Almost reaching the 50th post of "5 weekend songs", just one more week to go... I hope the songs I am picking for you sound fun to you and every single one of you can make a discovery in those songs or remember something from the past...
I recently watched a great documentary about Pavarotti last week and let's begin with a quote from him.
As the great tenor once said;
"If children are not introduced to music at an early age,
I believe something fundamental is actually being taken from them."
And now here is our list for the weekend;
James - "Ring the Bells"
Ebo Taylor & Uhuru Yenzu - "Love & Death"
Erykah Badu - "Tyrone"
GoGo Penguin - "Branches Break"
Otha - "I'm on Top"
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.
British jazz scene has been getting more and more interesting in the last couple of years and the trio I will mention in this post is a fine example of what new jazz translates to nowadays.
GoGo Penguin are a band from Manchester,UK featuring pianist Chris Illingworth, bassist Nick Blacka, and drummer Rob Turner.
GoGo Penguin - Photo credit: Linda Bujoli
Their debut album "Fanfares" was released in 2012 from Gondwana records. This album had Grand Russell on bass who was replaced by Nick Blacka on their second CD called the "v2.0" in 2014.
Here is the title track from the first album...
The band's history goes back to "Royal Northern College of Music" in their native Manchester. Their unique and solid sound made them come to the forefront of the jazz scene which is over-populated by trios. One other critical success factor is that the band members are quite young and they try to reflect certain inspirations from an eclectic musical taste from Massive Attack, Brian Eno, Esbjörn Svensson Trio, Aphex Twin to Debussy and Shostakovich...
Here is another track called "Hopopono" from their second album.
You might notice how unified their sound is, they do not try soloing in the songs and rather use an uninterrupted instrumentation throughout the song. I guess this also makes their sound more interesting.
In 2015, the band signed a deal with Blue Note Records and released the album "Man Made Object", which is my favorite. I remember reading somewhere that almost all the compositions of this album were electronically made on Ableton by the drummer Ron Turner and arranged afterwards for the band's acoustic sound.
Let's hear a piece called "All Res".
Their latest album was released in 2018 with the title of "Humdrum Star". Here is a video of the band explaining themselves and the recording.
It is amazing to watch these young guys make so much sense. They seem so relaxed and wise...If you get the chance of listening to their full albums chronologically, you can feel the development and the culmination of their music. It is so enjoyable to listen how parallel their jazz sound is to electronic music.
Let's conclude with a song from this album called "Window".
GoGo Penguin has greatly achieved to combine different musical perceptions, styles and sounds and they have created their unique jazz sound that we mostly hanker for. Highly recommend to all music lovers!
Thank you dear readers, requests are coming and I am trying to fulfill them as long as I can find noteworthy covers of the songs. This one is from a very old friend...
Please keep your requests and comments coming...
And our song for this week is;
"Honesty"
"Honesty" is a song by American singer and songwriter Billy Joel. Columbia Records released the song as the third single from his sixth studio album 52nd Street in 1979. It was solely written by Joel, while production was handled by Phil Ramone.
The song received mostly positive reviews from music critics, who generally praised its lyrics and piano instrumentation. It also received comparisons to other songs by Joel. "Honesty" peaked at number twenty-four on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, becoming the album's third consecutive top forty hit. It went to Number 1 in France and has also been certified gold by Recording Industry Association of Japan for ringtone download sales of over 100,000 units.
When Joel started writing this song, he started with the title "Home Again," but was looking for something more appropriate. At his Howard Stern town hall appearance in 2014, he explained: "I didn't have a lyric for it, so my drummer started to sing 'sodomy' - 'sodomy... such a lonely word.' So I had to come up with some lyrics fast."
And here are the 3 versions I chose for you;
Beyoncé - "Honesty"
Toots Thielemans - "Honesty"
Ramón García - "Honesty"
Now the floor is yours, go ahead and make your comments (here, Instagram, Facebook wherever you feel like...).
nb. Please note that I intentionally do not include the original versions of the songs as it would be a little unfair to the artists covering the songs, and I am sure that sometimes you will be surprised to see that the songs you thought were the originals are just covers...
Changing of the seasons is open to so many things and especially if this change is from summer to winter you get moody, sentimental and nostalgic. And obviously all this ends up with a runny nose each and every year. So this year why not to shake off our weariness and let music be one of our means of escape from these tedious feelings...
As Yanni once said;
"Music is an incredibly direct language. It bypasses
language and logic, and speaks directly to your soul."
So here is our weekend list for you to accompany your cold medicines;
Cream - "Sunshine of Your Love" (RIP Ginger Baker)
Joni Mitchell - "Both Sides Now"
Jimmy Fallon, Sia, Natalie Portman & The Roots - "Iko Iko"
Arjun Vagale & Ramiro Lopez - "Oddball "
Max Roach & Abbey Lincoln - "Driva' Man"
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.
Sad to hear the news of Ginger Baker's passing away. He was an incredible drummer and at the same time an amazing character...
I remember listening to his wonderful drumming with Cream and Blind Faith. I did not follow his works too much later on but he was always active in various musical endeavors.
He was a difficult person and his relation with fans, band members, promoters etc. were volatile,
and you can witness this in the below documentary called "Beware of Mr. Baker" made by Jay Bulger in 2012.
