The Operative Note

Whitney Houston Dead at 48

2012-02-11T22:22:00.000-08:00

The 54th Grammy awards show is set to become a Whitney Houston tribute evening with the death of this amazing performer who spent the last several years of her life battling drugs, a troubled personal life, nervous breakdowns, and unimpressive public performances, all of it compounded by failing health and a rapidly declining voice. The 48-year-old superstar, Whitney Houston was found dead on February 11, 2012, at a Beverly Hills Hotel. While I was looking forward to the Beach Boys reunion at the awards ceremony, it is obvious that Whitney’s death will overshadow all the excitement. This post is my tribute to an artist who lit up my teenage years, one whose songs made the pain and the joy of love and longing come alive, and one who battled her demons as best as she could.

The late 80s were a time of hope for music. The decade had generated next to nothing in new music that would stand the tests of time and the advent of music television meant that looks and moves often took precedence over content and talent. It was at such a time that Whitney Houston released her first self titled album which included tracks that would go on to be among her all time hits, Saving All My Love, Greatest Love of All, You Give Good Love, and Hold Me. Coming from a family of singers (she was the Daughter of Cissy Houston and a cousin of Dionne Warwick), with good connections in the recording industry, her debut was promoted and marketed by the best machinery one could think of, but it was her vocal talent that made listeners sit up. Here was a voice that was powerful, versatile, and soul stirring. Her persona and album covers were the type you could bring home and your mom would not disapprove. Within a few months, she was a staple of the Sunday afternoon request show on Kolkata’s favorite music show - All India Radio’s Musical Band Box.

Her second album - Whitney - was even whiter than her first, with slick production, and songs like I Wanna Dance With Somebody and Didn’t We Almost Have It All being notable. But the problem with this album was that it came across as nothing more than a better packaged, better marketed version of the first. While it went on to become a hit, it failed to recreate the magic of the previous release. This was the time when music was going through a strange existential crisis, grunge was developing into a force to reckon with, and audiences loyalty to serious music was being challenged by aging rockstars torn between commercial success and creative integrity and new performers with hot bodies and looks that transcended gender, and oh, I forgot, who could sing a little too.

But by now, Whitney had become the archetypical crossover superstar, and it was more of a token acknowledgement of her black roots with her next release - I’m Your Baby Tonight - with its hip hop and soul influences and collaborations. Though this album was also a commercial success, it contained nothing that would make fans look forward to what she would do next. It was during this period that she recorded One Moment In Time and performed The Star Spangled Banner at the 1991 Super Bowl, two of her best performances ever in my opinion.

The 90s saw her getting into acting in movies, with The Bodyguard, Waiting To Exhale, The Preacher’s Wife, etc. She also got married to the ex-New Edition rapper Bobby Brown. For many, this was a strange marriage. Whitney had positioned herself as the essence of purity, with her songs, with her style, and with her unspoken distance from the roots of black music, while Bobby Brown was the proverbial bad boy of rap, with legal, financial, family and drug troubles trailing him like flies after the garbage truck. It was almost as if Whitney was making amends for her image of innocence and beauty. Their initial years saw them looking happy, and they had a daughter not too long after that. Things began to sour with time, with news of assault and verbal abuse trickling out. The couple spent fifteen difficult years together before the marriage ended in a divorce in 2007.

The movies also yielded some great songs, especially The Bodyguard, with almost all of its tracks managing to redeem Whitney in the eyes of her critics and fans alike, somehow managing to retain the pop sensibility without sounding like rehashes, and with some extremely powerful and creative vocal work by her. I Will Always Love You, I Have Nothing, I’m Every Woman, Run To You, and Jesus Loves Me are all from this soundtrack and continue to rule the airwaves to date. Waiting To Exhale with its all-star lineup of performers gave Whitney a great deal of the credibility that she desperately needed, though her most popular contribution to the album, Exhale Shoop Shoop can hardly be counted among her greatest songs. Though Why Does It Hurt So Bad did not make many of the top playlists, I still rate it as a better song.

In my opinion, the greatest tragedy of Whitney Houston’s life lay not in her troubled personal life or declining vocal prowess in the later years, but in the fact that her best work as a singer is perhaps among her least recognized. I am referring to the soundtrack of The Preacher’s Wife, an amazing collection of gospel tracks that showcases the richness of Whitney’s voice, the spiritual depth of her feelings, and the technical finesse that was perhaps largely wasted on an audience that turned her songs into dance accompaniment music at weddings and parties. If you have not heard this album and are a lover of good music of any genre, I strongly recommend you get hold of it.

At the turn of the millennium she released My Love is Your Love, notable perhaps for only the title track, a soul meets reggae meets pop track with Wyclef Jean, and Heartbreak Hotel, a song made more pertinent with the rumors of a troubled marriage starting to get louder and louder. Her public image too was taking a beating with drug possession charges, legal and financial battles with her management company, erratic behavior and disjointed appearance on television and at events making more news than her music.

In the 2000s, she released a couple of forgettable studio albums, a couple of greatest hits compilation, and a Christmas album, none of which contained any new material that could match up to the artistic reputation she had built up. In 2009, putting her 2007 divorce and her struggles with drugs behind her, she released I Look To You, her first studio album in nearly seven years, planned on a concert tour, and appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, also her first TV interview in seven years. The album went on to be a commercial success, but in spite of some exceptional songwriting and production values, Whitney’s voice was no longer what it used to be, and all her enthusiasm could not recreate the magic of her earlier years. Critics were often outspoken about both the album and the Nothing But Love tour to promote it. She missed the high notes, looked tired and withdrawn, cancelled shows, and left many in doubt as to whether she was truly holding together as a performer and a person.

Whitney Houston was able to straddle glamor and simplicity, blend soul and pop, marry negro spirituality with white audience expectations and turn out songs that were inherently kitschy but elevated to the level of poetry by her rich and steady voice. One never ceased to be amazed at how her later songs would showcase her vocal mastery by bringing in an upward scale shift just when you thought she had hit the highest notes possible. And she would manage to add a trill to it that sounded just unbelievable at the top of the melody, holding it for what seemed like eternity.

Her work not only laid the foundation for the emergence of singers like Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, but set a new standard for female vocalists to aim for in the field of the popular song format that would see people like Alicia Keys, Norah Jones, Joss Stone, and several others try to emulate and develop more than two decades after her.

May you find in death the peace that you sought in life, RIP, Whitney.

*******

You may want to read my post written during the 54th Grammy Awards telecast.

The Day The Music Died: Roots of Modern Rock

2012-02-02T19:48:00.000-08:00

Whether you first heard of Buddy Holly from the fun stuff Weezer video that came with the Windows 95 installation disk, or whether you know about Texas because of Lubbock and Port Arthur, this post is for you. For a lot of contemporary music fans, February 3 is just another day. But this was the day that is remembered by students of modern popular music as “the day the music died” as described by Don McLean in his 1971 big hit American Pie. This was the day when Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.D. “Big Bopper” Richardson died in a plane crash in 1959.

Till the time I was able to understand and appreciate the significance of Buddy Holly in the evolution of modern music, I brushed this event off as just another tragedy in the series of tragedies that lines the history of rock. I thought it was an event made famous by the song, and not vice versa. It was not till my early 20s that I began to realize why Buddy Holly was so important, and what his death meant to generations of musicians and music lovers across the world. The opinions and understanding expressed in this post are my personal ones, and it is possible that there are subjective interpretations that might not be in agreement with popularly held views. At the end of the day, I am a lover, not a forensic scientist, and love has its own way of looking at things.

The amount of critical attention that Don McLean’s song American Pie has received is amazing. Just like Eagles’ Hotel California, this song has been torn apart and dissected beyond recognition. Even Don McLean would not have imagined that the lyrics that he wrote would convey so much to analysts. I recall the early years of music video coming to Indian television, and hearing a still young Madonna sing American Pie, and reading about McLean’s wry response that the version was “mythical and sensual,” which betrayed how detached he had become from the significance of the song. However, this post is not about the song. You can find excellent critical analyses of it on the internet, and for those interested but lazy, here is a good one by Jim Fann.

J.P. Richardson, Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens were part of a 24-city concert tour called The Winter Dance Party when they chose to take a chartered flight on Feb 3 from Clear Lake, Iowa to Moorhead, Minnesotta. The small Beechcraft Bonanza 35 was later found to have crashed 6 km away from the airport, with no survivors.

J.P. Big Bopper Richardson was a radio jockey who had composed and recorded a few clever songs, with his biggest hit being Chantilly Lace. More than his contribution to songwriting though, he is remembered for popularizing the radio show format, introducing new and emerging musical trends, and developing the persona of the radio jockey as an artist in his own right. Buddy Holly was Buddy Holly evenin the short span that he was in the limelight, redefining the white understanding of a predominantly black form of music, bringing folk music and rhythm and blues together in an absolutely refreshing and unique manner. Ritchie Valens was the face of the emerging Latin sound in modern music of the times, and was the man who made La Bamba a staple of parties and get-togethers the world over. Big Bopper was 29 years old when he died. Buddy Holly was 23. Ritchie Valens was 17.

To get a sense of why this event was such a great tragedy, one needs to look beyond the fact that Holly had just set out on delivering rock hits 18 months before his death, or that Valens was just a teenager but had built the foundations of what we today call Latino music. One needs to go back to the roots of rock as we know it and look at what was happening in the Americas and the continent in the decades preceding the 50’s and 60’s.

There were several different strains of root music in the New World as it evolved in the 19th and 20th centuries and these strains were not just distinct, but also exclusive. Like all traditional thinking, each viewed the other with a certain amount of disdain, maybe even fear, fear of being corrupted, fear of losing out, and fear of giving in. There was the several-century-old classical music that embraced all of the renaissance and baroque sensibility that came earlier and the romantic movement that followed. This was an European preserve, one that the educated and elite settlers in the Americas brought with them. This music was rich and multilayered, with polyphony, harmony and counterpoint having been worked to the acme of perfection. The works of Mozart, Brahms, Beethoven, Hayden, Chopin and Liszt capture the best of the orchestral aspect while Purcell, Wagner, and Verdi stand at the forefront of the operatic format.

Then there was the music of the Africas, which came with the slaves that were imported (yes, people were traded in once upon a time, and in many ways are still traded in, through institutions like dowry marriages and child labor) from the Dark continent to provide labor to the colonizers of the New World. Africa was called dark not because the inhabitants were dark skinned, but because they lived in the dark without receiving the light of the God of white men. These people were used to provide the hard manual labor that was needed to build the America that we know, working to build the railroads, open roads to new frontiers, plough and harvest the corn and the cotton, and mine coal and minerals. However, they were slaves, and as slaves, they were not allowed the same rights as the rest of the population. They were punished severely if they protested against their conditions, and in many cases, any discussion among black workers was forbidden. The sorrow of being uprooted from their native land and culture, the tribulations of living lives of subjugation, and the harsh penalties for trying to address this inequity led to the rise of what we know today as the Blues, a form of music that expresses the pain of the unfairness and injustices of the human condition. How can one censor the cry of anguish, the howl of oppression, and the blues of a saddened soul? With the richness of their own beat driven traditional music, the Bluesmen discovered the European classical tradition and out of this marriage was born Jazz.

Then there was what can be called American folk music, with two different strains in it too - the indigenous music of North American and Canadian Native Indians and the music of the South Americas. Native Indian music served more of a documentary purpose, using history and mythology to turn religious rituals into a way of preserving traditional wisdom. South American music on the other hand was more beat driven, sensual and Dionysian, with a greater emphasis on the recreational and social function of music. When these two traditions met the more prim and structured ballads and folk song formats that the Irish, French and English settlers brought with them, a new form of folk music emerged, what we know as Country & Western music.

The importance of Buddy Holly and other pioneers of the time, Elvis, Bill Haley, etc., lies in the fact that they were part of the movement that brought all of these divergent and mutually exclusive streams of popular music together to create what is generally recognized as Rock. Rock was the convergence of convergences. If you have read carefully, you will have seen how Country music was a convergence of Native American, Latin American and European music. Jazz and Blues were a convergence of African and European music. Rock, in layman’s terms, was a convergence of these two convergences.

The early 20th century saw what is known as the Great Migration, the mass movement of Blacks from the southern states to the northern states, thereby introducing more and more people to their music and enabling greater acceptance of Black culture and art forms among the general population. This also enabled more and more people to realize the inequities that were inflicted upon these people as part of the segregationist policies of the white government. With the emergence of Jazz, Rhythm&Blues, Rock&Roll, and Rock, musicians and music lovers managed to demolish the barrier of skin color in the realm of creativity.

The three musician’s who died in the plane crash at Clear Lake were not the only torch-bearers of this movement that held racial harmony and equality close to its heart. But their untimely death managed to highlight their contribution to the movement and put in perspective what they might have been able to achieve had they lived on. Don McLean wrote about this event, not only as a tribute to the three artists who died, but also to the period of the 60’s and 70’s, an era that was filled with hope and optimism and innocence, where people believed that the power of music, literature and art could change the world, end wars, and wipe out hunger and poverty. An era that lost its way in a haze of drugs, sex, and thoughtless anti-establishmentarianism, and era that was hijacked by the very same forces that it opposed - the greed of corporates, the indifference of the war machinery, and the desperation of governments.

The music of Buddy Holly, Bill Haley, and Elvis might sound simplistic and perhaps even archaic to ears that have grown up hearing Jay-Z and Rihanna, but they will outlast them in the larger scheme of things. They are the foundations on which modern rock is built, without which there would not have been The Beatles, Pearl Jam, Greenday or The Black Eyed Peas. Finally, for those of you who might not have heard Don McLean’s classic tribute to the day the music died, here is a link to a video of him singing the song live - http://youtu.be/tr-BYVeCv6U

Lady Gaga, Why this Kolaveri Di? - Justin Bieber

2011-12-18T18:39:00.000-08:00

Bloggers who have not written about Kolaveri Di are like leopards who are yet to grow their spots. Along with Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga, a post on Dhanush has become a necessary evil. It gets the traffic and it gets the time on site better than most of the music I like to call music, so it is with pleasure and gratitude that I introduce the very first guest post ever on The Operative Note by Dr. Ramesh Grandhi, a physician by training and an inspirational leader of a very large team of healthcare professionals. His popular posts include the ones on Mark Tully's No Full Stops in India and The Samsung Galaxy Note.

*****

Dhanush’s Kolaveri Di has managed to capture the imagination of quite a lot of Indians, more than 24 million at the last count. Seeing the hue and cry being made by the print and visual media, I simply had to watch it. And while I agree with Javed Akhthar that the lyrics are nothing great, the way it was sung and the way the producers positioned the song on YouTube to popularize it is indeed praiseworthy. There is something in the performance that makes you want to watch it more than once, the silly rhyming lyrics, soup song, flop song—your mind tells you that you are crazy to like it and that you are wasting your time listening to it or watching it, but you still want to do it!

While following this Kolaveri Di phenomenon on the YouTube, there was this constant discussion that it had 21 million hits, 24 million hits, and that it had gone viral I happened to discover that Justin Bieber’s “hit rate” for almost all his songs was at least twice that of Kolaveri Di. I need to confess that I had never listened to Justin’s songs, I had heard and read about him several times but never did happen to listen to him. Curious about his immense popularity I decided to listen to him and I was literally hooked, in my view he deserves all the accolades he is getting. I won’t go into his teen heartthrob image, I am only interested in his song singing skills—there is such a refreshing innocence in his voice that you are compelled to listen to him. His Baby, One Time, Somebody to Love, Mistletoe are really soothing to the ear. I did not like Never say Never all that much though.

Lady Gaga is another phenomenon these days, but she is so OUT THERE that she does not appeal to my middle class sensibilities. Justin Bieber, though, if he continues in the same vein and can successfully manage the transition to “adult” singing should go a long way. Whether he is a Michael Jackson in the making, and will he evoke the same hysteria the King of Pop did, are things that only time will tell, but he has started off with a bang.

Top 50 Personal Development Blogs of 2011

2011-11-26T23:17:00.001-08:00

I began my weekend to discover that my personal ranting blog, Subho’s Jejune Diet, has been nominated for the Top 50 Personal Development Blogs of 2011 over at Change Your Thoughts. This was a pleasant surprise for a number of reasons. Firstly, I was not aware that I was a personal development blogger. My goal in blogging is to help people to connect back to the wisdom that lies within each one of us. I thought I was in the business of encouraging people to undo the conditioning that has got our society into the mess we are in, more of a personal regression blogger maybe. Secondly, for many years, my blog was more of a personal journal, and I started blogging with a focus and some amount of regularity only in August of 2011. Even then, I refused to follow traditional advice of having a blog focused on a niche, and my blog contains posts that deal with frugality, minimalism, ethics, and value-based lifestyles, along with a smattering of food, music, movies and politics thrown in.

If you want to nominate or vote for your favorite personal development blog, this is how to go about it. Go over to the post at Change Your Thoughts. Vote for your favorite blog in the comments in the following categories. It will of course be an honor if you think my blog fits into any of these categories as your choice of the year.

Best Overall Personal Development Blog of 2011

Best Productivity Blog of 2011
Best Personal Development Newcomer Blog of 2011
Best Simple Living Blog of 2011
Best Finance Blog of 2011
Best Personal Development Product of 2011

So do go over to Change Your Thoughts and vote for your favorite personal development blog right away.

Christopher Levine's Eclectiblogs- Weekly Meanderings for Music Head Consumption

2011-11-22T21:40:00.001-08:00

Christopher Levine was the owner and chief contributor to the Eclectic, Inc. website. He made the personal decision to shut it down as it was growing so rapidly that he felt it was losing it's intimacy. Chris is very familiar with multiple music scenes, having lived in Southern California, New York, and Texas. Eclectic, Inc. was truly an all-things-music website. In addition to regular pop music journalism and recommendations and reviews, new artists - often without much prior exposure - were independently found and subsequently brought to the forefront and championed. The result was a community of people who cared more about art than commerce.

Upon closing the site down, numerous people wrote Chris and requested that he publish the accrued weekly blogs as they were viewed by many music lovers around the world daily. He did so, and the result is his new book: "Eclectiblogs- Weekly Meanderings for Music Head Consumption. This book is highly recommended for anyone who loves music...regardless of genre...and who enjoys laughing, thinking and creating.

You can get the book by clicking this link
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/eclectiblogs--weekly-meanderings-for-music-head-consumption/18631983?productTrackingContext=search_results/search_shelf/center/1

Note: This is just a recommendation of a book by a friend, and not a product promotion or an affiliate link! Just so that you know. :)

Alicia Keys' Charity Ball Tribute to George Harrison

2011-11-04T18:10:00.000-07:00

Our very own Midival Punditz and Karsh Kale were the set openers at Alicia Keys’ Black Ball for the Keep A Child Alive Foundation on November 3, 2011 at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York. They set the ball rolling for a star studded tribute to George Harrison with their interpretation of the all time Beatles classic Within You Without You. The long trance-like improvisation was followed by Keys herself and rap artist Jay Sean rendering a duet version of Something.

Alicia Keys and Gary Clark Jr. did their version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps, while Norah Jones started out with I Don’t Know Why and then went on to a duet with Keys on Harrison’s Isn’t It a Pity. Usher sang some of his rap hits before joining Ritchie Sambora and Keys to do Here Comes the Sun. Keys also did a minimalistic and soulful version of My Sweet Lord. Will.i.am performed songs like I Got a Feeling and Where is The Love along with Alicia Keys.

Guests for the heavily India flavored evening included Olivia Harrison, Padma Lakshmi, Tyra Banks, Serena Williams and Queen Latifah. The proceeds of the evening will go towards Alicia Keys charity, Keep A Child Alive Foundation, which works with HIV positive children in India and Africa.

Metallica's Delhi Concert Canceled

2011-10-28T22:38:00.000-07:00

For metal fans, the inaugural Formula 1 race at the Buddh Purnima Circuit in New Delhi was more about music than about F1 racing, as it saw a Metallica concert shape up. With a Friday night date in New Delhi and a Sunday concert at Bangalore, this was a metal dream come true. However, the dream came crashing down as the Friday concert got postponed due to "technical and logistic" problems. This was after the audience had been allowed in, and there was large scale chaos following this announcement. It seems unlikely that the Saturday date that was announced will materialize given the fact that permission needs to be acquired, and security arrangement need to be re-done. In addition, people have reported that equipment is already being packed and trucked out from the venue.

Four representatives of the organizing company DNA Networks were also arrested by the police after the show got called off. They were booked under sections of the Indian Penal Code that address breach of trust and cheating (406 and 420). While the organizers promised a refund in the event the show was canceled, many of the audience lost their tickets in the chaos that ensued after the band refused to take the stage. There are various versions floating around as to why the show was called off. While some claim that the band itself was not happy with backstage arrangement, others point out the lack of security.

For metal followers, other than browsing the featured photos from the band's Delhi trip up on its website, the only way to get to see Metallica now is by catching the next flight to Bangalore!

Clapton & Marsalis Play the Blues - Live at Jazz at Lincoln Center

2011-10-17T07:25:00.001-07:00

Some music, musicians, songwriters and composers are truly difficult for me to write about. While many of the names in that list are from popular music that I grew up listening to, music that resonates for me in extremely subjective ways, most are masters of their art.

This post is a first listen to the new release from two kings of music. Wynton Marsalis. Eric Clapton. Playing the blues. Together. With a horn and banjo band. New Orleans style.

I got introduced to jazz as a young child from the Dancehall and Dixie music that was a big hit with my parent’s generation. While it was Moody Blues and Lynnyrd Skynnyrd on one hand, it was Earl Hines and Rhapsody in Blue on the other. Trying to make sense of the blues in the 80’s and 90’s in urban India was not difficult for a generation that couldn’t figure out a lot of things happening around them. With more than one failed revolution behind us, and a world eager to jump on to a materialistic bandwagon powered by young men in designer khadi bandgallahs and jodhpurs, the thinking-feeling citizen had begun the slow journey to extinction. We would wait for every new album from Eric Clapton (those were his bad years, and every new release was a disappointment which we denied) and Pink Floyd to hit the Indian markets, or tape it on to audio cassettes from vinyls brought by someone returning from Europe or the States.

This was also the age of short wave radios, Binaca Geetmala, Radio Moscow, the news in Special English, and the Voice of America. The unforgettable voice of Willis Connover would be like a beacon of hope as I tuned into Jazz Hour every night on VOA, to discover the magical language of music, one that transcended religion, color, class and country. It was on the Jazz Hour that I first heard Wynton Marsalis. Years later, I would find his first album in an Indian store as an Indian release, and I was able to put a pensive face to the even more thoughtful music I had heard on radio. I still remember the lineup of Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Branford Marsalis backing the 19-year-old up on classics like Father Time, and Hesitation on that album, and wondering how gifted a person must be to be playing with with such masters at such a young age.

Here is the first Wynton Marsalis album that I bought with money that my Mom gave me.

Over the years, the Jazz Hour and the romance of short wave radio gave way to the era of the Internet and podcasts, and I began subscribing to the Jazz From Lincoln Center feed. Each episode would open new doors for me, as I discovered new artists, new styles, new collaborations and new interpretations. But what thrilled me the most was to hear at the end of each show, The Creative Director of Jazz at the Lincoln Center is Wynton Marsalis. It reminded me of the rich baritone over the static on the radio saying, "This is the Jazz Hour, and I am Willis Connover." Childhood memories can be a powerful influence.

The music of Wynton Marsalis continued to thrill me through the podcasts of Jazz from Lincoln Center, and through his brilliant arrangement, collaborations and interpretations. I do not entirely agree with his position with regard to improvisation and innovation, but then every artist is entitled to his own creative vision. His music for the Ken Burns documentary series War, and his earlier work on Burns’ chronicle of the life of Jack Johnson, Unforgivable Blackness were highlights. In recent years, his collaboration with legendary guitarist, Paco De Lucia was another brilliant example of what happens when two masters bring their expertise to the table. His album with Willie Nelson proved to an all time hit with both jazz lovers and country music fans, with brilliance and virtuosity indelibly stamped on each track on that album. For me, Wynton Marsalis, like Herbie Hancock, was a modern legend about whom little could be said or written that does justice to the immensity of his creative talent. “This is the Jazz Hour, and I am Willis Connover.”

When I started finding official clips of Wynton Marsalis and Eric Clapton playing together in rehearsal for a show in April 2011, I was quite naturally excited, and hoped that this would get recorded and released. Marsalis had earlier guested on Eric Clapton’s 2010 album called Clapton.

Eric Clapton has not only established himself as God for an entire generation of modern guitar fans, but has also done his bit to preserve the heritage of the classic guitar forms. The uncompromising quality of his collaborations with BB King and JJ Cale and his tribute to Robert Johnson are proof of his commitment to the master of the craft. Soon, there were cellphone videos of the public performance that led to the creation of the album that is playing in my ears now.

Wynton Marsalis and Eric Clapton Play the Blues - Live from Jazz at Lincoln Center (Warner Bros) was released on September 13. 2011 and it took me till now to get my hands on a copy.

The first thing you will probably need to do as the album starts out with Ice Cream is to tweak the equalizer settings. This is a live recording, and it is not a small backup band, but with a clarinet and a bass, and the recording seems to be not entirely a soundboard one, but with at least a couple of tracks picked up from the middle of the room, so it tends to get a little cluttered all across the spectrum. This applies whether or not you are a lover of Eric Clapton’s vocals.

Eric Clapton’s guitar sticks to the semi-acoustic sound to blend in with the Creole jazz sound of the ten man band. He plays a wide-bodied Gibson at this show instead of his signature strat, adding to the vintage sound of the band. If you have come looking for Eric Clapton songs, you will be disappointed. The only Eric Clapton classic is the Derek and the Dominos hit Layla, which was included in the set list on the request of bassist Carlos Henriquez. Like most of his recent outings, this set list is a musicologists delight, as it touches on the diverse roots of modern American music. You will journey through the plaintiff cry of the spiritual, the jump, the stride, and the dirge as you listen to the different tracks here. The last two tracks also feature Taj Mahal, a surprise guest at the show.

The almost Dixieland style solos are innovated on magnificently by all the band members, including the two frontmen, giving them a contemporary and innovative feel without losing the classic feel. Eric Clapton manages to infuse each of his solos with surprising restraint, only rarely letting himself go into his classic bends and octave climbs, returning to the tightly controlled riffs almost as if the previous phrase was a momentary weakness.

Eric Clapton fans might find this fact a little distressing, since the music you hear is a little of Eric Clapton and a lot of history. This needs to be seen in perspective. You have a ten man band with each member being an icon in his field. The set list and the solos do justice to the skills of each of the performers, with some stellar flashes from Ali Jackson and Don Vappie, Carlos Henriquez and Dan Nimmer, apart from the two headliners. This album is not about Clapton or Marsalis. It is about the organic eloquence of a King Oliver style Creole Jazz band working a set of songs that cover a significant breadth of the blues, including brief glimpses of the changes that it has gone through across continents and decades.

Don Vappie on the banjo, Ali Jackson on drums, Dan Nimmer on piano, Chris Stainton on keyboards, and Carlos Henriques on bass act as the perfect foil to the clarinet of Victor Goines, Chris Crenshaw’s trombone, and Marcus Printup’s trumpet.

It is very difficult to select favorite tracks from this rather academic celebration. Just a closer walk with thee stands out as my choice for the best track, with smoky vocals by Taj Mahal and blistering solos from Ali Jackson and Eric Clapton. Layla is a good example of what a good jazz band can do to a song that you would not have dreamt can be bettered upon. Howlin’ Wolf’s gun song Forty Four (with some nice guitar and trumpet duelling) and the Bessie Smith classic Careless Love are two other outstanding tracks on this album.

With these two icons of the 70s and 80s going back to trace their musical roots, one can only hope that this will serve as good education for a generation whose greatest expressions of musical angst can be found in the lyricism of Eminem and the style quotient of Lady Gaga.

41st Death Anniversary of Jimi Hendrix

2011-09-17T07:38:00.000-07:00

Jimi Hendrix died at an young age 41 years back on this day. He might have had a lot of things wrong with him, but he changed the way that the world heard and perceived the sound of the guitar. May his soul find the peace that he sought in life.

Here are three recent reissues of his seminal recordings that you may want to read about.
Hendrix in the West
West Coast Seattle Boy
Valleys of Neptune

Winters and Springs

2011-09-15T08:02:00.000-07:00

1. I am still alive, and am still listening to music. Nothing more to say about this. Thanks for asking.
2. Further to your suggestions, I have put in a search box on the sidebar that you can use to search this blog, with tabs that let your search for "linked to" items, as well as the whole wide web world whatever.

Freddie Mercury, Queen of the Stadium Anthem!

2011-09-05T01:16:00.000-07:00

The very first music video I ever saw was that of Bicycle Race by Queen, with fifty pretty models cycling around the Wimbledon Stadium track with absolutely nothing on. This was way before MTV brought music videos into our living rooms, and the only way music lovers in India could get to see them was either through pop promos for singles as they were called or filmed footage of classic live concerts. Sunday morning screenings of Woodstock or the Beatles films at the Metro in Kolkata was a sure way to hook up with all the music lovers in the city. The other alternative was video tapes of offerings like Jethro Tull's Live Bursting Out, and Pink Floyds The Wall and Live at Pompeii. While the music of Queen had been rocking us from our turntables, this video opened our eyes (as did the cyclists open our eyes, and real wide too) to the performance art rock of Freddie Mercury, one of the earliest celebrities to die from AIDS, and one of the most flamboyant and magical singer-songwriter of our times.

The reason I remember Bicycle Race today is because it is Freddie Mercury's 65th birthday. I tend to remember it since it falls on Teachers day here in India. Freddie Mercury was born Farokh Bulsara to a Gujrati family in what is now Tanzania and spent his early life in East Africa and India, before moving to England at the age of 17. He teamed up with Roger Taylor, John Deacon and Brian May to form Queen in 1970. The rest is history. With technical finesse and creative energy, they went on to change the face of progressive rock entirely. It is not the objective of this post to detail the achievements of Queen, which are common knowledge to most, and easily searchable for the rest.
For those who missed the amazing animated Google Doodle that showed up all over the world on the Google Logo on Sept 5 (except the US, where it showed up on the 6th since the 5th was Labor Day this year), here is the link. Click on the play button with your speakers turned on to enjoy Don't Stop Me Now.

There are, however, a few things about Freddie Mercury and Queen that appealed to me as a teenager which is what this post is about. I will find out whether they still appeal to me as an adult once I reach adulthood (at 45, I really can't wait, though). The first was the sheer drama that they managed to pack into each song, whether it be a standard love song, a stadium anthem, or the philosophical and perhaps autobiographical Bohemian Rhapsody. Standing midway between hard pop rock and progressive rock, Queen drew liberally from all genres of popular and classical music, turning their performances into a marriage between an absurd opera and a glam act. Many of their iconic songs are written (like We Will Rock You and Radio Ga Ga) with audience involvement as an integral component of the song.

The other appeal that Queen held for me, along with Pink Floyd (and Simon and Garfunkel among the non-Brits), was the mastery of lyrical meter. Queen lyrics are among the most tightly measured verse one can find in modern music. While songs like Another One Bites the Dust and Crazy Little Thing Called Love some easily to mid, this mastery can be seen even when they stray in to more lyrical and less metrical experiments. Even when rambling between styles in songs like Somebody to Love or Millionaire Waltz the lyrics are crisp, the refrains and overlays built to fit right up to the last minute intake of breath.

It is impossible to come up with a brief list of my favorite Queen songs, since every song has magic about it, even pointlessly obtuse ones like the theme from Flash Gordon and I'm In Love With My Car. Some of the songs have become associated with memories in ways that transcends the real music in them to become metaphors for our personal histories. Songs like Bohemian Rhapsody, for example. There is no way I can explain why this over-analyzed song (a favorite of pop lit critical essay writers) brings a lump to my throat, a tear to my eye, and an overwhelming desire to throw all caution to the wind and follow my heart, every single time I hear it. Songs like Somebody to Love, for example, with lyrics that are almost a mosaic of cliched, corny, and trite love quotations, but when you hear Freddie Mercury sing it, it transforms into a song without compare. I Want to Break Free, with its amazing and finger-in-your-eye music video, became a chant for a generation trying to find its voice in the face of the conservative social regression (I was going to use the word backlash, but that would have been being too kind to the times) of the 80s the world over. We are the Champions - the four-octaved victory cry of the anguished and the oppressed. This list will never end.

If you have never heard Queen, which is highly unlikely given the fact that they have snuck into popular culture at every level, stop reading this and go get yourself ALL of the Queen's albums, since there is none that I can suggest you leave out. Pre-synth, and post-synth, they are all glitzy and irreverent, and capture the spirit of a generation in rebellion.

If you are reading this because Queen tracks make you go all nostalgic and misty eyed, well, pull those CDs out and turn the volume up and let your neighbor's annoyance be your birthday gift to Freddie Mercury. As I settle down to my dose of Queen for the day (Fat Bottomed Girls and The Show Must Go On coming up next), let me leave you with the lyrics from We Are The Champions.

I’ve paid my dues/ Time after time/ I’ve done my sentence/ But committed no crime. And bad mistakes / I’ve made a few/ I’ve had my share of sand kicked in my face / But I’ve come through. We are the champions – my friends/ And we’ll keep on fighting – till the end, / We are the champions, We are the champions/ No time for losers/ ‘Cause we are the champions – of the world.

I’ve taken my bows / And my curtain calls/ You brought me fame and fortune and everything that goes with it/ I thank you all. /But it’s been no bed of roses/ No pleasure cruise/ I consider it a challenge before the whole human race / And I'll never lose. We are the Champions.

Happy Birthday, Freddie Mercury!

Sony Legacy: Hendrix in the West (Jimi Hendrix)

2011-07-23T01:12:00.000-07:00

Sony Legacy and the Experience Hendrix project initiated by his family to reissue remastered versions of his work are all set to bring Hendrix in the West back to the store shelves. Hendrix in the West is a set of live performances from the last two years of his life, the Royal Albert Hall on February 24, 1969, the San Diego Sports Arena on May 24, 1969, Berkeley Community Theatre on May 30, 1970 and the Isle of Wight Festival on August 30, 1970. Originally released in 1972 by Polydor and then soon after by Reprise, this album originally had eight tracks, with a smattering of standards in between original tracks. The reissue reportedly has 5 additional tracks, though all available tracklistings onlyshow 11 of them. The San Diego recordings have Noel Redding on bass, while the others are with Billy Cox.

From revolutionizing the concept of using distortion of the electric output from the guitar as an art form, to rockstar histrionics like settling the guitar on fire, playing the guitar with his teeth or behind his back, from using his hip movements as an integral part of his performing a song to phrasing around the augmented 9th dominant chord, effectively allowing him to switch between minor and major scales for the same dominant 7th, Hendrix laid the foundations for guitar work. His use of distortion and heavy driven riffs were the precursor of what evolved into hard rock and heavy metal. The version of Sunshine of Your Love on Valleys of Neptune verges on being a headbangers’ delight. His influence on contemporary guitar might be unknown to the new generation of guitarists themselves but is undeniable. The words fuzz and wah wah have long disappeared from the lexicon of modern guitar players, but were concepts/techniques that he popularized, along with Roger Mayer, his sound engineer, who innovated to give him new vistas to explore in the realm of tonality, thus becoming one of the pioneers of charting the evolution of the “electric” guitar from that of an electric signal from an acoustic instrument to a tonal source that could be moulded, manipulated, mauled and managed to create textures appropriate to the mood of the composition.

The release is slated for September 13, 2011, just about a week before his death anniversary on September 18. You can pre-order it here.

You may also want to read my review of Valleys of Neptune and West Coast Seattle Boy.

George Gershwin and my Rhapsody in Blue

2011-07-13T08:14:00.003-07:00

My writing on music has two main sources of ideas. The first is the richness that I have derived as a person from the music that I have grown up with, my impressions of which I wish to document for the coming generations (my kids, and the other kids whose music makes me question the definition of music). The other is from listening to a moving piece of music that I might have recently acquired or am listening to after a long time.

However, some of my writing is triggered by endeavors of other commentators on music, usually articles, blogposts or podcasts. Such an event took place today, when I visited M. W, Ruger's wonderful blog, Letters About Music (which I discovered through another inspiration of mine, Brian Coverville Ibott, google him) to read his post about Gershwin.

The earliest recollection I have of jazz surprisingly came from my parents classical collection. One was Bela Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra (I know, I know, but I have always understood it as something way too radical to be called classical) and the other was Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.

It was much later that I heard other works by Gershwin and began to understand and appreciate his contribution in totality. But this post is an attempt to recapture the magic of listening to Rhapsody in Blue for the first time, and then playing it again, and again, and trying to figure out what was happening, not just within me, but also with the phrases and textures and melodic lines.

Gershwin is remembered primarily as a songwriter and composer with most of his work written for Broadway musicals and operas. While most younger listeners have heard the Gershwin masterpiece, Summertime, in one or the other of its myriad interpretations in jazz, soul, and even rock, and perhaps even his other popular songs, Ain't Necessarily So, I got Rhythm, Embraceable You, and of course, Swanee, it is in his orchestral compositions that his genius really comes through. I have only heard three of them and they continue to astound me with their richness, complexity and beauty.

The Rhapsody in Blue album I first heard had Concerto in F on the B side, and it wasn't till much later that I heard American in Paris. My exposure to jazz was very limited, but I had the good fortune of hearing the popular music of my parent's generation, with a smattering of big bands and dance (samba, cha cha, bossa nova, and the like, still find it difficult to look at my parents and visualize them grooving to that stuff) to complement the standard Beatles, Stones, Moody Blues ouvre.

From the opening lines, it was a revelation. With the wailing clarinet climbing up the scale in what is known as a glissando, the rhythm sets in, growing to a collective growl, and ending in a powerful and clear phrasing of the central motif. This theme, usually referred to as the glissando theme and the following blues scale train theme are the two central ideas in the entire composition. Liberally sprinkled with stride and vaudeville styles of piano playing, the work also uses instruments typically not found in classical orchestration to infuse it with the spirit of jazz.

Myths about the inspiration behind the work abound, from the train theme to the trunk of unused melodic ideas. But at the end of the day, Rhapsody captures the sense of urgency and alienation that are the essence of the urban immigrant experience in any part of the globe. Perhaps that is the root of its universal appeal.

My younger friends rarely listen to classical orchestral music beyond the elevator variety so frighteningly packaged by music labels (greatest hits of Tchaikovsky, for example), but even the most hardened rap or hip hop fan will find Gershwin's Rhapsody in blue an ear opener. While Indian stores have warmed up to stocking Jazz and Classic titles over the last two decades, it is still hard to find what you look for. The image below will take you to amazon in case you want to get it from them.

Dance the Body Music

2011-06-10T07:07:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered what makes some men and women are more attractive than others? Well, science has been trying to figure it out, and has spread its probing tentacles in every direction, statistical, symmetrical, body fat ratios, you name it, and they have sent their sniffer dogs that way way before you thought of it. One of the confirmed findings is that certain dance moves do make a potential mate appear more attractive than others. This explains the popularity of dance across cultures and time.
Salsa is one of the most popular contemporary dance forms the world over. Debdoot Das, the brilliant young filmmaker from Kolkata, is also the maker of the world's hottest selling instructional DVDs on Salsa and, recently Hip Hop.

Debdoot, who had the dubious distinction of being one of my closest friends through high school and college, was busy writing filmscripts while the rest of the class was battling trig and economic geography, playing the blues with paper and combs that the rest used to keep their sugar syrup'ed hairdo's in place. He started making what he calls “arty short films” at just 16, collaborating with novices who are now Bollywood stars. His TV series, Daylights Again was among the first to address social issues like drug addiction, broken homes, juvenile delinquency, and alienation among affluent youth.

He immigrated to the U.S. at 25, and we lost contact. He popped up on my social networks a few years back, and I was thrilled to find that one of his claims to fame was as the director of this hugely successful Instructional Video series with cutting edge technology and built creatively around the New York ethos.

While for many, he is the creator of the Quick & Dirty guides, for me, he is the cranky genius who stayed up nights writing scripts that we thought were useless but ended up finding sponsors, who stopped talking to me for months over a disagreement over J.J.Cale versus Clapton, and who came up with answers to the most obscure quiz questions to pip the rivals in the finals of intercollege competitions.

Never one to fear experimenting, he boldly went forth where others wouldn't, frequently with us in tow, and almost always into big trouble. The first time that he and I went electric was live on stage at a concert that we had barely rehearsed for, that too on acoustic instruments, and with borrowed guitars (with straps too loose for our frail frames and no time to adjust them either) from the previous act. It was a rocking disaster with neither of us having any idea of how to deal with the sound and the amplification of our deficiencies. His sense of humor was unearthly, and contributed to our popularity as a creative team at events across the country. While his unconventional take on life and art (I learned from him that art and life could never be viewed separately) often kept us away from the prizes, we were always the most popular act with the masses. Another incident from our college days revolves around the shocked look on the face of a snooty audience when he used sacred music as background for a scene in a play depicting matricide.

I will leave you to rush and get his DVDs from Amazon by clicking here. But before I sign out, here is an excerpt from an interview featured by Apple's Pro series that will offer a glimpse into the depth of his thinking.

The story concerns immigration, a topic that continues to resonate deeply for Das. “It’s about Cubans and what’s called the Wetfoot-Dryfoot Law,” he relates. “People who swim over and manage to set foot on American soil are allowed to stay, but if they catch you 10 feet out in the water, you’re sent back. That law has turned immigration into a game of life.”

"On a clear day you can see the lights of Havana from Key West,” he continues, “but that particular 90 miles is so treacherous, even the Spanish conquistadores didn’t attempt to cross there — they went to Tampa.

“The immigrants try it because it’s the shortest route. But there are huge waves, storms, sharks, cold nights, hot days. They’re pursued by the Cuban and American navies, and they don’t have a compass or navigation equipment.” Debdoot focuses his movie on a young couple. “The girl makes it to land,” he says, “but the boy is interdicted 10 feet from shore, so he’s sent back. She waits for him every night for a year at their meeting point, but he never comes. It’s kind of like Casablanca, and it’s vaguely inspired by the Dostoevsky short story ‘White Nights’.”

I wish Debdoot all the success and happiness that he deserves.

Google Marries Music and the Cloud

2011-05-12T08:56:00.000-07:00

First, the crib. For users in India, this Google Music India from Labs link is still up and is reasonably good for the range of Indian popular music available. However, when you try to get to the dot com domain instead of dot co dot in, you get a message saying "We're sorry. Music Beta is currently only available in the United States." Fair enough, except that today saw the launch of the beta of what I feel might be a stronger proposition than Microsoft pocketing Skype.

For those in the know, of course, it is a beta, and will be buggy. But in the face of it all, RealNetworks and Apple have both been beaten in the launch game of cloud based music storage and streaming. My inputs on this are all strictly and officially second hand till Google figures out the technicalities and legalities of rolling this out to other countries. I am NOT going to detail how to beat the country restriction, but it is something even dummies like me can do, even from inside a secure network.

Requirements for turning the cloud into your own DVD shelf, Android 2.2 and an OpenGL2.0 ready device. The app allows you to upload your music collection (not quite clear how they plan to differentiate between legit and cheat rips, but they claim they will) to the cloud and stream it back from up to EIGHT different devices!!! My richest cousin doesn't have eight Android devices, but I am guessing a lot of people out there do.

It will be unfair to pronounce judgement this early, and I am certain the guys out there are working on fixes, but it does raise a few questions in my mind. If this is free, and the music manager does have a spartan look, will we be seeing ads? Will those ads be snooping on my browsing history and my personal communications? Are my musical preferences going to land me in trouble with the government? Kidding, but these are valid concerns. The other concern is of course legality. My limited understanding tells me that a large percentage of digital music listened to locally (off the cloud) by users is not legit, but these users seem to have put the lawsuits and the harassment behind them and continued to listen to this year's releases that their friends lent them last year. It is obvious that more than the app itself (and I have seen some news of music and video/movies on the radar over at Google) this move is a precursor to the stuff we expect to see in the chromebooks of the future. However, a little greater differentiation from iTunes would have been nice. Many of the features on the music manager are heavily influenced by existing and popular iTunes options.

All in all, a landmark launch, even if buggy beta, and one that holds great promise for the non-computer of tomorrow.

Do share your thoughts in the comments.

Happy 100th Birthday, Mr. Johnson

2011-05-08T00:25:00.001-07:00

Robert Johnson turned 100 today, may his soul rest in peace. Everything about his life reads like a legend, whether it be his parentage, or his early years as a mediocre guitarist, his alleged selling of his soul to the devil in return of mastery of the blues, his 29-song oeuvre, or the strychnine poisoned whiskey that he died of. It is interesting to note that he died at the age of 27, with 27 extant songs, and yet was able to establish himself across time as one of the founding fathers of the modern blues. He was a man who lived the blues, in his music, his love life and his understanding of womanhood, his drinking, and in his death. For the interested reader, long live Google and the Wiki.

I had almost no idea of Robert Johnson's work beyond the occasional reference to him in books about Delta blues that I came across. It was after listening to Clapton's Me and Mr. Johnson, that I got myself to find the Complete Recordings of Robert Johnson. That was when I discovered that a lot of stuff that I had loved and grown up with were actually his songs, such as Crossroad Blues, Love in Vain, They're Red Hot, Traveling Riverside Blues and many more. It dawned on me with each new track that here was the roots of much of the guitar work and blues work that I lived by.

My appreciation for the life of this man was not gradual, it was instantaneous. I was eight on the Richter as I figured out how this man, along with many other pioneers of the Memphis-Mississippi region, had laid the foundations of not just contemporary blues and R&B, but also modern serious rock. As I continued to share my excitement and thankfulness with fellow lovers of music, the one thing that came across to me was that in spite of being such a seminal force, Robert Johnson as a songwriter and guitarist remained largely unknown to younger listeners.

On his 100th birthday, my invitation to all who are reading this with a "Robert who?" mind is to go and get a copy of his Complete Recordings, dim the lights and settle down with a warm malt or an icy green apple cosmopolitan, let the hiss of the 78 r.p.m. bathe the room with old time goodness, and let the glorious bottleneck slides, and the despair of the blues played by a man who has the blues, wash over you.

My favorite tracks, apart from the ones that have been covered by giants of later years, include Come on in My Kitchen, Hellhound on My Trail, Walking Blues and Drunken Hearted Man (first take).

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If you liked this, you may also like my posts on the life and/or work of
Jimi Hendrix
Janis Joplin
John Lennon
Bob Dylan
Paul McCartney
Melody Gardot
Joan Baez
Do leave your comments and suggestions.

I'm not Mavis. But I'm close.

2011-02-13T19:19:00.001-08:00

The grammys are on!! Draw the wool whenever you wish, but dont miss out the dinosaurs as they rock. Mick Jagger, Neil Young, Herbie Hancock with his Brilliant Imagine Project, Jeff Beck. The Buddha show never began and will never end.

For live updates, join any of the liveblogs at grammy.com or salon.com or any other site of your choosing, in case you are watching this on a computer. I am not, so I am back only during the next commercial break.

Click here to read about my funny valentine.

Thank You!!

2011-02-10T02:12:00.001-08:00

This is to thank you, dear visitor, critic, reader, lover, friend. Though I started writing many many years back, and blogging nearly 10 years now, it was only the last couple of years and the last few months that I really began to focus on organizing my writing. This was largely because of the large number of dialogs that began springing up with each post. Like a true adda, from being a presenter, I went on to become a participant in discussions of much greater import than I had dreamed. I also began to feel the responsibility that came with this "freedom." This post is not a best of, I haven't done that as yet, cuz the best of is yet to come. This post is to share with you my appreciation of your visit, your time, your concern, and your struggle.

Do you like what you see here? Want to stay updated with where we are? You can follow this blog by using the Follow option of Google Friend Connect, you will find the link on the right hand sidebar at the bottom. Do share your thoughts and responses in the comments section. I truly respect all your comments and try and respond to them as completely as possible, and apologize for my neglect at times.

From November 18, 2010, and then Thanksgiving, unique visitors to this blog (as well as the others that I have been struggling with for the last 7 years) have increased almost 500%. Time spent has gone from a puny 1.50 minutes to 2.48 minutes. The Akkad post on my writing blog has an average time spent of 11.24 minutes. This is with every second person spending less than 3 seconds on that particular page. I have had visitors with above average time spent on pages from 17 countries, something that boggles my small mind. Truly appreciate your presence and support.

Do use the share icons below each post to easily link to your social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Orkut, etc.

humma humma humma

2011-02-03T10:50:00.001-08:00

sivamani and U. srinivas at rock heights hyderabad, feb 3, 2011.

whoopee

Happy Birthday Janis, 2011.

2011-01-18T12:56:00.001-08:00

No. This is not the cake to celebrate one year of pending task items with one of my best friends, but the cake that janis would have loved today. This one is a cheesecake with amble helping of helpers. I am not to blame for slurred speech and crossed eyes, no, not me. Happy Birthday, Woman!!

The Music of Daisaku Ikeda

2011-01-01T18:24:00.000-08:00

As leader of a large organization devoted to world peace through education and culture, it is not surprising that music and song play a major role in the work of Daisaku Ikeda, who gets a year brighter today.

Whether it be the ruckus about the use of the chorale ode to joy or whether it be his own description of his sleepless nights trying to get a song right just short of the deadline, Sensei has literally risen to the challenge of upholding the right side of the right again and again and launched into martial fan dances and broken out in morning songs. Discrimination is truly, sometimes, not a bad word.

Happy Birthday Old Man!!!

Is this a breakthrough or is this a breakthrough?

2010-11-17T19:13:00.001-08:00

ITunes will extend the Beatles catalog's reach to a sizable new audience of online shoppers, who for the first time will be able to click, purchase and download "She Loves You," "Ticket To Ride," and other cherished titles. Troubled EMI parent Terra Firma will appreciate the new revenue stream. Read Louis Hau on Reuters on why this is a breakthrough.

I began my 80th anniversary week with a series of mystic unfoldings. As I go about listing them out, let me start by writing about the first. The Beatles are on itunes. The millions of legal mp3 downloads that people buy of eminem and rihanna or josh groban or even more serious music is testimony to the death of the revenue loss myth.

Enjoy your legit Beatles on your iThings.

Thanksgiving tracklistings and reading

2010-10-28T07:47:00.001-07:00

They say every blogpost tries to get you to buy something or click something. Here is one that doesnt. But it does ask you why we celebrate. This page is easy to print and write chords, tabs, or notes on.

Thanksgiving is upon us, and how similarly we celebrate this festive season the world over is clear in the dhaks of the Bengali pujas, the turkey and the pumpkin patch, the lights of diwali, the carolers with their guitars slung over their shoulders and hoods up, the anniversary fervor of the gakkai members, the widely accepted birth of christ, the year end, and the new year crackers.

O holy night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of Our dear Saviour's birth.
Long lay the world In sin and error pining,
'Til He appear'd And the soul felt its worth.

A thrill of hope The weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks A new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees! O, hear the angels' voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born;
O night divine, O night, O night Divine.

Of course it sounds entirely different when you hear Celine Dion , Jackie Evancho, Josh Groban, Pavarotti, or Bocello or even Michael McManus. Which is your favorite? The one from Glee? Leave a comment, and then read on for the rest of the Cantique de Noel.

For those of you more fond of listening, but totally not this song, google celine dione i drove all night acapella video! Link from youtube below. Don't buy it, let it remain rare.

Led by the light of Faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts By His cradle we stand.
So led by light of A star sweetly gleaming,
Here come the wise men From Orient land.

The King of Kings Lay thus in lowly manger;
In all our trials Born to be our friend.
He knows our need, To our weakness is no stranger,
Behold your King! Before Him lowly bend!
Behold your King, Before Him lowly bend!

Truly He taught us To love one another;
His law is love And His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break For the slave is our brother;
And in His name All oppression shall cease.

Sweet hymns of joy In grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us Praise His holy name.
Christ is the Lord! O praise His Name forever,
His power and glory Evermore proclaim.
His power and glory Evermore proclaim.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1LdxdgaWzE

Dizzy Gillespie is 93

2010-10-22T00:47:00.000-07:00

John Birks Gillespie (aka Dizzy cuz of his foolery) played the trumpet and was one of the key figures in the birth of "bebop" jazz.

Along with Teddy Hill and Lionel Hampton, he went on to lead his own band just as did Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk and Miles Davis.

A practitioner of Bahai faith, his contribution to contemporary musical expression as an instrument of social change goes far beyond genres and timelines.

My one track for the desert island, Sonny Side Up.

Google celebrates with this doodle.

Paul McCartney and the Wings: Band on the Run, Deluxe edition 2010

2010-10-20T08:19:00.001-07:00

Band on the Run was among my favorite albums as a teen. The Beatles were done. John, Paul and George were doing their own things. My friends and I were listening to Jethro Tull, Return to Forever, Pink Floyd and John McLaughlin. Venus and Mars, Ram, and BOTR were the three big releases from Paul and Linda in those times, better known as the Wings. Later, as a grown man, the 25th anniversary edition reminded me of how precious that album was to me.

On its cover, along with Paul, Linda and Denny Laine, were other “convicts” including Christopher Lee and James Coburn, caught in the beam of a searchlight, the inspiration for the poster of the animated film, Madagascar years later. The Apple label with its two sides (inside and outside of apple) mesmerized me as did the storytelling of the songs.

The Helen Wheels track, which showed up on the album only on the anniversary reissue, but was there on the US and International release, and the first US issues did not list it in the tracks, leading it to be called the hidden track. The 25th anniversary issue contained a lot of subtext and comments, and is of value only to completionists and students (I consider myself both) of music of our times. I felt it was a lot of time and attention to be demanded from a casual listener. Well, you do save time not having to turn the disc over, though.

The charm of the post Beatles music is how the four went on to live their lives, creative and otherwise, and the tweets that they left behind in their songs. Harrison had chosen a clear path, as had John and Yoko, and Ringo was happy behind his kit and out of the spotlight. Paul with his above average bass playing skills, set new benchmarks for popular socially aware song and songwriting. The who did it better game between the two namesakes of the phenomenon called Lennon-McCartney would last but a few years, as they continued to create their iconic oeuvre.

BOTR, Jet, Bluebird, Mrs Vandebilt, Let me roll it, Mamunia, No Words, Helen Wheels, Picasso’s last words, and 1985, and the 1974 B Side of Helen Wheels in the later reissue, Country Dreamer. A similar tight act many years later was Tug of War. BOTR easily remains a critical landmark album, in spite of not containing much of either his best or most popular songs.

Mom, Dad, and we recently learned what it meant, even if for a while, to be the band on the run. Hence it is a wonderful time to wait for the 3 CD 1 DVD combo Deluxe edition releasing on November 2, 2010. You can get it from amazon by clicking here
.

you will also want to read
review of paul mccartney’s chaos and creation in the backyard
tribute to john lennon on his 70th birthday