Thursday, December 30, 2010
music favs
Mulling over a 2010 music favs list for a few weeks. It''s been a great year for hearing unfamiliar music. But the few albums I'd recommend in their entirety aren't of general interest. I don't feel like uploading an entire movement of an obscure classical work - a "Sinfonia Concertante for Wind Quintet and Orchestra" by an obscure composer, Peter Von Lindtpaintner, just to make an unnecessary case for for it. Heard a really interesting album of short orchestra works by Gustav Holst, a few of which illustrated an early love for Wagner he fortunately outgrew. The best all-around classical album I heard was Rossini's Wind Quartets, composed at age 12 for strings & which I described as sounding like music from a puppet show opera.
I recommend exploring the recordings of Gary McFarland, his own & those he arranged & produced for others. Also, Cal Tjader, the versatile vibes player with a massive discography ranging from Latin hard bop to classy cocktail jazz. You can browse my You Tube Video uploads. These lean heavily on "novelties" that nobody else has bothered to upload. Some good jazz & easy listening Bobby Hackett mixed in there.
Last January I enthused over "Music 'til Dawn," a compilation of two LPs Hackett recorded for Columbia in the early Sixties with Wurlitzer pipe organist Johnny Seng. Hackett's restrictive contract with Capitol prevented him from recording with strings, & the result was ethereal,"like watching star-crossed lovers dancing at 3 am in a large, empty ballroom. Cheesy in its way, yet almost unbearably sad..."
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
I recommend exploring the recordings of Gary McFarland, his own & those he arranged & produced for others. Also, Cal Tjader, the versatile vibes player with a massive discography ranging from Latin hard bop to classy cocktail jazz. You can browse my You Tube Video uploads. These lean heavily on "novelties" that nobody else has bothered to upload. Some good jazz & easy listening Bobby Hackett mixed in there.
Last January I enthused over "Music 'til Dawn," a compilation of two LPs Hackett recorded for Columbia in the early Sixties with Wurlitzer pipe organist Johnny Seng. Hackett's restrictive contract with Capitol prevented him from recording with strings, & the result was ethereal,"like watching star-crossed lovers dancing at 3 am in a large, empty ballroom. Cheesy in its way, yet almost unbearably sad..."
Labels: music
