Songs of the Week 318: The Shallow Dive 1

I’ve written a shitload of words in this blog over the years, something like half a million of them. That’s three times as many as in my upcoming book, The Greatest Band that Never Was, which itself is twice the length of most contemporary novels.

I set myself two guiding principles when I set out on Song of The Week, about 15 years ago:
1) Your purpose is to promulgate good music, not denigrate music you don’t respect.
2) Write only what you know.

The first one’s pretty easy, but the second one is very limiting. That’s why I’m so verbose at times—I want to write about X, I know his discography pretty well, I bone up on him for a couple of weeks, following lots of tangents, discovering disparate gems too bizarre to be left out. That’s how I got to half a million words.

Sometimes I’ll write from the point of view of ‘first flush of blushing love’, that intoxicating infatuation with some music that’s enthralling my brain every minute of a few days. But mostly I try to stick to artists whose entire discography I feel comfortable opining upon.

The result is that I don’t get to share my enthusiasms in brief. Therefore with your permission and cooperation, I’m testing, a new format: Songs of the Week–The Shallow Dive.

Stan Getz, “People Time”

I’ve known this 1992 live duo set between the mellifluous Mr Getz and the perfectly matched accompanist here, Kenny Barron.  It’s mature music, two adults making some of the best “nice” jazz I’ve ever listened to. It was originally 2 CDs, now expanded to 7! (a week’s gig was recorded). I just put it on loop and let it flow. It’s some of my favorite background music. Tasteful, slow-medium tempo, no shrieking or histrionics, just two laid-back grownups making really lovely music. For example, the title tune.

And I really like the photo on the original album cover. It conveys for me the warm, human spirit of the set.

Lake Street Dive, ‘Dance with a Stranger

I’ve written a lot about Rachael Price, in her main gig with Lake Street Dive and other configurations. That’s because I like her a lot for many different reasons, each one sufficient to arrest my attention. ‘Dance with a Stranger’ is Lake Street Dive’s latest clip. Here’s the official feel-good-love-your-neighbor video illustrating the lyrics. And here’s LSD on Stephen Colbert with Ms Price in a shimmery, slinky lamé cocktail gown…

I, a confirmed non-dancer, would dance with her.

Jeff Meshel, ‘Creston Gold’

Yes, world, my cover of a non-existent song. Well, existent only in my imagination, the hit song triggering all the drama in my upcoming novel The Greatest Band that Never Was.

It’s a song that I imagined in my own little Pooh brain. I imagined it so completely that it was squatting in my brain, fully-formed, and I needed to vacate it. So I recorded it. My publicity boss said I can only share a taste of it. The rest will come soon, I promise.

Boz Scaggs, ‘Lowdown’

One of the great advantages of having a short internal memory and an extensive (musical) external memory is that when I feel like revisiting a favorite artist but don’t remember everything about him/her/them/etc, I have this massive pile of words written precisely according to my tastes.

With the kind guidence of SoTW 267, I’ve been listening to Boz Scaggs again recently, his two albums of standards and mostly this live 1996 video. Here’s my favoritest song from there, ‘Lowdown’. Boy, those two backing singers—I’d sure take them home with me if I could.

“State of Play” (2003) — BBC Mini-Series

Music is my life, certain TV is my Other Love. Kinda like in music, I go for the arcane, obscure, highish brow. Especially lost of Nordic stuff, especially Nordic Noir, and NN-style mini-serieses from around the globe. I rarely watch US standard fare.

I know this is supposed to be a music blog. Shoot me.

“State of Play” (the 2003 UK version, not the 2009 US remake) is a political intrigue thriller, 6 episodes. It’s very well directed by David Yates (the Harry Potter films); intelligently scripted (Paul Abbott); superb, memorable acting (special nods to Bill Nighy, Kelly Macdonald and Marc Warren); and a satisfying (if not ‘happy’) ending.

Fine, intelligent entertainment.