Music

My friend asked for more women vocalists. I sent him Right Back To It by Waxahatchee, which is my current favorite. Kathryn Crutchfield is the singer. Unfortunately when I’m meditating, these kinds of questions obsess me as a kind of distraction.  My first thought was Joni Mitchell , and Brandi Carlile . Those two are giants. There’s nobody like Ella Fitzgerald , I think she’s the top. I like her work with Duke Ellington best. Billie Holiday is a favorite. I love it that J. Edgar Hoover sent an agent to get the dirt on her, and he fell in love with her. I love her albums with Lester Young .  Alison Krauss has such a sweet voice, from bluegrass to pop. Her latest albums have been with the guy who sang for Led Zeppelin.  Linda Ronstadt constantly amazed me. Blue Bayou is amazing. Lately I've been listening to Sophie Milman . Indigo Girls have some solid hits. Galileo , Closer To Fine , Tiny Desk Concert . Tiny Desk Concerts are amazing. Power of Two on Spotify . ...

Reading about  Missy Mazzoli today. Born in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, USA in 1980.  She won the best new opera Grammy in 2017 for Breaking The Waves. She won the Kraviz prize ( Symphony.org ). Operas: Salt 2012 Song from the Uproar: The Lives and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt 2012 Breaking the Waves 2016 Proving Up 2018 The Listeners 2022 Lincoln in the Bardo 2025 (planned) Her opera The Galloping Cure, scheduled for 2026, sets Franz Kafka’s short story A Country Doctor against the backdrop of the current opioid crisis in the USA. ( Berliner Phil ) Links: Cathedral City ( Spotify ). Podcast about Breaking The Waves ( Spotify ). My everything on Spotify playlist. Jennifer Koh & Missy Mazzoli: Tiny Desk Concert ( YouTube ). This is amazing, watch this! Vespers for a New Dark Age ( Bandcamp ). NY Times review of The Listeners. Her website . She lost her father this year ( Facebook ). 5 Reasons to see Breaking The Waves ( opera.org ). I use Spotify, but beware Spotify, h...

There's a movie on Netflix, They Shot The Piano Player (2023). It's about the disappearance of Tenório Jr. I'm really surprised, I couldn't find a previous post about  Tenório Jr .  Born in 1940, he disappeared in 1976 when he was 34, just coming into his powers. He came out with his first and only album in Embalo in 1964 ( Spotify ). He's an accompanist on many other albums. I tracked down all the albums mentioned on the Wikipedia page on Spotify and made a playlist . Lots of the albums were not present, and some had to be hunted for, did not come up on the search for the title.  Embalo on YouTube .

Katie Crutchfield is a 35 year old singer from Alabama. Her band is called  Waxahatchee , after a river in Alabama.   Saint Cloud (2021) won the Libera Award, for independent music, for the album about getting sober.  Tiger's Blood is her new album ( Spotify ). Links: How the Waxahatchee singer-songwriter got sober, moved to Kansas City, and made her best album yet ( Rolling Stone ). New Yorker article ( archive ) "First-Person Singular" by Kelefa Sanneh. The Unexpected Sunlight of Waxahatchee’s “Saint Cloud” New Yorker , by Jia Tolentino ( archive ) Tiny Desk Concert Tiger's Blood YouTube [Verse 1: Katie Crutchfield] You come alive in the heat, you ain't crossing state lines Stood up like a crepe myrtle, can't be killed or denied Throw a brick through the window, leave your mess at my door Lord knows sooner or later it'd wash up to shore Lord knows sooner or later it'd wash up to shore [Verse 2: Katie Crutchfield] You're laughing and smiling, dr...

Reddit post on Yusef Lateef. So I listened to "Love Theme From Spartacus" on Eastern Sounds  (1961 recorded, released 1962). October 8th was the day he was born, so for me October 8th is forever Yusef Lateef Day.  Dr. Yusef Abdul Lateef (1920-2013) was born in Chattanooga Tennessee with the name William Emanuel Huddleston. His father changed the family name to Evans at some point, he was a 3rd Bill Evans of Jazz ( one , two ). They moved to Lorain, Ohio when he was 3, and Detroit Michigan when he was 5. When he graduated from Miller High School, he began touring with Swing Bands. The young reedist moved to Chicago in 1948, played with Sun Ra (still called Sonny Blount). In 49 he toured with Dizzy Gillespie. He studied composition at Wayne State in Detroit. He converted to Islam and changed his name. Lateef began recording as a leader in 1957. In 1960, he moved to New York City and joined Charles Mingus' band. He then performed and recorded with Cannonball ...

I saw a post asking about male jazz singers. Kurt Elling was the top one, so I'm listening to him. He was born in 1967 in Chicago. His father was the musical director at church and he was into music with the family from the time he can remember. Basically he didn't have any training until after college, and he sang in choirs in high school and college. He toured Europe in college with his choir. He had good conductors. He learned from experience, hanging out in clubs. He was encouraged to sit in. He says he had plenty of strikeouts too.  I know online music has killed the music industry, perhaps, perhaps not, because I listen to a lot more music with instant gratification. To get a fraction of a cut of the advertising seems unfair, but then again people used to want to get their records played on the radio.  Looks like he's in Poland now, then he goes to Washington. Birdland 1/8-11, then Orlando, Miami, Tucson, LA. A gig in Baton Rouge, Baltimore, then Ann Arbor. Seems like...