Musical Nerdery

Die Zauberflote

2008-05-28T11:36:00.000-07:00

Some friends and I watched a DVD of Die Zauberflote (aka The Magic Flute) not too long ago.

Specifically this one to my left. And....I just don't know what to make of this.

On one hand, you have an absolutely stunning cast - Rene Pape as Sarastro brings a rich, powerful voice to the part as well as a mighty stage presence. Paul Groves sings the part of Tamino wonderfully - his acting is...umm...reminiscent of a cartoon character attempting to impersonate Napoleon. Little too much in terms of overly enthusiastic gesturing.

The main treasure though is Diana Damrau as the Queen of the Night. Her effortless singing, her vocal acrobatics, and her extremely potent acting skills alone make this DVD worth watching. She is incredible beyond belief.

So, great singing, great cast, and great conductor (Riccardo Muti)...but that leaves us with the production itself, which reminds one of watching an art-house version of Alice in Wonderland, only without any ironic self-awareness. Overly bright costumes, baffling stage props (including one set piece that resembles a hippie pyramid...no, til now such a thing didn't exist. It would be better had it stayed that way).

I'm not entirely clear why Audi and Large opted for this staging - it's as though they wanted to highlight Masonic symbols...yet they did their research while under the influence of hallucinogens. Perhaps the goal was quirky and charming, much like the flavor of the opera itself? If so, it failed, instead just coming off as painfully pretentious and strange.

Still worth seeing (or better yet, just hearing, given the calibre of singing). But my god, what in the hell is wrong with these people?

Tom Waits Covers

2008-05-28T10:58:00.000-07:00

In honor of Scarlett Johansson's decision to shit on/"pay tribute to" Tom Waits' music, with Anywhere I Lay My Head (an album apparently inspired by the sounds of underwater sea creatures getting high on coral dust) I thought we could maybe look at the nature of covering Tom Waits.

I have to give some grudging credit to Scarlett for opting for his later and in some cases, not as well-known, material. If pressed, I'd have to say that "Green Grass" almost works. That said, I also feel that "Green Grass" is a hard song to screw up - sing it slowly, sound sort of depressed and morbid, and it won't be agonizing.

I suppose a key problem is that Tom Waits is to pop what Ornette Coleman is to jazz - not merely a genius, but someone whose performance style is so incredibly unique and overwhelming, that covering his music is a difficult exercise in detaching the composition from the composer and attempting to approach the piece on its own grounds. Some really great artist have tried and failed - notably Tori Amos when she covered "Time" on Strange Little Girls. It almost sounds good, except you can hear that she's not sure if she wants to sound like Tom Waits or like Tori Amos (apologies to anyone who likes the Tori version).

Scarlett's album sort of tries to recast the songs as her own, which is admirable, but it really just plain doesn't work. Because, obviously, you need to have something interesting to say...obviously, Rod Stewart's "Downtown Train" is definitely in Rod Stewart's voice and not a Tom Waits clone voice...but that makes it even more painful.

But some people did succeed in covering Tom Waits in their own style without dropping the quality, and they should get some props for that. Here they are (in no particular order):

Petra Haden/Bill Frisell covering "I Don't Want to Grow Up" on Petra Haden/Bill Frisell:
Tom Waits' version is overdriven, and sounds like a petulant five-year-old boy. And it's AWESOME. Petra Haden (along with the ever-awesome Bill Frisell) recasts it into an innocently silly romp on childhood. And it works perfectly - granted, you wouldn't necessarily know Tom Waits wrote this song if you heard the cover, but I think that's sort of the point. She really figures out how to own the song, and pulls it off beautifully (unrelated note - the whole album is great...in fact Petra Haden is great.)

Everything But the Girl covering "Downtown Train" on Acoustic:
First off, I think bonus points are awarded if you cover one of Tom Waits' famous songs and still pull it off. What Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt manage here is to tap in that gorgeous longing in the song, but then slow it down and switch it to a bare bones acoustic arrangement. It might get boring if someone other than Tracey Thorn was singing. However, this just serves to highlight that she is an incredible artist and intelligent singer, and that she knows how to wring every ounce of meaning out of the lyrics. This might not be for everyone, but I think it works stunningly.

John Hammond Jr. covering "Clap Hands" on Wicked Grin:
Okay, I know some people hate this album, which is entirely Tom Waits covers, but I think on the whole it works really well. I particularly like "Clap Hands," but I can be persuaded that other tracks are better. Sometimes the wry humor of Tom Waits gets overlooked in favor of the bleak Expressionistic world he creates, which is unfortunate, as he's funny as hell. John Hammond Jr.'s major accomplishment is bringing that out...not to mention really highlighting the bluesy side of Waits' music. It also helps that Tom Waits helped create this album.

Holly Cole covering "Heart of Saturday Night" on Temptation:
Overall, I hate this album. Absolutely hate it - she leans towards trying to turn every Tom Waits song (another Tom Waits cover album) into an excuse to act like Ute Lemper at an S&M club. But she cuts that out with "Heart of Saturday Night," and it works quite well.

Cibelle covering "Green Grass" on The Shine of Dried Electric Leaves:
This cover is stunning. She takes the dark pulse of "Green Grass," builds on that, and turns it into a morbidly haunting track reminiscent of Astrud Gilberto. This cover (the whole album, actually) is brilliant.

Norah Jones covering "Long Way Home" on Feels Like Home:
I'm really sorry, but I've got to put this version up on the list. It's really good - Norah Jones knows her strengths as a singer and a musician, and she makes this track work for her. Granted, the original version is pretty mellow and and easy-going to begin with. I could do without the flutes in her version, but it's still pretty damn impressive.

Solomon Burke covering "Diamond in Your Mind" on Don't Give Up on Me:
If you don't own this album, if you've never heard him cover this song, I'm not fully convinced you've lived. It's just that good.

Chuck E Weiss covering "It Rains on Me" on Extremely Cool:
Again, having Tom Waits come and sing with you on a track helps. But this version is so damn cool. Chuck E Weiss should be much, much more famous than he is (equally fun is the track later in the album "Do You Know What I Idi Amin"...another Weiss/Waits duet)

Did I miss anything? I'd be curious to know...

Long absence

2008-04-15T12:43:00.001-07:00

Been applying to business schools, and have been otherwise busy.

Briefly returning to note this album...

Look, I like Philippe Jaroussky. What concerns me is this: according to album designers, looking like an accountant who just returned home from work to find his wife greeting him at the door completely nude is apparently the best way to convey the performance of Vivaldi's vocal works.

Is it to off-set that he's a counter-tenor? I just don't get it. Why the disheveled look? Why is the tie flying off to the side? What does this have to do with Vivaldi or the singing of Vivaldi? Does he strip mid-concert?

That'd be pretty cool, except there's already a singer famous for that.

Nathan Gunn. Famous for being the only male opera singer who doesn't resemble the fat naked guy at your local health club.

Two Good Boxed Set Deals

2008-01-06T12:31:00.000-08:00

Well, if you are a fan of John Coltrane's or of Beethoven's, there appear to be two rather impressive bargains going on.

On Best Buy's website, you can buy a 5-CD set of Coltrane's, Volume 1 of the Impulse Recordings, for $12. Here's the link. Perhaps they over-ordered by, what, 8 million copies?

On Barnes and Noble is an excellent boxed set of the Beethoven Symphonies done by David Zinman. His approach is very lean and "classical," reminds me a bit of the George Szell/Cleveland Orchestra recordings. Not as good as Szell, nor up there with the Toscanini, but still very, very solid recordings. Zinman is a horribly underrated conductor.

Here's that link.

While we're doing all sorts of links and mentioning underrated musicians, also check out the classical cellist Suren Bagratuni's recording of the Bach Cello Suites. One of the really cool and unique readings of the suites that I've come across - Paolo Beschi's, Pieter Wispelway's, and Japp ter Linden's also being on that list (Wispelway's being perhaps the king of the lot...my god it's fabulous...but more people know about it).

The Landlords

2008-01-02T12:05:00.000-08:00

I was going to write a post on Carl Craig and the amazingness that he is.

However, I'm currently dealing with landlord woes. See, they want to tell me I can't have guests overnight in my apartment. Unfortunately for them, I have a lease, I live in a rent stabilized apartment (note, NOT rent-controlled), and I live in New York City.

Why do these points matter? Here's why - in case any fellow New Yorkers find themselves in this pickle.

-If you have a lease, landlords legally cannot add new provisions to the lease, verbal or written, once the lease is signed (neither can you). So, in my case, our lease says nothing regarding overnight visitors or guests, and so the landlords can't change anything now. If you need clarification regarding your lease or housing situation, call the Tenant Rights Hotline at 212-979-0611 from 1:30 pm to 5:00 pm Monday, Wednesday, or Friday.

-If you live in a rent stabilized building (NOTE: this is different from rent-controlled buildings), the landlords MAY NOT add any provisions to a lease that put restrictions on guests, overnight guests, etc. That is also illegal (there are other restrictions on the landlords, too). To determine if you live in a rent-stabilized building (which generally was built in the mid-20th century, and has 6 or more units), call 718-739-6400.

-So we have terms correct here, an "overnight guest" or "guest," according to New York law, is a non-tenant who is in an apartment/condo/etc for FEWER than 30 CONSECUTIVE days in a year. While this is pretty wide berth, I assume you can get into some pretty hairy legal issues if you press your luck here.

-You have no legal obligation to inform the landlord of when you will be having guests. That is a part of tenant privacy that comes with having a lease to an apartment.

-If you are the only signer on a lease, you may, without consulting the landlord (though you have to provide the landlord with the person's name), bring in a roommate, under 1983's New York Roommate Law. If you have multiple signers on a lease, and one of them leaves, you may replace that person with a roommate (but ONLY in that instance). HOWEVER, you have to let the landlord know of the roommate's name within 30 days of the roommate moving in. The landlord may not stop it, however. Furthermore, the landlord may NOT coerce you into waiving this right.

All of this is pointless if you do not have a lease. If you are month to month, the landlord can bypass everything by walking into your apartment while you're out, moving all of your stuff to the curb, changing the locks, and then declaring you a squatter to the police. They can also serve you 30 days' eviction notice without any fear of legal repercussions, which they cannot do if you have a lease.

However, following my gf's and my debacle here, I'd hate to think that perfectly good tenants elsewhere in New York are getting hosed by unethical landlords.

Wonderful 12-tone mockery

2007-12-27T11:02:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of Alex Ross' The Rest Is Noise blog. A fake infomercial for the Best of 12-Tone Music.

http://www.therestisnoise.com/files/twelvetonemastscommercial.mp3

Well worth the listen. I mean, who doesn't go around singing the opening violin line to Berg's Violin Concerto? And Webern's Cello Sonata? Just charming.

Loudon Wainwright III

2007-12-27T10:55:00.000-08:00

I've been listening to Loudon Wainwright III's album Strange Weirdos. This was a revelatory experience for me, not because the music is great (though it is), but more because I had no idea Loudon Wainwright was actually IN Knocked Up. But yep, he's there, as the Obstetrician (is that how you spell it? I don't know, and don't care enough to check).

As mentioned, it's a fine, fine album - "Grey in LA" is my favorite thus far, which is slightly unfortunate, as it's the opening track. I'm a bit of a sucker for the accordion, it seems.

What's somewhat startling, though, is how much he sounds like Rufus Wainwright throughout the album. Not the style of songwriting (though you certainly can hear how he has influenced Rufus), but more that his actual voice sounds exactly like Rufus'. It wasn't always the case - listen to Loudon's Album II, one of his earlier efforts, and his voice is high-pitched, somewhat pinched, etc. That may be my bias - I don't really like his earlier, balls-in-a-closing-vice-grip tone - but still, I think the similarity between the two voices by Strange Weirdos is uncanny.

A new blog

2007-12-27T10:53:00.000-08:00

This blog was started because I found myself wanting to blog on music that was not from South Africa, so it did not fit with my other blog (which, clearly, is on the music of South Africa).

So here will be thoughts on jazz, music around the world, classical music, and so on.

Assuming anyone happens upon this blog, obviously.