Another week gone by, just two more days till the weekend though terrible weather in my hometown obviously having an impact on souls. Don't know what to choose, dark songs to feel even more depressed or songs to cheer us up...
As Murakami said;
“Music brings a warm glow to my vision, thawing mind and muscle from their endless wintering”.
Anyways let's try to find a compromise between the wintry and summery spirits.
Here is this week's list;
Aurora - "Teardrop"
David Bowie - "Lady Grinning Soul"
The Bad Plus - "Heart of Glass"
Marcus Miller & Selah Sue - "Que Sera Sera"
Louis Prima & Keely Smith - "Baby Won't You Please Come Home"
Hope you have a great weekend.
nb. You can open the actual youtube page by clicking the name on the upper left side of each video.
Hello everybody, already the fifth week of the "Five Songs for the Weekend" title.
Time does fly and I hope you listen to a lot of good music in the meantime; that's one of the rarest things what makes this messed up world more enjoyable.
As Aldous Huxley said:
"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music"...
So here is my list for the week and I wish that all of you to get a kick out of these 5 songs during the weekend.
Calexico - "Under The Wheels"
Sons of Kemet - "In The Castle of My Skin"
Tiger Lillies - "Gin"
Fazıl Say - "Black Earth"
Ramsey Lewis - "John Henry"
Hope you have a great weekend.
nb. You can open the actual youtube page by clicking the name on the upper left side of each video.
I would like to introduce you a book that I have just finished reading. It is about the "27 Club": musicians, artists and actors who have passed away at the age of 27.
The book mainly covers the stories of the most famous musicians of the 27 Club, namely Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse. The readers can also reach an extensive list of other celebrities who have died at the age of 27 as an appendix.
I have always wondered if there has been any real explanation about the same age deaths of these great music people. Maybe a little spoiler but the book does not try to dig out the reasons why all these people died at the age of 27 nor tries to make any correlations between them.
I guess there is no proof about that at least on a statistical or a scientific level. However the reader can immediately understand one single commonality among these talented musicians is that their excessive alcohol and drug abuse...
Rolling Stones incl. Brian Jones - "Paint It Black" in 1965
The book is fun to read, as the writer, Howard Sounes, has made an impressive research especially about the last days of the musicians. However I must say that the axis of the book revolves around Amy Winehouse, maybe due to the fact that her death was the most recent one or Sounes probably had conducted a better research on her.
Jimi Hendrix Experience - "Hey Joe"
Sounes tries to tell each rock star's story mostly based on facts. In certain parts of the book, he tries to connect the tragedies to either their childhoods or their relations with their past or at the time present lovers. But again he avoids making concrete assumptions.
Janis Joplin - "Piece of My Heart"in 1968
One argument that the writer clearly makes all along the book is that all the iconic members of the 27 Club have entered a self-destructive path since their teen years. It is sad to read about their physiological and psychological meltdowns but on the other hand it is not fair to judge or easy to show empathy to such great talented minds.
The Doors - "Riders On The Storm"
If you expect to discover urban myths and legends, this is not the book to read on the 27 Club. In fact I don't know if there is such a book. However if you are really interested on the critical snapshots (I say snapshots because there are many other books to read about these 6 talents if you want full life stories or biographies) of these rock starts and more importantly the causes what have driven them all to this tragic end, this might be the book to read.
Nirvana - "Smells Like Teen Spirit", last time it was played live
I was planning to post a clip from Amy Winehouse's last concert in Belgrade (in which she was really in a bad shape) but then I thought that it is not fair to her to be remembered like that so here is another one from 2008 (can't promise she is sober on this one tough...).
While I was reading the book I couldn't help thinking if these tragic events could have been eliminated? Could they have enjoyed normal lives? Who are the ones that are really responsible? Many questions, but definitely one answer: they were great talents and none of them will ever be replaced...
One of the greatest trumpeters of our generation has passed away last week. He was only 49.
Roy Hargrove, a Texan, was discovered by Wynton Marsalis during his high school years.
He attended the Berklee College of Music for a year and moved to New York and enrolled in the New School.
His first recording was in 1988 as a sideman with Bobby Watson's band on the "No Question About It" album. The first record he made was called "Diamond in the Rough" and came out in 1990.
Apart from his true jazz roots, he recorded with many respectable soul artists such as D'Angelo, Erykah Badu, Anjelique Kidjo and rapper Common.
Roy Hargrove Quintet - "Strasbourg/St. Denis" - Live in Paris
His band the RH Factor was an influential band combining two worlds, jazz and R&B/HipHop.
RH Factor blends a core band of two sax players, three keyboard players, two bassists and drummers, and two guitarists (including legendary soul session ace Cornell Dupree) with the best and brightest from the soul and R&B 'new schools' including D'Angelo, Badu, Meshell Ndegeocello, Steve Coleman, Karl Denson, Marc Cary, and two hip-hop MCs: Common and Q-Tip.
The RH Factor feat. Erykah Badu & Meshell Ndegeocello
Hargrove made more than 20 records as a band leader and even more than that with other distinguished musicians such as Herbie Hancock, Michael Brecker, Antonio Hart, Sonny Rollins, Steve Coleman and Oscar Peterson just to name a few.
I believe Roy Hargrove was an artist who had tried to spread the jazz (or a newer version of jazz merged with soul music) to wider audiences. He was a leading figure in the neo-soul movement during the first decade of the new millennium. But above all he was a true jazz man whom I often compare with Miles Davis; not personally, not musically but with his adaptability and enthusiasm to create new forms and always stay ahead of the curve...
