Posts Tagged ‘recommended’
Shoo-Fly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy
Note: This is a long post. If you are looking for a discussion of the song, scroll down 15 paragraphs … or so. ;) I think it was William Blake who once said that “those who control their passions do so because their passions are weak enough to be controlled.” Right on, I would say, [...]
The Siegel-Schwall Band
After having worked my rear end off these past weeks and after having gotten up too darn early today, on this year’s 23rd of December, to get some last minute rush jobs done, I have to say that the Christmas spirit has been about as far away from my own life as possible much of [...]
Anita O’Day (1919-2006)
God, I don’t know where to start. If you drop by here regularly, you know that I always approach what I write about from a (very) personal and instinctive vantage point. It either has to be very close to my heart or I have to hate it. Both aspects bring out the most passionate responses. [...]
Shelly Manne & His Men at The Black Hawk
Recommending CDs is always a difficult affair. As soon as you say that some CD is desert island material for you, someone gets on your case, taking you to task for having said that, stating that the relative merit of this or that recording diminishes when taking other, more relevant recordings into consideration. On top [...]
Eugen Cicero
When it comes around to music criticism, not much bothers me. One cannot argue about taste and one should try to live with critical reviews when they’re bad, just off or just badly researched. There’ll always be that one review that gets things right, negating – perhaps – those that botched things in the past. [...]
Les Trésors du Jazz
Note: You can find some photos of these boxed sets (and others) in the “Le Chant du Monde” album of the livingwithmusic.com/gallery. OK,OK, I’ll admit it. I just dislike compilations, usually. Yes, sometimes a single artist’s best-of compilation is all you could possibly want of one single artist’s output (and even twelve to fifteen tunes [...]
Jan Johansson
Have you ever heard of “Jazz på Svenska”, “Jazz på Ryska, “Musik genom Fyra Sekler”, “Spelar Musik På Sitt Eget Vis”, or maybe “Den Korta Fristen”? No? Well, join the club of several million other people who haven’t either. Jan Johansson, that elusive musician from Sweden who recorded these and many other LPs before his [...]
Organissimo
To be quite honest, I used to hate the organ. When I was a kid, we had this neighbour who liked to open up his windows in the summer and blast out this insanely irritating organ muzak for hours, scaring away just about any approaching summer breeze that had managed to survive its journey across [...]
A Love Supreme
I don’t know about you, but I’m a stubborn listener. If you have as much music as I have, you sometimes buy a recording because someone you trust or many other people have recommended it … and, upon listening to it for the first time, you actually wonder about some people’s sanity. You sit in [...]
It’s Snowing on My Piano
A Christmas album. Of all the CDs and LPs I have, the grand total certainly having passed the 5000 items mark, it just had to be a Christmas album that has stayed at #1 of my all-time best list, ever since it came out. You have to read this properly, so you get the importance [...]