the rix mix

I don't know if Carrie likes Laura, but this is  one of my fave "being alive" songs. for her recent birthday.

Labels: birthday, music, video

Congratulations to me, passed 1000 music uploads & 1000 subscribers for the Rixarcade You Tube Channel. I wanted the channel in the spirit of my WFMU shows, open to following wherever it took me. This was my first upload, Sept. 16, 2010.

Labels: music, video, WFMU

From the album "Ingenuity in Sound" (1962). Buddy Cole on dual Hammond Organs.

Labels: music, video

Album enlivened by a classy rhythm section including the great Jack "Mr. Bongo" Costanzo, still around & who was performing well into the new century.

From the album "Swing Fever" (1960). Hammond Organ -- Buddy Cole; Bass -- Red Callender; Bongos -- Jack Costanzo; Guitar -- Vince Terry; Percussion -- Al Stoller, Lou Singer, Milt Holland

Labels: music, video

 Even a non-fan of folkies,  like meeself who never much went for the  earnest, sing-a-along message songs finally had to concede Pete Seeger was a Great American Musical Institution. If he leaned on his vast repertoire of old songs, well, he was always placing them in the service of change in the present, of  contemporary causes,  good causes. The right detested him from start to finish, what better endorsement than that?  They couldn't shut the guy up no matter how they tried to silence him. Pete was 94. His beloved wife Toshi, his rock,  died  last summer.

Labels: music, obituary, video

Labels: Christmas, music, video

Labels: growing up, music, obituary, video

Labels: music, video

Steve Allen Show as he is joined by Ann Sothern, Steve Lawrence, Eydie Gorme, Dinah Shore and a special mystery guest singing Steve's theme "This Could be the Start of Something Big". An incredible tracking shot from 1958, using a large, heavy TV camera on wheels with all kinds of wires connected to it.  It must have been very difficult to pull off. But Steve was a pioneer in those kinds of things.

 I watched two episodes of What's My Line" (a classy Sunday night show, came on I think at 10:30, I never got to see it until its final years in the Sixties) with Steve & Eydie as the Mystery Guests (panel blindfolded). The first episode, around this time, they were guessed fairly quickly, & on the way out they only shook the hands of the panelists. Host John Daly referred to them as "young people." A few years later,  1964, Steve headlining a Broadway show (& having been a panelist five times), both having had hit records,  they baffled the panel for a longer time;  as established show biz stars, Eydie & Steve cheek-kissed  Dorothy Kilgallen & Arlene Francis, & Eydie blew a kiss at the audience.

Steve & Eydie came  out of the old tradition, such as was available to them when big bands were going away, the night club & Catskills circuit shrinking, caught between the emergence of rock & roll on one side & on the other the novelty songs  fine singers like Patti Page, Dean Martin &  Rosemary Clooney were often made to record (the independent Peggy Lee composed her own). They used television to great advantage. Their big pop hits were good by the standards of the time, if not quite Great American Songbook material. Eydie had a special feel for Latin music. She spoke Spanish fluently from childhood. Not conventionally pretty, but very attractive, it was impossible to guess her heritage (Sephardic Jewish via Sicily, Turkey & The Bronx). If her passing results in a new appreciation of her talent - I'm just discovering her - it will make Steve Lawrence very happy.

Labels: music, obituary, TV, video

Labels: music, video

Supermoon

Labels: music, video

The annual St. Cecelia Church Fair, more commonly remembered  & promoted as the Iselin Fair, was held  in July on a large lot in Woodbridge NJ.  It was very popular. An incredible number of attractions were packed  into the space.  In addition to the carnival rides there was a midway with games of chance,  two  crowded beer tents (one favored by Harley bikers), a simplified roulette wheel where you could gamble & win real money.  Food was the centerpiece,  a line of open tents arranged down the middle of the fairground with the usual burgers & hot dogs, ribs, deep-fried pizza,     seafood, & other stuff I don't remember. Live entertainment. In the 90's  I stopped by on my way home from working at the Pearl Arts Supply store on Saturday night, bought some 50/50 chances (the pot was huge), & stayed until the grand drawing closing the fair.

Enrollment at St. Cecelia's School declined, probably along with the number of parishioners   available & willing  to organize & staff  the fair. The demographics of the area became so heavily Indian that it's now famous for Indian restaurants, bakeries, sari shops, & an India Day Parade. The school was finally closed, ending  a local tradition that had existed for  seven  decades.

There are still good fairs in Jersey - some large county fairs, numerous smaller fairs  sponsored by churches & volunteer fire depts., a big state fair up in Sussex County  with livestock displays, pig races,  pie contests & massive traffic jams on two lane roads leading to it. St. Cecelia was the best one in my part of the state.

Video from Gary Perry.

Labels: boardwalks, culture, New Jersey, video

Wagner is often enough a young person's classical  music obsession, which is outgrown. I didn't develop  an appreciation for Wagner - to the extent I do appreciate him -  until I was past fifty years old & force-feeding myself opera. I began to enjoy his opera   as background music. I enjoy the instrumental sections, like the Prelude to "Das Rheingold", often cited as examples of early "minimalism."

Labels: birthday, music, video

Annette, at age 44 now one of the great Italian beauties,  with Fishbone in Back to the Beach (1987)

Labels: music, obituary, video

Came across this rather unpromising Fifties LP on a music sharity blog. Hundreds of cheap Latin dance records from the era. But this one is on the Mercury label, the blogger doesn't post much crap. In fact, it's a hot record of Latin originals, & the odd liner notes strongly suggest Dizzy Gillespie was involved in the project. The leader & songwriter are pseudonyms. But I've found no information  about it.

Labels: nature, video

age 95, composed scores for over 300 movies, nearly all of them Italian. From the same generation that gave us Nino Rota. Very little of his music was available in the USA, but dozens of his soundtrack LPs were released in Italy. Trovajoli composed music for all kinds of films, including spaghetti westerns. But  Italian sex comedies & crime caper movies were his forte. His Sixties music for these movies is as identifiable with the era as Burt Bacharach's,  with organ, often a samba or bossa nova beat, & wordless chorus; or something approximating rock music.

Labels: music, obituary, video

Terry Hall & his band, 1997. Singer with The Specials & Fun Boy Three, hardly known here (I had to piece together who he was), but has had a long, creatively fruitful solo career in Great Britain. His distracted, can't look you in the eye demeanor & barely professional voice are part of his appeal. I watched two  appearances by him on a humorous Brit show, Pop Quiz, & he was smart & oh so droll.  He was pushing 40 when he recorded this (the studio version is excellent, but I like this  live performance), a pure pop phase he went through.











Todd Rundgren & Daryl Hall with Daryl's band, from the very good internet show, Live from Daryl's House, but recorded at Todd's house in Hawaii, a home he designed himself.  Todd & Daryl are both Philly guys, & both at their best write & sing Philadelphia pop. Two old pros doing one of the three songs that pay a lot of Todd's bills. Yeah, I love the song. & this is a good way to be aging pop aristocracy.

Labels: music, video

From the album "Velvet Bossa Nova" (1966). Guitar - Neco (Daudeth Azevedo 1932-2009); Drums - Wilson Das Neves; Bass - Tiao Marinho; Percussion - Rubens Bassini.

At first sounded like a typically sleepy easy listening bossa nova LP from the Sixties. Then I noticed it was made in Brazil, the guitarist is really good, the arranger knows where to put the strings,  excellent song selection .  A first rate cocktail music album.

Labels: music, video

Lovely piece  I first heard a few nights ago, appropriately about 3 a.m.  Some versions  are performed over one minute shorter & I enjoy those also. But slower sounds more a "musical composition that is inspired by, or evocative of, the night."

Labels: music, video

Night.  Fifties. Long ride back from South Jersey shore or Lake Mohawk. Squeezed between Dad & Mom in the front seat or, when we had a modest station wagon, in the back seat or cargo space. Three older siblings & a small, panting, carsick dog. Dad twiddling with the radio dial. What is he looking for? Operetta? Music from the TV show Victory at Sea?  I catch intriguing snippets of doo wop, R&B, distant baseball games, religious blabbermouths. As often as not Dad turns off the radio in frustration. If he lands on the lovely, evocative "Old Cape Cod" & stays there, I know that's the best we're gonna get. Who wouldn't rather be on Cape Cod instead of riding in this car?

Fifties pop was not generally good. One realizes how exceptional Sinatra's Capitol recordings were, & why Peggy Lee worked so stubbornly to control her career. One appreciates that Count Basie held a band together, changed to the magnificent "atomic" lineup & style. One may even appreciate the pernicious influence of record label executive Mitch Miller & his ilk, wasting the talents of great singers but driving millions of teenagers to embrace rock & roll,

Labels: growing up, music, obituary, video