Playlist for the Unpopular Music webcast for July 26, 2014

[insert snappy introduction to the playlist here]

Unpopular Music - July 26, 2014 by Unpopularfred on Mixcloud

More inspiration went into putting the program together, I swear. Trust me, after the break....

Playlist for the Unpopular Music webcast for July 19, 2014

This week we pay tribute to the great Charlie Haden. As it turns out, we also have several Ornette Coleman tunes and an array of modern big bands. Plus, well actually included in the above, a couple of tunes dedicated to famous communists.

Unpopular Music - July 19, 2014 by Unpopularfred on Mixcloud

Lose your chains after the break ...

Chrlie Haden on Democracy Now!

Here's Charlie Haden talking to Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! (heard weekdays at 4PM on Boston Free Radio by the way), including his recollections on being arrested in Portugal in 1970 after dedicating Song for Che to anticolonialist movements in Portugal's African colonies. Quite the tale.

Similarities in unexpected places

I think these two pieces of music have the same piano part.

Playlist for the Unpopular Music webcast for July 12, 2014

So I was up late last night putting together the jigsaw puzzle which is this show, and then woke up this morning and read the news that the Charlie Haden has died.

Doing this program for about four months now, I've been struggling a bit to avoid the over-repetition of certain artists, Charlie Haden among them. Today's program is a mixed success on that front, but there was no Charlie. I did go back and take out a couple of the more arbitrary choices ("OK, I need an upbeat 2:46 to go before the promo at the bottom of the hour") and replaced them with some Charlie Haden features. I'll surely have some more next week. (Many appearances as a sideman can help get around Live 365's rather arbitrary (IMHO) but strictly enforced rules about playing multiple tracks from the same artist.)

Unpopular Music - July 12, 2014 by Unpopularfred on Mixcloud

The complete playlist is after the break....

Lie back in your easy-chair and meet my polar opposite

I came across this post on Listverse titled "10 Pieces of Music to Make Your Ears Bleed" in which the author lists 10 "unlistenable" pieces of classical music, almost all of them bedrock staples of the 20th century repertoire (‘Gesang Der Junglinge’ by Stockhausen, Penderecki's Threnody, Berg's Wozzeck, Varèse's Ionisation) and highly influential on later generations.

The post brought to mind the quote from Charles Ives - "Is not beauty in music too often confused with something which lets the ears lie back in an easy-chair?" [from the "Postface to 114 Songs" which can be read here.]

Rather than describing this music as "unlistenable", I would say this is music to which you have to listen, it requires you to be an active listener, to be a participant in the music making experience, not just sit there and passively give up a predetermined  response.

Playlist for the Unpopular Music webcast for July 5, 2014

Hey baby, it's the Fourth Fifth of July!

Unpopular Music - July 5, 2014 by Unpopularfred on Mixcloud

Playlist after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for June 28, 2014

The webcast rides again.

Unpopular Music - June 28, 2014 by Unpopularfred on Mixcloud

Playlist after the break....

Bang on a Can Marathon, June 22, 2014

Listeners of the webcast are probably familiar (perhaps too familiar) with my admiration for Bang on a Can, the New York based organization founded and run by composers Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe to promote their own, and other similarly minded composers' music. Their aesthetic is to basically (and this is my own generalization here) augment or perhaps subvert, various 20th century composition techniques with outside elements like jazz, rock, world and early musics. Besides promoting their own work, Band on a Can serves as a forum for the work of their colleagues, peers, students, teachers and influences.

One of the most visible and popular presentations is their early summer marathon concert in New York City. This is the first year various stars have aligned enough for me to attend, and it was a worthwhile experience. What follows is a brief rundown of the day.

Playlist for the Unpopular Music webcast for June 21, 2014

When this old world starts getting you down, the playlist is after the break...

Unpopular Music - June 21, 2014 by Unpopularfred on Mixcloud

Preview - RIP Messrs. Goffin, Hyla and Silver

I'm plotting out some tributes in this week's webcast for the three great yet diverse musicians who died in the last week or so: the quintessential hard-bop pianist Horace Silver, the brilliant popsong lyricist Gerry Goffin, and the under-appreciated, multifaceted composer Lee Hyla.

Doing some research while trying to decide whether to feature Hyla's bass clarinet or violin concerto, I came across this article which certainly shows some similarities between his and the blog's ideals - the melange of influences, the idea that the audience has an active role in the musical experience, and others. A mutual music biz acquaintance actually tried once to get us to meet and talk, thinking we'd get along well, but it didn't really come off.

Anyway, the bass clarinet concerto is a better fit, the violin concerto is too long, but the first ten minutes or so make a distinct section (including an amazing solo cadenza) which could be cleaved off to fit in. Which ever doesn't get played tomorrow will probably show up later.

Peter Serkin endorses the webcast...

... Well not really, but I think this quote from the great eclectic pianist about his own programming is simpatico with a program that will combine Elvis Costello and Marshall Crenshaw with Stravinsky and Berio because they're all using accordions.

I prefer programs which are neither overly ingratiating nor didactic. I think that programs show integrity when there is no attempt to win anyone over at all. We can welcome programs that are somewhat challenging. It is out of respect for the intelligence of an audience that one plays programs that may not be particularly easy to listen to, but that present something genuine, with integrity. Anyhow, how can one possibly determine what is “easy” or “difficult” to listen to for someone else—is Beethoven really easier to listen to than Wolpe or Wuorinen? In any case, we do not need to shirk from that which may be more outrageous and provocative; people do want to hear interesting music.

You can find the whole interview here.

Playlist for the Unpopular Music webcast for June 14, 2014

Happy National Accordion Awareness Month, Daddy-O

Unpopular Music - June 14, 2014 by Unpopularfred on Mixcloud

Playlist after the break...

Preview / Warning

June is National Accordion Awareness Month, something I can hardly let go uncelebrated. Therefore a large part of this week's webcast will be devoted to increasing your awareness.

Choice of repertoire was capricious and arbitrary, as usual. No attempt at comprehensiveness was made. I kept coming across the same Frankie Yankovic CD at one of my regular thrift shop stops, but I was able to resist, and not buy it just to put it on the webcast (your welcome). There will be no polkas or Lady of Spain. There will be Berio, Ligeti, and Stravinsky among others. There's an Astor Piazzola that might not make the final cut. Nor is there any Weird Al. Nor that Who song.

My criteria were

• 1.) Does this have an accordion on it? 

• 2.) Do I like it?

If the webcast doesn't satiate you, the Somerville Arts Council is sponsoring Squeezebox Slam 2014, featuring accordionists strolling around the city before gathering in Seven Hills Park (behind the Davis Square T-Station) for a performance.

Tune in and enjoy!

Makanda Project with Oliver Lake at the BPL, Dudley Square, May 30, 2014

The Makanda Project is dedicated to performing works by the late saxophonist and composer Makanda Ken McIntyre. The pianist and band leader John Kordalewski was given access to many unperformed tunes and scores, and has assembled a band featuring several of Boston's best musicians (among them John Lockwood, Charlie Kohlhase, Kurtis Rivers, Yoron Israel and Jerry Sabatini), plus the occasional special guest, to bring them to life. Their home base is the drab but cozy auditorium at the Boston Public Library's Dudley Square Branch (beautifully lit up at night), in the desire to present the music in the community where McIntyre grew up.

Domenico Scarlatti and John Cage, together at last!

Here's something right up my alley, that you all may also enjoy -- the pianist David Greilsammer alternating pieces by Domenico Scarlatti and John Cage recorded live at (Le) Poisson Rouge. Courtesy of Q2, the fantastic new-music internet radio station in New York.

Enjoy!

 

Playlist for the Unpopular Music webcast for June 7, 2014

Willkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome!

Unpopular Music - June 7, 2014 by Unpopularfred on Mixcloud

Playlist nach der Pause, après la pause, after the break! ....

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.