It’s a Glass family reunion tonight as composer Philip Glass and his cousin Ira Glass, host of National Public Radio’s “This American Life,” present an evening of music and storytelling to raise $300,000 for St. Ann’s Warehouse, the Brooklyn, New York performing-arts venue. (bloomberg.com)
Ira and Philip will perform Wichita Vortex Sutra.
A stream of a Philip Glass/Allen Ginsberg joint performance of same is here. I've not heard this version before; as usual, the poet is intense. Presumably, Ira will have a more modulated reading.
I may like contemporary string quartets more than I realized, there's less jazz than expected, and I'm rather tired of Boards of Canada. Not wild enough, I suppose...
The blog is starting to get hits from people searching for "wikipedia spanish flu," presumably from those who have heard about the current cases of swine flu.
Here is the quote from the page that brings them to aworks: I've been listening to [Charles T.] Griffes' The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan this week and I just noticed the composer died on this date in 1920, at the age of 35. Wikipedia suggests he died from Spanish Flu although liner notes from DRAM say empyema, a form of pneumonia that may or may not be related to the epidemic.
I don't have access to a recent Griffes' biography, but the one from 1943 by Edward Maisel indicates the composer thought for several months he had pleurisy. Griffes was then moved to a tuberculosis sanitarium for treatment and rest. His health continued to deteriorate and he had surgery at New York Hospital to no avail and soon died.
Maisel describes the cause, based on a letter from Griffes' last doctor: His demise as incorrectly attributed to tuberculosis in the earlier reports. Nevertheless it was of empyema, abscesses of the lungs, resultant upon influenza, that he died.
I found a PowerPoint presentation (in French) that indicates US fatality rates from the Spanish flu were highest in 1918 as World War I ended but still above normal in 1919 and 1920. So the timing matches.
This Weeks Track:
John Adams - A Short Ride On A Fast Machine
We listened to the track a few times and combined all of our ideas into a concept which we developed for the rest of the session:
The Concept: "to explore the faceless nature of modern day office work"
We found the music to be very powerful, very tribal and very much like a machine.
In such modern times, the UK is fast becoming a country of vast service networks. We work to serve.
we're going out to a movie tonight, probably smoky and the bandit although there's another new movie, star wars, that might be good. last week, i went with you know who and her friend to see a star is born. it was ok. a buddy and i have also agreed to split the cost of stevie wonder's songs in the key of life; i think it's finally on sale at sears. i'll tape it and he can have the lp.
2009 update: Weather Report's Heavy Weather is #30 on the pop album
chart for that week. Other surprising jazz notables in the top 100
include Maynard Ferguson, Return to Forever, George Benson, Bob James,
Ronnie Laws, Herbie Hancock's VSOP, and Al DiMeola. In hindsight, the music wasn't all that good but at least it was popular.
And probably the most unexpected discovery as I've spent more and more time with In C was realizing that, hard-wired into the piece, is a whole philosophy of life. As we individually move through the patterns, we take responsibility for our individual selves, yet we have to constantly watch out for others.
I had the good fortune to attend the 25th anniversary In C concert. Such joy and exuberance. Is there a more canonical contemporary American classical work?
The variety of tone colors, attacks, and decays available from such a mixed ensemble enriches a performance of In C and expresses the multiplicity that is at its heart.
As minimalism was a response to perceived over-determination in music,
the searching that characterized the 60s was (in part) a response to
the perceived over-determination of American life.
I like this eery music but found David Cronenberg's film of Crash disturbing, including the notion of recreating James Dean's fatal accident as part of the plot. That scene is not on YouTube but there is another short documentary with a recreation.
For the record, I have visited the Dean gravesite in Fairmount, Indiana as well driven the road in California where the actor was killed.
I've decided I don't waste enough time on the Web so after a long pause, I'm resuming my reading of the I Love Music board. In a long thread about psychedelia, on June 14, 2006 someone made the following provocative comment:
I suppose if your idea of psychedelia is limited to lace bodice
foppery, gamboling in a fen while contemplatinng the radiant beauty of
Lady Farquar, Sgt. Peppers is the ideal vehicle.
Wait--loan me those tea shades of yours, they help one see so clearly...
Ahhhhh. Here are some antecedents of psychedelia, though not themselves psychedelic:
Karlheinz Stockhausen--Kontakte Kristof Penderecki--Threnody Ornette Coleman--Shape of Jazz to Come John Coltrane--My Favorite Things Moondog--Moondog (on Prestige) Edgar Varese--Ionisation The Byrds--Mr Tambourine Man Donovan--Sunshine Superman Harry Partch--Barstow/Petals Fell on Petaluma Terry Riley--In C
Some of these make sense; others require some thought to fit them into this line of descent. For example, I suppose Penderecki's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima is mind-bending as is the Coleman. The percussion of Ionisation is the best thing Varèse wrote and his early use of siren helped stretch my brain as well. In C is proto-hippie, of course and Coltrane's My Favorite Things may be equally entrancing.
Harry Partch, as the maverick's maverick, stands alone.
As years go, 1959 was a landmark for jazz recordings. Miles Davis created his "Kind of Blue" and John Coltrane made his "Giant Steps." But the most influential jazz album made in 1959 came from Ornette Coleman, then an outcast in that musical community. It was called "The Shape of Jazz to Come."
wounded inner child finds redemption through show biz (Fredösphere). Although I hate musical theatre, never watch reality TV, seldom know what to think about Brit culture, don't spend much time watching YouTube, feel annoyed that Simon Cowell has polluted the Henry Cowell google search space, and find myself only mildly interested in the strong reaction by the global village, I have nonetheless watched that video five times so far.
StumbleAudio is interesting. The classical selection seemed to be third-tier Vivaldi performances and the jazz struck me as tepid, but the avant garde channel turned up some promising music e.g. Käärmeenkääntopiiri by Uton & Valerio Cosi. (Via Cahl's Juke Joint).
Spirals: American Music in Moscow by Moscow Studio for New Music (emusic). I don't know what the story is on this one but it was worth a download.
Collecting is now subjective; there is no longer a standard, such as a record or CD collection. It spans various mediums, where the individual collects songs, but does not necessarily own all of them. (Hypebot). This is precisely what I am learning how to do.
Come Together. Count Basie (lala). A conventional jazz arrangement of a Beatles song except Basie's sparse piano, although hard to hear, adds to the tune.
I believe that the opera-going demographic wishes to signal "magnanimity." (Marginal Revolution). An economist on why we don't boo.
David Robertson can sing as well as conduct. (kottke.org)
Ira image by Getty Images via Daylife
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