January 2009 Archives

Andras Schiff finished his Beethoven sonata cycle last fall. Here's my NPR story that ran yesterday, with quotes from his Guardian master class podcasts.

Geezers and used record hounds gathered at this Center for Arts at the Armory benefit Saturday night, featuring the Neighborhoods and Burma. Most impressive opener: Faces on Film, cross between David Byrne, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, backed by Pavement, if Pavement was a really good version of The Band, complete with Hammond organ and lap steel. Jimmy Tingle hosted, with decent Sarah Palin jokes. Closed with Minehan joining the Mission for a Ron Asheton tribute, the one everybody dreamt about, "I Wanna Be Your Dawg."

I performed at one of the inaugural balls in 1993, at the first Clinton inauguration. I was invited because Al Gore was a family friend, and because I had played at a few events for him when he was doing environmental work as a senator. I was thrilled. I got a beautiful dress, lent to me by the designer Pamela Dennis. It was a black, long-sleeved sheath with wide bejeweled cuffs at the wrists. I had matching jeweled Manolo Blahniks. I looked quite fetching... [continued]

or, Guthrie Wrote a Column for the Daily Worker

Blacks far outclassed whites aesthetically yesterday, typically. At least MOST whites on that stage realized it as it was happening (perhaps not Bono, or Bon Jovi). My kids made two piercing requests: "Long Walk Home" by Bruce, and "We Shall Overcome" instead of "Amorica the Bootyful." And somebody should have invited Janet Jackson, seriously. Even more than his sunglasses, Bono lecturing us all on the American Dream is the most bracing argument for inclusion yet. He means no harm, but how sincere can egomania get?

Editors of magazines and newspapers really, really want writers to say that something is dead. Partly because it's a dogmatic position that makes people's blood boil, but partly because they don't want to think any longer about whatever it is that they're saying is dead. They want to cross off that box and move on.

Just in terms of volume, there are more jazz musicians and gigs than I can ever hear, and that's in New York alone. About once every other month -- in New York alone -- I encounter a young player I've never heard of who astonishes me. (Forget about musicians in Cuba and Poland and Italy and Spain whom I may never get to hear.) It's facile and compulsive, this need to say that an entire art form is dead...

--Ben Ratliff, NYT

...Using sound-wave analysis based on the 1820s work of French scientist Joseph Fourier, Dalhousie University's Jason Brown deconstructed the opening chord with the help of basic audio-editing software. Brown found that it isn't purely guitar and bass, as previously assumed; he theorizes that Beatles producer George Martin played a five-note chord on the piano as well. (via Stacia)