Posts Tagged ‘music’
Just let me hear some of that rock and roll music…
… and not just any old way you choose it, but selected and explicated by that master of American music– both classical and popular– Leonard Bernstein:
Inside Pop – The Rock Revolution is a CBS News special, broadcast in April 1967. The show was hosted by Leonard Bernstein and is probably one of the first examples of pop music being examined as a “serious” art form. The film features many scenes shot in Los Angeles in late 1966, including interviews with Frank Zappa and Graham Nash, as well as the now-legendary Brian Wilson solo performance of “Surf’s Up.”
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As we tap our toes, we might recall that it was on this date in 1859 that Paul Morphy, an American chess prodigy who became the world’s leading grandmaster, just returned from a competitive tour of Europe, gave up the game. Morphy was so dominant that he’d taken to spotting his opponents– other masters and grand masters– a pawn and a move, or playing blindfolded… or both. After reviewing his games, Bobby Fischer considered Morphy so talented as to be “able to beat any player of any era if given time to study modern theory and ideas.” And Marcel Duchamp, who abandoned art to become a chess expert, found inspiration in Morphy’s open style and opportunistic strategy in crafting his theory of the endgame… which means that Morphy was indirectly a contributor to Duchamp’s friends and collaborators Samuel Beckett (whose Endgame is rooted in Duchamp’s thinking) and John Cage (with whom, in 1968, Duchamp played at a concert entitled “Reunion;” music was produced by a series of photoelectric cells underneath the chessboard).
Morphy’s retirement from chess (an amateur’s game in those days) came the day after he was hailed by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes as “the World Chess Champion” at a banquet in Morphy’s honor attended by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Louis Agassiz, Boston mayor Frederic W. Lincoln, Jr., Harvard president James Walker, and other luminaries. Morphy attempted then to start a law practice, but was side-tracked by the outbreak of the Civil War. Still, with the resources of a family fortune, he lived comfortably in New Orleans until his death in 1884 in the ancestral mansion– the site today of Brennan’s Restaurant (at which, your correspondent suspects, several readers have breakfasted).
Morphy at the board (source)
That Viking Spirit!…
From Reddit user depo_ (via Flowing Data), this map showing metal bands per capita around the world. Crank it up- all the way up to the 60th parallel!
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As we turn our amps to 11, we might recall that it was on this date in 1993 that Tommy premiered on Broadway. The Peter Townsend-Des McAnuff collaboration got mixed reviews; indeed, the Times’ theater critic Frank Rich liked it, while music critic John Pareles suggested that “their (Townshend’s and McAnuff’s) changes turn a blast of spiritual yearning, confusion and rebellion into a pat on the head for nesters and couch potatoes.” Still, the production ran for 899 performances.
Like this:
Thought Experiment: what if the Beatles had played punk?…
From the ever-illuminating Dangerous Minds:
If The Beatles had been Glaswegian and played Punk they may have sounded a bit like The New Piccadillys, a fab four of respected musicians: George Miller (Lead guitar), Keith Warwick (Rhythm guitar), Mark Ferrie (Bass guitar), and Michael Goodwin (Drums), who have variously worked with Sharleen Spiteri, The Kaisers, The Thanes, Ray Gunn and The Rockets and The Scottish Sex Pistols. This is their toe-taping version of The Ramones’ “Judy is a Punk.” European tours, world domination and Piccadillymania beckon…
”The Nobs,” February 28, 1970, KB Hallen, Copenhagen, Denmark (source)Like this:
The Golden Age of Television…
Your correspondent is headed (way) west again– this time to the tundra-like steppes of Mongolia– where it’s so cold that electrons just sit around shivering in copper and photons don’t even try to traverse fiber… Consequently, regular service will be interrupted until on or about February 11. Meantime, a blast from the past…
From 1978, a full hour of cable access staple Efrom Allen’s Underground TV– featuring the Ramones.
[TotH to Pop Loser]
As we wanna be sedated, we might whistle jaunty birthday ditties to Stephane Grappelli; he was born on this date in 1908. In 1934, Grappelli founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France, one of the first all-string jazz bands (and probably the best), with guitarist Django Reinhardt; they disbanded in 1939, as World War overtook the continent. After the war, Grappelli did session work with Jazz greats like Dizzy Gillespie and Oscar Peterson, with pop artists like Paul Simon and Pink Floyd, with classical musicians including Andre Previn and Yo Yo Ma, and with Indian classical violinist L. Subramaniam. He received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997, and was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame.
By their “f#*ks” ye shall know them…
One can click on the rapper of one’s choice at The Rap Board to hear that artist’s signature catch phrase (or cry or grunt or whatever)…
As we rework our rhymes, we might recall that it was on this date in 1778 that Captain James Cook became the first Caucasian/European to visit the Hawaiian island of Maui. He was, of course, by no means the last.
