Sadly I only just had this thought today

As much as I love Bob Dylan, if anyone was going to win a Nobel Prize for writing song lyrics, it should have been Stephen Sondheim.

Carla Bley on BBC Radio 3

... or perhaps the other way around.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week BBC Radio 3's Composer of the Week series focused on the redoubtable Carla Bley, longtime Unpopular Music All-Star. 

Each of the five episodes considers a different aspect of Bley's compositional style in chronological order (although there are significant overlaps), often showing how the same source material gets recomposed over time. I have some quibbles about the commentary - there could be a bit more depth on the compositional detail without getting bogged down in theoretical details that only appeal to music theory nerds like myself, and her work with Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra is only briefly mentiones in passing (if her reworking of her own material is worth examining, why not her reworkings of Haden's?) However, the balance greatly favors the music over the commentary, and five hours with Carla Bley's music is time well spent. (These shows are only available for a few more weeks.)

Unpopular Music - July 18, 2021

 

Here's another upload mostly featuring recent additions to the Unpopular Music library. Hopefully not so big of a break until the next one, but it's been an odd year.

 

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 In the absence of me playing DJ there are some program notes below, along with the playlist. 

Unpopular Music - April 24, 2021

 I believe this program takes you on a journey. Or, perhaps it picks you up off the street and into a windowless van and drops you off in a completely different neighborhood (with the best of intentions, of course), with a side-trip across the faces of Mt. Rushmore.

We start off with some mellow, classical sounds before we go into some jazzy neighborhoods, before ending up with some "popular" sounds where we ponder the compatibility of such possibly incompatible philosophies as "fear is a man's best friend," "purity of heart is to will one thing," and "we all shine on" (and perhaps even "shut up and eat.") (Albeit, with some moments of raucousness.)

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The first five tracks came around in that order on the shuffle play one day during my evening constitutional, the rest were added haphazardly over time until I had achieved critical mass for a playlist. Finding the right order actually came about rather easily considering the arbitrary selection process.

And yes, this episode of "Unpopular Music" does contain a hit song by one of the most popular musicians of all time. (Sorry for the inconsistency, but where else do you hear him paired with Eric Dolphy and Buxtehude?) It showed up in some of the appreciations of the producer when he died earlier this year, and it struck me as being the sort of thing that a Beatles/Spector collaboration was expected to sound like, discussions of which will start up again in the fall, for sure. 

See the playlist after the break...

Unpopular Music - January 18, 2021

The first upload of 2021 is a grab-bag of recent acquisitions to the Unpopular Music library. A lot of the same old faces, and not even the first stunt arrangement of Satie's First Gnossienne that I've posted, but all worthy of checking out.

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See the playlist after the break...