Webcast info for January 16, 2016

The SCATV building is closed for the Martin Luther King Day weekend, so there will be yet another attempt to rebroadcast the December 6, 2014 episode. But I'm not optimistic.

At 9:15 the station is currently broadcasting silence, which sometimes results in the playlist of the October 24th 2015 getting played, sometimes it's a playlist designed for that purpose. We'll see.

RIP Paul Bley

 

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 I woke up January 5th to discover that two of my musical heroes have died. I'll post something about Pierre Boulez later (and David Bowie, too), but here are some thoughts about Paul Bley

Paul Bley was a pianist I easily admired. A probing mind and a creative restlessness. I don't remember what of his I first heard. Possibly the album he did with the really young Pat Metheny and Jaco Pastorius. The introduction was complete seeing the reunion concert in 1991 of the classic Jimmy Giuffre Three (Giuffre, Bley, and Steve Swallow) playing their chamber-jazz concept at MIT's Killean Hall, music largely off the radar at Famous Music College. This was jazz which added a European flavor to the liberation Ornette Coleman brought to jazz harmony/rhythm/form etc. I think I've not really dug into Bley enough, other pieces I've read mention records I've not heard of. Besides the Giuffre records I also love the studio album Memoirs and the live Montreal Tapes that Bley recorded in a trio with Charlie Haden and Paul Motian.

Here's a tribute program from WFMU's John Allen.

Webcast info for January 9, 2016

 

Due to poor planning, I'm tapping this out from the fabulous Brooklyn Museum, a museum after my own heart, as the art is often grouped by its subject matter, rather than by time period or style. For example, this room has an abstract painting resembling sheets of rain, while on the wall to the left is a very naturalistic painting of a mountain scene with rain in the distance painted in something like the "Hudson River School" style, despite its depiction of Colorado.

Today's program was supposed to be the rebroadcast from December 2014, which was supposed to have run last week, but alas once again did not play.

Hopefully something will be broadcast next week.

Webcast info for January 2, 2016

 

Today we'll be featuring a rebroadcast of the December 6, 2014 episode. I described it at the time as "jazzy" but not "ambitious". Looking over the playlist, the former is certainly true, but I don't think your enjoyment will be influenced by the latter.

No webcast today.

Webcast info for December 26, 2015

No webcast today.

Just a reminder - due to the SCAT building being closed, or my own travel plans there will be no new Unpopular Music webcast until either January 16th or 23rd.

Christmas preparations

I've known the version of Santa Claus is Coming to Town from downloading the Holiday Freakout collection quite some time ago, but I only just recently became aware of this Christmas album from the piano duo Ferrante and Teicher. I was familiar with the duo from easy listening versions of pop songs and movie themes, "Theme from Exodus" and the like, so the obvious use of prepared pianos á la John Cage caught me off guard.

Playlist for the Unpopular Music webcast for December 19, 2015

And so this is Christmas...

We present you an assortment of Unpopular Christmas Music, hopefully not what you were listening to in line at the register. Along with some festive jazz, pop and R&B numbers we do have a serious set as well. And also, a contemplation of the cruel and fickle parameters of jazz legendry where a long, healthy, creative, and productive life lacks the glamour of living fast and dying young.

Ho, ho, ho.

Unpopular Music - December 19, 2015 by Unpopularfred on Mixcloud

Playlist after the break...