As our hearts weep with the innocent Ukrainian victims of Russian aggression, our thoughts turn to Dmitri Shostakovich, a courageous human being and a great composer who lived and worked under the shadow of Soviet oppression.
Continue reading...Song Of the week
295: Rita Payés, ‘Nunca Vas a Comprender’/Nils Landgren, ‘Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight’
Watch this clip and tell me you didn’t love it. I dare you.
Continue reading...079: Miles Davis, ‘So What’ (“Kind of Blue”)
THE masterpiece, universally acknowledged . By rockers, by rappers, by jazzists, by aficionados and cognoscenti, by layfolk and by elevator riders. A monolith of lyric beauty and depth.
It is perfect.
074: Donovan, ‘House of Jansch’
Yeah, yeah, I know, hippie-dippie, limpid, Dylan wannabe, yadda-yadda. They know not of what they speak. Donovan Leitch is one fine artist, with an admirably muscular aesthetic.
Continue reading...070: Buddy Holly, ‘That’ll Be the Day’
Buddy Holly’s great song and the night The Grateful Dead backed me singing it. Yeah, for real.
Continue reading...065: Ella Fitzgerald, ‘Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most’
A beatnik musical (what??), an obscure jazz standard (oxymoron), and high school nostalgia (snore)–the convoluted paths we take to visit our past.
Continue reading...042: Leiber & Stoller, ‘Yakety Yak’ (The Coasters)
“Just tell your hoodlum friends outside you ain’t got time to take a ride.”
The great L&S and their incredible shaggy hound dog story.
294: e.s.t., ‘Dolores in a Shoestand’
Jazz for the 21st Century–the Esbjorn Svensson Trio. So worth the journey.
Continue reading...