Category: The Arts
Normalizing Celebrity ~ On the beauty of being vs. the glamour of fame.
A fellow film colleague posted a link to a set of celebrity images. Some of those images had been photoshopped by Danny Evans to give his “artist’s impression” of what these celebrities might have looked like without makeup, hair stylists, fashion stylists, diets, personal trainers, botox and a battery of cosmetic surgery or korean plastic…
Watery Rhythms ~ Deva Premal sings of Oshun, Goddess of rivers, seashores and love
Listen very closely to this song, to the underlying rhythms. What’s that sound, the shsh sshh shsshsh? This mantra is Ide Were Were, from Deva Premal’s album Love is Space. Listen closely. There’s a hint right at the start. Depending on the fidelity of your sound system, you may not recognise it. The sound quality…
Bringing Latin passion to fusion and the future ~ Al Di Meola’s Elegant Gypsy
A couple weeks ago I offered up three old fave songs from the German jazz fusion group, Passport, then asked for comments. The silence was deafening. <grin> But, after a while, there was one comment. Essentially: “boring.” OK. Fair enough. A followup comment illuminated some issues with the music which I happen to share, but…
Language is a Virus ~ Laurie Anderson
I’ve had a life-long fascination with progressive rock and the avante garde movement in music. Bands like Genesis, Pink Floyd, Talking Heads and Jethro Tull for sure, but also some more obscure folks you weren’t likely to hear on the radio. People like Brian Eno, Robert Fripp, John Cage and this fine example of the…
Roberta Flack & Johnny Cash: The first time ever I heard your voice
I love covers. Have I said that before? It’s always a bit of a thrill when I find some beloved song masterfully covered by another artist. (See my post regarding Feist’s transcendant cover of Secret Heart.) What I also love are the emotional inflections each cover artist brings to a song. For example, eighteen renditions…
Who are they? A former supergroup at the Super Bowl with still a bit of super left.
I was never much of a The Who fan.. Sure, I enjoyed the songs I heard of theirs, but I’ve never bought an album, wouldn’t pick one out of someone else’s collection to play, and never would’ve bothered going to a concert…until some buddies at work in the late ’80s cajoled me into joining them…
Secret Heart: Feist Covers Sexsmith LIVE
Some weeks ago I watched a documentary about a piano prodigy. In his young teens, the boy spoke about music with a profound wisdom. One thing he said, in particular, stayed with me. I’m paraphrasing, but it went something like: “The more you work with a piece of music, the more you find in it.…
Beauty, Cathedrals, Purpose: The Pillars of the Earth
It wasn’t very far into Ken Follet’s, The Pillars of the Earth before I understood what might be enthralling the people who’ve been telling me I should read it. “Because it will be beautiful,” Tom the Builder answered Prior Philip. By beautiful Tom didn’t mean simply pretty, or artful. He meant that upon seeing it,…
