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Tune of the Day

"Blue Rondo a la Turk"  on the Two Generations of Brubeck album.  Wow.

There are many fine versions of this tune, but this one gets me dancing, clapping, fist-pounding, whatever, every time....and it's not easy to dance in, what, 9/8?  I love tunes that grow, build, develop, and move through changes.  This one just picks me up and takes me right along with it.  Great melding of jazz and rock idioms, too.  It's fun to imagine Dave Brubeck setting the groove and then sitting back to hear where his kids and their friends take it. 

You can continue exploring Dave and the kids on Two Generations of Brubeck, "The Great Spirit Made Us All".  And Chris Brubeck's rock/jazz band Sky King on "Secret Sauce".

For extra credit, give a "spin" to Chase, "Bochawa" from their last album, Pure Music.

Anyway, that's my two cents today.




77jovian

Showing 9 responses by loomisjohnson

loomisjohnson
1,905 posts
 
the priest, by joni mitchell. best song nick drake never wrote. 35 years after first hearing it i still remeber the lyrics. which must signify something
loomisjohnson
1,905 posts
 
the jam, "ghosts". pretty song.
loomisjohnson
1,905 posts
 
curiously, i was listening to camper van beethoven the other day as well. like ghosthouse, i always admired them from a distance--they're skillful and there's some very good songs, but there's a certain cynical/collegiate quality to the proceedings. when they play it straight, like their covers of interstellar overdrive and matchstick men, they're much more convincing. cracker, on the other hand, seems more sincere about their insincerity--they just want to make catchy pop.
loomisjohnson
1,905 posts
 
thanks, ghosthouse. i also aspire to be verbose and obscure....
reubent, i'm not generally a country guy, but i'm a big steve earle fan--i'd put him squarely in my top 20 living songwriters. he's a self-proclaimed terrible singer (though i like his style), but he has a knack for two and three chord melodies that stick in your bgrain. plus his records almost always sound good, esp. his acoustic, which is very simple but always clean and etched. check out "i feel alright" and "gogo boots" if you haven't already.
loomisjohnson
1,905 posts
 
ty, very kind words. i've always admired robert christgau's (ex-village voice) reviews--really concise and caustic. i  inevitably disagree with his musical tastes--he's a real snob who generally skewers anything populist or popular--but his writing's great. he once wrote about the guy from the lemonheads: "..a good looking guy with more luck than talent and more talent than brains." always stuck with me.
loomisjohnson
1,905 posts
 
thanks ruebent--great cover. i can't find the album on spotify, but i think i have it on cassette somewhere and will dig it up. as payback, i'll recommend the pernice brothers, overcome by happiness--sorta big star melodicism crossed with brian wilson and really one of the best-written pop records of the 90s.
loomisjohnson
1,905 posts
 
the byrds, "if you're gone"--an obscure gene clark song buried on the second side of "turn turn turn."  it's a very  haunting melody with mcguinn's droning, jangly, almost eastern-sounding guitar and deceptively simple, poetic lyrics. clark had a knack for writing these tightly-wound, hooky verses which resolve without chorsues (think "eight miles high"), and this is powerful stuff.
loomisjohnson
1,905 posts
 
matthew sweet, "passerby"--he's been prolific of late, with three new albums this year--i initially thought they sounded good but somewhat formulaic until i heard this gem, which is as purty a song as he's written
loomisjohnson
1,905 posts
 
Jet...look what you've done. Really  pretty tune.
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