quartet stayed at the helm during his contract with columbia - he only released solo albums and quartet records on columbia. i love the trios with oscar pettiford and art blakey!
woke up in a beethoven mood today and am listening to all the odd number symphonies (my faves?) 1 is cool - he's still a student of hadyn's, so you can forgive all the insistence on sticking to form, but by the time you get to the 3rd symphony, the man is steering his own course. and what a beautiful journey! the 3rd symphony was one of the very first records i received when i was a wee lad, and it still blows me away. moving on to the 5th now, and reading bolano and sipping some coffee ... life is good sometimes.
yesterday was john coltrane's birthday, so i celebrated by listening to LIVE AT BIRDLAND, CRESCENT, A LOVE SUPREME, MEDITATIONS, and i watched several videos on youtube from 1963, mostly from european tours - a great period for the quartet, an interesting period, a sort of transition between the uber-pyrotechnics of the GIANT STEPS period and before the more open, free period. there are albums that document some of this period, namely LIVE IN EUROPE, THE EUROPEAN TOUR ... those are the ones i know best, which were released on the pablo label.all fantastic stuff, thankful for the man and his music and all i have learned from it.
Sorry to be the lowbrow element, but I am really loving some German guy named Shantel who plays with a gypsy jazz band--it is alive.
I had the great pleasure of listening to our own Phillip's work in the Lost Trio's MONKWORK, an experience I don't hesitate strongly to recommend. And also Orchestra Nostalgico's release of film music by Rota, Herrmann, Barry, Morricone etc. -- the folks at the gym must have wondered what I was on, I had this big goofy smile on my face the whole time. The Rota pieces are gorgeously done, and there's a suite of James Bond music that must be heard to be believed. I'll be doing a lot of believing.
thanks for the shout, tom! i'm happy to be on a few releases that have emerged this year, and i'm very proud of the monk record - we put a lot of thought into it.orchestra nostalgico waited perhaps too long to make that record - we have at least two more records worth of material and i fear that it will be a few more years before we get around to recording all that stuff. oh well - at least some folks are able to enjoy this new one ... joshua did a wonderful job with the bond medley, and i think sheldon did a great job with VERTIGO ... he's arranged all the music from that film and, again, i just wish we had made room for more of it.
cheers!
picked up two discs today at amoeba and have been listening to them - SYRO, the new aphex twin release, is really interesting: you might say he still fits into classic electronica, but the energy is high and the way the music is layered is a bit more modern and edgy than the usual fare. haven't made it all the way through the 63 minute program, but i'm digging it for sure.i also picked up LOVE CALL, one of ornette coleman's classic recordings that he made for blue note in the late 60's (67, i believe). on this date he used jimmy garrison and elvin jones, the bassist and drummer from john coltrane's classic quartet. the result isn't a patchwork affair, with typical coltrane rhythmic conceptions at work with ornette's lyrical steamroll floating on top, but rather four virtuosic improvisers creating a great group sound that is different from the sound you expect from ornette, or trane. i don't know how all these years have passed and i'd never heard this one, but i'm glad i picked it up. you can find the same personnel on NEW YORK IS NOW, and i forgot to mention that instead of don cherry playing trumpet alongside ornette, he has fellow texan dewey redman (they went to high school together in fort worth back in the day). dewey is one of my favorite saxophonists, who went on to do a lot of great work with keith jarrett in the 70's.
I got the new Steve Reich album, RADIO REWRITE. I'm having mixed feelings about it. The first piece is a new recording, by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood, of Reich' ELECTRIC COUNTERPOINT, a fine and razorsharp performance of multiple guitars doing that Reich thing, and Greenwood plays the living daylights out of it. Next up is PIANO COUNTERPOINT, which is less effective, a reworking of Reich's SIX PIANOS that never quite takes off somehow.The main piece is a new work, apparently based on the music of Radiohead (of which Jonny Greenwood is the lead guitarist), but it doesn't really seem to have much Radiohead going on in it -- it just sounds like most of Reich's output over the past ten to twenty years, very familiar to these ears. To be fair, this piece does have some spark to it, as opposed to the really lifeless by-the-numbers hackwork of Reich's inexplicably prize-winning DOUBLE SEXTET of a few years back.
An agreeable album overall. That ELECTRIC COUNTERPOINT is going to be getting a lot of play from me, no doubt.
cool - i'm most interested in greenwood's work - having produced some great soundtrack stuff over the past few years (working with p t anderson) and, you know, the guitar work on just about any radiohead record is stellar.carrying on with SYRO, the new aphex twin record that i mentioned abobe. it produced an effect that often happens with new pop music - i like it a lot on the first two listens and then get kind of bored with it. to be fair, i think 5 or 6 of the 15 songs are very good - just kind of weird that the other tracks are fairly ordinary given the high quality of the tracks i like. oh well.
played a wonderful concert last night with the pianist evelyn davis and guitar genius fred frith. also on the bill was negativwobblyland - a collaboration between wobbly (to call him a dj would be a misnomer, but i don't know what else to call him - don't think groove and dancing and you'll be fine) and peter conheim from negativland. peter gave me the new negativland record, which is a two-cd set that is currently blowing my damned mind. the cd "packaging" is housed in a copy of the holy bible and the cd is called acts 1 & 2 ... if you're confused, that's probably the intention.
Saw a marvelous, magical play last night, a song cycle by Dave Malloy entitled GHOST QUARTET. Four musicians perform a group of songs that seem to tell a series of interconnecting ghost stories, and if I got a bit lost that only means that I'll have to listen to the songs when they come out on CD which will, of course, be a pleasure.One of the particular joys of the evening was a section based on the ARABIAN NIGHTS, where Sheherezade asks the king why he has Thelonious Monk's ghost locked in a room playing piano. And then later, one of the musicians asked Malloy, who was performing, why he'd chosen Monk, did he think Monk hadn't gone to heaven? And Malloy's reply was to the effect that maybe Monk had work still unfinished, or wasn't ready to die, or maybe there just isn't a heaven at all, which actually seems pretty likely...
I like a good deal of the apex twin I've heard . Something like XTAL (? I think that's the name, has a good October vibe).
Tom wrote: "Saw a marvelous, magical play last night, a song cycle by Dave Malloy entitled GHOST QUARTET. Four musicians perform a group of songs that seem to tell a series of interconnecting ghost stories, a..."this sounds great.
most of the jazz establishment failed sorely to acknowledge monk in his own lifetime - now it's as if they championed him all along. it it wasn't for coleman hawkins pushing monk's music for well over 10 years, it's entirely possible the man would have been overlooked completely. if his ghost refuses to rest easy, it's because he's probably completely flabbergast to learn that there are jazz competitions named in his honor today (a fact that would have surely pissed him off, i think).
Tracy wrote: "I like a good deal of the apex twin I've heard . Something like XTAL (? I think that's the name, has a good October vibe)."indeed, SYRO, as i stated above. i liked it more when i first got it - the love wore off fairly quickly.
went to amoeba over the weekend and found MINGUS AH UM and MINGUS DYNASTY, two of charles mingus' classic columbia recordings for $4.99 each (you just can't beat amoeba at times) ... they were released on vinyl as NOSTALGIA IN TIMES SQUARE back in the 80's as a double LP re-issue, and i wore those puppies out long ago. glad to have them again on disc.i also picked up the kronos quartet's recording of SALOME DANCES FOR PEACE, one of terry riley's transcendental compositions that really works (for me, anyway). also glad to have that in the collection again - must have loaned it to someone years ago.
Phillip wrote: "Tracy wrote: "I like a good deal of the apex twin I've heard . Something like XTAL (? I think that's the name, has a good October vibe)."indeed, SYRO, as i stated above. i liked it more when i f..."
yeah. That's what's sad about when one is such a music lover--you know all the chords after awhile((
been staying at my girlfriend's place in new york and listening to the kronos quartet's recording of terry riley's SALOME DANCES FOR PEACE (nice to have access to her excellent record collection). this is one of my favorite recordings of terry's music, after his epic UNTITLED ORGAN piece (and REED STREAMS) from the early 60's. kronos plays the hell out of this music, which isn't really minimalism, as much of terry's music is, but strains of it come and go. so good.
INHERENT VICE soundtrack -- pure deliciousness.Except---
They made the decision to add some of the verbal stuff from the film to at least two of the tracks, and I'm finding it a distraction. What would have been my favorite track, a marvelous Pink Floyd-y little vibe, is now less delightful than it would have been.
I'll always have "Shasta Fay Hepworth" though.
Tom wrote: "INHERENT VICE soundtrack -- pure deliciousness.Except---
They made the decision to add some of the verbal stuff from the film to at least two of the tracks, and I'm finding it a distraction. Wh..."
I agree with that about the added dialogue. Hoping to see the movie in the next hour...
looking forward to your reflections on the film!
edited for DOH!
wandered into a goodwill in ellsworth maine today and found a copy of john lee hooker's early chess recordings and picked up a NEW copy for $2.98 ... wow, this is that vintage period of hooker's that predicts rock and roll, but is beyond any kind of comparison ... it's just knock you out good.
along with lots of things in the realm of electronic music that i've been listening to lately, tom sent a disc with johnny greenwood and pendercki's music - it's so gloriously good! i must have him explain what is what on here, since there are no liner notes. it sounds like the soundtrack from THERE WILL BE BLOOD (greenwood) and (at least) parts (if not all) of THRENODY FOR THE VICTIMS OF HIROSHIMA (penderecki). fantastic writing for strings - which is super cool in terms of timing, because i got a commission to write something for string orchestra, although mine will be much much different, it's always nice to hear what people do when writing for certain instruments.
Augh! I thought the track names would download onto the CDs. I'll get you a list!
ahhxxx. I feel like a rank amateur---where do you start, Phillip, with writing music? I have this idea, but it's all cerebral--I want to make it more, you know, nerves and blood. I know this is an unanswerable question. BTW, I'm glad you all gave me the forewarning to prick up my ears to the IV soundtrack. Amazing how much of it did not rely on 70s nostalgia.
but at the same time, i think the way the INHERENT VICE soundtrack is mixed, it comes off sounding a lot like records used to sound when i listened to them on my turntable, circa 1972. i'm listening to the soundtrack right now, as it turns out, thanks to tom, who passed it on to me. i would agree with a comment tom made on another thread that it seems odd that johnny greenwood hasn't had a single nod for any of the great soundtracks he has produced for paul thomas anderson. they're fantastic.
i've spent way too much money at amoeba lately on jazz records, but wow, i picked up a nice array of stuff over the past couple of days ...john lee hooker - country blues
derek bailey - pieces for solo guitar
kenny burrell - a night at the vanguard
louis armstrong & earl fatha hines - columbia masterworks
fletcher henderson columbia box set - a study in frustration (3 CDs)
dexter gordon - homecoming - live at the village vanguard - columbia masterworks - box set
it's all so damned good i can't believe it. the fletcher henderson stuff is crazy good - from the late 20's to the 40's
It looks like Aphex Twin has been dropping an insane amount of unreleased tracks on Soundcloud for free listening the past couple days. Like, more than 100 so far. So that's kind of neat.
https://soundcloud.com/user48736353001
Holy shit, Baxter has returned to the fold! Which means maybe it's time for me to as well. Now that I have quit the Book of Face, maybe I will start having time for GR again. And if I'm starting in this thread, the obvious place to go is my 10 best albums of 2014 list......which I will have to do on a laptop since I just found out GR's mobile app doesn't want to scroll on this phone. Here's a good bet, though: there may be three people here who have heard of more than two acts represented.
