Yet, one gets a glimpse of the spiritual in Native culture, the culture of an original people, the indigenous North Americans, long called American Indians. Listening to the two volumes of Heartbeat, featuring Native American women’s voices, is to encounter mystery—if only because the language in which much of this music comes is foreign, but the songs are about nature, games, love, war, dance, home, family, community, the stars, and the divine, things that concern most of us; and a praising, resilient spirit comes through the songs.
Tag: music
Different Voices, Different Eras, and the Way to Soulville: The Very Best of Aretha Franklin
Franklin’s voice is less pretty and pristine than ever in the soft hip-hop funk of “A Rose Is Still A Rose,” in which the narrator offers an older woman’s advice to a younger woman after a hurtful affair, affirming esteem and sense, but it is a sign of genius that Franklin’s performance is quite potent.
Human Beings, Hoping Machines: Note of Hope, Woody Guthrie’s words, given music by bassist Rob Wasserman, with Van Dyke Parks, Madeleine Peyroux, Tom Morello, Michael Franti, Nellie McKay, Chris Whitley, and Jackson Browne
Michael Franti’s jazzy, sensual interpretation of “Union Love Juice” makes Guthrie sound like a blend of Walt Whitman, Allen Ginsberg, and LL Cool J. Michael Franti’s voice is confident, low, masculine, and suggestive. “I am the meat and the flower of sex,” sings Franti, confidently, coolly.
Voice, Piano, and More: Roberta Flack’s Let It Be, a tribute to the Beatles
Intimate, with advice to young love and what sounds like acoustic guitar, the durable quality of “Hey Jude” is proven, and durability has made it and other songs by the Beatles nearly public property (yet, they remain too lucrative to become public property). Flack performs the song “Hey Jude” with a confiding, childlike simplicity, and it is sweet, possibly too sweet. Flack told journalist Mike Ragogna of Huffington Post, posted February 6, 2012, that she approached the song as if it were a hymn; and she also said, “It’s about coming back to basics and simplicity.
Beauty, Pain, and Strength: Carolin Widmann and Alexander Lonquich perform a Fantasy, Rondo, and Sonata by Franz Schubert
Widmann, born in Munich, studied in Cologne, Boston, and London, and has performed with orchestras in several of the world’s great cities, such as Paris, Rome, and Vienna; and with Alexander Lonquich, who was born in Trier, a prodigy who has become an international performer and conductor, Widmann has chosen to explore Schubert music of beauty, emotion, technique, and thought. The “Rondo h-Moll” has an exalted, even extreme beauty, and the “Sonate A-Dur” (or “Sonata”) creates in the listener an alternative consciousness.
A Young Woman Reflects, Sorrow as Treasured Gold: Adele at 21
There are few artists with the skill or substance to bring people together; and Adele is one of the special ones. Her album 21 is full of good songs, particularly “Rolling in the Deep,” “Rumour Has It,” “Don’t You Remember,” “Set Fire to the Rain,” and “He Won’t Go.” May time and grace be on her side.
Nostalgia for the Impossible: All Our Reasons by the Billy Hart Quartet
Billy Hart, a musician and a teacher, the kind of talented and developing journeyman without which jazz could not exist, periodically works with saxophonist Mark Turner, pianist Ethan Iverson, double-bassist Ben Street as part of a quartet, beginning almost a decade ago. The quartet’s saxophonist Mark Turner also works with a trio called Fly, and pianist Ethan Iverson with The Bad Plus, and bassist Ben Street with Danilo Perez, Sam Rivers, and James Moody; and with Billy Hart they get to play with someone whose history is deep in jazz.
Source and Resource (Papa Don’t Take No Mess): James Brown’s 20 All Time Greatest Hits!
James Brown is said to have added something unique to a popular music tradition that includes musicians and performers such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Ethel Waters, Lena Horne, John Coltrane, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Smokey, Marvin, Diana, and Stevie, Curtis Mayfield, Sly Stone, Roberta Flack, Donna Summer, Minnie Riperton, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, and Beyonce Knowles. Yet, Brown’s work was not always popular; it was done first for a minority of people and its appeal gained force and range.
Sounds, Fragmented and Whole: Elastic Aspects by the Matthew Shipp Trio
On Elastic Aspects by the Matthew Shipp Trio, featuring bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Whit Dickey, the composition “Mute Voice” is a pretty piece, although its notes seem half-articulated, clipped before they are allowed to achieve fullness or resonance. Banging, rumbling, sounding more like experimental music than traditional jazz is “Explosive Aspects.”
Sound and Sensibility: Britten, Bach, and Ligeti, performed by violoncellist Miklos Perenyi
The sound is exalted and exultant but it also seems focused on something troubled, worrying—as if a great spirit had been hurt and was grappling with the pain. Complex emotion, complex sounds—the many labels for structural movements in classical composition are an indication of how difficult it is to organize and perceive complexity.