My Jazz Festival

O meu amigo Pedro gosta de jazz. E também gosta muito de escrever.

Ora aqui há uns tempos ele lembrou-se que seria interessante conjugar esses dois gostos e materializou a ideia no blog My Jazz Festival, onde ele e alguns amigos conversam sobre os seus artistas/temas/discos favoritos.

Foi com muito prazer que aceitei o convite do Pedro para passar por lá de vez em quando e falar sobre algumas coisas de que gosto e hoje publiquei o meu primeiro artigo.

Se gostam de jazz, seja lá ele de que tipo for, passem por lá, acrescentem às vossas listas de leitura e deliciem-se com o festival do Pedro e dos amigos.

All is full of song - 2012-02-25

By a funny coincidence, just as I started reading the “The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century” I also started to delve into some more evolved melodies, twentieth century style, in music class.

So as of now, the playlist of favourites for “the beginning of the end of harmony and start of atonality” is something along the lines of Debussy’s “Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune”, “Des pas sur la neige” and “Le fille aux cheveux de lin” and Satie’s “Le Fils des Etoiles (Preludes)”.
Small list so far, but it will grow.

Also in music-related stuff, I’ve been making public the sketches of songs I’ve been creating (very irregularly) to contribute to the twentieth project.
The songs are over at SoundCloud and and as I said, they’re mere sketches as they are though of, written, played, recorded and mixed in less than 4 hours. Yes, I still have that pesky day job to account for the rest of the day.

On a final note, according to last.fm, lately has been mostly about Sufjan Stevens (whose “Come On Feel The Illinoise!” album made a great soundtrack to the latest skiing season, by the way), John Grant, Louis Armstrong, The Portico Quartet and Jasper Steverlinck.
That feels about right.

Grande Auditório - Um podcast da Gulbenkian Música

Descobri muito recentemente, completamente por acaso, uma pérola que quero partilhar.

Embora não consiga devotar o tempo que gostaria a concertos e actividades musicais semelhantes (e quem é que consegue?), faço questão de pelo menos me manter minimamente informado do que vai acontecendo à minha volta, por forma a evitar falhar aqueles concertos “imperdíveis”. Naturalmente também tento descobrir música nova interessante (nova para mim, bem ententido), mas essa parte é, claro está, muito mais dificil.

Uma das minhas fontes de informação nesta área é a mailing list da Gulbenkian Música, que me dá a conhecer regularmente a programação mensal desta entidade.
Essa mailing list é-me muito útil, mas tem um senão: na programação da Gulbenkian Música são incluídos muitos autores/peças/intérpretes/orquestras/etc que eu não conheço. O que, à partida, seria uma coisa óptima, porque me daria a possibilidade de os vir a conhecer, se eu tivesse o tempo necessário, quando recebo o mail, para ir investigar cada um dos intérpretes ou obras lá incluídos e seleccionar os que me parecem mais interessantes. Claro que na realidade eu raramente consigo fazer esta pesquisa e acabo invariavelmente por perder belissimas oportunidades de vir a conhecer música muito boa.

E é aqui que entra a minha recente descoberta dos podcasts da Gulbenkian Música. Em particular do podcast “Grande Auditório”.
Neste podcast semanal, é apresentado o programa musical da semana seguinte do grande auditório da Fundação Gulbenkian. Nele são referidos não só os concertos, mas também outras actividades relacionadas, como sejam filmes passados nesse espaço.
Mas, mais importante do que listar as actividades da semana, no podcast são apresentados os intérpretes e compositores dos concertos, os realizadores dos filmes e por aí fora, e são passadas (na íntegra) peças que serão interpretadas nos concertos ou que fazem parte das bandas sonoras dos filmes.

Ou seja, toda a pesquisa que eu adoraria fazer semanalmente está condensada neste podcast.
Acho que esta é uma ideia brilhante e que é muito bem executada, resultando numa utilização excelente do meio podcast.
É com muito gosto que digo à Gulbenkian Música (e em particular à equipa Jorge Rodrigues e Tiago Jónatas) um grande “Bravo!” e obrigado.

Week In Music - 07 to 13 November 2010

This week in music was dominated by a couple of new discoveries: Frank Zappa and Wim Mertens. Also, I listened to a few more songs/artists a bit more intently and so they’re present in the playlist as well.

The playlist

This week’s music is available as an 8tracks playlist.

The boring bit

Zappa is a well known musician (composer, guitarist, record producer and lots more) which is largely unknown to me. My music teacher, being a fan of the man and his work, often mentions Zappa songs when looking for examples of many issues in music theory. This week he directed me to a few specific songs for me to listen to and analyze.
And so it is that I am now starting to discover Zappa’s music, years after he passed away. I’m starting out with just a few songs, looking for specific elements in them, such as “The Black Page Drum Solo”, or “Let’s Move To Cleveland”. I’m looking at elements of rhythm in the drums, just in case you’re curious. :-)
One thing I’ve always been partial to is live performances and there is ample material from Zappa for me to sink my teeth into as I go on (“Zappa in New York” is sounding really good).

Wim Mertens is another recent discovery. I went to a live show here in Lisbon, this very week, and I was hooked. My friend João is a long-time fan and he’d told me about Wim already, but I’d just never got around to actually listening to anything of his until the show.
I must say his singing is somewhat unusual and, as far as I can tell, this concert was very different from the usual ones in that the piano took somewhat of a second stage to the violin. Nevertheless I loved the concert and I’m loving the album that João lent me afterwards —”Epic That Never Was”, a live album recorded in a concert in Lisbon. It is way much more piano solo-oriented than the concert was and so far I’m loving it.
For a taste of what the show was like you can watch this video of Wim Mertens and Tatiana Samouil playing “The Belly Of An Architect”.

The rest of the playlist comprises a bunch of unrelated songs:
There’s a couple of songs I am working on right now by the Dave Matthews Band; Then there’s an artist I recently started listening to more intently, due to this post by Célia Ventura—Galt MacDermot—; and finally, to round things off (and to make the minimum 8 tracks for the playlist), an old favourite of mine that came up on a shuffle sequence and I really liked to listen to again—Billy Joel’s “Got To Begin Again”.

The song list

1. Frank Zappa - The Black Page Drum Solo
2. Frank Zappa - Let’s Move To Cleveland
3. Wim Mertens - Close Cover
4. Wim Mertens - The Belly Of An Architect
5. Dave Matthews Band - Steady As We Go
6. Dave Matthews Band - Digging A Ditch
7. Galt MacDermot - Coffee Cold
8. Billy Joel - Got To Begin Again

Music All Around

I’ve been really quiet lately and because I intend this space to be a sort of record of my activities, here goes a review of what I’ve been up to in the last few weeks (/months) musically-wise.

First off, the fun’n’games part: I’ve become hooked on Guitar Hero. Specifically Guitar Hero World Tour.
I was never one for game consoles, but this time I ended up buying myself a full kit including a Nintendo Wii and the Guitar Hero World Tour single guitar pack. (The Wii came with a game which I’ve only touched two weeks after I got it and only that one time. It shows how much I care about video games. And about music.) ;-)
As with almost all activities that demand dexterity and extreme hand-eye coordination, I have to really work at it to become proficient (and it is a given that I’ll never achieve greatness) but the “work” that is involved is really, really fun.
So now I play both real and game instruments. Rawk On!

And I say that I now play real instruments because after quitting the saxophone lessons due to getting braces on my teeth, I decided it was high time I devoted some time to learning music a bit more in-depth and so I enrolled in (theoretical) music classes (my aim is learning enough to be able to write music, I really wanted to be able to express all my feelings, thoughts and even ideas through music). And while this could have meant the (temporary) end of instrument playing, the fact is that I have now turned my attention, once again, to the piano. It started out as a learning aid and I got hooked again. I’m too easy, I know. :-)
Someday I may even get good enough at playing it to loose my inhibitions and start playing for my friends and even other people. Crazy, crazy!

Other than that, things are moving along steadily in the musical realm, 2008 was a good year musically-wise (although not a great one), and I’m still absorbing some of the albums and new bands that showed up last year.
I’m also, as always, discovering and learning about stuff that’s been out there for a lot of time but to which I’d never devoted my attention. One of the latest “discoveries” I’ve made is Chico Buarque.
“Yeah Gods, is he serious?!?”? Yes I am, both in the sense that I’ve started listening to a lot more Brazilian music (and by “a lot more” I actually mean “any at all”) and in the sense that I’ve come to enjoy both the music and the lyrics of a bunch os songs from Chico and a very few others.
In the case of Chico, not all of his songs appeal to me. In fact, given the size of his body of work, I’d say most of them don’t, but the ones that actually do something for me are really amazing.

Last.fm, Blip.fm and 8tracks.com are my current on-line hangouts as far as music is related.
Last.fm is da bomb, Blip.fm is an interesting concept which still has to grow up a bit and prove itself and 8tracks.com is a great ideia whose future I just don’t believe in, due to the difficulties the music industry will undoubtedly cause them (which is a shame as the “mix-tape” or playlist format is one that is particularly near and dear to my heart as far as sharing and enjoying music is concerned.)

Help Wanted - days of the week songs

Dear lazyweb, I need your help with some song suggestions.

What I’m looking for is songs that talk about each day of the week.

I’ve already got some days down, from my own ideas and from discussing this topic with @phantas, but I am sill a few days short of a week. Nevertheless, I am still accepting suggestions for the days I already have (which are Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday).

But there are some specific rules about the songs I’ll end up choosing, namely:

• Please, please, please, no “Friday I’m In Love”! I’m a big fan of The Cure and I’ve been trying very hard to forget about the ignominy that is the fact that they wrote that song (let alone that they recorded it), so please be considerate! :-)

• The songs have to be about the day in question. Just mentioning the day or even having it on the title is not enough. Something about the “day of the week” or even about that particular day of that particular week is acceptable, but otherwise just mentioning it for no good reason is no good;

• The songs have to have at least one cover version made. Don’t mind too much about this issue, though, I’ll do this part of the research. For now just throw as many suggestions as you can, please.

So lazyweb, can I count on you? Will you come through for me? I hope you do, I’ve been thinking about this list for quite some time now (OK, let’s be honest here, it’s been nagging me on the back of my mind for quite some time, but I haven’t really given it the due attention until now) and I’d like to get this thing done.

Thank you! :-)

Duelo IX

Não se faz.

É que não se faz mesmo!

Como é que eu alguma vez poderia escolher??

Não consigo votar, pronto.

The Smiths vs. The Cure.

É que não passa na cabeça de ninguém!!

Contrast Podcast - Poetry

This morning, on my way to work, I was catching up on my (huge) podcast queue and I happened to listen to the whole of the “Poetry Intros” episode of the Contrast Podcast.

What an amazing episode! Seriously, I don’t know if it was the theme that brought out a different mood in the contributors, or if it was just one of those lucky coincidences, but most of the songs are really, really good (some better than others and a really varied mix —as it should be, this being the Contrast Podcast).

It is one of the rare times when I feel the urge to keep a podcast around to listen to it again.

And all of this reminds me that I haven’t contributed in a long, long time and I’ve already missed a few very good themes. Nest week’s theme is “Change”. I just can’t miss that one!

O Requiem que não foi

No sábado passado (27 de Setembro) fui assistir ao Requiem de Mozart, no fórum Lisboa.

O único problema é que o concerto foi cancelado e “substituido” por um outro concerto de guitarra clássica.
Ora não é que eu não aprecie guitarra clássica, mas convenhamos que não é bem a mesma coisa, por isso vim-me embora e voltei para a festa de aniversário da minha amiga, que tinha abandonado pelo concerto.

Vergonhosamente tenho de admitir que nunca tinha assistido ao vivo a esta peça. Ainda não foi desta. Continuarei a tentar!

Serve este post semi-fútil para demonstrar a minha (r)existência na blogosfera. :-)

Musical odities - The Seventh Sojourn

Last night, for the first time ever, I played side B of the “Seventh Sojourn” LP.

I’ve known this record for ages and I’ve heard side A countless times, but whenever that side finishes playing and I go over to the record player to flip the record over, I always think “well… let me just listen to this side one more time, and then I’ll listen to side B” and instead I’ll play that same side again. And this process is repeated until it is too late and I have to stop listening altogether and go do something else (usually sleep).

Why does this happen? I have no clue, all I know is that ever since I’ve listened to this record for the first time I loved it so much that I just had to listen to it over and over again —always on the same side!
Yes, this is really weird and I can’t really explain it, and it only happens with this particular record, but there you have it. As time went by the habit became so ingrained that I now regard it as an amusing oddity and think nothing more of it.

Anyway, yesterday I left it up to a friend to choose a record to spin while we were all chatting before dinner was ready and, lo and behold, he chose this one! Which was thrilling because when side A finished playing I got up, went over to the record player and flipped it over to side B. Yay!

Now if only we hadn’t been so engrossed in conversation I could have actually listened to it… Alas, as it was, side B of “Seventh Sojourn” was played in my turntable, but I didn’t really listen to it.

Oh well, baby steps. I’ll get there eventually.

Music Festivals of 08 wrap-up

So now that the season for the music festivals is over (for me, at least, because there’s still plenty out there to be enjoyed by those who can. The bastards!) ;-) here are my notes on it.

I attended both the second part of the Super Bock Super Rock festival (the part in Lisbon) and the Optimus Alive!08 festival. One particular evening I attended both of them. The stupidity of scheduling them both in Lisbon and on the same dates hasn’t yet ceased to amaze me (yes, I now all about the commercial interests at stake but no one can convince me that the pie wouldn’t be bigger for both of them if they did it in another way).

Anyway, on the 10th of July I went to the Alive! festival in the afternoon and stuck around until after the Rage Against the Machine concert and then took off to Super Bock Super Rock, where I still got to listen to Digitalism for some half-hour and then caught Tiesto’s full set (my main goal for going there).

Other than that anomaly, everything went really smoothly. I was devastated that Nouvelle Vague canceled (it’s the freaking third time I fail to see them live. Come on! Someone’s got it in for me for sure. A friend of mine told never to try and go to a Nouvelle Vague concert with her again because she would really like to see them and it seems it is impossible to do so when I’m around. It broke my heart!) ;-) but as far as Cansei de Ser Sexy is concerned I couldn’t care less that they didn’t do the show.

In the end, then, this is what I took from the festivals.

What I liked (and already knew I did)

• Iron Maiden - UP THE IRONS! (not much else to say, read it here);

• Vampire Weekend - They sound just as good on stage as they do on record and they put on a decent show. Can’t wait for their second album to either fall completely in love with them or to forget them;

• Rage Against The Machine - You want to know what dynamite is? This is it!

• The Gossip - What can I say? I liked them last year and I loved them this year. For this I was definitely front-and-center, where the action was;

• Ben Harper - I’m a fan, so there’s not much I can tell that won’t sound like fanboy-ish praise. It was good. As it should be and it always is (this was my third concert). Dig it;

What I discovered and was a good surprise

• Hercules and Love Affair - Good beats, very interesting sound. A friend-of-a-friend told me they sound even better with Anthony (of the “Anthony and the Johnsons” fame), but they were not with him there and I still liked them. A must-check, for sure;

• Tiesto - voted best DJ in the world six years in a row…
  Well, I don’t know about that (I was really expecting something outstanding because of this factoid —what, I don’t really know), it didn’t blow me away all that much but it was still a very good set, it kept me dancing until the very end.
  But that ending was really weird, I guess he either had to stop because it was time (he stopped at 05h30 which was the time he was supposed to, but he began an hour later than scheduled) or else something went wrong, but either way that ending didn’t feel natural at all.
  Maybe electronic dance music really isn’t my strong suit. I liked it a lot, mind you, but this guy, being “the best in the world” left me wondering how bad the others can be… :-)

• John Butler Trio - A great surprise indeed. I didn’t know these guys at all but they played an extra-long concert (to make up for part of Nouvelle Vague’s absence) and I was left with the will to go and check out more of their stuff on record;

• Xavier Rudd - Another total stranger to me, I loved his music from the first moment. It is nothing short of amazing how he can transmit such calm and serenity with all of his songs, even the ones which have really high rhythmic beats.
  Very tribal in it’s essence, very “balanced”, very good;

• Róisín Murphy - I never knew Moloko to begin with, so the description I was given (“she was Moloko’s singer”) didn’t tell me much at all.
  Well, it turns out this lady is amazing on stage. She sings and dances like nobody’s business.
  Left me breathless —and that’s from all the jumping and dancing, it had nothing to do with the t-shirt. OK, almost nothing. Well…

• Donavon Frankenreiter - I already expected it to be a good concert, given the descriptions of his music I’d heard and read, but I’d never really listened to this guy. Turns out it was indeed a good concert with some very nice and smooth music;

What I didn’t particularly like

• Gogol Bordello - They might be dynamite on stage, but I just can’t bring myself to enjoy the music enough to get up there, front and center and get into the mood to jump around like a madman to their songs. “This is not about you, it’s just me”;

• Neil Young - I really tried to like his concert but I just couldn’t get into it for some reason. It wasn’t at all like Bob Dylan, mind you (read below), and he did end up with an amazing version of the Beatles’ “A Day In The Life” (which I would love to get my hands on a recording of), but in general the show just didn’t do anything for me;

What really sucked

• Nouvelle Vague canceled;

• The amazing whirlwinds of dust through almost all of the Alive! left all of us with sand and dust ingrained into our hair and clothes;

• Bob Dylan - I’m so sorry, but I can’t be charitable here. Such a great artist as him (in his day) should get a clue and stop milking it when it gets as depressing as this.

The Great Pretender

Porque é adequado. Porque tem de ser. Porque ainda dói (e já não devia).

E… E porque sim.

Mas isto é para apreciar com toda a teatralidade, o dramatismo e o “flair” do Freddie, nada das versões dos Platters ou Roy Orbison ou afins, hein!

Oh yes I’m the great pretender
Pretending I’m doing well
My need is such I pretend too much
I’m lonely but no one can tell

Oh yes I’m the great pretender
Adrift in a world of my own
I play the game but to my real shame
You’ve left me to dream all alone

Too real is this feeling of make believe
Too real when I feel what my heart can’t conceal

Ooh ooh yes I’m the great pretender
Just laughing and gay like a clown
I seem to be what I’m not (you see)
I’m wearing my heart like a crown
Pretending that you’re still around

Yeah
Too real when I feel what my heart can’t conceal

Oh yes I’m the great pretender
Just laughing and gay like a clown
I seem to be what I’m not you see
I’m wearing my heart like a crown
Pretending that you’re
Pretending that you’re still around

Bobby McFerrin At Coliseu de Lisboa

Yesterday Bobby McFerrin gave a concert in Lisboa, at the Coliseu.

It was a “solo” concert, which consisted mainly of the man and his microphone. And it was enough to blow me away (along with the rest of the audience). If you’ve ever seen the videos of other concerts by Bobby (most notably his Bach pieces) you have an idea of what it was like.

We had mostly jazz tunes, but also the occasional classical piece, all sung by the man himself.

Except when it wasn’t just him (I did put the word solo in quotes up there,) and he got the whole audience to sing with him, or the time when he got some 30 people on stage with him and he conducted them into an impromptu choir. Or when he asked someone to come up to the stage and dance to his singing. Oh and I mustn’t forget about his foray into the crowd, fetching volunteers to sing some simple pattern to act as a basis for his improvisations.
He also had a guest guitar player which, when compared with all the rest of the evening, pales a lot (even though his performance was extremely good).

It was an incredible evening, that’s for sure and the feeling I got was that everyone felt a real connection with the show and felt themselves as making part of it at some stage or another, which is something I think is quite rare. Even when he went down into the crowd to look for (quite a few) volunteers to do the small skits with, people (mostly) participated with sheer joy, instead of shying away.

As for his vocal qualities, well, there’s not much I can say here that hasn’t been stated time and again by people who know his music. The sheer vocal range he has, the impeccable sense of timing and rhythm, the joy of his singing… People don’t call him a musical genius for nothing (and I’m not even alluding to all of his many accomplishments in so many fields of music!)
And the man has a sense of humor. He sure does!

Truly a unique experience.

If you have the chance to catch Bobby playing —or rather, singing— live I heartily recommend you grab it without hesitation. I know I will, if ever the chance comes again.

Portishead At Coliseu de Lisboa

It was yesterday, the second date of the 2008 tour of Portishead and I was there.

I had never seen them perform live, so I guess I can say I’ve been waiting… more than 10 years for this!

And despite all the anticipation I had built up regarding this concert it still blew my socks off!

The new album is very different from anything they’d done in the past and somewhat “weird”, but it does work very well when played live; but the best part, by far, was that they chose to play lots and lots of the old stuff intertwined with the new songs. And everybody there knew those songs and was having an extremely good time!

While I can’t say for sure yet (it is still March, after all), I do believe this will be a strong contender for “concert of the year” (on my book, at least). It will undoubtedly make it into the top-5 at the very least.

So I have some (god-awful) pictures I took with my cell phone and they’re up at the usual place.

Also, if you read Portuguese, there was this guy there with us who also wrote about it on his blog.

Amen Omen

Today was yet another one of those days. There was this one song that felt strangely compelling and which I just couldn’t stop listening to.

This time around the choice… well no, not a choice really, you don’t choose these things, but I digress… The song in question, then, is Amen Omen by Ben Harper.

I really don’t think the song needs any explanation, the lyrics —which I transcribe below— are pretty obvious.
Today, for some reason, it just felt right that I listened to it over and again.

what started as a whisper
slowly turned into a scream
searching for an answer
where the question is unseen
i don’t know where you came from
and i don’t know where you’ve gone
old friends become old strangers
between the darkness and the dawn

amen omen
will i see your face again
amen omen
can i find the place within
to live my life without you

i still hear you saying
all of life is a chance
and is sweetest
when at a glance
but i live a hundred
lifetimes in a day
but i die a little
in every breath that i take

amen omen
will i see your face again
amen omen
can i find the place within
to live my life without you

i listen to a whisper
slowly drift away
silence is the loudest
parting word you never say
i put your world
into my veins
now a voiceless sympathy
is all that remains

amen omen
will i see your face again
amen omen
can i find the place within
to live my life without you

Once upon a time (roughly one year ago) this was the soundtrack to my life. But regardless of ever having experienced anything like this, I think anyone can surely appreciate the beauty of these words.