Idiotprogrammer Blog

Category: Audio

  • Audio Interview with Texas Author Robert Flynn

    Here’s my 2007 interview with Texas novelist Robert Flynn. All this information is at archive.org, but here’s a complete description:

    0:00 Introduction
    1:12 Current projects
    2:55 Writing Habits
    4:33 Writing For Practice?
    6:10 Writing nonfiction vs. Fiction
    7:18 Hardest Book To Write? Easiest?
    8:30 Tie Fast Country: TV & Getting Inspiration From Rural Life
    12:10 Rereading Old stuff
    13:00 Thoughts on Audio Books
    16:00 Is it harder to write as you get older?
    16:40 Thoughts about genre & collaboration working with editors
    21:44 Writer and Family Life
    23:15 Reactions to “Wanderer Springs”
    23:40 Is it important that fiction be accessible to an audience?
    26:50 Books that Influenced Me while growing up. Small town libraries
    28:00 Developing as a young writer. Father’s influence.
    31:20 Characteristics of Texas writing and writers
    33:45 Traveling and seeing the world
    34:20 Thoughts about teaching students and how it changed my writing
    35:20 Principles/Secrets of Writing
    36:10 Tips for New Writers
    37:30 Identifying with my characters; small town stories
    40:00 Writers that Influence Me

    Robert Flynn is a Texas author born in Chillicothe, Texas in 1932. In his novels he writes about Texas traditions and myths, the clash between rural and city life, God and Christianity in a forlorn (and often violent) world. With his first book “North to Yesterday” he tackled the legends of the Texas cowboy and in his later works (Jade & Jade the Law, both set in early Texas) he continues writing in the Western genre, but with an eye towards understanding the nature of violence, justice, redemption and reconciliation. Robert Flynn is the author of 17 books, including Jade: Outlaw, The Last Klick, and North to Yesterday, and a two-part documentary for ABC-TV as well as a fellow at the Texas Institute of Letters. He is the recipient of a Lon Tinkle Lifetime Achievement Award, two Spur Awards from Western Writers of America, and two Wrangler Awards from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. He lives in San Antonio, Texas.

    QUOTE: “You can read any book on writing fiction for example, and they will tell you the same thing. Someone may say it in a different way that gives you better insight, but there are no secrets in writing; it’s just a matter of doing it.”

    Wikipedia page and author website

    Remarks.

    At college I took creative writing classes with Flynn. In the classroom he seemed laid back and didn’t analyze stories too deeply; on the other hand, he had an intuitive sense of what a story wanted to do. After graduating from Trinity, I participated in fiction workshops with 3 seasoned authors (John Barth, J.M. Coetzee and Stephen Dixon) at graduate school. Don’t get me wrong, it was a thrill to work with accomplished authors (and read their fiction). On the other hand, I have ended up reading several works by Flynn for various reasons (possibly out of personal loyalty more than anything else). I have come to appreciate the understated artistry of his stories and his embrace of the Western genre which almost grates at my postmodern sensibility. (I reviewed one of his works for a college literary magazine and reviewed two other titles: Tie-Fast Country and Jade: The Outlaw).

    Reading these works made me realize that Flynn was a lot more contemporary and politically engaged than I’d imagined. To my surprise I learned that Flynn wrote a lot of political stuff (mainly nonfiction) on Facebook and his blog.

    Flynn belongs to the same generation as my other literary idol Jack Matthews. There are parallels. Both had slight successes in the national publishing world, but continued to churn out quality fiction for decades while teaching at universities and remaining “best kept literary secrets” in their respective regions. I must confess feeling envy that the two of them found career paths in academia; (these opportunities seemed to have disappeared after I graduated). On the other hand, my generation did pretty well during the Internet boom and New Media; plus we had access to blogs and self-publishing, so I guess it all evens out (sort of).

    Both fiction writers transcend place in their fiction; on the other hand, both seemed to embrace provincialism and find inspiration in the past. Also, there is something to be said for longevity in the writing world. I’ve seen many remarkable writers write one or two great things and then disappear from the book world. It’s as though they were disappointed by the lack of attention and praise, and just decided not to do it anymore. Just writing one great thing (regardless of commercial success) is a major accomplishment. But if you can sustain a lifelong commitment to storytelling, that also is a remarkable thing. Often it means experimenting with different genres and characters and themes. Even if everything isn’t original or transcendentally beautiful, at least you can say that you have covered a lot of ground.

    I had fun interviewing Mr. Flynn (he’s an old friend). I also had fun recording some audio interviews with Jack Matthews (and links to the published videos will appear soon). I’ve heard a lot of literary interviews in my life, so I have high standards. Although the final product is great, I realize that I was a lousy interviewer. I wanted to think of challenging and profound questions of art and craft. But even the most brilliant of people can’t think of brilliant answers on the spot, and even if they do, it’s punctuated by umms and ahhs. (I removed them all for this interview, you’re welcome). Also, I realized that I forgot to ask a lot of obvious questions. Like:

    1. Tell me about your first book (and second). etc.
    2. If you remember, tell me about how you wrote book 1, book 2, etc. What was the hardest part? What are you most proud of?
    3. Why did you write Book 1, Book 2? Was anything going on in your life?

    If you get a degree in literature, you learn that these biographical questions are not supposed to be that interesting or important. On the other hand, if you have the writer in front of a microphone, why not ask these questions? The worst that can happen is that they refuse to answer!

    Through careful editing I can shorten my questions and editorial asides. Frankly I really tried to steer the interview to things which mattered to me. But frankly, who cares about my opinion about how the question should be answered?

    One of my most challenging interviews was also one of my best. (It was written, not audio). I interviewed my best friend — the brilliant San Antonio literary critic Michael Barrett. He was only half-motivated to participate — and only after a lot of prodding. In fact, he refused to answer a certain percent of my questions and intentionally gave boring answers sometimes. We played a game where I would ask one or two questions a day and then give a follow up question on the next day.

    I asked long-winded questions on the assumption that it would give him different ways to answer. Often he responded in the opposite manner I anticipated. Keep in mind that on his movie criticism and facebook posts, he gives all sorts of witty and comprehensive answers. Eventually I figured out that while Barrett is adept at addressing aesthetic questions, it’s futile to ask them in the abstract. It’s much better to ask questions that tap into his encyclopedic knowledge of movies. Just a few weeks ago, I asked them to recommend some Irish movies, and he gave me an exhaustive annotated list. (His lists are famous — and in fact I have put them in a text file which I am not providing a hyperlink for:
    https://www.personvillepress.com/private8/mike-list.txt )

    Literary interviews are hard to do — although an entertaining writer can make anything interesting. The written Paris Review interviews are the gold standard of course, and I think you can say that the Bill Moyers interviews are outstanding as well — even though he usually comes to them with a political or cultural agenda (and that’s not really a bad thing). Don Swaim used to do a 5-7 minute Bookbeat interview segment for CBS Radio, but a decade ago, he released many of the full unexpurgated interviews online (they were taken offline, but direct links are still available on the right sidebar of this page). These uncensored interviews are extraordinarily fun and revealing.

    I don’t keep up with literary podcasting as much as I should, but when I was following these things, the best interviewer was Michael Silverblatt of KCRW Bookworm. What an extremely high-brow interviewer! That said, I had two complaints with Bookworm: 1)Silverblatt asked unnecessarily cerebral questions and 2)he was interviewing only authors from the big publishing houses.

    At one time I would find Silverblatt’s challenging questions to be interesting. But authors aren’t especially known for their critical pronouncements. You wouldn’t expect Don Swaim’s interviews with Ray Bradbury or P.D. James or James Michener to uncover profound insights about literature; on the other hand, you’d expect to have a lot of fun. Even though Silberblatt is a fascinating person and critic, I find that the conversations drift away from the author and towards Silverblatt’s verbalizing of his readerly responses.

    Let me be clear. Silverblatt is a great reader and critic (and interviewer). Also, he is responding to the fact that many writers are reticent or reluctant to talk about their own works. But his critical perspective often overshadows the author’s voice even if it is what gives his podcast a personal touch. Let’s say you were an author invited on a show hosted by a feminist or Marxist critic. You would not exactly be shocked to find that the discussion is being directed in a certain way even though you might not have given a second thought about social classes or Hegelian dialectic.

    On the other hand, an author is trying to speak to a variety of readers — not merely one perceptive critic. As great as it can be to face a perceptive/enthusiastic reader, an author also is trying to reach many different kinds of readers (and nonreaders!)

    Audio interviews are a convenient necessity — a painless way to learn how authors sound and talk. (Perhaps it’s important; perhaps it’s not). While listening to the Flynn interview, I was struck by how soft-spoken Flynn is — even in a profession known for soft-spoken people. That is interesting information to me — and perhaps to a listener as well.

    Here are some great Bookworm interviews: Otessa Moshfegh , Susan Sontag, Lydia Davis.

  • Monk Turner: LA Song Writer and Concept Album Creator

    (See also: the Interview with Monk Turner, his official website and musical blog. All songs are free to download and a playlist of most of the songs mentioned in this essay follows at the bottom).

    Suppose you were a songwriter and someone asked you to write this song:

    I have a serious medical condition and only have minutes to live. However, could you please write a song about a clown riding a unicycle powered exclusively by hate?  He’d probably have a fish down his or her pants and should be assaulting people with Seltzer or pies.  The clown also needs to go on a retard adventure in which he finds something of importance … a sock — a missing TV remote, God, etc.  I know only you could craft such a masterpiece…. (for the Song  “Clown”).

    Could you write such a song? What about this kind of song:

    I’ve been thinking lately about macaroni and cheese from  a box.  It’s a silly thing  really and pitted against most  laws of nature even the lovely organic  white cheddar cheese kind with shells. But I miss it. It doesn’t exist in Ireland — not even the neon tangerine-colored Kraft kind. I thought you might oblige me  and write a song about a girl who misses mac and cheese and   the length she is willing to go for it. You might resort to violence, but please avoid reference to white chocolate and Nicolas Cage (as both are heinous).  I miss my Wilco double album, so if you could write in the style of Wilco under the influence of Nina Simone…  (for the song “Macaroni”).

    Impossible, you say?   L.A. songwriter and concept album creator Monk Turner enjoys such challenges. He   wanted to make an album called Taking Requests (2007) and asked various people to suggest ideas for songs.  Then he wrote them.  It’s one of those madcap challenges that only a lunatic could accept;  the results are  inventive and fun. One  DJ suggested that Monk write a song about “his nuts,”  so Monk wrote a song called Nuts – the legume kind.596173335-1

    I don’t regard  Taking Requests as the most notable of Monk Turner’s concept albums (Emergency and Love Story are much more interesting and important). But Taking Requests  show  the range of Turner’s  gifts and the adaptability of his muse to different musical styles.  Not all of the songs are brilliant, but some are (Clown is written in a swaying mock-melodramatic fashion, and Macaroni is a brilliant  joke song written in a plaintive tone).  Purely from a creative point of view, it is fascinating  to see how Turner incorporates parts of the request into the song and which musical style he uses.     Some use jazzy styles and  Overheard in NY turns a series of randomly-heard phrases from subway rides (“Those shorts are chronic”  “This isn’t my stuff,” “ That’s it — tomorrow, you’re moving to Egypt” “I can’t get the taste of rubber out my mouth”)  into a electronic sound poem. The result is not only funny and hypnotizing, but the chugging style seems reminiscent of the ambient creaks of transit machinery. (I am typing this on a Houston bus and I can attest that mass transit provides an interesting jukebox of hums and rhythms and creaks).

    Monk Turner has been creating these kinds of  concept albums under creative commons licenses for the last decade now.Despite his unerring ability to write  catchy Devo-esque songs like Take Your Vitamin and Company Toad, at about 2006  Turner began to emphasize albums over songs.  He dubbed himself “Galactic Defender of the Concept Album.’ new-amer2His New American Songbook (2006) has a mix of messages and styles ranging from the traditional folk song (I was Born an American) to political fable (Young Politician Who was going to make a change) to upbeat post-consumerism (We’re Going to Take Back America).  A little less 1984, A little more 1964 is a fascinating mélange which is really  a  homage to the sixties both philosophically and stylistically, with reggae beat, electronic sampling and lots of  psychedelic effects (reminiscent of  Overheard in New York).  The lyrics explicitly use the language of protest (revolution, demonstrate, motivate), but in fact the words remain  subordinate to the   bopping rhythm, and almost sounds muted  (a kind of acknowledgement of  how distant the 60s spirit feels to us today).    Shh the American Dream is Sleeping is a hazy mock-lullaby to a country dazed by its ideals.  All American Hippie Girl is a delightful satirical song that tells the story of a boy in love with a “hippie girl” who is talking about political causes but never gives him attention.

    She invited me to a protest, and I said, I’d rather not go.
    She said, “You’re just a boy who should be saving the world
    And don’t be so concerned with this hippie girl.”
    So I stood up and told her,
    “Why can’t you see that world peace begins with ME?”

    Besides being  clever and hummable, this song  comes with  trademark kazoo choruses, slow moments, simple guitar accompaniment plus subtle musical sampling to punctuate the song.   Overall, the album has great ambitions; one has to welcome the audacity  of  trying to write an album about a thing called “America” in an age of  500 cable channels, political polarizations, and cocooned suburban consciousness. Back in the days of Woody Guthrie, I think everyone knew what  America was.  Now…I am not so sure.

    In 2008 Monk Turner released two more albums Calendar and Love Story.  Calendar is  a grab bag of 12 songs inspired loosely by each month of the year.  Sometimes the link is tenuous; the  August song Agustus is more about the Roman emperor than the month while  the fun and joyous  “March in March”  is more about marching than the eponymous month. On the other hand,  two of the more successful songs, Halloween Night and Turkey Time follow the assignment more literally. Turkey Time is a rapid funk rock celebration of the holiday a la Lenny Kravitz; Halloween Night has the campy spookiness of a haunted house, replete with sound effects and dramatic flourishes.  Imagine stripping out the vocals from Halloween Night, and you’ll find that the  instrumental part  still has a magical, sparkling  quality which embodies the adolescent Halloween spirit.

    The Love Story album (2008) presents 10 songs on the nature of love with a structure roughly parallel to a series of 10 Zen poems on self-discovery  called   10 bulls. It is a remarkable album and a radical departure for Turner.  It features amazing performances by the  Christian soul/rap group   God’s Will, able tenor sax  by Chad Bloom and an ensemble of other people who provide vocals, guitar and other instruments. Each song on the album are  pop-song short and have nice memorable melodies, a hopeful attitude towards love  and a soulful urban sound.  Raise the White Flag (Surrender) is a gentle reminder that the way to win the heart of the beloved is surrender.What makes this song so winning is not only the message, but the amazing soulful vocal riffs by gospel singer Cherdale “Sip” Smith (here’s another song featuring his voice with R.P.M). Easy on the Eyes is a grooving almost soulful duet  with a simple message.  All the Time is a vintage 50s era doowop duet  ballad with a simple innocent skipping beat. Get Up, Do Your Thing is a witty rap conversation about romance; it has attitude  and lots of saxophone riffs to keep it fun.  Game is an edgy lament with a strong backbeat about modern romance;  through voicemail samples, it reveals the little lies people tell while dating.  Actually though,  this is really the only somber song in the bunch; the rest are full of hope and even joyful. If  she gives you her heart offers gentle advice (with a slow jazzy beat)  on how to treat your women

    If she gives you her heart
    don’t let it go
    keep her close but take it slow
    if she gives you her love
    treat it like wine
    it will keep you high
    all the time

    All the songs on Love Story are great and provide unexpected pleasures. This definitely ranks as my favorite album of the bunch.

    To be honest, the Coordinates album  (2010) didn’t initially grab me, but over time I’ve grown to like it (parts at least). All 11 songs are about an urban  location  (the hair salon, freeway parking lot, Michael Jackson’s grave, the club, etc.) and some songs  tell a story; the rock ballad,  Dive Bar off Main Street is a kind of “urban Eleanor Rigby,”  (but with an  electric guitar).  The album  has a slower downtempo jazzy sound with lots of Ooh’s and Ahhs and other doo-woppy stuff. I like to call it more lackadaisical and smoother than his usual fare.  Unlike Turner’s other albums, it doesn’t have an agenda and isn’t shouting crazy jokes.  Fortunately the multiple singers on the tracks provide a lot of harmony and variety and soul; the wistful Hair Salon could easily have been sung by Beyonce – though Lauren Rasmussen and male singer Chris Warrior do it admirably.  The duet also sings with fake enthusiasm in New Downtown about the city’s improvements:

    Mom, Dad you said you left the city to get away —
    too much crime and urban decay
    well, we took it back
    locked up all those people hooked on crack
    ’cause this town belongs to us.
    We evicted all the welfare moms
    Got rid of all the bums
    gutted all the buildings
    gotta make room for
    New Downtown…that’s where I want to be…

    from the song New Downtown in Coordinates.

    Perhaps  the most interesting about the album are the musical arrangements. The reverberating effects in  the  slow and eerie Trapped in My Head are something you’d find in the next David Lynch movie. First and Central has some radical Nu Jazz saxophone improvisations   by Chad Bloom. The slow ballad Rooftop Balcony compliments Rasmussen’s lovely voice.  Even  Michael Jackson’s grave has the campy theatrical feel of 1980s pop – as fitting a tribute as any to the pop star.

    The 2011 album Emergency Songs is the latest and greatest; it’s beautifully polished and unlike Love Songs – where a lot of songs can stand out on their own — you really have to listen to the whole album from start to finish to appreciate the album as a whole.  Turner says that Alanna Lin cowrote all the songs on the album; as a  vocalist,    Lin  has a slow, understated way of singing even in the fast jazzy numbers;   but her voice has enough  range to handle the agitated pace of a rock song like Hold On or Where’s My Horse,  the cheerful irony of  After Disaster, the jazzy hipness of Trust is Just a Word and the solemnness of  O Say Can You See the Future.  For several of the songs (Letter to Los Angeleans and Lover Won’t You Hold Me) the musical arrangement is so minimal that it almost feels like Lin is singing a capella (though the  gentle guitar  strums  in Lover Won’t You Hold Me provide a tenderness befitting  the song’s subject).   Musically, there’s a lot of interesting things going on in this album – pauses,  sound effects, abrupt transitions,  jazzy piano and sax,  crescendos, choruses and a variety of musical styles – even a dollop of  country rock.

    The songs in Emergency Songs definitely flow easily and naturally into one another, and by the last song, I definitely feel that I have completed   an incredible musical journey.  Turner adds labels  to the song titles (BEFORE, DURING, HOLD ON)   to suggest a direction; each song provides a kind of personal snapshot of how people respond to a crisis, how it tears them apart and brings them together, how it awakens  fears and longings, how it rescues some  and leaves others stranded and helpless.   The “emergency” in these songs is presumably an earthquake, but I think it could as easily have been  a hurricane, a tornado, a blackout or even a civil war. The real subject seems to be  complacency towards life and the all-too-human  assumption that our lives are less fluid than they really are.  In After Disaster, she sings:

    after disaster you changed your name
    or changed your  mind.
    All the same.
    after disaster you broke my heart
    and never saw the pain.
    After disaster everything changes
    After disaster, it’s not the same.

    There are comic interludes; Prisoner tells the story of a convicted murderer on his way to prison who manages to escape when the bus crashes after an earthquake.  But Prisoner is a slow almost plaintive song, as though the prisoner  is more shaken than elated at this strange twist of fate. All the songs are thought-provoking and ironic, especially O Say Can You See the Future (probably the most amazing track on the album) which meditates about life and  its desolations.    This otherworldly  song is slow and eerie and beautifully arranged; in the middle the song crashes into something (but what? that is the question);  by the end the flute gently picks the listener up and deposits him  in some safe and peaceful place. I can’t help but be struck at the title which combines the first line of the US National Anthem with  a question about fate and the possibility of annihilation.

    So Monk Turner’s albums have progressed from songs about nuts and macaroni   to meditations about  life itself.  Ironically, the Emergency Album seems not only to be  the most fully realized of Monk Turner’s concept album, it also was the most collaborative;  in fact, as a creative commons masterpiece, it is likely to be weaved by others into future music fabrics.  In an allegedly meaningless world torn apart by all kinds of things, it is reassuring to know  that there is still  enough collective energy and enthusiasm to bring about such a profound and unsettling album.

    Nov 8 2012 Update. Here’s my review of his latest album project Kaleidoscope.

  • Free & Legal Benny Goodman MP3s

    November 2018 Update. Unfortunately most of these links are dead with one important exception.

    Below are lots of links to mp3 files on archive.org. They are free and legal; most came from old time radio shows. Download away!

    For background about Benny Goodman, check out this wonderful and well-rounded obituary of Benny Goodman by John S. Wilson in the New York Times.

    The mp3s below should have a PLAY icon beside each line (you might need to wait 3 or 4 seconds for it to appear). If you press the play icon, a music player will pop up which should play the Benny Goodman songs below. The links are actually direct links to the mp3 files on archive.org image; if you want, you can download them straight from my web page. By the way, if you are looking for a tool to help you download all the mp3 links on a page, I recommend downloadthemall plugin for Firefox.  Another thing. Each mp3 (or at least the compilation containing the mp3) is described in its own page on archive.org. Unfortunately, it would be really time-consuming to indicate which pages these mp3s come from, but you could probably figure it by googling the file name or by going up one folder from the URL.  I cannot vouch for the dates or the titles, but the actual mp3 links all seem accurate to me.   Finally, if you want your mind and ears to be blown away, this URL contains 10 30 minute live radio concerts Benny Goodman did in the 1930s . You probably don’t need to download these things, but they are wonderful to listen to and mostly commercial free (except for the last one called Camel Caravan).

    Benny Goodman Mp3 Links

    BG Oh Baby LIVE

    BG Trio Dinah 1937

    Benny Goodman Martha Tilton Carnegie Hall 1938 Bei Mir Bist Du Schon

    BG Minnie the Moocher Wedding Day (Original)

    BG Boys: That’s a-plenty 1928

    BG Boys Wolverine Blues (1928)

    Benny Goodman Helen Forest Smoke Gets in your Eyes

    BG Sing Sing Sing Long Version (Carnegie?)

    BG I would do anything for you 1937

    Benny Goodman Helen Forest I’m always Chasing Rainbows

    BG Peggy Lee Let’s Do It 1941

    BG Farewell Blues

    BG  I’ve Got Rhythm Live

    BG Stan Kenton Satin Doll later stuff

    BG Jam Session 1937

    BG Honeysuckle Rose 13 minute version (Man, what an ending!)

    BG Stan Kenton Harry James One O’Clock Jump

    BG Blue Skies

    BG Peggy Lee Somebody is taking my Place 1942 . I’m not 100% sure, but I think this is the song being played on the battery-operated radio in orbit in the film Apollo 13.

    BG Jack Teagarten Keep a Song in Your Soul

    BG Woody Hermann Harry James 1942 Back Beat Boogie

    BG Martha Tilton I’ve Got that old Feeling 1938

    BG Peggy Lee We’ll Meet Again

    BG Swing Kids Goodnight My Love

    BG Peggy Lee If you Build a better mousetrap

    Benny Goodman’s song Goodbye

    Benny Goodman’s Goodbye is a slow, sad and utterly beautiful song that remains one of my favorites. (More). I can’t seem to find a decent quality free mp3. Here is one defective version of the song which is somewhat listenable.  For some reason it stops in the middle of streaming, but it plays normally on Windows Media Player. ABMp3 offers an mp3 version of the song Goodbye for free although you have to enter a captcha code to see the actual link. Here is the mp3 for sale at amazon.com for 99 cents.

    Other Interesting Big Band MP3s

    Bob Hope & Shirley Ross Thanks for the Memories 1938

    Archive.org has about 200 Vera Lynn songs. Most are lyrical and lush (i.e., not swing), but still very sweet).

    Vera Lynn 1940 version of We’ll Meet Again and the more famous 1954 version (in Doctor Strangelove)

    Vera Lynn Abide with Me

    Vera Lynn Amazing Grace

    Vera Lynn When You Wish Upon a Star

    Free & Legal Mp3s of Bei Mir Bist Du Schon

    For more about my obsession with this song and the Andrew Sisters, see this post. The following links are all links to strange & interesting & free versions of Bei Mir Bist du Schon.

    More Free Benny Goodman MP3 Compilation Downloads

    The Benny Goodman songs are  not well-labeled on archive.org so I’m listing all the music sets I can dig up. Each link contains about 10 songs.  Most of the songs are listenable and ok (and in fact you can find the pages containing the above mp3 links on one of these pages). The actual mp3s on the top of this page are my favorite songs I’ve found. Your tastes may differ!

    Benny Goodman (unspecified 795 10 songs without names!) The amazing thing about this one is that it contains 10 live broadcasts of 30 minutes each from Manhatten, presumably in 1937! All are commercial-free  except the last one (Camel Caravan).

    Benny Goodman 201-210

    Benny Goodman 211-220

    Benny Goodman 251-260

    Benny Goodman 261-270

    Benny Goodman 281-290

    Benny Goodman 301-310

    Benny Goodman 321-330

    Benny Goodman 331-340 Martha Tilton Stuff!

    Benny Goodman 341-350 More Martha Tilton

    Benny Goodman 341-350-390-718 Lee, Bailey, Page,

    Benny Goodman 351-360

    Benny Goodman 361-370

    Benny Goodman 371-380

    Benny Goodman (unspecified 10 10 songs)

    Benny Goodman unspecified 27 10 songs

    Benny Goodman unspecified 65 10 songs

    Benny Goodman (unspecified 88 1937 10 songs)

    Benny Goodman unspecified 244 10 songs

    Benny Goodman 382 unspecified 10 songs

    Benny Goodman 525 unspecified 10 songs

    Benny Goodman 577 unspecified songs

    Benny Goodman 625 unspecified 10 songs

    Benny Goodman (unspecified 666- 10 songs)

    Benny Goodman (unspecified 675 1937-10 songs)

    Benny Goodman (unspecified 681 9 songs)

    Benny Goodman (unspecified 834 10 songs)

    Benny Goodman (unspecified 836 10 songs).

    Other Cool Old Time Radio Stuff

    I just discovered Old Time Radio Catalog, an online  service that sells you mp3 compilation CDs of old time radio stars for $5 each.  I haven’t started listening, but I’m amazing that a single CD of the Andrews Sisters for $5 can contain 18 hours of radio performances! Holy cow! I’ve struck the jackpot!  (Here are other singers).

    Archive.org has a lot of stuff but no organization. Here are some useful things I found related to old time radio shows and music.

    My other cool web pages about music

    Here are some other really cool web pages I have done about music which contain lots of links to free mp3s.

    July 20 2014 Update.  All of the audio files are from archive.org That doesn’t mean they are in the public domain, but in the case of Benny Goodman, I think many of them are free for unlimited use.

    For example, look here:
    The Creative Commons license graphic on the left side clearly says it’s  public domain.

    I think archive.org is pretty reliable for licensing. Except for obvious errors, once something is labeled as creative commons or public domain, it stays that way.  But note that some of the Benny Goodman URLs don’t say anything about copyright. That may simply be an omission, but it may be that it’s not possible to determine copyright status.

    My experience has been that BG mp3s broadcast live originally on the radio in the 1930s were public domain. But things in the 40s still are under copyright (except for overseas war broadcasts).

    Unfortunately many of the URLs I provided on that page are direct links to the mp3s and not to the “compilation” page which would have copyright information.

    Sometimes you can figure it out. For example, for this: http://www.archive.org/download/BennyGoodman361-370of390/BennyGoodmanVpeggyLee-WellMeetAgain.mp3

    If you search for “Benny Goodman” and 361, you will get this:

    https://archive.org/details/BennyGoodman361-370of390

    I think the URL structure follows this same pattern.

  • Some Amazing Podcasts & Video

    Patrick McClean tells a true 30 minute audio story about getting shot. Hilarious, sardonic and profound.  I had blogged about Patrick McClean in 2006 . Here’s some of his best storytelling pieces.  By the way, it’s not really a story, but the Hans Solo Theory is intriguing. McClean now is blogging more regularly (not just podcasting). He used to keep all his stories on the TheSeachachai website but has decided to put more recent content on a different web domain.

    From Miette’s Story Podcast, there is an outstanding story by Lydia Millett, Sir Duke about the life of a dogwalker. Every moment of the story is beautiful, and Miette does as great job reading it. Also good: a reading of Raymond Carver’s Feathers and Kelly Link’s A Specialist’s Hat.

    I haven’t listened to Miette’s version of it yet, but I noticed that she did a reading of Jean Stafford’s Interior Castle. This is an intense and appalling and unforgettable  story about a woman getting reconstructive surgery and how she is alone with her thoughts. I heard another recorded version of it, and it moved me deeply.

    Also, here’s a 37 minute video of recently deceased author  David Markson reading at 92Y.

    From the Key West Literary Seminar are 3 interesting readings/lectures: Gore Vidal wings it, Joy Williams tells a story about a childhood crush. I generally recommend anything by William Kennedy, but I am hesitant to recommend this reading by William Kennedy because it’s only an excerpt of a story.Richard Wilbur does some great poetry readings here and here and here.  In that last one (I think) he does a reading of a hilarious and great poem The Disappearing Alphabet:

    Without the letter I, there’d be
    No word for your IDENTITY,
    And so you’d find it very tough
    To tell yourself from other stuff.
    Sometimes, perhaps, you’d think yourself
    A jam jar on the pantry shelf.
    Sometimes you’d make a ticking sound
    And slowly move your hands around.
    Sometimes you’d lie down like a rug,
    Expecting to be vacuumed. Ugh!
    Surely, my friends, you now see why
    We need to keep the letter I.

  • Awesome Free Shit Everywhere! (AFSE)

    From an anonymous comment on a free (and legal) music sharing site:

    "what people dont understand, is there is awesome free shit everywhere."

     

    Although I avoid profanity here usually, the last four words of this quote convey the feeling as emphatically and eloquently. Henceforth, I will use the acronym AFSE to refer to gems like these:

    • Post Human Era’s To Build a Fire album and Eurasia Deluxe’s Winter War in Tibet.  The first is some electropop with soothing vocals ; the second is some ambient metaphysical rock guitar from Belarus. Both come from Clinical Archives and are awesome stuff for background music while working on an assignment you keep putting off.
    • Life after Tomorrow (documentary about stars of Annie musical; yes, I blogged about it a few days ago, but well worth repeating). 

  • Post-SXSW Linkdump

    Lots of small things to blog about.

    Allegory of the Cave as a claymation film (3 minutes). Great but it made me realize how much I missed the first time I read Plato!

    Here’s  Life after Tomorrow, a  delightful 70 minute documentary about some of the people who starred in the Annie Broadway play as children. This film is pure joy.

    From the health care debate, here is Natoma Canfield’s letter to Obama  and an update about her health.

    AT SXSW Interactive I saw Dan Roam talk about visual thinking. (Here are his succinct diagrams illustrating the health care debate).  I bought both of his books and found them fascinating. The trick is reading the text and trying to imagine how Roam will illustrate these abstract ideas.  Here is an audio interview with Dan Roam by Moira Gunn.

    I just learned that apparently you can use a Pen + pad device to draw over Power Point presentations. You need a USB device costing about $50-75, but it’s extremely helpful, especially if you are trying to do on-the-flaw diagrams.

    Sam Greenspan’s 11 Funny Graphs about Twitter.

    Although I like idiotprogrammer as a blog name, I would seriously change it to Booby Naked (just because it’s more memorable). Just an idle thought.

    Bill Palmer asks how long it will take for the iPad to become a kind of joke:

    Hundreds of thousands of people have already plunked down for a device that they can’t even get their hands on until next month, and many of them will go wait in line to pick it up because they don’t want to be in the bathroom when the delivery man comes and risk not being among the first to get their hands on one. The question isn’t whether Apple will sell a million iPads in the first year, but how many millions. As such, the first generation iPad will be consumed by the masses in a way that the first (second, third) generation iPod never was. Here’s the funny part: no matter how well received the first generation iPad might be next month, even if most users consider it to be a gift from above, within two or three years it’ll be considered a joke in comparison to whatever the future iPad lineup looks like at that point.

    Some fascinating audio:

  • Bei Mir Bist Du Schon: All the Versions

    After seeing it on  Catching the Waves, I am now testing  the new embedded yahoo media player.  Wow, it works!  I think I will start adding mp3 links to most of my posts. Let me know if it bothers you or if it has technical problems. Yahoo Media Player was the brainchild of Lucas Gonze  (who created the amazing webjay online playlist site in 2004). Click on the Play button to see the magic at work. Andrew Sisters

    Aha, I see that the yahoo player will automatically embed every mp3 link on a web page. So after playing this Bei Mir bist du Schon link, the player proceeded  to the next mp3 on the page (which in this case is the fascinating but irrelevant  90 minute lecture about Internet freedom with James Fallows). Hey, that was a good talk, but I realize if you click on the Bei Mir Bist du Schon link, you hardly expect to hear James Fallows! To solve this problem, I guess I will just have to include multiple Bei Mir links (bummer!)

    By the way, if any random web surfer has found this page through a similar obsession, let me mention some other  versions which give me shivers.

    • I heard a jazzy Russian version on a Russian music cassette (from a band that did jazzy cover versions of various songs; I remember one they did of Don’t Cry for Me Argentina which was particularly terrific). Anyway, if anyone knows who did this version or how to listen to it online, let me know.
    • The SwingChix Ukulele version of the Bei Mir on youtube is by my far my favorite modern version of the song. It is fresh, fun, silly, stylish and different.
    • The Barry Sisters version of the song is jazzy and elegant. Sung completely in Yiddish with cello and piano jazz band.
    • Yet another ukelele version with Sophie  Madeleine, Jocelyn Mackenzie & Emily Hope Price. Love the woman humming a horn part.
    • The Dutch female group Zazi puts in a fun upbeat version with adlibs and fun accents.

    (By the way, I am officially NOT wondering about whether these versions ought to be available on archive.org).

    This wiki page lists many  versions of the song. I eagerly await  the Pig Latin version of the song.

    People who know me know about my obsession with the Andrew Sisters. I never tire of hearing their dynamite version of this song.

    PS. I heartily recommend Swing It: The Andrew Sisters book by John Sforza (Read excerpts on Google books).

  • Risque Music Videos: Nonsensical or Subversive?

    Here are 3  songs that are going to infect your brain: nonsensical songs with obscene lyrics and a hard rhythm. (By the way, both were features on the 2009 SXSW mp3 torrent download).

    Here’s an amazing rap song and an amazing music video by hip hopper  Bomani Armah called Read a Book! If you check  his website, you see a creative articulate talent.

    • Bomani is frustrated and dumbfounded by the crippling limits of the English language. He wishes he was a visual artist, cause there is no way words like “love” should mean as many things as it does. It’s part of the reason he has no problem with slang, ebonics, bad diction, bad grammar or just straight making up words. Ya undadig?
    • Bomani thinks artistic competitions are over rated, and that battle rapping is played out. Real art cannot be a competition. Any art award boils down to a popularity contest, which has it’s own merit, but does not validate or denigrate art.
    • Bomani, in his heart, values fame at least 5 times more than money. In his head though, he’s calculating his sons’ college education. In his spirit he could care less about any of it..
    • Bomani will support violent, misogynistic, socially irrelevant and mind numbingly stupid expressions if he likes it artistically. You can try to have a logical debate about it, but he’s an artist and will answer all your inquiries as to why he likes said art until he is left with the final answer of “Because”.
    • Bomani is not one of those artists who create for his self. There is a time for meaningless abstractness that is meant to confuse, intrigue, and make highbrow people feel good about understanding. (It’s called therapy).
    • He does not need or encourage the use of intoxicants to inspire art (but if you got it, pass it)

    Here’s song #2:  European electronic dj/rapper. LeLe’s Breakfast.  It occurs to me that whereas the lyrics of Bomani Armah are playful but message-oriented,  the lyrics of   lot of European electro-hiphop means absolutely nothing!  (Perhaps because the target audience is people whose first language is not English?) Compare to another European music group E-rotic  which uses very suggestive sexual lyrics, but nobody would accuse it of corrupting our youth. Music can get away with a lot on the dance floor.  Musicians are always attuned to the sound of words, but I think European singers  depend on it more to attract listeners. Listen to 2 more songs: Tings That’s Not My Name and Lele’s Skinny Jeans . Obviously I could pick out examples to prove or disprove this statement. But it seems to me that if you live in (basically) a monolingual culture, musicians try really hard to use the songs to express ideas and feelings in a verbal way. Busta Rhymes Gimme Some More, like other rap songs is so densely packed that one is aware of how much is flying past. Nowadays commercial artists probably write songs with an eye towards making a music video (and so pack a lot more imagery and melodrama than would normally be there).  Music videos  help in the decoding process, but I seriously doubt a European rap artist could spend so much time making his lyrics so intricate and slangy and topical. 

    Related: psychological research about earworms, (songs that get in your mind and can’t get out). Also, suggestions about what and what not to do in the event you are infected.

  • Interview with Thomas Eccard (2 Inventions)

    Recently writer and critic Robert Nagle made a list of 11 Incredible Musicians You Can Download for Free. Many of the musicians on this top list make their music freely available on Jamendo, a free and legal music sharing site. Several musicians  appearing on this  list also gave interviews to this blog  (Read the other interviews).  You can also  download a free sampler containing full songs from artists profiled here.

    2 Inventions is a team of two Polish musicians Thomas Eccard and  Neal Cerrone.  They live in a small town Mielec (which is actually close to Lutsk, Ukraine, where I lived for a year). They do  electronica with many  kinds of flavors and moods, with a house sound, but also lots of pieces that begin with piano (like Paul Van Dyk). Two words come to mind: shimmering and pulsating. Their album, In Aeternum combines lots of disparate electronic elements without seeming too synthetic or techno. 2invention The most remarkable track  I love her reminds me of Daft Punk along with pulsating reverberations which blur throughout the song.  It a wonderful dizzying effect.  The main melody is synthesized piano and South American pan flute (?), while the background is traditional, with various sound effects thrown in for fun. It seems almost ethereal.  Deeper Love is danceable disco containing a sample on a single phrase. It doesn’t really go anywhere, but I really had a lot of fun being there. It’s like party music you pay no attention to until a friend points it out. Loneliness has lots of fireworks, but it doesn’t really begin until midway with the introduction of the soulful melody upon which the rest of the song builds upon. (That’s one quality I like to this electronica: how the long intros build to a dramatic silence, and then the main melody starts–take that, Beethoven!)

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  • Interview with Vavrek & John Holowach (Tryad)

    Recently writer and critic Robert Nagle made a list of 11 Incredible Musicians You Can Download for Free . Many of the musicians on this top list make their music freely available on Jamendo, a free and legal music sharing site. Several musicians  appearing on this  list also gave interviews to this blog  (Read the other interviews).  You can also download a free sampler containing full songs from artists profiled here . listentryad

    Tryad is an amazing musical group of people who never met until they produced an album. Listen, their second album is often ranked as the #1 most frequently listened to out of Jamendo’s 29,000 free albums. It is quiet, mysterious, unsettling, full of piano and strong rhythms, pauses, occasional crashes and silences (it’s labeled as “Industrial Classical Pop”).  Although it  includes a core group of  performers, most of the songs are built upon songs by  other Jamendo artists.   The results are  astonishing. Struttin’ is a kind of funky protest song about the music industry. Breathe is an intimate song  that poses a question to an imaginary lover. Alone is a meditation on solitude that almost seems … joyful. Lovely is an uplifting romantic ballad  that offers consolation to a sad individual  (“trees and galaxies/can’t you see/just like these/you are so lovely/how could you ever think you’re separate from everything”). Mesmerize takes a lovely song by Brad Sucks, embellishes it with piano and  gives the original melody a new meaning…and profundity. This is a powerful  song by Vavrek based on a piano melody by Antony Raijekov with a solemn rhythm.   The mysterious Waltz into the Moonlight uses  gentle tapping sounds to give the song a steady  momentum.

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  • Interview with Adam Szabo (Ant on Wax)

    Recently writer and critic Robert Nagle made a list of 11 Incredible Musicians You Can Download for Free . Many of the musicians on this top list make their music freely available on Jamendo, a free and legal music sharing site. Several musicians  appearing on this  list also gave interviews to this blog  (Read the other interviews).  You can also download a free sampler containing full songs from the artists profiled here .

    Ant on Wax is a great Hungarian electronic composer who got started at 14 by producing music for children’s birthday parties.  The album Control is a techno danceable album with a sultry female singer named Aliem.   It’s outrageous, hyperkinetic and lots of fun.  Control features great breakbeat and dizzying speed.  Invent gives me geek orgasms. Nothing like Tomorrow is like Motown at a rave party. I ain’t easy is Praga Khan lite withantonwax cowbells and a little Stereolab frivolity.  Nothing like Tomorrow is a great dance number; Invent is an exhilarating dash to a finish line (love the geeky lyrics; what the heck do they mean?) It gives me geek orgasms whenever I hear it.

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  • Interview with Hannah Sheehan (No Really)

    Recently writer and critic Robert Nagle made a list of 11 Incredible Musicians You Can Download for Free. Many of the musicians on this top list make their music freely available on Jamendo, a free and legal music sharing site. Several musicians  appearing on this  list also gave interviews to this blog  (Read the other interviews).  You can also download a free sampler containing full songs from artists profiled here. No, Really - Acoustic Demo

    Hannah Sheehan  is an acoustic singer-songwriter from Tennessee who recorded 10 tracks from her album Rust all on a single day in a San Diego recording studio. The resulting is astonishing.  Clemens has a voice that when you first hear it is both angelic and striking, reminiscent of the folk singer Jewel, Ann McCue or  a  feistier Joan Baez.  During a sustained note, she has that ability to change moods almost instantly and effortlessly. Rust is the song that captured me first; it leaves me drained and speechless every time I hear it.  Beginning of the End is a slow and  philosophical lullaby that says farewell to all kinds of things  (she sings “Sit back and watch the city self-destruct” with a sense both of foreboding and acceptance).  Have I mentioned that Clemens writes her own songs?  Floodplains  is a heart-rending song about a collapsing city (“Yesterday was a party/today it ends; this is a city that breaks /but never bends”).   Other songs are more upbeat. You go is a heartfelt song about missing someone and not being able to enjoy pleasures in the same way during his absence. (Compare to John Denver’s Leaving on a Jet Plane).  Clemens also performs as a member of the  singing female duo Minor Vine and released a brighter and livelier EP album Undo Undid. In 2011 she was in a band called Smokemonster and released an EP called Frisky Whiskey.

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  • Interview with Lonah

    Recently writer and critic Robert Nagle made a list of 11 Incredible Musicians You Can Download for Free. Many of the musicians on this top list make their music freely available on Jamendo, a free and legal music sharing site. Several musicians  appearing on this  list also gave interviews to this blog  (Read the other interviews).  You can also  download a free sampler containing full songs from artists profiled here.

    Lonah’s   Pieces has been one of the all-time favorites by listeners on Jamendo. Lonah is a Paris group described (with the help of Google Translation) as "dreams plastered to jazz and electro-rock hallucination."  Noting influences as wide as Apollinaire and Ionesco, the band has an absurdist and even surreal style, combining  jazz piano, rock guitar and techno beat. The  female lead singer Raphaëlle (described as a former KGB spy — not for political reasons, but simply for the free vodka), has a dreamy and luscious voice, and yet the band complements her talent nicely with lots of interesting acoustic and electronic effects.  One of my favorite pieces Les Amantes de cristal is a slow romantic dirge  that reminds me of Mazzy Star (but with more melodrama and electronic effects). Fractale is a lovely understated song with a delightful keyboard, strings and a  rapid catchy beat. Some of the more traditional arrangements use violins (Crepescule) while the melancholy Paris la mort use xylophones (reminding me of a lullaby even though the lyrics seem more melancholy). The final 2 songs Ombre and Visage d’ébène are tentative  and philosophical and generally upbeat. The latest album Take your spoon and run  is a bit of a departure.  The lead song is a great electronic/dance song (in a Ladytron way)  and Raphaëlle’s lyrics are absurd and fun.  Mornings is a melodramatic rock ballad which ends in a great finale with the piano.  Je te connais Beau Masque is a jazzy and whimsical song you’d expect to find in a Paris nightclub catering to rich Asian tourists.  Whenever I listen to Lonah’s songs, I am never sure what is going to happen next; there are always rapid and unexpected  shifts in style/rhythm/tempo. See also the early album Au fond du temps .  In this interview I spoke with Eric   who plays bass guitar. By the way, they have a fun fake-biography on their webpage. It’s in French, but Google Translate can be your friend.

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  • Jamendo having problems?

    I’m in the middle of a long series about creative commons  music on Jamendo.  Definitely appearing on this blog this week. But I just wanted to alert people to the fact that Jamendo might go under – which would be devastating for artists all around the world.

    See this Techcrunch article as well as this jamendo thread.

    People may not realize this, but lots of people have been making donations to their artist through Jamendo – including me.

    As I said, my series on jamendo will be hitting this blog very soon. For a preview, you can listen to a playlist I created (and download all the tracks from the playlist!)

  • Those 20th century Beethoven-loving barbarians! (Free & Cheap Mp3s of Beethoven Symphonies)

    Well, I did it. After checking the library and the free recordings, I decided to plunk $8 and download the Complete Beethoven Symphonies, conducted by Josef Krips with the London Symphony. I am downloading them now from Amazon. I am giving it as a Christmas present for my nephew. image

    My reference for classical music recordings is Third Ear’s Classical Music guide, edited by Alexander J. Morin. It gives a rundown of all performances of Beethoven symphonies. Surprisingly, it recommends a boxed set conducted by Cluytens, and in fact there is general agreement that this is one of the best performances.  I would have been happy to spend the extra $15 to upgrade to Cluytens. (the preview audio did sound fantastic). But wait! It’s out of stock (and shipped only from Germany).  And it’s a CD – gosh, remember those?

    The Cluytens is on EMI Classics, so there’s really no excuse not to make it available digitally.    If I bought a CD version,  I’d have to wait for it (probably a week). Plus, I’d have to rip it (which is 20-30 minutes).  I was planning to give it as a Christmas present to my nephew.  That’s in two days! Is it that important to delay a present by a week just to get a certain version? To be fair, Third Ear did like the Krips version (though it didn’t regard as one of the great recordings).  In fact, some people on Amazon liked the Krips version, including a person who compiled an annotated list of the best Beethoven recordings. There is no shame in  going for the Krips version. So I did.

    Cluytens Beethoven Symphony Album Cover(Alas, I now learn that the Cluytens is available as a CD set  from B&N for $22)

    But I have to wonder: why isn’t every classical recording available as an mp3 nowadays? Hey, EMI I was ready to pay $25 for a historic CD recording, but you weren’t ready or willing to take my money!  I realize there are rights issues and transfer issues. But surely it has dawned on someone at EMI that every single person under the age of 40 now listens to nothing but MP3s! I realize that the time and effort to hire a 16 year old kid to rip 5 CDs into high quality mp3s and upload them onto Amazon is  probably considerable.    10 years from now, when teenagers aren’t protesting about global warming,  they will be marveling at the fact that their ancestors could not download and listen to any piece of music simply by pressing a button.

    In my teenage years I was pretty obsessive about classical music, and I pretty much abandoned it after  college.  One reason was the price of that hobby. I could never afford the recordings  which  aficionados were always raving about! Later, I abandoned classical music (temporarily) and just checked CDs  out of the city library. But I noticed that even the library’s classical collection was diminishing. Sure, they always had a version of a particular piece, but your odds of obtaining a well-known recording through the library system were next to nil. Later, I became a fan of free downloads and creative commons music. That essentially meant forgetting about classical music (I wasn’t rich enough to belong in their club!) Also, I noticed that the used market for classical CDs remained pricey. The only positive development was that lots of East European orchestras I’d never heard of were making recordings at budget prices. Most of the recording I heard sounded fine, but who in God’s name were these people?

    Recently, I’ve been wanting to buy classical music…if only to help me do my work. I require classical or intellectual music to do my work.  And I really miss the unavailability of low cost recordings. From internet archives I find  interesting recordings:

    If I had to buy different digital versions of the Beethoven symphonies, I would probably go for Toscanini’s Complete Beethoven Symphonies for $30 or Bernstein’s 9 Symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic for $35. With Toscanini you are definitely compromising on sound quality butit’s still exciting.

    (Update: I am still listening to the BBC version of #3; it’s  subtle and fascinating! )

    Finally, I probably could pick from a dozen of fussy comments about Beethoven collections. Here is my fave:

    All Beethoven symphonic cycles are eventually disappointing because no one conductor can approach perfection in every one of these works. Bernstein succeeds in symphonies 2 and 7 in this set, but that’s really it, the rest are average or worse. Karajan’s early 1960’s cycle is the one to go for if you desperately need a complete set by one conductor. It’s not perfect but the most satisfactory available.

    For individual symphonies, try Karajan in symphony 1, Karajan, Szell or Bernstein in symphony 2. For the Eroica, Karajan’s digital version if you want drama and power or Klemperer from 1961 if you like it slow or Toscanini from the good old days. Szell and Furtwangler are also great. Symphony 4 goes to either Szell or Karajan, Symphony 5 to Giulini, Furtwangler, Karajan and Kleiber. The Pastoral goes to Karl Bohm or Bruno Walter. The 7th goes to God knows who, I haven’t found a perfect Seventh, yet! Try Thielemann, Furtwangler or Bernstein or Karajan’s first DG cycle. Go with Karajan’s digital version for the 8th symphony. Last but not least, Solti, 1972 for the the Choral Symphony or Gunter Wand on RCA, as well as Karajan, 62, 77 and Furtwangler, 51, 42, all great.

    (For the record, I checked the listing for Symphony #9 in Third Ear; it goes on for 1 1/2 pages, with summary verdicts of about 75 different recordings. And it does not even mention Solti or Wand  and equivocates about Karajan and begrudgingly accepts that the Furtwangler version “does present a very interesting philosophical argument about how to approach it”.  So much for artistic consensus).

    Update: I like the Krips version; outstanding  sound quality, but the overall tone is stately  and mysterious and subdued. It’s not as lively as I would have liked – I would describe the interpretation as “faithful” and “cerebral” and acoustically full but never exciting.   Still, I think Krips’  approach matches the quiet intricacies of Eroica very well.

    Dec 2011 Update.  I am happy to report that some of the Cluytens performances by Beethoven are available for sale at Amazon.com. Specifically, #2, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 9, each for the reasonable $3.56.  I listened to the Symphony #9 and it is every bit as fresh and lively as promised. I’ll be listening to the rest over the next few months — I’m disappointed that 3 and 7 are still unavailable though. Really, how hard would it have been to digitalize these as well?

  • Joshua Bell and the Washington D.C. Metro

    Apparently I missed this outstanding essay by Gene Weingarten about a little social experiment. The writer invited world famous violinist Joshua Bell  to play a Stradivarius violin for almost an hour in a DC Metro. The results were astounding: Nobody paid attention; Bell received only $30 in tips, and almost nobody actually stopped to listen:

    This is one of those essays which is so beautiful that it’s hard to paraphrase or quote without doing it justice.

    What is this life if, full of care,

    We have no time to stand and stare.

    — from "Leisure," by W.H. Davies

    In his 2003 book, Timeless Beauty: In the Arts and Everyday Life, British author John Lane writes about the loss of the appreciation for beauty in the modern world. The experiment at L’Enfant Plaza may be symptomatic of that, he said — not because people didn’t have the capacity to understand beauty, but because it was irrelevant to them.

    "This is about having the wrong priorities," Lane said.

    If we can’t take the time out of our lives to stay a moment and listen to one of the best musicians on Earth play some of the best music ever written; if the surge of modern life so overpowers us that we are deaf and blind to something like that — then what else are we missing?

    That’s what the Welsh poet W.H. Davies meant in 1911 when he published those two lines that begin this section. They made him famous. The thought was simple, even primitive, but somehow no one had put it quite that way before.

    Of course, Davies had an advantage — an advantage of perception. He wasn’t a tradesman or a laborer or a bureaucrat or a consultant or a policy analyst or a labor lawyer or a program manager. He was a hobo.

    Another great passage about childhood and observation:

    You can see Evan clearly on the video. He’s the cute black kid in the parka who keeps twisting around to look at Joshua Bell, as he is being propelled toward the door.

    "There was a musician," Parker says, "and my son was intrigued. He wanted to pull over and listen, but I was rushed for time."

    So Parker does what she has to do. She deftly moves her body between Evan’s and Bell’s, cutting off her son’s line of sight. As they exit the arcade, Evan can still be seen craning to look. When Parker is told what she walked out on, she laughs.

    "Evan is very smart!"

    The poet Billy Collins once laughingly observed that all babies are born with a knowledge of poetry, because the lub-dub of the mother’s heart is in iambic meter. Then, Collins said, life slowly starts to choke the poetry out of us. It may be true with music, too.

    There was no ethnic or demographic pattern to distinguish the people who stayed to watch Bell, or the ones who gave money, from that vast majority who hurried on past, unheeding. Whites, blacks and Asians, young and old, men and women, were represented in all three groups. But the behavior of one demographic remained absolutely consistent. Every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop and watch. And every single time, a parent scooted the kid away.

    Here’s a complete audio of the performance. Thanks Washington Post!