Archive for the ‘Listening’ Category
ABS just posted a feature on the trumpet titled Miles Beyond: The New Sounds Of Trumpet. Of course, we here at Greenleaf are fans of the instrument. And there are some great tunes streaming from Forbes Graham, Peter Evans, Kris Tiner, Nate Wooley, and Toshinori Kondo. Great feature. Reminded me of the D:O post Dave did awhile back.
So much cool stuff happening with this instrument. Hard to absorb it all.
A few weeks ago, I had a brief tweeting with @billforman. He did an interview with Nels Cline — no secret we’re fans of Nels around here — in which Nels mentions his and Jeff Tweedy’s mutual admiration for the band Patto. You can read a lot about Patto over at Wiki. Ollie Halsall is one of my favorite guitarists. My band also covered this tune from the unfinished record Monkey’s Bum once (great horn chart).
But anyway, their self-title debut has been at the top of my lists of records I’ve wanted on wax for awhile. So after that conversation, I checked out eBay. Two years ago, they were going for $50-75. Now, it’s hard to find one under $200. Ridiculous that a record would cost that much, in my opinion. But, one chilled-out Sunday morning, I put in a bid on an auction just as it was ending, and to my surprise… I won. $22.43 later, it just arrived. I have to nominate for Steal of the Year.
If you haven’t heard these guys, you should. Seriously. Highest recommendation.
I always love following along with visual charts like this. Wish that iTunes would have something like this for a visualizer option for new music compositions. Maybe a more nerdy software will come to be with charts accompanying the music.
Hat tip to Crooks and Liars for pointing us to this great vid.
Plenty more on the Tube. Been digging this playlist from the user d21d34c55.
It’s no secret that I’m an iPhone user. I post about cool new apps as much as I think people are interested. I do find that most apps that I download just sit there after the week-or-so honeymoon period. There are a few exceptions. A camera program called Hipstamatic (thanks Max) is a recent purchase that’ll have some legs — different film types, lenses, and flash options for the iPhone camera.
But the one I go back to again and again is Shazam, the app that listens to your surroundings and tells you what tune is on the speakers you’re listening to. I’m always interested in new (to my ears) music. Part of why I did the alphabetical listening project way back — maybe I’ll pick that up again; Dave interrupted my listening habits by giving me 3 records to release of which I’ve been listening to on repeat a lot.
Anyway, Shazam. I thought it’d be cool to post a playlist chronicling my recent tags. Feel free to chime in. Part of getting into new music is word of mouth. Post yours in the comments if you so choose.
12 Tracks from recent Shazaming:
As we roll out the preorder for the second piece of Spark Of Being, we also launch a new Subscribercast. The newest addition is a continuation of Dave detailing tracks from the aforementioned trilogy release. This time, subscribers get an in depth look at the Creature Theme — from the morse code rhythmic breakdown, to isolating some of the many sound sources used, to the final versions.
Be sure to check out the Travelogue subscribercast as well, if you missed it.
More Subscribercast updates coming soon. More exclusive downloads as well. For now, enjoy the new podcast and the exclusive first listen of Expand.
Over the long weekend, we posted some new Subscribercasts recorded up at the Banff Workshop. Special thanks to those engineers who’ve helped out.
The first is a two-part conversation with Dave Douglas and Donny McCaslin discussing Donny’s albums Recommended Tools and Declaration with selected audio tracks from both, composing, practicing, the Banff Workshop, and much more.
The second Subscribercast update is titled Travelogue: Birth, Growth, and Maintenance. This one has Dave detailing various versions of the tune Travelogue from the Spark of Being release. Five versions of the piece are showcased, from the earliest trio recording with Dave, Adam Benjamin, and DJ Olive, to the fully-realized Soundtrack mix with commentary on each.
These Subscribercasts are exclusively available for Subscribers to stream. If you’re already a Subscriber, simply login at the store with your email/password, and head over to the Subscribercast page and click on a ‘cast. Also, check the Subscriber Downloads blog for a preview of Spark Of Being: Expand (out August 2010). The track Tree Ring Circus is available in MP3 and FLAC formats.
For non-subscribers, we’ve recently given the Subscriber system a make-over, including a new economically-friendly level for those who want to access these Subscribercasts. Remember also, with any Subscription, you get unlimited access to full-album streams for all our frontline titles.
Happy listening.
A cool new podcast just posted over at jazzonline.com with Nels Cline talking about his introduction to Miles, the electric years with John McLaughlin, and it’s lasting influence on his own playing. Always great to hear artists talking about artists. Especially when it’s one of my favorite guitar players talking about my favorite Miles period.
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And that reminded me of a post from awhile back that Dave wrote on the Complete Cellar Door recordings — one of my favorite of the Artist Thoughts posts. The archives of this blog have 5 years worth of these great posts. It’s been on my list of things to do to go through and repost some of these. Here’s a start anyway.
Illuminations on the Cellar Door
April 25th, 2006 | Author: Dave DouglasI was listening to Miles Davis’ 1970 recordings from the Cellar Door, a space in Washington, DC. These recordings went into making the album Live Evil in 1970. It is an absolute classic of an album, and yet it falls in that controversial zone that separates lovers of early Miles from those entranced by the second half of his recorded tenure, the electric years.
Much has been said about Miles Davis and his music. Sometimes too much, and for that reason I have hesitated to jump in. But in the words of trombonist George Lewis, music doesn’t speak for itself. We have to talk about it because it doesn’t talk. I imagine Miles having the last laugh because like it or not everyone is still talking about his music. I’ll at least try to be concise.
Read more >>>
As many found out via email this week, we launched a new Subscription Series. The expanded benefits lists includes an exclusive first listen of Dave’s new record, Spark Of Being: Soundtrack (the first release in a trio of releases slated for a Box Set release).
If you are a Subscriber, or become one, all you have to do is sign into your account at the store (the store recognizes your subscriber account), go to the Spark:Soundtrack album page, and click on the tracks. (We’re working a on Play-All function to update soon)
Once you are signed in at the store, you can play all of our front-line titles in their entirety as many times as you want. This is included in all new levels of Subscriptions. Plus you can get higher percentage discounts than before, access to the new Subscribercasts, et al. Updates with streaming our Full Book packages coming soon.
For the Subscriber Downloads Blog with the massively large 10+ hours of unreleased content, you sign in at the same place with the same user/pass just as before. Newbies will get an email with user/pass for this blog if they subscribe at the higher two levels. We’ll update you with a new track to download soon.
We built the new system with help from our subscribers. We hope you’ll continue to send us your feedback, suggestions, or funny stories about running into Dave at the local pool (thanks, John T!).
Happy weekend.
I went to see a pretty cool show last night here in Chicago at the Harris Theatre. Fulcrum Point puts on a season worth of great concerts, and since my buddy Joe Darnaby is acting stage manager, and all-things-techy guru for the company, I try to make it out to as many as I can. Plus I love new music. Always have, always will.
At the show last night, the piece that stuck out was Cinque Quadri da una cittá fantasma (Five Paintings from a Ghost Town) by Luciano Chessa. For piano, three turntables, and chalkboard. You can check out a video clip of Chessa playing this here.
The turntable part, played by Joe, took the infinite loop at the end of the three LPs to generate polyrhythms that lay as a bed for the piano. And the chalkboard (part of the second movement I believe) was close-miced to get the chalk sounds and scratching. As the chalkboard player — also the pianist — began to write and draw more and more frantically, the LP loops got louder and louder. Finally, the two players left the stage as the loop continued. Apparently it’s written in the piece that the players must exit and drink a glass of Laphroaig, a heavily peated scotch (and my favorite). Upon returning to the stage for the later movements, the piano became much more interesting. And later, a specific set of 3 LPs began to play super-quite music instead of the loop.
All in all, a great performance. And thanks to Joe for sharing a glass of that Laphroaig with me after the performance. Fulcrum Point, we’ll meet again.
Check out the stream posted at the Portuguese Radio Universitaria do Minho site of Dave’s bigband album, A Single Sky with Jim McNeely and Frankfurt Radio Bigband.
