Eric Dolphy - Out to lunch

There's always a part of a day, when the sun is around at the top of its way, and everything's seem to be stopped. It's hot and silent, and it's usually at summer. Out to lunch has a this kind of mood for me.

Cast: Eric Dolphy - bass clarinet, flute, alto saxophone, Freddie Hubbard - trumpet, Bobby Hutcherson - vibraphone, Richard Davis - bass, and Tony Williams - drums. The instruments live different lives, but then they are also together - they find ourselves. This makes it free, and it's listenable, doesn't get too helter-skelter and unenjoyable. You will meet strange rhythms, unsteadily moving melodys, and there's a constant kind of atmosphere in all tracks - this makes something to a real album. The vibraphone is ice on the cake.

I could write many more lines about it, but that's unnecessary - sometimes it don't need to write about music, it needs to hear that music. And please don't ask me about it, I'm out to lunch!

It' released in 1964.

Listen to samples on the BlueNote website: http://www.bluenote.com/ArtistDiscography.aspx?ArtistId=902468&PromoId=&UPCCode=724349879324

Frank Sinatra - Songs for swingin' lovers!

This April-May time is the main season to get closer to this nice album for me, and it's here again! I don't know many Sinatra albums, but as I've listened into samples from other albums on Amazon, I have a feeling about that it's the best Sinatra album (with the well-known song: I've got you under my skin).

The tracks are fresh, happy, and rarely sad. Frank is also happy, and that's the key for the entertaining. I think that one of the most likeable thing in these old swing songs and standards is the lyrics: with word-plays, naive thoughts, and with the simpliest human emotions that a man can feel. I'll qoute some of it from the album, to show you its atmosphere.

You'll find your fortune's falling

All over the town.

Be sure that your umbrella

Is upside down.

(from Pennies from heaven)

Oh, I can't break away,

I must have you everyday,

As regularly as coffee or tea.

You've got me in your clutches and I cant break free,

You're getting to be a habit with me.
(from You're getting to be a habit with me)

You're much - you're too much - and just too "very, very"

To ever be, to ever be in Webster's Dictionary.

And so I'm borrowing a love song from the birds,

To tell you that you're marvelous;

Tell you that you're marvelous;

Tell you that you're marvelous - too marvelous for words.

(from Too marvelous for words)

I've got you under my skin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHLC-EimdAc
an other version of You make me feel so young: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpPF5yG0IHo
We'll be together again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbCIzMGxqzk&feature=PlayList&p=AF697DF42E2D38FC&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=7

You're getting to be a habit with me

Four women

I haven't known Nina Simone until now, and I haven't even heard a song in her performance, but the day before yesterday I found this video on YouTube. And I can't say anything else, just watch it. Watch it from the beginning to the end, and don't click in the middle of the search bar, because you'll break the magic. This music starts in a minimal way and it opens slowly, but you will always get closer to the real deepness of it. It's about four African-American stereotypes of women. I like the solution at the end of the song (in order): the slowing down, the baloney, the crazy piano, and after that: the short ending catharsis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCwME6Jpn3s&feature=PlayList&p=A5913075D3DF4B44&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=32

and on album: Nina Simone - Wild is the wind.

René Aubry - Mémoires du futur

René Aubry is a french guitarist and composer. A kind of musician who doesn't create a new world, but shows the real world from a different point of view. His music draws attention to the smallest vibrations of life, to pictures which we don't realize with our eyes - and does this in a very simple way: Mémoires du futur, his "newest" album (the latest studio album from 2006) is more minimal than the earliers and it can be understood as a musical change in his style.

There are also more sounding solutions than on the other recordings: the piano is blunt, comes from the background, or comes from the past. The drums are deeply crawling under the other instruments - they come back and disappear in the nothing again, so there's a constant uncertainty and mystery in the tracks.

There are three vocal tracks on the album: Viendras-tu avec moi? (Do you come with me?), Regarde les autres (Watch the others, or sg like that, I think it's the best song on the album), and Ha tutte le carte in regola (If everything is all right), which is an adaptation of a famous italian poem. My girlfriend translated it to Hungarian for me and now I'll show you a small part of it, translated to English.

When everything's fine

for him to be an artist,

Nothing scares him,

even not a tyrant.

He likes to be alone

even if it's expensive

He doesn't make a difference

between a year and a night

neither between a kiss and a farewell.

It's an entreaty without tears...

It's an entreaty by someone who doesn't have illusions yet...

When everything's fine
for him to be an artist...

When I bought this cd two years ago in summer, it was so hot in the city that we got small bags with cold water in it to drink or chill ourselves.

I took that photo above on the same day when I photographed the cover for my friend. The wind moves the curtain, which plays with the evening sunlight.

Look at the page of René Aubry on Myspace:

http://www.myspace.com/reneaubryhome

Genesis - Foxtrot

It was precisely two years ago when the connection with my girlfriend was getting worse and worse, and I was really depressive emotionally. In that time this music was a big energy source for me, and something which I will always remember of, something which will always be connected with that time.

"Contrast" is an important word for this album. It's tipical of the whole progressive rock genre, too, but on this album it means more properties. For example the 1:41 minutes long Horizons with its gentle glass guitar sounding against the 22:54 minutes long Supper's ready, which is kept the best progressive rock song ever by some fans. Perhaps they are right. It took a huge effect on me. The contrast is also very evident in this track - there are many little parts in it. From the direct, impressive start we head on farer in our thoughts, in our depression - and later the energetic feelings shoot out again and again. I like the starting theme, which comes back at 5:44 and at the end, in the most forceful version. Genesis proves that how many feelings, energy and atmosphere can be placed in one song!

But let's get back to the album. First I wanted to write "the coolest/the most interesting" parts of it, but that would be too long. Just only a few:

- in track 1, the hard initial for the whole album at 1:03,

- in track 2, the bass melody in the refrain, at 1:44,

- in track 4, the beautiful part with deep bass, at 1:21, the brave change at 4:00, but it's only the first in that track, there will be more (this is my favourite track on this album).

And I would continue this list for a long time. Be prepared when your hear this album for the first time - it's full of mood changes, interesting musical solutions, but if you know the progressive rock genre, that won't be newness. I am sure about that Genesis was far better in that time when Peter Gabriel was the singer and Phil Collins the drummer - Foxtrot was made in this time, in 1972, so you can hear as Peter Gabriel sings or sometimes even shouts: that's inimitable and I think it's intensely belongs to Genesis.

Walking across the sitting-room, I turn the television off.

Sitting beside you, I look into your eyes.

As the sound of motor cars fades in the night time,

I swear I saw your face change, it didn't seem quite right....

And it's hello babe with your guardian eyes so blue

Hey my baby don't you know our love is true.

Coming closer with our eyes, a distance falls around our bodies.

Out in the garden, the moon seems very bright,

Six saintly shrouded men move across the lawn slowly.

The seventh walks in front with a cross held high in hand....

And it's hello babe your supper's waiting for you.

Hey my baby, don't you know our love is true.

(from Supper's ready)

Watch the Supper's ready live version on

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzWdDCtC1IM&feature=PlayList&p=BC441316418965E0&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=15

(there are more parts of it)

Watch the Watcher of the skies live version on

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8EkU3Ta5Ys&feature=related

George Benson - Shape of things to come

It's my freshest attainment - a pre-birthday present. I haven't really known Benson albums yet, except for "Absolute Benson", but this new one is another category, it's from the earlier times, when he was more conventional and less "pop" (his later carreer is more notable, but that would be an other post). But the orchestration isn't conventional, there are also trumpet, flugelhorn, vibes, harmonica and organ, etc. in the tracks. (at the piano: Hank Jones and Herbie Hancock!)

It isn't hard to get in that kind of mood which this album shows us. Looseness, lightness and vividness - especially for the second track: "Face it boy, it's over" - with the light vocals in the background, and the simple, carefree melody. Do you feel this kind of looseness and airiness while listening to today's music? I don't think so. You can say that the latest r'n'b tracks are very cool and loose, but I suppose the honest innocence and that kind of simplicity are missing. "Shape of things to come" doesn't contain any bad thought, it wants to live - and this album will calm you down.

My other favourite on this album is the last track: "Last train to Clarksville". On the cover you can read: "...this leads us into the closer, Last train to Clarksville. Lucas' harmonica is the lonesome whistle that activates the train. As Morris stokes his engine with a perpetual brush-fire, Benson spaces his phrases astutely for optimum swing and impact. After the brass ensemble shouts out its message, the theme returns, fading away down the track and off into the distance." I like as the bass goes down on a dissonant note for a moment, and then up again (from 02:27): with the monotonic drum theme (like the noise of the trains) it creates a non-stop feeling.

It was recorded in 1968 and now it's released by Verve Records.

Read more about this album on the Verve website: http://www.vervemusicgroup.com/artist/releases/default.aspx?pid=11760&aid=2731

Face it boy, it's over:

Spring is here

When I first heard Chet Baker on the Internet, I was very happy that I had found a music like this. It was in an autumn morning when I didn't have to go to school.

Spring is here, and while I was walking in the afternoon today, the weather was so good that it was almost summer! But now I recommend you a sad song by Chet Baker, the famous jazz trumpeter and singer, who had a hard life, and in the end he fell out from a hotel window in Amsterdam. Listening to his sorrowful high voice it's hard to believe that he was struggling against drug addiction.

This track is also on Chet Baker - Deep in a dream (Pacific Jazz and now Blue note).

Strangers in the night

To be a fan of Frank Sinatra is like a feeling which can always come back and get somebody in a good mood. He also sings for lovers and for the lonely, so his music can be entertaining in every period of life.

Perhaps "Strangers in the night" is my favourite song by Sinatra, I also dedicated it to my friend and his new girlfriend in the summer of 2007. They were strangers in the night.

You can hear it on also the "My way: The best of Frank Sinatra" and "Nothing but the best" and for example on the original "Strangers in the night" album (first release on lp: 1966, first on cd: 1990) - I want to get it somehow but it's not too easy in Hungary.

In this video he sings this song in other way than on the albums - first I didn't like as he regroups the syllables but I realised that's cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYXQm6NEXnE

Meredith Monk - Dolmen music

I often think about the summer, and yesterday an early-summer afternoon came to my mind - in that afternoon I was preparing to my math comprehensive exam and in the background I was listening to this album. That evening there was a huge storm, so these memories are connected now. You can see the dark clouds on the picture.

Meredith Monk is a singer who has developed her own, very strange and special singing style and technics. Her music can be minimal, energetic, beautiful, sad, pleasant, and sometimes irritating - in the same time. Probably it will take some time for accepting it by the listener - or it won't even happen. But I always think that every music needs a mood (or weather) for listening and every mood (or weather) can find a music which suits it.

Dolmen music comes from an other, imaginary world. The picture above represents it very well: people sitting around a table - we don't know who are they, why are they there and what are they doing. Listen to the choir in the beginning of the last track: it gets louder and more detailed at every new part, making an atmosphere where we can see more and more from an unknown place - the melody is serious and strict (I think there was a long preparation period before the recording - and there's a microphone on that table but I don't know that they did it in the reality or it's just a design element - I hope the first).

Near the end there's a cool, enchanting melody by a chello, using it in an unconventional way. In the video (from 3:00) you can see as they are beating the strings by the bow and drum sticks.

It's recorded in 1980 and 81, and released by ECM records.

http://www.last.fm/music/Meredith+Monk/+videos/+1-CyA19sVeRPw