A little bit more than... few days at the weekend house

Summer holiday again. The same place. The same house. The unexplicable feelings which belong to here - from the past, and to-be thoughts in the future.

And music - of course - is still with me. Let me dive into a little kitchen philosophy...

In my childhood there were a few albums I listened to and when we spent our holiday at the weekend house, I felt the long, often three, four weeks long holiday shouldn't happen without my favourite music - so I brought my walkman and favourite cassettes with me. Later an older cassette player got to the house and my family always brought some cassettes to listen to. The feeling improved, louder music played and we could hear it while sitting on the terrace. Then years passed by and when the mp3 age started it was obvious that the walkman has to be replaced with the mp3 player. I took long walks with my little gadget and that feeling of free was really new and cool. The next step didn't make a big change, it was only the introduction of iPod in my life. More space, smaller player, and I love it. Hope Apple feels happy for this advertisement. And now, this year there's a notebook and mobile internet with us, so everything's accessible. This is the state of total freedom, which is really cool, but also...

What about the older feelings? Long, grey mornings in my teenager years in the autumn or winter when I listened to lp's from my father's collection. The hissing sound between tracks - from the lp player in the room, or from the walkman right in my ears. And no pc noise. When music comes from a furniture. Yes, a real pair of loudspeekers can be a part of the furniture of a room. And the cds? Cd shelves, of course. Another furniture, which, I think isn't ugly but cool. Posters on the wall, and not Windows backgrounds. Maybe now you're starting to feel this mood. I realize it every once in a while, and now I got my latest expereince here, of course in the weekend house. As CSN's Just a song before I go played by the cassette player. Sound quality? Who cares!? It's even better.

The passenger

Being an Up in the air fan, the song playing in one of the trailers kept floating in my mind and I felt I had to investigate a little bit. As it isn't part of the soundtrack, I couldn't get the title, but they sing I am the passenger, so YouTube immediately helped me as almost always. It turned out to be an Iggy Pop song which surprised me, because I thought it plays harder music, like metal. Now it's part of my home radio station in iTunes. Or on my iPod, when I'm a passenger...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSFV6RhdsNs

trailer:
http://www.theupintheairmovie.com/

The 100th! Isaac Hayes - Hot buttered soul

This is the hundredth post in this blog. I'm very happy - though I haven't posted often recently, the blog continuously exists in my mind.

For the 100th rendez-vous I felt I had to choose something which really deserves this place. It's something like when on my birthday I listened to this album. For me, that hour was the celebration, an hour just for me, my own little celebration. And why did I choose this album? It has a lot of reasons. That time this album and music was quite new for me and I was just being introduced to it. The meeting gave a lot of inspiration. There are songs in our - or at least in my, but I really think in everyone's - life which can totally change our music preferences. The songs have heard earlier will sound differently, and you'll long for that new kind of music. In my case, it was the introduction of soul by Marvin Gaye and Isaac Hayes which made this. And as a result, now I think differently about music.

So that was the first reason, that new effect. And I had to choose a song which is in celebratory mood, at least a little bit. I don't really like way too grandiose things. The first, famous Walk on by is from that celebratory type. It can even call tears in my eye sometimes, which is a rare effect in my life. It's long, it's expressive, it's cool. Starts in a loud way and suddenly gets minimal and those elements of black music such as the inimitable rhythm appear. With the low amount of lyrics it's really effective - the string section do reach your soul.

The fewer songs an album contain, the more their importance will be: here you hear only 4 songs, so every one is equivalent. Hyperbolicsyllablicsequedalymistyc can really wake you up and I was delighted when I heard it in the movie Brooklyn's finest this year. After its improvisative and loud end, One woman creates a romantic atmosphere. And in the end By the time I get to Phoenix does something experimental. The first half of the song is a storytelling by Hayes, with a monotonic pattern in the background. The story is about the power of love. And then, slowly the music appears and nicely closes the album.

Walk on by (single version):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5tqAbrZeX0

One woman:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWv4xEsgY48

Read about Shaft!

Daylight

In Isaac Hayes' One woman daylight "slowly leaves the sky", and here, in Bobby Womack's Daylight daylight "is gonna catch me up again". Pretty actual - here, in Hungary, where daylight defeats night, which only lives 6-7 hours and there's extremely hot, almost unbearable. But daylight is something which is essential. As it appears at sunrise and as it disappears at sunset sometimes makes amazing atmosphere. This song presents daylight in its most beautiful existence to me.

One of my friends and his girlfriend live a strange life: they work at night, often until 4:00 a.m. or later, and don't get up earlier than 12:00. Which means sunrise and morning don't exist in their life. They don't know what they're missing by that lifestyle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4wIZrKC1ug

(live) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uDdI9p26cc

(live) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUnHHi3szWY

Grover Washington, Jr. - Inner city blues

One of the coolest things about music is the process when you get to know it. For me, who leaded me to this album was Marvin Gaye and which leaded to him was a Quincy Jones album. The line hasn't finished yet, it's a never-ending thing.

It was a summer afternoon not a long time ago when I first listened to this album, and that time I was ill - though getting better and better I swear, that music also healed me. Music can show again the power believed to be lost in us.

It's a cover album from 1972 and now you can enjoy it as one of Verve's Originals series. As many as two songs are related to Marvin Gaye, as you can also know it by its main title. Inner city blues and Mercy, mercy me - this latter in fact is not just Mercy, mercy me, it's a blend of it and the well-known What's going on, and the performance is very, very cool. Inner city blues is also nice, with the siren noise at the beginning and the fine melody as it comes in, and later gets stronger, faster, making experiences and creating a denser atmosphere.

The other cornerstone on this album is Billy Wither's Ain't no sunshine. The performance is absolutely perfect, keeping the original melody but adding Theme from "Man and Boy" to it, lengthening it. Here and at Georgia on my mind a beautiful string section works in the background which makes the music warmer.

It's really a must-have experience. One afternoon, one living room, shaded windows. The sunshine's just looming out there. And the first tones are starting to fill the room.

Mercy, mercy me:

www.ververecords.com