seeline

Yes, she was, but I think he's doing it better, overall. Her results were a bit hit and miss, and sometimes too "world music"-ish, for my taste, anyway. But her more recent material (past 15 years or so) is very good indeed.

I would rather hear this than all of the other programs combined. He's very, very good - there's a nice live set of 3 songs for NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts series available on YouTube. (He toured over here last fall; wish he'd been within 100 miles or so of where I live, as I'd have loved to have seen him. Great band, even if smaller ensemble for him than usual.)

How about "Is a woman"?

Lark, there isn't one, at least, not one that is in print, but you could start with some of the Fremeaux comps of early 20th c. Brazilian music and go from there. I would not recommend buying any of the recent reissues of his late-in-life albums, because they don't really show the breadth of his writing, arranging and playing and are somewhat hampered by arrangements that are a bit, well, weird. One thing that's difficult to assess is the quality of his playing on his 1st instrument, the flute, if only because there's relatively little of it available. That has a great deal to do with his decades-long association with flautist/bandleader Benedito Lacerda, who insisted that Pixinguinha play alto sax in his band. Since P. needed a steady income, that happened.

As a former bookstore worker and record store clerk, I've found that the collection I used to have weighed so much that I absolutely had to sell a *lot* of my LPs in order to be able to afford a long-distance move, and looking at things now, over 10 years later, there will have to be another sell-off. I love e-readers, partly because they allow me to have books I don't feel that physically attached to near at hand, while saving shelf space for the things I truly want to hang onto. As for streaming services, I subscribe to Rdio.com, which recently upped their bitrate to 320 as well as 192, depending on the amount of bandwidth one wants to use. (But those features are available to subscribers only.) Because their site is set up to allow for label searches, it's possible to go through the entire catalog of any given label that licenses to them. I've found a metric ton of interesting - often terrific - albums from all over the place, in many genres (from obscure Scandinavian classical music to African, Arabic and Brazilian music that is almost impossible to find in CD form, or LP, for that matter). I like Rdio much better than Spotify, because their search engine and search criteria are so much more versatile, and also because it's easier to read (black text on white background, etc.). However Spotify often has albums that Rdio doesn't, and vice versa, so I use them both.

I would go for the re-presses of the João Gilberto discs, also all the title by Joyce, Hermeto Pasocal, and Edu Lobo, and the Radamés Gnattali Sexteto, as well as the early Gilberto Gil titles and Caetano's Livro, if I didn't have them already. But those picks reflect my tastes, which are as idiosyncratic as the next person's. The JG titles can be hard to find, ditto for Hermeto's Festa dos Deuses and some of the Edu Lobo dics. Radamés G's albums are reissued only rarely, and he was an important writer/arranger who isn't nearly as well known as he should be. Caetano's discography is fascinating, but he has this tendency to veer from one extreme to another, and always has done. Livro is probably my favorite, along with Circulado Vivo Live. (Which is not one of the reissues at the link, unfortunately.) If you ever do see it, the DVD of his live show for Livro (titled Prenda Minha) is well worth the money. But don't expect him to be playing songs from the album - he didn't want any of that on the DVD. (yeah, he can be a bit much sometimes.) I have been told by folks in the know that the Live in Bahia DVD is also very good.

mjazzg, if you look at his website, you'll see that Atzmon mixes the two rather freely. he seems to have gone from having strong opinions to really horrible views over the past decade. perhaps the UK press has been deliberately avoiding any discussion of those views because nobody wants to start a firestorm?

I know! I also liked the descriptions of Maria Von Trapp (including her own), because she clearly bore little resemblance to the character in the musical - that person is much too tame to be the actual Maria V. T. It must be very strange to see a musical based on one's own life, complete with children/siblings.

Bev, I was fascinated by the movie as a child, but I also read Maria Von Trapp's books at that time, so I knew that the musical was mostly fiction. Not sure if they were available where you grew up, but lots of copies were sold here in the US as a result of the success of both the B'way musical and the film version. I remember being disappointed that the actual story of the Von Trapps was so unlike the musical version, but at the same time, there were lots of interesting stories and details in M. Von Trapp's books that made for a good "alternate" version, as it were.

I like his playing, but he clearly has become much more extreme over the past 8-10 years re. his views and I cannot, in all good conscience, accept - let alone support - them. Even many pro-Palestinian activists disavow him now. Example: http://socialistworker.org/2010/07/15/no-place-for-atzmon-at-sw Aside from that, I don't think that getting his concert cancelled was the best way to go about things, but I can understand the sentiments on both sides.

I think that most music - even acoustic music today - is pushed far too much re. volume. I don't know why that is, other than maybe the people on the sound boards having significant hearing losses (j/k, but not really - it's a distinct possibility). And acoustics can certainly have an effect. I once went to a free string orchestra concert in the Coolidge Auditorium at the Library of Congress in D.C. The Coolidge is ideal for small ensembles and soloists, because it's very small, but putting an entire (small) string orchestra in there was far too much of a good thing. I ended up having to leave, as the volume and overwhelming brightness of the sound was literally hurting my ears.

page, does white noise help your friend at all? There should be small white noise machines available over there, I'm sure. I know that one reason I notice my problem more during the winter months is that it's too cold to have open windows, and the air conditioning isn't running. That means that the ambient noise level is very low, compared to the warmer months. Mine really isn't very bad, but I know other musicians who suffer from tinnitus and they have a much more difficult time than I do. Any/all good information is very welcome, and I want to thank page for the links. There is some good info. available here: http://www.headphone.com/pages/hearing-101 Scroll down for links.

I've had tinnitus for 10 years, but in my case, it started due to a *bad* side effect of an antibiotic. I had a severe ear infection and kept hearing high-frequency sounds that I thought (at times) were being made by my cell phone's ringer. It was my ears. Mine has subsided quite a bit, but I notice it more during the winter months, and at any time that I am experiencing congestion/pressure in my ears and sinuses. I am able to live with it, but, for instance, today it is kind of bad (likely due to an approaching low pressure front) and I am more aware of it now that I'm thinking about it. Often I find that yawning or swallowing helps a bit, just as you do on a plane or when making a drive up a steep slope or mountain. I wish I could suggest something to help your friend, page. It sounds like his case is particularly bad. I also wear ear protection whenever I'm playing, though at home, I can tone down my djembe's loudest/highest frequency sounds by putting a t-shirt on top of the head.

I think that whoever wrote it spent a lot of time listening to both Brazilian music and North American interpretations of bossa nova and samba jazz, but my guess is that the links JSngry posted give you the information you are looking for.