Tag Archives: music
“Ray Sings, Basie Swings” is a ghostly concept album
It’s a somewhat goulish idea: take a recording of a late, great artist, and shore it up with new backing tracks. It’s been done before, with Natalie Cole’s “duet” with her father, and the remaining Beatles backing a newly-discovered John Lennon solo track. And if you wanna look at it from a contemporary perspective, digital […]
Branford Marsalis’ “Braggtown: jazz for the ages
Jazz as a genre can span the range from big-band swing, melodic pop standards and mainstream funk-rock , to cool, bop, and way the hell out there. Branford Marsalis is one musician who not only understands, but also appreciates, the big ol’ umbrella that the word represents. The oldest son in a jazz history-making family, […]
Shuffling along in an iPod world
Happy 5th birthday to the iPod. I was kind of slow to get on the bandwagon, mostly because it was (and still is, although not as much) so damned expensive to join the iPod club. But like a lot of people, once I got the thing, I was hooked. It’s a cliche to say it […]
A youthful perspective on ’60s songs
Pitchfork has published a rambling list of the “200 Greatest Songs of the 1960s,” beginning with the Kinks’ “Sunny Afternoon” at 200 and ands with the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” at #1 (presumably — the final 20 aren’t numbered). It’s an interesting list because it’s in a British publication, and these songs were chosen […]
Jake Shimabukuro’s Ultimate Ukulele
Think “ukulele†and you’ll invariably get a quaintly exotic image in your head (and the wrong pronunciation – it’s “oo-koo-leh-leh,†not “you-koo-leh-lehâ€): warm sun, swaying grass skirts, coconut bras, colorful cocktails with umbrellas, and palm trees and a beach in the background. It’s true, the ukulele is a stringed instrument that was born in Hawai’i […]
