Author: whskyjack

I’ll keep it brief, another of those marvelous young women pianist that the world keeps developing surrounded by good musicians and of course playing Beethoven

Enjoy, Jack

Some how music from a Russian composer after a week of Republican hyperbole (aka, lies) just seems appropriate, I just hope Vlad approves. (not really)

All politics aside, this piece by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and inspired by Shakespeare is a fun listen for a Sunday morning.

Enjoy, Jack

Romeo and Juliet overture/fantasy

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis

This is another concert of a series that is a mix of very good Jazz interspaced with educational commentary by Wynton. To learn more about about Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra here is their web site

Enjoy, Jack

The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis perform the music of four pioneering giants of jazz—Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, and Charles Mingus—in Duke, Dizzy, ‘Trane & Mingus: Jazz Titans. Duke, Dizzy, ‘Trane, and Mingus singularly pursued ancestral music, particularly from Africa and Latin America, and used their discoveries to broaden the horizons of their artistry and create new terrain for jazz. In this concert, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis play selections from Ellington’s Latin American Suite and Virgin Islands Suite; Coltrane’s Olé Coltrane and Africa Brass; Mingus’ Tijuana Moods; and various pieces from Gillespie’s early Afro-Cuban era through his later work with the United Nations band, showing his evolution from Afro-Cuban to a more expansive Afro-Latin idiom. The JLCO illuminates the historically important rhythmic distinctions, chant-based melodies, and modal soundscapes created as a result of these albums that forever changed the conception of the boundaries of jazz.

Today we go back over 500 years to 1480. One could well imagine Christopher Columbus setting in a parlor listening to this as he persuaded Queen Isabella to hock her jewelry.

Josquin Des Prez was the musical legend of the times. He was famous in all the courts and finer homes in Europe. Probably because of the newly invented printing press.

From wikipedia

“During the 16th century, Josquin gradually acquired the reputation as the greatest composer of the age, his mastery of technique and expression universally imitated and admired. Writers as diverse as Baldassare Castiglione and Martin Luther wrote about his reputation and fame, with Luther declaring that “he is the master of the notes. They must do as he wills; as for the other composers, they have to do as the notes will.”^[3] Theorists such as Heinrich Glarean and Gioseffo Zarlino held his style as that best representing perfection. He was so admired that many anonymous compositions were attributed to him by copyists, probably to increase their sales. More than 370 works are attributed to him;  it was only after the advent of modern analytical scholarship that some of these attributions were challenged, and revealed as mistaken, on the basis of stylistic features and manuscript evidence.”

As I surf the internet tubes I’m always on the look out for music for Sunday morning. This Sunday’s piece started with a recommendation in a recent post on science fiction writer, Spider Robinson’s blog. He suggested we would all be better if we listened to a recently recorded (2018) version of Duke Ellington’s Black, Brown and Beige performed by Wynton Marsalis. I couldn’t find that but I did find this performance that included A selection of Count Basie standards and Duke Ellington‘s Black, Brown and Beige too, performed by Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center orchestra.

It is a bit long, almost 2 hours but this morning it made for a relaxing time as I cooked breakfast, ate it and did house work afterward.

Enjoy, Jack

Notes from the video

In this performance, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis plays essential big band music by Duke Ellington and Count Basie. For the first part of the concert, the JLCO swings through a number of classic Basie standards, including “April in Paris,” “Swinging the Blues,” and “Jumpin’ at the Woodside.” Count Basie’s band always brought a party with them when they came to town, and this performance will channel the unstoppable swing and iconic blues riffs that brought down the house wherever they went. The second half of the concert features a full performance of Ellington’s groundbreaking masterpiece Black, Brown & Beige. Originally composed for his 1943 debut at Carnegie Hall, it was advertised as “Duke Ellington’s first symphony,” and Ellington described the powerful three-movement suite as a “tonal parallel to the history of the American Negro.” Stung by the criticism of so ambitious and unexpected a work, he spent the rest of his life revising and updating it, leaving us with a distinctive suite of music that continues to inspire.