Tag: musical pioneers

Categories
composers Music music videos photography

Oh! Canada: Mr. Leonard Cohen.

One of the very greatest songwriters of our era, Leonard Cohen is not only an exemplary denizen of Canada, but is clearly one of the toppest-notch humanoid bipeds of all time. And the man knew how to deliver the goods, when performing his brilliant, poetic, powerful compositions.

Lyric excerpt, from The Future:

Give me back my broken night
My mirrored room, my secret life
It’s lonely here
There’s no one left to torture
Give me absolute control
Over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby
That’s an order!
Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that’s left
And stuff it up the hole
In your culture
Give me back the Berlin wall
Give me Stalin and St Paul
I’ve seen the future, brother:
It is murder

Categories
composers Jazz Music photography saxophone Sonny Rollins

Jazz Titan: Sonny Rollins.

Tenor saxophone colossus Theodore Walter “Sonny” Rollins is responsible for a great many of the most monumental jazz tracks ever produced. With John Coltrane, he’s unquestionably at the top of the mountain as far as tenor sax is concerned. As an interpreter of ballads, he remains unsurpassed. Those included here are dramatic, monumental. Given the apparent relaxation with which Sonny plays, the cliff-hanging tension he creates is uncanny. His work with calypso material was groundbreaking. Presented here is but a minute offering from the great man’s catalogue. A premier pantheon inhabitant.

Categories
Audio Bands hit singles Lou Reed Music music videos photography Punk Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground, and Lou Reed.

The Velvet Underground consisted, in their heyday, of vocalist/guitarist Lou Reed, keyboardist/bassist John Cale, guitarist Sterling Morrison, and Moe Tucker on the drumkit. Doug Yule replaced Cale in 1969, and Teutonic songstress Nico appeared on the group’s debut record.

Often cited as Godfathers of Punk, this hugely influential New York band mixed art rock, minimalism, garage rock, and often quite taboo lyrical subject matter. Brian Eno commented on the group’s initial lack of sales, “Everyone who bought one of those 30,000 albums (referring to the “Banana Album”) ended up starting a band.”

Categories
Bass Clarinet Eric Dolphy Jazz Music performers photography

Eric Dolphy.

Eric was simply otherworldly in his approach, especially on bass clarinet and alto saxophone. A number of jazz titans held him near and dear, including Charles Mingus and John Coltrane, with whom some of his most stunning work was achieved. No one sounds remotely like Eric Dolphy. In his improvisations, he could be intensely intimate and tender, or utterly explosive and groundbreaking, or both, often in rapid succession.

Upon hearing of Eric’s death, at 36, Mingus said:
” Usually, when a man dies, you rememberβ€”or you say you rememberβ€”only the good things about him. With Eric, that’s all you could remember. I don’t remember any drags he did to anybody. The man was absolutely without a need to hurt.”

Dolphy’s shocking death came shortly before the release of his masterpiece Out to Lunch. He was supposedly very interested in playing in Albert Ayler’s group, and was even preparing to play with Cecil Taylor.

Categories
composers David Murray Henry Threadgill Jazz Julius Hemphill Music photography

David Murray, Julius Hemphill, and Henry Threadgill.

David Murray: Abel’s Blissed-Out Blues.
One For Eric. {w/Jack Dejohnette’s Special Edition}
Spooning.
Henry Threadgill: Just the Facts and Pass the Bucket.
I Can’t Wait ’til I Get Home.
Cremation.
Just B.

Three of the most important and enthralling creators in jazz.

Categories
Jazz John Coltrane Music music videos performers photography

John Coltrane.

Transition.
Spiritual.
Liberia.
Amen.
Compassion. {First Meditations: for quartet}
Mr. P.C.
Equinox.
Bye Bye Blackbird. (Live, 1960, Olympia with Miles Davis)
All Blues. (Live, 1960, Stockholm. w/Miles Davis)
So What. (Stockholm, 1960)
Cosmos: {Live in Seattle, 1965}.
Out of This World. (Live in Seattle)
Your Lady.
Dear Lord.

Saxophonist John Coltrane’s impossible power as an improviser simply cannot be described. He provided one of the high water marks in music history with his ground-and-everything-else-breaking work in the 1960’s, featuring his immortal quartet {McCoy Tyner, piano; Elvin Jones, drums/percussion; and Jimmy Garrison, bass}.

Categories
composers David Bowie Music music videos performers photography vocalists

David Bowie.

It’s No Game, pt. 2.

A modest collection of brilliant live performances by Mr. Bowie, with 2 studio tracks, plus a wondrous, pared-down demo thrown in for good measure. The constantly reinventing, quasi-androgynous David Robert Jones {his birthname} pioneered his way through the music world, leaving the landscape forever altered—with new worlds and vistas previously undream’t of—in his wake.