music mondays
jdupuis | April 28, 2017Like with La La Land a few months back, here we have a jazz-themed documentary that I haven't seen yet but have read an awful lot about.
Unlike La La Land, I actually intend to see Chasing Trane and actually have tickets to see an upcoming showing at a Toronto theatre.
The reviews seem fantastic, with more or less unanimous opinion that the film does justice to Coltrane both as a person and as a musician.
Some of what I've been reading...
Q&A with “Chasing Trane” Filmmaker John Scheinfeld / Down Beat
'Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary' serves the jazz legend well by Noel Murray…
jdupuis | January 16, 2017The newish hit movie La La Land is creating quite the tempest in a teapot in the jazz world these days, and even a few ripples of jazz-related commentary out side of it. The prospects for an awards bonanza are quite strong, starting with the recent Golden Globes and perhaps continuing to the Oscars. Which would be quite the feat for a musical/romantic comedy.
Personally, I haven't seen the movie yet and possibly never will. My record for jazz flicks is inconsistent to say the least. I saw the recent Chet Baker biopic but not the Miles Davis one or even the La La Land director's previous…
jdupuis | December 18, 2016Another annual obsession to add to the list, along with the listings of best science books? Look like it, if last year and this year are anything to judge by.
This particular post collects lists of "best of the year" jazz albums I've found across various websites. For the purposes of this project, I'm not giving each list its own post and showcasing the albums that are part of the list. That's an awful lot of work, which I'm reserving for the science books project which is more core to the mission of this blog.
Note: I've included a few not-exclusively-jazz lists if they've happened to…
jdupuis | April 15, 2016Magma, the strangest rock band of all time, needs you to help finance a documentary film about their life and work.
So here goes. Up until a year or so ago I'd never heard of the French prog rock band Magma, or at least their music had never penetrated my consciousness. But last year while spending the month of May in Paris, I visited a bunch or record stores (and book stores and comic stores...) and noticed records and CDs by this band Magma prominently displayed, like I should know who they are or something. It took me a while to notice enough that I forced myself to dig a bit deeper and…
jdupuis | December 22, 2015(OK, Music Monday one day late...)
Science books are an abiding, long term passion, one which has been reflected here on the blog by my compulsive listing of the Best Science Books of the year, 2015 included. This year I'm expanding the obsessive listing franchise to include another abiding passion, jazz music.
But I won't be listing individual jazz albums, just other people's year end lists. As for my own year-end list of best jazz album, I'm afraid I don't really buy enough new ones every year to make a list practical.
Here goes. These lists are as at mid-day December 22, 2015. I'm mostly…
jdupuis | August 5, 2013It's been a while since I posted one of these lists, that's for sure. A couple of weeks ago someone on Twitter posted a link to the Tool version of led Zeppelin's No Quarter. "No that's cool!" I thought to myself. Wouldn't it be fun to add that to a bunch of other great cover versions and do a Music Monday post. And here we go.
All of this brings up the endless debate on cover versions: close copy as homage or total re-invention? I like both so I won't take sides. And a few of each are included below.
No Quarter. A Led Zeppelin song covered by Tool.
Young Man Blues. A Mose Allison song…
jdupuis | May 13, 2013It's been a very long time since I did a Music Monday of any variety, never mind of the Five songs I really love variety. So it's fun to check in again and share what I've been obsessing over on my iPod and on Youtube lately. And oddly, some of these are repeats from earlier lists, probably indicating that my music tastes are pretty consistent.
Anyways, these are all on the blues rock spectrum and every one supremely awesome. These are five songs I just never get tired of.
Enjoy!
Midnight in Harlem by The Tedeschi Trucks Band. This is absolutely my favourite song from the last few years. We…
jdupuis | September 12, 2011I'm a huge Eric Clapton fan, particularly of his blues output, always have been, always will be. There's only one artist I've seen in concert more time that EC, but more on that later.
One of the things I've always found interesting and admirable about him is his desire to collaborate with other artists, to try and stretch himself a little bit farther. It's also evident in the vast array of wonderful blues guitarists he's recorded with or gone on tour with over the years, either as sidemen or as opening acts. Mark Knopfler, Derek Trucks, Jimmy Vaughn, Bonnie Raitt, Doyle Bramhall II,…
jdupuis | June 13, 2011Here's a list worth giving a listen to: 10 Scientist Rock Stars. Let's take a look, starting with by far the most famous:
Brian May. Brian May is the guitarist for a little band called Queen. He is consistently ranked as one of the greatest guitarists of all time. And he has a Ph.D. in astrophysics. May studied physics and mathematics at Imperial College London and was in the process of getting his Ph.D. when Queen hit it big. Thirty years later, in 2007, he completed his dissertation. Yes, the man who wrote "We Will Rock You" also wrote A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust…
jdupuis | May 9, 2011Ok, not really.
It's hard to directly compare the industrial disco-metal stylings of Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails with the tango nuevo of Argentina's Astor Piazzolla. The music itself is very different.
Or is it? Both of them -- Piazzolla and Reznor -- certainly create music that has a propulsive, relentless almost narrative drive to it, also music that appeals to both the head and the heart and the feet.
It's really all about the passion and intensity. You don't listen to either Reznor or Piazzolla and come away from it with "eh."
You see, I listen to music on my commute. I have…
jdupuis | March 28, 2011It's been a while since I've done one of these, so I thought I'd highlight some of my more recent musical discoveries.
Long Way Home by Kelley Hunt. So. A month or so ago I'm browsing on the second floor in a local used bookstore and some really cool bluesy music is on their sound system. I really like it but I sorta think it's Bonnie Raitt. A guy browsing nearby asks the universe, "Who is that? It's really great?" I respond, on behalf of the universe, that it sounds like Bonnie Raitt to me. He wasn't so sure. In retrospect, I guess I should have Shazam'ed it to find out for sure.…
jdupuis | September 6, 2010Forty-four or 44 Blues is a fairly well know blues standard and is certain a song that I really love. I was first introduced to it during an Eric Clapton concert a number of years ago, during his From the Cradle tour. It wasn't part of the album, but he did perform it live. It actually took me a while to figure out what the song was and to get a few versions of it. I don't believe it's ever appeared, live or studio versions, on an official Clapton album.
And in the tradition of the One Song I Really Love post I did for Soulshine a while back, I thought I'd give a quickie for 44 for a…
jdupuis | August 23, 2010The Who is pretty well my favourite band of all time. Without a doubt. Way back in the seventies (yes, I'm that old) when everyone else was arguing about whether the Beatles or the Stones were the greatest rock 'n roll band in the world, I always argued it was The Who. Townshend, Daltry, Moon were the noisy ones, the famous ones, the crazy ones. But the bassist, John Entwistle, he was The Quiet One. The one who held it all together.
So, over the years I've collected a fair big of Who music, but also solo stuff by Pete Townshend and a bit by Roger Daltry. But also John Entwistle, who's…
jdupuis | June 21, 2010Yes, that David Gilmour.
Anyways, there was a post on Gilmour's blog a few months ago that provoked quite a little storm: Chopping up albums.
Basically, the point Gilmour makes is that many albums are really meant to be listened to as a whole and shouldn't be split into individual tracks at record companies' whims. Read the whole thing to get the full sense of his argument, but I think the excerpt below gives a good sense:
I'll go first: Blood on the Tracks' frenetic 'Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts' by Bob Dylan. There, I said it. (Forgive me, Bob.) More often than not, it gives me an…
jdupuis | May 17, 2010Yesterday was a very sad day in the hard rock/heavy metal community as Rainbow/Black Sabbath/Dio/Heaven & Hell vocalist Ronnie James Dio died at the age of 67.
I've been a big fan of Ronnie James Dio ever since way back in 1980 I heard the song Neon Knights, the first big song he did with Sabbath.
Five (ok, six) songs to remember him by.
Neon Knights by Black Sabbath
I by Black Sabbath (performed here by Heaven & Hell)
The Last in Line by Dio
Man on the Silver Mountain by Rainbow
Bible Black by Heaven & Hell
Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple. Ronnie guests on this concert version…
jdupuis | April 12, 2010A nice interview with Jimi Hendrix's sister Janie on the Bravewords.com site. It's talking about the latest collection of unreleased Hendrix material to hit the stores, Valleys Of Neptune.
Janie Hendrix: "He's probably laughing."
BraveWords.com: Yeah, he must be laughing, going, "how can I be ruling the rock world..."
Janie Hendrix: "40 years after my death. 'Yes, all right!' Well, it's interesting because, yes, he did have the talent and it seems like he kind of knew in some ways that he didn't have a whole lot of time left here to create what he needed to create, so here we have decades of…
jdupuis | March 29, 2010Another list of songs I really love, this time leaning a bit on the heavy side.
I by Black Sabbath (performed by Heaven & Hell). This is one of my favourite Dio-era Sabbath songs, from the underrated Dehumanizer album (Dio/Sabb box set). This sizzling live version is performed by the reformed Dio-era version of the band which is playing and recording under the name Heaven & Hell.
30 Days in the Hole by Gov't Mule. An old Humble Pie song, I like the Gov't Mule version an awful lot, especially the live version on their Live...With a Little Help from Our Friends CD.
Dreaming Neon…
jdupuis | January 25, 2010It's been a while since I did one of these fairly general entries in the "Five songs I love" series:
Forget about Me by Mem Shannon. A great blues/soul/R&B singer, Mem Shannon is terribly underrated. I love his great story-telling ability, of which Forget about Me is a great example. Live: A Night at Tipitina's and I'm From Phunkville are both really terrific.
Suite Madame Blue by Styx. The obligatory cheese. Anyways, Styx was the first rock band that I really loved as a young teen, way back in the early-mid 1970's and Suite Madame Blue was the song that did it for me. I still have…
jdupuis | January 11, 2010Bravewords.com is featuring their annual top 30 hard rock & heavy metal albums of the year. It's a pretty good list from a very good year. I like their list because it mixes mainstream and extreme very nicely, with Cheap Trick & Kiss on the same list as Immortal and Napalm Death. It was a pretty good year for me as I have 5 of the 30 albums listed (Chickenfoot, Mastodon, Heaven and Hell, Slayer and #1 Megadeth with Heaven and Hell as my favourite of the bunch) and I'll probably end up getting a few more as well.
Let's take a look at the top 10, in descending order to #1:
VOIVOD -…
jdupuis | December 21, 2009Every year The Allman Brothers Band hold court at New York's Beacon Theatre for an extended run and 2009 was a very special year for them as it was the 20th anniversary of the event.
And being a jam band, they celebrated with a wide array of guests each night. Perhaps most notable were two nights with Eric Clapton -- notable because given the ties between the Allmans and Clapton and both their propensities for collaboration, they'd never appeared together on stage before.
Check out here for tons of Youtube coverage and directly for the songs with Clapton: Little Wing, Dreams, Why Does Love…