...Part one (loss) -
- Part two (win)...
When I first met Sarah at a party (exactly five years to the day before I proposed to her) she was decked out in boxing gear.
Content
June 8
Happy Birthday Dave King!
TBP Summer Schedule
June 2009
06 Buenos Aires, AR* -- La Trastienda
09 Sao Paolo, BR* -- Bourbon Street Music Club
10 Sao Paolo, BR* -- Teatro Sesi
11 Rio de Janeiro, BR* -- Mistura Fina
12 Rio das Ostras, BR* -- Rio das Ostras Jazz & Blues Festival
13 Rio das Ostras, BR* -- Rio das Ostras Jazz & Blues Festival
17 Wilmington, DE -- Clifford Brown Jazz Festival
20 London, UK -- Royal Festival Hall (Opening for Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra)
25 Detroit, MI -- Community Arts Auditorium
30 Montreal, QC* -- Maison du Jazz (two nights at a new venue at the festival)
July 2009
01 Montreal, QC* -- Maison du Jazz
02 Winnipeg, ON* -- Pyramid Cabaret
04 Ottawa, ON -- Ottawa Jazz Festival
15 St. John's, NF -- St John's Jazz Festival
16 Halifax, NS -- Atlantic Jazz Festival
18 Sioux Falls, SD -- Yankton Trail Park
23 San Diego, CA -- Anthology
24 Los Angeles, CA -- California Plaza
26 San Sebastian, ES* -- Teatro Victoria Eugenia
August 2009
09 Newport, RI* -- Newport Jazz Festival
* = joined by Wendy Lewis
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Tim Berne + Ethan Iverson duo at the Stone June 26
Charlie Haden + Ethan Iverson duo July 5 + 6 at the Glenn Gould Hall in Toronto and July 21 at Blue Note NYC
Ethan Iverson, Reid Anderson, Paul Motian trio at the Village Vanguard July 28 - August 2
"Look at this Oncidium varicosum," he grumbled. "Dry rot in April. It has never happened before and there is no explanation."
I'm currently rereading a detective novel from 1951 called Murder By the Book. According to this source, the orchids mentioned in passing include:
Phalaenopsis
Cattleya
Dendrobium chrysotoxum
Cypripedium Lord Fisher
Dendrobium Cybele
Brassocattleya
Laeliocattleya
Cattleya Dionysius
Cattleya Katadin
Cattleya peetersi
Brassocattleya Calypso
Brassocattleya fournierae
Brassocattleya Nestor
Laeliocattleya barbarossa
Laeliocattleya Carmencita
Laeliocattleya St. Gothard
Oncidium varicosum
Oncidium
Oncidium Forbesi
Cypripedium Minos
Dendrobium
Cochlioda
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Somehow I missed Terry Teachout's wonderful essay "Forty Years with Nero Wolfe" when it was posted earlier this year. Terry says it all, and much better than I can myself. (His short list of the best of 40+ books is quite acceptable.)
The same bookcase that houses my complete Donald E. Westlake boasts a pretty good Rex Stout collection including everything starring Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. I have been collecting hardback Wolfes for a few years now. They aren't first editions, and certainly not mint, but I have found that nothing else is quite as relaxing as opening up one of these old friends and enjoying the banter. (If the object in my hands is a vintage hardback, even a book club edition, so much the better.)
If you don't know the series, the opening paragraph of Murder By the Book may mean little. But if you are already a fan, the following is a warm welcome indeed:
Something remarkable happened that cold Tuesday in January. Inspector Cramer, with no appointment, showed up a little before noon at Nero Wolfe's old brownstone on West Thirty-fifth Street and, after I had ushered him into the office and he had lowered himself into the red leather chair, he said right out, "I dropped in to ask a little favor."
The winners are...
This was a very interesting, amusing, and enlightening experiment! I think I will run a competition like this again next year.
The two cash awards go to (in alphabetical order):
1) Paul Bennett for his poetic and historically accurate essay Hearings: ROVA's Electric Ascension. Bennett got bonus points for interviewing some of the musicians involved.
2) James Mahone for his transcription of Booker Little's "Hazy Hues." His blog overall is an incredible resource for the practicing musician. I really appreciate how he admits there just aren't correct chord symbols for parts of "Hazy Hues" and a collection of Herbie Nichols tunes. Symbols can be overrated - it's far better to learn exactly what the composers played!
I can't afford to write more checks, but several other posts were really just as good. Here are three honorable mentions that could have easily won the money:
3) Jason Palmer for his fabulous Mark Turner story.
4) John Paton for his analysis of Angel Song.
5) Matt Smiley for his meticulous research into the Politics of Charlie Haden and its Effect on his Music.
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Thanks to those who participated! I hope everybody had fun and will continue blogging.
Final note to the beginners: To gain blog readership, it is important to link to other blogs regularly and have a decent blogroll. (DTM's own blogroll has just been updated.)
Nicholas Maw RIP +
Nicholas Maw died earlier this week at 73. Here's the fine NY Times obit by Allan Kozinn.
I'm no expert on Maw, but since none of the blogs I read regularly have mentioned him yet I will briefly speak up:
I have owned the score to the first three of Maw's Personae for a long time. They are always a pleasure to read through, and I have always wanted to hear a professional play them. Astonishingly, there is no recording (that I have discovered) yet! Nicolas Hodges, your services are requested...
The only Maw CD on my shelf is the Violin Concerto played by Joshua Bell. (I'm rather amazed that there is nothing about Maw's passing on Bell's website; this concerto is probably the most important piece Bell has premiered so far.) I got that disc since I liked the Maw piano pieces and loved Bell's playing. Admittedly, I hardly ever listened to it until Maw died, at which time I imported it to my iPod.
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Classical music is hard. It's long and discursive and hardly ever has a good beat. Modern classical music, especially, is really hard. What the hell are you listening too, this endlessly winding dissonant stuff without much melody?
The only way to get this kind of music in your ear is to listen to it over and over, which is what I have been doing with the first movement, "Prelude," of the Maw Violin Concerto the last couple of days. It doesn't matter whether I want to hear it again or not: I just play it again when it's done.
When I cycle a piece of thorny orchestral music this way the fog slowly lifts, the picture clears, figure and ground separate. Past pieces I've placed on endless loop have included Ligeti's Melodien, Birtwistle's The Triumph of Time, Lieberson's Piano Concerto, and Schuller's Of Reminiscences and Reflections. Initially they were all daunting listens but now they are old friends. In every case I have learned to understand the composer's acerbic language much better, so that new experiences with their other pieces aren't as hard.
Actually, the first movement of Maw's Concerto isn't that hard, anyway. It's actually very melodic. What makes it hard to understand is the rigorous lack of repetition: The melodies are never hooks, instead always moving forward without looking back. The harmony is a mixture of added-note chords (quite Wayne Shorterish at times) plus moments of real atonality. Maw cared a lot about counterpoint, and the weave of orchestra writing behind the cantabile of the violin is quite thick and lovely.
I've checked out the other three movements too. It's not going to be my new favorite piece, but Maw was obviously a seriously talented professional in one of the most lonely occupations, the modern day symphonic composer. (See this rather dark obituary of Maw by Michael White.)
If more people actually listened to modern symphonic writing perhaps that profession could become less lonely. Over Memorial Day weekend, take a chance: Pick out out a longish weird piece in your music collection that you suspect is actually a work of sophisticated genius. Make a playlist of just that, over and over. Your ears might learn to really like it.
