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What music did you buy today?


tonym

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A fine date, all (Bags, Hawkins, Burrell, Tommy Flanagan, Eddie Jones, Connie Kay) on very good form. And very well recorded, at least in its Koch incarnation -- I say that because some Atlantics of that vintage (1959) were a bit on the dead side IIRC. Wonder who put together/shaped this date in the musical sense -- many nice touches there, e.g, the intro to "Stuffy." Bags? Bean? Neither man is someone I think of as imposing his will in the studio, as someone seems to have done here. Nesuhi? He was there for a lot of excellent recordings, but was he that type? BTW, anyone who doubts Hawkins prowess on the blues should listen to the next to the last track on this one (see post below).
 

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Some recent buys:

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This disc is on sale now on the Dutton/Vocalion site for £1.99 -- just $7.50 USD postpaid to the US. (Garrick's outstanding Cold Mountain is also available at the same bargain price, but I already own that one.)

 

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Looking forward to hearing this one.

 

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I've been digging into and really enjoying Marty Ehrlich's music lately.

 

Edited by HutchFan
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2 hours ago, HutchFan said:

Some recent buys:

51tdGceqAKL._SX355_.jpg

This disc is on sale now on the Dutton/Vocalion site for £1.99 -- just $7.50 USD postpaid to the US. (Garrick's outstanding Cold Mountain is also available at the same bargain price, but I already own that one.

 

What a giveaway - that one is an absolute corker. Along with ‘Troppo’, one of his best.

Kings Cross Station impromptu photo session in uniform - apparently one of them was spat at by an old lady walking across the platform.

Platform 9 3/4 to Hogwarts ?

Edited by sidewinder
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4 hours ago, HutchFan said:

Absolutely!  I've been listening to Home Stretch Blues on YT. It'll be nice to have a "real" copy -- especially at that price.

 

All of those Garrick Argos have been expertly transferred to CD by Vocalion. Not to be missed, considering that this was their first time on CD from master tapes (I think) and that the original LPs sold less than 1000 each in many cases. I read that ‘The Heart is a Lotus’ was the biggest seller at not much more than 1000 copies.

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2 minutes ago, sidewinder said:

All of those Garrick Argos have been expertly transferred to CD by Vocalion. Not to be missed, considering that this was their first time on CD from master tapes (I think) and that the original LPs sold less than 1000 each in many cases. I read that ‘The Heart is a Lotus’ was the biggest seller at not much more than 1000 copies.

It's a shame that so many people have missed the boat on Garrick's music. I only discovered it a couple years ago, but he's quickly become one of my favorite musicians. 

And I love how Garrick makes jazz that is unmistakably English. It's one of the things that makes his music so distinctive.

John Surman sometimes plows a similar furrow -- but Garrick's focus on words and the voice makes his English-ness even more pronounced (pun fully intended!).  ;) 

 

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Yes, like Ian Carr he used his English degree very creatively in the music mix - plus adding unique influences from the English Chorale tradition, folk, madrigals and Far-East exotica. Too bad he wasn’t more recognised in his homeland !

Not to be missed on those Argos is his use of Norma Winstone’s voice - inspired. Glad to say that I caught the lineup with Lowther/Themen/Winstone/Green/Tomkins and Don Rendell during the early 2000s on a very rare reunion. They did a follow up at the BBC Maida Vale studio not long after but I missed that. :(

Edited by sidewinder
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On 9/30/2019 at 2:34 AM, sidewinder said:

What a giveaway - that one is an absolute corker. Along with ‘Troppo’, one of his best.

Kings Cross Station impromptu photo session in uniform - apparently one of them was spat at by an old lady walking across the platform.

Platform 9 3/4 to Hogwarts ?

On 9/30/2019 at 11:58 PM, HutchFan said:

Some recent buys:

51tdGceqAKL._SX355_.jpg

This disc is on sale now on the Dutton/Vocalion site for £1.99 -- just $7.50 USD postpaid to the US. (Garrick's outstanding Cold Mountain is also available at the same bargain price, but I already own that one.)

Thanks to HutchFan and Sidewinder, I've taken a chance on Garrick's Cold Mountain and the quartet DVD, the latter of which was .99 GBP.  I received a shipping notification within 24 hours, so those bargain prices aren't too good to be true.

Edited by Justin V
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1 hour ago, Justin V said:

Thanks to HutchFan and Sidewinder, I've taken a chance on Garrick's Cold Mountain and the quartet DVD, the latter of which was .99 GBP.  I received a shipping notification within 24 hours, so those bargain prices aren't too good to be true.

You're in for a treat with Cold Mountain.  :tup

If you enjoy it, I'd recommend tracking down one of Garrick's recordings with Norma Winstone next.  I'd start with either The Heart is a Lotus or Troppo. Both are five-star records, IMO -- with Home Stretch Blues just a half-step behind them.  

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25 minutes ago, Captain Howdy said:

Several years ago I purchased Angela Hewitt's Bach box and have been gradually working through it, but it all sounds more or less the same to me. I'd be interested to know why you enjoy the Partitas above his other works, if you can explain.

I'm afraid that Hewitt, not Bach, is responsible for the sameness you detect.

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12 hours ago, Captain Howdy said:

That could be, but by nature these pieces all sound mechanical, don't they? There just isn't as much room for interpretation as there is in the Romantics, for example.

No, they don't for many people, but if they all sound mechanical to you, so be it.

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22 hours ago, Captain Howdy said:

Several years ago I purchased Angela Hewitt's Bach box and have been gradually working through it, but it all sounds more or less the same to me. I'd be interested to know why you enjoy the Partitas above his other works, if you can explain.

Well, tastes obviously differ and you don't have to like Bach...I'm kind of a math nerd and love the structure of contrapuntal music.

Regarding lack of "room for interpretation", I've found plenty in Bach. That said, the three Partitas recordings I currently own (Schepkin 1, Tipo, J. C. Martins; Schepkin 1 the favorite) all feature quite a bit of embellishment or "extravagance". Schepkin 2 supposedly tones down some of his earlier embellishments. (Other Bach solo keyboard performers: I own quite a bit of Gould and Schiff on piano,  a Feltsman Art of the Fugue on piano, a Feinberg WTC on piano and a Hantai GV on harpsichord. Plus various recordings by those previously mentioned.)

I recently read a review of a Morton Feldman recording in which the critic expressed the opinion that Feldman's piano music allows relatively little "r f i" and that recordings don't differ very much. I don't agree, but the dynamics (often pp to ppp ;)) tend to obscure differences.

I've attended a couple of performances of Steve Reich's music recently, and he seems like a composer who might truly leave little "r f i", because the phasing has to be executed so precisely. But I haven't heard all that much Reich.

Edited by T.D.
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I'm not much into vocal Bach, but love the St. Matthew Passion and enjoy the Mass in B Minor and Christmas Oratorio. Have not thus far elected to explore the cantatas - it's a daunting prospect and there are too many other things competing for attention.

Oddly, I discovered Renaissance polyphony a few years ago and became an enthusiast despite not having a big appetite for Christian religious music. But my collection thereof will never get overly big, because there are only so many Kyrie eleisons, Glorias, etc. I want to hear.

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It (Bach) does "all sound alike" at first (or for a while, or forever), but that's ok, because from a distance any and all ____s ____ alike, right? That's what distance is for, to keep us from becoming totally immediately disoriented until we can move in a little closer. Survival skill, coping mechanism whatever. If nothing ever ____ed alike, how the hell would we know where who/we as individuals are? And Bach, in all kinds of ways, has distance built into it.

But distance is just from where things begin once we get there.

Try this, and play, like one disc a week, a month, or something like that. Just a little at a time, because, you know, he didn't write all this music in a few minutes, so should it really be listened to like that? I like to let it impact, and then to absorb that impact.

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With her, she knows where the shapes are to be had to make it NOT all sound alike, so that the closer you get, the better you can see the details. And then, like anything else, the details are what either pull you in or repel you further away. THAT part is your business.

Or you could go off the deep end and come to Bach through Glen Gould. That's what I did, and I tell you, it's been great!

Either way, beware the genteel and/or subservient touch when it comes to Bach. It is not your friend here (if anywhere). He knew what he was doing.

 

 

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Just ordered this Abdullah Ibrahim CD:

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Voice of Africa (BMG UK)
This CD is the first volume in a series that compiles Ibrahim's recordings made in South Africa.  I bought this particular CD because it includes the two long tracks that make up the LP Mannenberg - 'Is Where It's Happening'  -- aka Capetown Fringe (as released in the U.S. on the Chiaroscuro label). 

 

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