Music – Page 3 – Frames of Reference

Murder Most Foul

A combination of chopped-up newsreel and fever dream, “Murder Most Foul” is Bob Dylan’s most striking piece of work in years. This is the author of “Desolation Row” populating a 17-minute song with a lifetime of remembered cultural fragments, zooming out and panning back and forth from the single pivotal event of the Kennedy assassination, plucking references out of the heavy air.

An eloquent introduction by Richard Williams from just over a year ago. Read the rest of it here – thebluemoment.com.

Subterranean Homesick Blues

The song was used in one of the first “modern” promotional film clips, the forerunner of what was later known as the music video… The original clip was the opening segment of D. A. Pennebaker’s film Dont Look Back, a documentary on Dylan’s 1965 tour of England. In the film, Dylan, who came up with the idea, holds up cue cards with selected words and phrases from the lyrics. The cue cards were written by Donovan, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Neuwirth and Dylan himself. While staring at the camera, he flips the cards as the song plays… The clip was shot in an alley close to the Savoy Hotel in London. Ginsberg and Neuwirth are briefly visible in the background. – Subterranean Homesick Blues

Shadows & Light

I’ve had the live album recording of this concert for as long as I can remember, first as a double LP then later as two CDs. It’s just about one of the best live albums ever, with Joni at the peak of her powers and she’s got a great little backing band! But I’d not realised that there’s also a film of the performance. And it’s a total delight! It doesn’t get any better than this.

Joni Mitchell – guitar, vocals; Pat Metheny – lead guitar; Jaco Pastorius – bass; Don Alias – drums; Lyle Mays – keyboards; Michael Brecker – saxophone; The Persuasions – backing vocals on “Why Do Fools Fall in Love” & “Shadows and Light”; Toller Cranston – skates.

Shadows and Light is Joni Mitchell’s 1980 double live album, recorded at the Santa Barbara County Bowl in September 1979 on the Mingus tour.

Slim Gaillard Trio

Three top tunes from Slim Gaillard, Dunkin’ Bagel, Chile & Beans O’Voutee, and Spanish Melody & Swing, with Bam Brown on bass and Scatman Crothers on drums. Come on in and get happy. Continue reading “Slim Gaillard Trio”

Kahmsïn

Bastien Weeger on saxophone and Julien Stella on clarinets, together called NoSax NoClar, recorded at the church of Notre Dame de Bon Port in Nantes.

Ever since they met on a train platform one day during a strike, Julien Stella and Bastien Weeger have never stopped intertwining their voices and imaginations in search of beautiful escapes. Their deliciously traveling music has the genius to invent its own imaginary folklore in the course of the dialogue, the two blowers mixing timbre, rhythm and harmony in the same gesture of a never ostentatious virtuosity and an astonishing maturity.

Concerto No.1 in D Minor J S Bach

Sunday morning Bach and Polina Osetinskaya at the piano, with her own very dedicated page turner… Continue reading “Concerto No.1 in D Minor J S Bach”

Hangman’s Reel

So this one’s for Jonny, for his Rowley’s Record Bar, a toe-tapping thank you tune to get you down off the gallows and back on the straight and narrow – Shake a leg but don’t break it then break an egg but don’t shake it!

Ya Bnayya

This is another contribution from Jonny Hannah, Syrian farmer and wedding singer Omar Souleyman. Thanks Jonny – I got this song from a lockdown film (one of the many); Le monde est a toi (The world is yours), a fantastic French hapless gangster comedy. It was a good time to expand my music tastes, so here goes with a thumping bit of Moroccan techno (sorry, that’s an awful description). Don’t know what he’s saying, but it’s just the ticket…

Rowley’s Record Bar

For our first window of 2021 we’ve a bumper box of musical delights from Jonny Hannah, junk shop LPs reconditioned, remixed and repainted, and there’s a Spotify playlist too – Rowley’s Record Bar – 21 songs for 2021 to help us all get through another lockdown. And that’s not all, Jonny’s also written us a blogpost. Continue reading “Rowley’s Record Bar”

The Kinetic Xylophone

A ball rolls down a mile-long ladder of wooden steps, which are in fact the keys of a giant xylophone, hidden in the forest in Kyushu, Japan. As it trips down the staircase, the ball plays the notes of Bach’s famous Cantata 147 – Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring. A gentle rejoicing melody for Christmas. This film was made in 2012 to advertise Touch Wood mobile phones.