Playlist for the Unpopular Music webcast for May 31, 2014

Anthony Braxton and Benny Goodman, together at last!!

Unpopular Music - May 31, 2014 by Unpopularfred on Mixcloud

After the break....

Link to the missing link

Even though I'll play it next week, you can go here to hear The Minutemen's The Price of Paradise, inadvertently left off the Memorial Day playlist.

Program notes for the Unpopular Music webcast for May 24, 2014

Sun Ra always insisted he was an angel from Saturn, so on this Saturn's day we will devote some time to honor his 100^th birthday. Herman Blount was born on May 22, 1914, and started going by Le Sony'r Ra somewhere around 1950. Sun Ra is one of those musicians who seems to be able to call up any point of the jazz tradition at any given moment, and has a band full of musicians who can do the same. (As with Duke Ellington's orchestra, several men spent the bulk of their adult lives playing in the Arkestra, even, unlike Duke's band, living communally when not on the road.) Like I say on the show, the over simplification is that he harks back to the Fletcher Henderson, Count Basie type of (black) swing bands from the thirties, with a broader (not “better” like I said) sense of harmony and counterpoint, and also a greater influence of African and eastern rhythmic concepts. Kingdom of Not and the whole of the Supersonic Jazz album demonstrates this. The other strain is the free-jazz type, influenced by African and Eastern mythology (particularly Egyptian). The Magic City album, from which the Shadow World is taken, is mostly made up of conducted improvisations.

Playlist for the Unpopular Music webcast for May 24, 2014

Commemorating Sun Ra's 100th birthday and Memorial Day Weekend. Read the program notes here.

Unpopular Music - 05/24/2014 by Unpopularfred on Mixcloud

See the playlist when you push that button...

Playlist for the May 17, 2014 Unpopular Music webcast

Gather, round people, wherever you roll...

(sorry best I could come up with to fill this space right now)

Unpopular Music - May 17, 2014 by Unpopularfred on Mixcloud

playlist after the break .....

Top 5 for May 15, 2014

In my time of dying – Led Zeppelin, from Physical Graffiti

Oh let's see here, the label says this is an original composition by the four members of the band from 1974. Um, wait, didn't Bob Dylan record this song twelve years earlier? I mean this song was probably 100 years old, but by this time Jimmy Page's habit of putting his name on other people's songs was well ingrained. And, after all, you get paid a lot more for writing a song than for arranging one. This is what Homer Simpson is talking about when he call Page “one of the greatest thieves of American music” (And to think he was recently honored by the institution that once granted me a degree in composition.)

(Sure, Dylan's capable of this too, but he's usually pretty blatant about it, as if he wants to get caught in order to promote the source. His recording says “traditional arr. Dylan” but he probably copped the arrangement from Dave van Ronk or somebody).

An underappreciated time in jazz history

After following a link for a different post, I found this list of great jazz records from 1973 to 1990 on the blog of the great music critic (and new Boston Globe hire) Steve Smith. It's a response to a similar list compiled by Bad Plus pianist Ethan Iverson. It's a period on which I've been focusing a bit, myself, And since I can only play so much of it on the webcast, I'll use this venue to share it with you.

These dates supposedly represent a fallow period for jazz (those various fusions again), especially to the "Jazz Establishment" of the time (and later times). They were certainly considered as some kind of dark age during my time at Famous Music College in the late '80s - early '90s, an advent to the neo-classical age in which we were then living, ranging from the Marsalis camp at one end with the far-out edge being are Pat Metheny and John Scofield. (Well, there were some of us into Bill Frisell and John Zorn*). But now, 25 or so years later, I keep finding it too be a rich and underappreciated time in America's greatest artform.

Program notes for the May 10, 2014 Unpopular Music webcast

The blog seems to have gotten away from “top [fill-in-the-blank] of [today's date]” format, which was really the format of the (off-line) music journal I'd been keeping for myself, largely as a writing exercise (itself, largely as an effort to “just do something”). The process of singling out a song, or two, or five, or whatever to write about has largely been replaced by adding said two-to-whatever songs to the playlist for the next webcast. So now, to get some more writing done, and, let's face it, create some more “content” for the blog, I'm going to try (at least this week) to write some “program notes” for the webcast.

I first heard Katie Lee singing Real Sick Sounds on a compilation called “Beat Jazz - Pictures from the Gone World volume 2” and enjoyed it's depiction of the lover of dissonant and off-beat music. Further research led me to the album “Songs of Couch and Consultation” a sort-of song cycle of psychologically themed songs which also include The Will to Fail, the Guilty Rag, Shrinker Man, and others, collectively a hoot-and-a-holler.

Playlist for the May 10, 2014 Unpopular Music webcast

Posted at the time of broadcast since I wasn't up for recording too many mic breaks

Unpopular Music - May 10, 2014 by Unpopularfred on Mixcloud

after the break...

Playlist for the May 3, 2014 Unpopular Music webcast

For your post May Day, pre-Cinco de Mayo enjoyment, in which I somehow talk myself into a corner where I need to make the clarifying statement "Nazi's suck".

Unpopular Music - May 3, 2014 by Unpopularfred on Mixcloud

after the break

More thoughts on genre

Oy, I've been neglecting the blog a bit!

Well. I just finished putting Saturday's show together, and it's a bit all over the place, as usual, I guess, but perhaps a bit more so.

A last minute search to clear up some foggy notes I had made for last week's show led me to look up the liner notes for John Schott's Shuffle Play album which contains the following statement from the composer

For a brief moment at the birth of recording, before the existence of the recording “industry,” notions of style, genre, and even taste evaporated. Sound was documented pretty much at random, with a quasi-democracy characteristic of the New World.

Now we find ourselves perhaps at the other end  of the recording "industry" I think some of these notions of style, genre, and taste are (or at least should be) changing. So if Franz Liszt and Julius Hemphill and Billy Bragg can share space in my head, perhaps they can in yours too.

Anyway, the notes as whole are pretty interesting and a pretty much in line with my own thinking, and you can check them out here.

Playlist for the Unpopular Music webcast for April 26, 2014

In which, the above normal amount of traffic noise outside the window manages to not occur during the mic breaks...

Unpopular Music - April 26, 2014 by Unpopularfred on Mixcloud

Two Nights at the Regattabar

Dave Douglas' Riverside, April 17, 2014

It took a bit of convincing myself to go to this show. I mean Dave Douglas, sure. Steve Swallow, a definite plus. But who are these other guys? Well, the Times speaks highly of this Chet Doxas fellow. Oh, but the group is an homage to Jimmy Giuffre? OK, let's go!

Playlist for the April 19, 2014 Unpopular Music webcast

A pre-recorded show for the Easter/Patriot's Day/Boston Marathon/Record Store Day/Earth Day weekend (hence shabby sounding, bedroom recorded mic breaks)

After the break...

Down with Poptimism!!

(in which I lapse into grandiosity)

For those of you lucky enough to receive the Somerville Community Access TV newsletter, you read a blurb for my program (not written by me) which I think made it out to be more exclusive and snobby than I intend it to be. (This is mostly my fault since I've been terrible at describing the show, and also missed a deadline to submit some promotional copy of my own. I'm not mad at anyone over it) To be clear, I'm not aiming for the select few, but I (and I'm sure everyone on Boston Free Radio) am trying to bring forward an alternative to pop radio hegemony. I certainly don't want to be one of those dj's who are too cool to even like the music they play.


Which brings me to

Catching up, Part 2

Remanence: Monstrance/Remonstrance at the ICA Boston (March 29, 2014)

An extravagance presented by the artist Matthew Ritchie and the musicians Bryce Dessner, Shara Worden, David Sheppard and Evan Ziporyn. We began in the lobby of the ICA facing a large mural by Ritchie with light projections above and seated on the floor on foam rubber pads sharing the same amoeba-like design (for serious lack of a better description). The musical component, a collaboration between Dessner and Ziporyn titled "Propolis", a sort of structured improvisation for violin, trombone, bass clarinet, double bass and highly electronically manipulated electric guitar, transformed by Sheppard's sound design, emitting through speakers on all sides and above the audience. The audience is immersed in sound, also somewhat amoeba-like in shape, as Sheppard records the ensembles playing, manipulates it, creating loops and such for the players to respond further etc, etc. Some very fascinating, beautiful, scary music ensued.

Playlist for the April 12, 2014 Unpopular Music webcast

Commemorating (but not celebrating) the 50th anniversary of the Senate (eventually overcome) filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  (and other things too)

Unpopular Music - April 12, 2014 by Unpopularfred on Mixcloud

Find the playlist after the break...

Playlist for the April 5, 2014 Unpopular Music webcast

In which I manage to not play anything with Bill Frisell (except for the theme). Next week we'll try Joey Baron (except for the theme).

Unpopular Music - April 05, 2014 by Unpopularfred on Mixcloud

Playlist after the break

Jason Moran's Fats Waller Dance Party

Just a couple of thoughts on last night's somewhat enjoyable, somewhat maddening performance of Jason Moran's Fats Waller Dance Party at the Berklee Performance Center.

First of all, as a performer, you don't always get the audience you want. That's the way it goes. It's your job as a professional, though, to find a way to engage the audience (without resorting to pandering) or failing that, perform for your own pleasure, and if the audience doesn't catch up, it's their loss. I, however, dislike being implored by someone on stage to react to the performance other than how I am, especially when it's not the person whose name is on the ticket.

Correcting Bob's grammar

I don't really go around being a persnickety grammar enforcer, but every time I hear Positively 4th Street, I cringe at "you know as well as me, you'd rather see me paralyzed", not only for the grammar, but for how "I" would rhyme with "paralyzed". I guess "me" makes an OK internal rhyme with "see", but it's not worth it.

Someone might argue "no man, he's saying the guy knows he'd rather see Bob paralyzed as well as he knows Bob", but it's just time to take that person in out of the sun, cause obviously Bob is arguing that this person doesn't know him very well at all.