Best track you heard all week

[A Lark Ascending]

Nielsen's big thing was 'progressive tonality' - where symphonies traditionally start at the tonic, go on a journey and come back to the tonic, he starts in one key and then sets out to end somewhere else.

I love the Third - but then that's locked into my mindset. I find it the most 'pastoral' of the six - especially the point where the voices flood in. I'm a sucker for pastoral.

4 + 5 have much more of feel of conflict - an almost dialectical crashing of opposing forces bringing a new world into being.

I've been trying to read Robert Simpson's book on Nielsen's symphonies - a bit heavy on the 'flyshit' for me but I'll persevere!

Edited September 14, 2013 by A Lark Ascending

[JSngry]

Yeah, I know about the "progressive tonality"...really no different a concept than people like Wayne Shorter (again!) who write pieces for improvisation that move across tonalities rather than remaining more or less diatonic from start to finish. Very conducive to "story telling" rather than "blowing"...although in the end, it's all "story telling" of one sort or another, right? You start a Point A, end up at Point Wherever, and in between is how you get there. That's not the hard part!

By "devices", the things I was wondering were like a novelists "characters", I was more referring to specific intervallic concerns, rhythmic patterns, and timbral/orchestraion practices...there's a certain "slashing" thing that he uses that I swear is the same as Bernard Herrmann used in Psycho, it sounds like the exact instrumentation and voicing...maybe Nielsen got it from somebody else...this is not my field to quote deep historical specifics, obviously...but it's pretty LOL whenever I hear it, like, oh, THAT! (and not in a bad way, either).

You mention Simpson, I mention Horenstein, and we both mention Nielsen...here's the zeitgeist of all that, then, recently brought to my attention by a friend who's puling my coattails to some very interesting things that I'd otherwise be completely unaware of.

Never mind the yacking over the music...Simpson brings interesting-enough banter (although "wild"/etc. is relative to background, and...sorry, no, that's not the word I would use, not at all, but..onward!), and Horenstein brings a magnificently lucid performance.

[A Lark Ascending]

By "devices", the things I was wondering were like a novelists "characters", I was more referring to specific intervallic concerns, rhythmic patterns, and timbral/orchestraion practices...there's a certain "slashing" thing that he uses that I swear is the same as Bernard Herrmann used in Psycho, it sounds like the exact instrumentation and voicing...maybe Nielsen got it from somebody else...this is not my field to quote deep historical specifics, obviously...but it's pretty LOL whenever I hear it, like, oh, THAT! (and not in a bad way, either).

I think I know what you mean by 'devices'. Classical music (and jazz) is normally lauded for its originality over pop music yet there's an awful lot of employment of stock gestures (that vary and get added to over time). I think that when I first tried to listen to classical back in the early 70s I was put off because it was those frequently recurring gestures that I heard (I still have no time for the grand ending to a last movement that was so common in the 19thC and survived well into the 20thC). You hear Sibelius 'devices' in a lot in British music in the 20s and 30s. And on first hearing baroque music can sound like an almost mathematical use of a stock vocabulary (of course it's not).

But as with jazz, what keeps you listening is when those borrowed 'devices' are handled in a distinctive way.

I'll give that clip a watch later on. Here's another - Malcolm Arnold sending up some of the hackneyed phrases commonly used in classical music in his 'A Grand, Grand Overture'. The whole thing is wonderfully daft (including obbligato parts for vacuum cleaners, a floor polisher and rifles) but listen to how he ends it from around 6 minutes).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=e5343nfOnkk

[rockefeller center]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r28oSbOtLG0

[BillF]

"Swingin' at Newport" from Count Basie at Newport

[John Tapscott]

"Take the A Train" from Disc 1 of

A wonderfully swinging and uplifting version of the song we've heard a thousand times, with variations on the theme, great solos, and nice background riffs. The main theme is not heard until the out chorus.

[paul secor]

Couldn't choose one, so:

Two formidable tenor sax performances:

"Oleo" from This Is Buck Hill (Steeplechase)

"My Romance" from The Real Bud Freeman 1984 (Principally Jazz)

String Quartet Opus 76, No. 4

When the "Sunrise" Quartet ended, I felt like standing, applauding, and shouting "Bravo"! I didn't, but it probably would have been a very good thing if I had done so.

[A Lark Ascending]

Not so much a track as a bizarre radio sequence on the BBC World Service heard on two nights in succession emerging from semi-sleep.

Strange, ethereal music that I could not place but knew from somewhere, then an announcer introducing a clip of Joyce DiDonato at this year's Proms singing 'You'll Never Walk Alone' with the audience joining in in full voice. Had the chills going down my spine on both occasions.

Watched "Carousel" last night to see if the preceding ethereal music was part of the score but nothing there. So I played it back on the BBC iPlayer and it turned out to be the dying moments of Mahler 9.

Inspired programming.

[John Tapscott]

Track 3 "Ostinato" from this CD. A very exciting track with powerful trumpet playing over a strong rhythm section pattern which combines elements of swing and Latin. Not going back and forth between the rhythmic patterns but somehow combining them. The track is structured rather than free but very adventurous and forward looking. In fact, the whole album is excellent. Jazz music at a very high level of invention. I've just listened to it 3 times. Maybe my favorite Ellis. Great sound, too.

Don Ellis trumpet; Paul Bley, piano; Gary Peacock, bass; Gene Stone or Nick Martinis, drums.

Edited September 25, 2013 by John Tapscott

[Chuck Nessa]

Track 3 "Ostinato" from this CD. A very exciting track with powerful trumpet playing over a strong rhythm section pattern which combines elements of swing and Latin. Not going back and forth between the rhythmic patterns but somehow combining them. The track is structured rather than free but very adventurous and forward looking. In fact, the whole album is excellent. Jazz music at a very high level of invention. I've just listened to it 3 times. Maybe my favorite Ellis. Great sound, too.

Don Ellis trumpet; Paul Bley, piano; Gary Peacock, bass; Gene Stone or Nick Martinis, drums.

So did Fresh Sound cop Mighty Quinn's mastering or is it a needle drop? I would guess the former.

[John Tapscott]

Art Pepper - Disc 2, Track 4 "What Is This Thing Called Love?"

A spontaneous, yet perfectly formed and totally satisfying solo. Masterful. Bird-like.

Edited October 4, 2013 by John Tapscott

[rockefeller center]

Placebo (not the rock group) - 1973

Phalene (09:40)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQVG2f-0UoE#t=9m40s

[John Tapscott]

Surprised myself with this one a bit:

James Carter (on alto) playing Sun Ra's beautiful ballad "Hour of Parting". Lovely performance.

From:

James Carter on the Set (DIW)

Edited October 25, 2013 by John Tapscott

[Steve Reynolds]

Tarfala: Gustafsson, Guy and Strid

Opening 19 minute piece from Mad Dogs disc 4

[ghost of miles]

The Stone Roses, "Fools Gold," from this past August in Tokyo at Sonicmania. Here's a performance of it from around the same time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZiQJu2f8OQ

Ian Brown's ability to sing in tune hit-or-miss as always, but John Squire (guitarist)--my God! Not to mention the Reni/Mani rhythm section... they've made this into an even more epic jam than it was in its original version.

Edited November 22, 2013 by ghost of miles

[Steve Reynolds]

Track 2 from Decoy plus the great Joe McPhee: Live at Cafe Oto

How great are an John Edwards/Steve Noble on bass/drums?!?!

Listen to this CD and this 30 minute improvisation and find out

Edited November 28, 2013 by Steve Reynolds

[Leeway]

Track 2 from Decoy plus the great Joe McPhee: Live at Cafe Oto

How great are an John Edwards/Steve Noble on bass/drums?!?!

Listen to this CD and this 30 minute improvisation and find out

Got my copy on LP and it is killer.

[JohnS]

A little under the weather this week after some surgery but but this one hit the spot this morning.

The Night Has A Thousand Eyes from

[BillF]

"How Deep Is the Ocean" from this one. Haunting organ backing by Larry Goldings. Best thing of this sort I've heard since Wes and Mel Rhyne did "Round Midnight".

[Balladeer]

Stromae - Formidable

[BillF]

"I Fall in Love Too Easily" from Dan Wall's On the Inside Looking In, a solo track revealing aspects of jazz organ I've never heard before. Truly beautiful!

[Neal Pomea]

Big Youth, Cool Breeze

[jazzbo]

"Darn that Dream," Lars Gullin, from Stockholm Street, Vol. 4 of the Dragon Records series.

Just has that late-fifties cool ballad thang to a T.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

As today was my first encounter with the early editions of Louis Armstrong's big band, I've just got to say 'You're driving me crazy' - I think it was take C that really got me, but it might have been B

MG

[Peter Friedman]

Not sure if it's the "best track", but I certainly dug it a lot!

Twelfth & Pingree on the CD Pepper by the Pepper Adams Quartet on Enja.

It has a wonderful blues feeling that brought a big smile to my face.