seeline

Yes, she was, but I think he's doing it better, overall. Her results were a bit hit and miss, and sometimes too "world music"-ish, for my taste, anyway. But her more recent material (past 15 years or so) is very good indeed.

I would rather hear this than all of the other programs combined. He's very, very good - there's a nice live set of 3 songs for NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts series available on YouTube. (He toured over here last fall; wish he'd been within 100 miles or so of where I live, as I'd have loved to have seen him. Great band, even if smaller ensemble for him than usual.)

How about "Is a woman"?

Lark, there isn't one, at least, not one that is in print, but you could start with some of the Fremeaux comps of early 20th c. Brazilian music and go from there. I would not recommend buying any of the recent reissues of his late-in-life albums, because they don't really show the breadth of his writing, arranging and playing and are somewhat hampered by arrangements that are a bit, well, weird. One thing that's difficult to assess is the quality of his playing on his 1st instrument, the flute, if only because there's relatively little of it available. That has a great deal to do with his decades-long association with flautist/bandleader Benedito Lacerda, who insisted that Pixinguinha play alto sax in his band. Since P. needed a steady income, that happened.

As a former bookstore worker and record store clerk, I've found that the collection I used to have weighed so much that I absolutely had to sell a *lot* of my LPs in order to be able to afford a long-distance move, and looking at things now, over 10 years later, there will have to be another sell-off. I love e-readers, partly because they allow me to have books I don't feel that physically attached to near at hand, while saving shelf space for the things I truly want to hang onto. As for streaming services, I subscribe to Rdio.com, which recently upped their bitrate to 320 as well as 192, depending on the amount of bandwidth one wants to use. (But those features are available to subscribers only.) Because their site is set up to allow for label searches, it's possible to go through the entire catalog of any given label that licenses to them. I've found a metric ton of interesting - often terrific - albums from all over the place, in many genres (from obscure Scandinavian classical music to African, Arabic and Brazilian music that is almost impossible to find in CD form, or LP, for that matter). I like Rdio much better than Spotify, because their search engine and search criteria are so much more versatile, and also because it's easier to read (black text on white background, etc.). However Spotify often has albums that Rdio doesn't, and vice versa, so I use them both.

I would go for the re-presses of the João Gilberto discs, also all the title by Joyce, Hermeto Pasocal, and Edu Lobo, and the Radamés Gnattali Sexteto, as well as the early Gilberto Gil titles and Caetano's Livro, if I didn't have them already. But those picks reflect my tastes, which are as idiosyncratic as the next person's. The JG titles can be hard to find, ditto for Hermeto's Festa dos Deuses and some of the Edu Lobo dics. Radamés G's albums are reissued only rarely, and he was an important writer/arranger who isn't nearly as well known as he should be. Caetano's discography is fascinating, but he has this tendency to veer from one extreme to another, and always has done. Livro is probably my favorite, along with Circulado Vivo Live. (Which is not one of the reissues at the link, unfortunately.) If you ever do see it, the DVD of his live show for Livro (titled Prenda Minha) is well worth the money. But don't expect him to be playing songs from the album - he didn't want any of that on the DVD. (yeah, he can be a bit much sometimes.) I have been told by folks in the know that the Live in Bahia DVD is also very good.

mjazzg, if you look at his website, you'll see that Atzmon mixes the two rather freely. he seems to have gone from having strong opinions to really horrible views over the past decade. perhaps the UK press has been deliberately avoiding any discussion of those views because nobody wants to start a firestorm?

I know! I also liked the descriptions of Maria Von Trapp (including her own), because she clearly bore little resemblance to the character in the musical - that person is much too tame to be the actual Maria V. T. It must be very strange to see a musical based on one's own life, complete with children/siblings.

Bev, I was fascinated by the movie as a child, but I also read Maria Von Trapp's books at that time, so I knew that the musical was mostly fiction. Not sure if they were available where you grew up, but lots of copies were sold here in the US as a result of the success of both the B'way musical and the film version. I remember being disappointed that the actual story of the Von Trapps was so unlike the musical version, but at the same time, there were lots of interesting stories and details in M. Von Trapp's books that made for a good "alternate" version, as it were.

I like his playing, but he clearly has become much more extreme over the past 8-10 years re. his views and I cannot, in all good conscience, accept - let alone support - them. Even many pro-Palestinian activists disavow him now. Example: http://socialistworker.org/2010/07/15/no-place-for-atzmon-at-sw Aside from that, I don't think that getting his concert cancelled was the best way to go about things, but I can understand the sentiments on both sides.

I think that most music - even acoustic music today - is pushed far too much re. volume. I don't know why that is, other than maybe the people on the sound boards having significant hearing losses (j/k, but not really - it's a distinct possibility). And acoustics can certainly have an effect. I once went to a free string orchestra concert in the Coolidge Auditorium at the Library of Congress in D.C. The Coolidge is ideal for small ensembles and soloists, because it's very small, but putting an entire (small) string orchestra in there was far too much of a good thing. I ended up having to leave, as the volume and overwhelming brightness of the sound was literally hurting my ears.

page, does white noise help your friend at all? There should be small white noise machines available over there, I'm sure. I know that one reason I notice my problem more during the winter months is that it's too cold to have open windows, and the air conditioning isn't running. That means that the ambient noise level is very low, compared to the warmer months. Mine really isn't very bad, but I know other musicians who suffer from tinnitus and they have a much more difficult time than I do. Any/all good information is very welcome, and I want to thank page for the links. There is some good info. available here: http://www.headphone.com/pages/hearing-101 Scroll down for links.

I've had tinnitus for 10 years, but in my case, it started due to a *bad* side effect of an antibiotic. I had a severe ear infection and kept hearing high-frequency sounds that I thought (at times) were being made by my cell phone's ringer. It was my ears. Mine has subsided quite a bit, but I notice it more during the winter months, and at any time that I am experiencing congestion/pressure in my ears and sinuses. I am able to live with it, but, for instance, today it is kind of bad (likely due to an approaching low pressure front) and I am more aware of it now that I'm thinking about it. Often I find that yawning or swallowing helps a bit, just as you do on a plane or when making a drive up a steep slope or mountain. I wish I could suggest something to help your friend, page. It sounds like his case is particularly bad. I also wear ear protection whenever I'm playing, though at home, I can tone down my djembe's loudest/highest frequency sounds by putting a t-shirt on top of the head.

I think that whoever wrote it spent a lot of time listening to both Brazilian music and North American interpretations of bossa nova and samba jazz, but my guess is that the links JSngry posted give you the information you are looking for.

From Trinidad and Tobago (by way of Venezuela) - not what you might expect...

the forum's owner has publicly stated on several occasions that they would really rather not have a BB on their site. It doesn't surprise me that it is not available at this time, and I wonder if it ever will be again. imo, no great loss, at least, not the way it's been for the past several years, though there is a lot of archived material there that's worth recovering. I wonder if it will ever be available again. (Sad to see it all go.)

a lot of people do that today, yes.

I just saw this and am very sorry to hear of Hans' passing. His love for many forms of Brazilian music (along with jazz) made a lot of artists and material more accessible to readers who would likely never have known about them otherwise, and his dedication to the music and to keeping artists' legacies alive and fresh was an inspiration to me. I will miss him.

I think you'll find this is a common addition to many percussionists'/set players' setups these days. Ten years ago, it was "exotic" in jazz (outside of Spain), but cheap cajons have flooded the market since then and are used in school ensembles, etc. today. (Meinl is one of the biggest makers and sellers of what I'll kindly call "entry level" cajons worldwide.) But I think a lot of people who aren't familiar with Peruvian, Cuban, new flamenco and other musical traditions where cajon is commonly used don't really understand its possibilities and tend to play it strictly as a drumset in a box (not saying there aren't some great, creative players who come from American-style drumset backgrounds, but the Peruvian and other traditions definitely deserve more respect!)

Thanks Jeff!!!

I hope she talked with some women, too...

the cover art looks like it's pre-Raphaelite...

oh, there's no need to apologize, page! I can understand your concerns; just wish I had been taught math in a better way. (when I was very young, there was an experiment here called "the new math," which failed utterly. I am living proof of how bad that curriculum was - if we'd kept on at arithmetic, I think I would have been fine.)

Yes, that is right. Friesland is in the north, opposite of (Noord) Holland. Utrecht is in the middle. I didn't know you studied art. That's nice. So you know all about Johannes Vermeer, Frans Hals en Jan Steen! I've always liked Rembrandt's light myself. Do you have a favourite painter from that time? Speaking of losing knowledge. I was in a store and asked for the price of something and the girl in the store said: "Oh, that one has a discount of 60 percent." She couldn't tell me the price though. The girl at the cash register said that she was happy she didn't have to count back when she had to give change as the machine counted for her. I think they were both around 18. Arithmatics is only taught in primary school, so they loose it quickly if they don't train it anymore. Too bad. I don't have a single favorite painter from that time - they were all great at different things (Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals and Steen). I am a big fan of Dutch 17th c. landscape and seascape paintings - the light and clouds in the best are amazing! - as well as some of the better painters of still life, genre scenes and church interiors. (I love architecture.) There are just so many painters from that time - the art market exploded as the Netherlands got wealthy from trade. All that said, Rembrandt is probably my favorite of all of them - for his prints and drawings as much as for his paintings. A friend of mine married a guy from Friesland, which is partly how I know about that, and Utrecht... well, we even have an art materials company over here called Utrecht. (Believe it or not.) * I have never been good at mental arithmetic and to be honest, computerized cash registers worked for me, back when I was in retail! Well if you like cycling you'll get a good look at Utrecht at the start of the Tour de France in 2015. They start there in the capital city. Utrecht city has canals like Amsterdam, only fewer. I can tell you a funny thing. A friend of mine from Alaska is a painter and he uses the Dutch oil paint. I don't know whether he has the one that is still made in one of our windmills because they still make it, but I kind of like that idea. My friend makes seascapes mostly. The cash registers are handy but I was kind of startled by the idea that they might not have a clue how to get to the right amount for payment when there is a discount. I did tell her how she could get to the number, but anyway... I didn't know about the paint that is made in a windmill - interesting! I need a calculator for percentages and fractions and pretty much everything except the simplest calculations.