I have a bunch of teenaged cousins, and they do the majority of their music listening on YouTube. They even DJ parties with it using playlists. Anytime they have a choice, they’ll always prefer music with some kind of video accompanying it, even if it’s just a still of the album cover.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
The word “groovy” originates in jazz slang, referring to music that’s swinging, tight, funky, in the pocket. The analogy is to the groove in a vinyl record — the musicians are so together that it’s like they’re the needle guided by the groove. The “groove” becomes generalized to any good rhythm, passage, or entire piece [...]
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
The trumpet player Nicholas Peyton wrote a blog post recently: On Why Jazz Isn’t Cool Anymore. It’s a must-read for anyone interested in the future of the art form. If jazz is ever going to be popular again, it needs to regain its cool. Jazz was popular when it was intimately connected to popular culture. [...]
Friday, November 18, 2011
Ella Fitzgerald lost some of her range as she got older, but her soul and phrasing got deeper and deeper. The series of duet albums she did with Joe Pass late in her life are exquisite.
Also filed in Key Musicians
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Tagged age, drumming, ella fitzgerald, funk, Improvisation, jazz, joe pass, max roach, miles davis, quora, soul
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Thursday, November 17, 2011
There’s a certain jazz lick that’s so heavily used that it’s just known as The Lick. It’s the only jazz lick I know of that has its own Facebook page. Here’s a greatest hits compilation:
Also filed in Copyright and Authorship, Sampling
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Tagged akon, bobby hutcherson, classical, cliches, digging the crates, Evolution, facebook, freddie hubbard, grant green, Improvisation, jazz, john coltrane, memes, miles davis, Music, player, pop, reggae, rock, santana, stravinsky
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Wednesday, November 16, 2011
The best remix/mashup tool that I’ve used is Ableton Live. For many years I used a combination of Recycle, Reason and Pro Tools, which was cumbersome and labor-intensive. Ableton handles the same tasks more easily and has a bunch of cool effects the other programs don’t.
Monday, November 14, 2011
For my tastes, you can’t beat the Ellington Nutcracker. Ellington’s Peer Gynt suite is also pretty wonderful. This one has inspired some remixing from me.
Also filed in
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Tagged aaron copland, chick corea, classical, django reinhardt, duke ellington, eumir deodato, jazz, john coltrane, oliver nelson, quora, remixes, sibelius, uri caine, wayne shorter
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Sunday, November 13, 2011
My friend Jenny manages an electronica duo called Donner Social, and she asked me to review their EP, The Archetype For Defeat. Here are some tracks to give you the flavor.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
I know this melody as the cartoon snakecharmer song. Here’s a kid playing it on bass clarinet: I’ve always wondered where the Egyptian melody came from. It turns out to be hundreds of years of old, and goes by many different names. You can find an excellent capsule history of it in William Benzon’s book [...]
Also filed in Copyright and Authorship, Evolution
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Tagged beatles, cartoons, cliches, das racist, folk, jazz, linkedin, louis armstrong, memes, middle eastern music, pop, quora, stereotyping, steve martin, they might be giants
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Wednesday, November 2, 2011
The Quora question that prompted this post asks: Why has music been historically the most abstract art form? We can see highly developed musical forms in renaissance polyphony and baroque counterpoint. The secular forms of this music is often non-programmatic or “absolute music.” In contrast to this, the paintings and sculpture of those times are [...]