While David Wilcox can sometimes wax just a little too sentimental for my taste, he’s a remarkably clever songwriter when he wants to be. Here’s a nice rendition of his “Start With The Ending” (it’s the best way to begin)-
Archive for the ‘Music’ Category
Start With The Ending
Tuesday, July 13th, 2010Music Break!
Sunday, March 28th, 2010Here’s one my favorite Pat Metheny tunes, “Third Wind”, from the Pat Metheny Group’s 1987 Still Life (Talking)-
If you like this, you should also check out the group’s 1989 release, Letter From Home.
Jon Cleary & The Absolute Monster Gentlemen
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009I was going through my CD collection today and stumbled upon a couple of Jon Cleary albums that I hadn’t listened to in a couple of years. If you’re unfamiliar with Cleary, he’s a New Orleans funk-R&B-stride piano master who has played on many other artists’ records, including Bonnie Raitt’s. His band, The Absolute Monster Gentlemen, is funkier than should be legally allowable – right up there with vintage Tower Of Power. But while Cleary’s albums are quite listenable, they don’t quite capture the energy that his band generates live. I was lucky enough to catch them in Chicago a few years ago at the House of Blues. Here’s one of the better videos I could find of the band on YouTube, with a rousing rendition of “Groove Me”-
How Much Beauty Do We Ignore?
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009Although the media covered this pretty well back in 2007 (you can read the Washington Post story here), I don’t remember hearing about it. My friend B. recently sent me some email considering its implications.
Apparently Joshua Bell – one of the world’s best violinists – played a 40 minute concert in a Metro station in Washington D.C., posing as a street musician. Only seven people stopped to listen (out of 1097 who passed by), and if you subtract the $20 donated by a woman who recognized him, he earned a total of $39 – actually, not a bad take for a street musician. Still, it raises interesting issues concerning how context can affect perception. Sure, most of the folks in the Metro were in hurry to get from points A to B, but does anyone doubt that if they had noticed the virtuosity before their ears, they wouldn’t have paused at least briefly to appreciate it?
The question is, given how much we all rush about in our lives, how much beauty do we miss on a daily basis?
Wood and steel
Monday, February 23rd, 2009Here’s a live, duet version of one of my favorite cuts from Chris Thile’s beautiful “New Grass”/Jazz album Not All Who Wander Are Lost. Some of you might be familiar with his work as a member of Nickel Creek, but if you haven’t heard “Not All Who Wander…”, you haven’t really heard the best of Chris’s mandolin playing…
Three guitarists
Friday, February 20th, 2009I’ve always been a fan of acoustic guitar, and (as you might already be aware) play a bit myself. In the last several years, a few steel-string acoustic guitarists have stretched the boundaries of the instrument: Don Ross, Tommy Emmanuel, and Andy McKee. I’ll post some others in the future. Here are some samples of their work: