17 items | 1 visits
Sites that catch my fancy - linking to the music
Updated on Mar 27, 13
Created on Jul 10, 09
Category: Music
URL:
"First published in 1741, J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations is often considered the most ambitious composition ever written for harpsichord. As this conversation at NPR notes, the piece begins “with an initial melody, the Aria, followed by 30 short but brilliant variations built on eight notes that Bach appears to have borrowed from Handel.” It’s an impressive example of musical one-upmanship — so impressive that the demanding piece still captures our often divided attention today.
Now, with no further delay, let me direct your attention to The Open Goldberg Variations, the first Kickstarter-funded, open source recording of Bach’s masterpiece, available entirely for free. If you click here, you can download and share the newly-released recording by Kimiko Ishizaka, performed on a Bösendorfer 290 Imperial piano in Berlin. You can do pretty much whatever you want with the recording because it’s released under a Creative Commons Zero license, which automatically puts things in the public domain.
You can also stream the Open Goldberg Variations below, and don’t miss this very related item: How to Download the Complete Organ Works of J.S. Bach for Free. And then this bonus: Glenn Gould’s Performance of the Goldberg Variation’s online. via BoingBoing"
Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans and More on the Classic Jazz 625 Show
in Music, Television | February 22nd, 2012 Leave a Comment
In April of 1964, the British Broadcasting Corporation launched BBC Two as a highbrow alternative to its mainstream TV channel. One of the new channel’s first programs was Jazz 625, which spotlighted many of the greatest Jazz musicians of the day. Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Dave Brubeck, Bill Evans and others performed on the show, which featured straight-forward camera work and a minimalist set. The focus was on the music.
"In November & December 2011 I headed to China to tour the historic Silk Road that Marco Polo made famous centuries ago; the major trade route of the ancient world. Accompanied by the finest US musicians and humans you could meet, “The Village” toured from Hohhot to Urumqi, stopping to perform and collaborate all along the way with only the goal of building bridges and dissolving difference by communing in good music. Supported by the US Embassy and the Chinese International Center for Exchange, we performed extensively at schools, universities & theaters, and spontaneously on city walls and in town squares all across China’s “Wild West”. We also collaborated with amazing local musicians all along the route including Han Chinese, Mongolian, Tibetan, Hui and Uyghur musicians. With 12 videos (2 on National Geographic World Music), photo albums for every stop, and a map of our route along the Silk Road, we invite you to join us on the journey right here!
The Village is Abigail Washburn (banjos & vocal), Kai Welch (keys, trumpet, guitar & vocal), Jamie Dick (drums), Jared Engel (bass), Ross Holmes (fiddle), Brittany Haas (fiddle), Cain Hogsed (sound man), Luke Mines (videographer and editor)."
"You can find videos two ways: 1) use the directory or 2) use the site's search engine."
"1959. It was a pivotal year for jazz. Musicians started breaking away from bebop, exploring new, experimental forms. And four absolutely canonical LPs were recorded that year: Kind of Blue by Miles Davis; Time Out by Dave Brubeck; Mingus Ah Um by Charles Mingus; and The Shape of Jazz to Come by Ornette Coleman. "
"Look what the vintage video gods have delivered today. Filmed in 1965, the black and white documentary Ladies and Gentlemen… Mr. Leonard Cohen introduces viewers to a young Leonard Cohen. Then only 30 years old (and looking a little like Dustin Hoffman), Cohen had already established himself as a poet and novelist. But his legendary career as a singer-songwriter was just barely getting underway. The 44 minute documentary all takes place in his hometown of Montreal, the city to which Cohen continually returns “to renew his neurotic affiliations” with family and old friends."
Five jazz songs created in the midst of the Civil Rights era: Max Roach - Tears for Johannesburg; Art Blakey - Freedom Rider; Archie Shepp - Malcolm, Malcolm, Semper Malcolm; Charles Mingus - Original Faubus Fables; and John Coltrane - Alabama. Compiled on NPR's A Blog Supreme.
"Thousands of Jazz24 listeners voted for the songs they felt were the 100 quintessential jazz songs of all time. Those songs are now a webstream, which you can listen to right here: "
"There are so many songs written about California that it was hard to decide what to include. We asked listeners and staff to submit some of their favorites, and then dug deeper for songs that might reside under the radar — please feel free to suggest your own in the comments section below."
"Ellen Willis, born December 14, 1941, was a radical leftist writer and thinker whose true loves were pop culture, feminism, pleasure, freedom, and countercultural politics. She was the first rock critic for the New Yorker, an editor and columnist at The Village Voice, and wrote for numerous publications like Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The Nation, and Dissent. She was a cofounder of the radical feminist group The Redstockings and No More Nice Girls, and the founder of the Cultural Reporting and Criticism Program at NYU. She died in November 2006."
"It didn't strike me as a great idea: Ray Davies, frontman for the legendary band The Kinks, had paired some of the group's most popular songs with a full choir. It turns out I was wrong."
"It's not just free music; it's good music" - 10,000 free, legal mp3's, downloadable! Hoo! Hoo!
The Jazzinstitut Darmstadt, a municipal institute of the city of Darmstadt, is Europe's largest public research archive on jazz. It holds specialized books, periodicals, sheet music, records, photographs as well as posters and other memorabilia. It provides services for researchers (journalists, musicologists, students), as well as for the music community, for musicians and music educators, working to broaden the audience of jazz as an African American music which has become a major influence on world culture.
All the music on jamendo is available under one of the six Creative Commons licenses. They authorize free download and enable the artists to promote their music while protecting their rights.
17 items | 1 visits
Sites that catch my fancy - linking to the music
Updated on Mar 27, 13
Created on Jul 10, 09
Category: Music
URL: