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“An utterly gloomungous affair with barely a crack of light piercing the lowering clouds of misery.” - Uncut 2004.
This is a pretty apt description of the album, which is part of the reason I love it so.
It is almost Love is Hell season. Music, for me, is tied to a time and place. Love is Hell is a winter album saved for the first big snow in Michigan. Still to this day I can remember listening to Political Scientist while walking to the bus stop. Sight lines are barely 3 feet in front of you as the swirling greyish white that is Michigan winter surrounds you. The sun is barely breaking through the clouds. The wind is blowing just enough to remind you it is bone chilling cold. The album meets the weather realities of winter with tales of how love does not work out. It meets harsh weather with the one of the harsh realities of life, that relationships do not typically work. So give the album a spin as the temperature drops and your heart starts to cool on love.
Der Kaurich is a political activist, music lover, and Tigers fan living in Baltimore.
Click here for La Magram's Contribution Click here for Die Myhre's Contribution Click here for Der Mazur's Contribution Click here for La Cohen's Contribution
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Chopin: Complete Edition. Who but Chopin can sound deliriously happy in a minor key? Don't answer that--probably lots of other composers I've never heard of. (editor's note: not that many actually...) Click here for Die Myhre's Contribution Click here for Der Mazur's Contribution Click here for La Cohen's Contribution
Click here for Doundou Tchil's Contribution Click here for Eta Boris's Contribution Click here for HaWinograd's Contribution Click here for Le Malon's Contribution Click here for Atomic Sam's Contribution
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La Magram is an economist, pianist, and violist living in New York City
I don't have a favorite album. But one that I like a lot and meant a lot to me in college is Sufjan Steven's "Illinoise."
For my freshman year orientation class, I took a course called "Music, Politics, and Identity." One of my tasks was to analyze two songs from Sufjan Stevens' album "Illinoise." My first listening made me think, "is this a circus?" Second, "Oh my God, what a drama queen. Is everything hard in his life?" Third, "Hmm, wow." Fourth, "Holy shit." Fifth - bazillionth = "please move me again, and make me think, reflect." This is great music for transition, movement.
For my college professor, I wrote a paper about Sufjan Steven's tune "John Wayne Gacy, Jr." It made me think of the ramifications of mental illness. It made me talk with people about whether true "evil" exists in the world. It made me think about the own terrible secrets I hide, you hide, and everyone hides, and what cruelty every being may be capable of. But also the joy and love that people are capable of, if that's their choice. And it is a choice. A hard one, but still a choice.
Now, I listen to "Illinoise" on long road trips on tour, especially when it's late, to reflect, and think about how I've evolved since I was introduced to Mr. Sufjan Stevens. Die Myhre is a singer, jazz clarinetist, and bluegrass bassist extraordinaire in the Baltimore/DC area. Click here for Der Mazur's Contribution Click here for La Cohen's Contribution
Click here for Doundou Tchil's Contribution Click here for Eta Boris's Contribution Click here for HaWinograd's Contribution Click here for Le Malon's Contribution Click here for Atomic Sam's Contribution
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So here we are almost exactly a year after my contribution to Evan's Sight and Sound movie list, and this was far more difficult for me. There are 2 reasons I feel uniquely unqualified to talk about "My Favorite Album." First, although I love to rate, and rant, and criticize artistic endeavors, when it comes to picking favorites, my tastes change and shift too rapidly. My top 5 favorite movies list probably has 20+ films on it, and if you asked me a week from now, it wouldn't be the same 20 movies. Secondly, I love music and revel in my own musical tastes, but by and large I hate albums. For most of my life, albums were formulaic things made by music industry executives. 12 to 15 tracks long; the first track is good but never the best song, or the one with the most radio play; track 4 is the big hit single that's on the radio all the time; track 7 is the single fans like more than track 4, but is less popular in the mainstream; track 10 is something the artist really loves, but it isn't that great; the last track is usually the worst on the album, and everything else is just filler. Sometimes there's a "secret track" but it's always something funny or a demo version, only for the hardcore fans (all track numbers ±1). There are only 3 types of albums I like: 1) the mix-CD - not a best-of album, a mix made by a friend who thought not just about what songs to include, but the order which would elicit the strongest emotional reaction. 2) the concept album - it's like a mix-CD made by the band, less personal, but just as well thought out. 3) the live show recording - some artists are just as good, if not better, heard live. So I'm going to go with Evan's instructions, and choose an album "which means more to [me] than any other in the world."
I developed a love of Count Basie many years after first seeing his cameo in my favorite Western film, Blazing Saddles. I loved the way his orchestra swung hard, but still retained an ease about it. Basie's piano always seemed to twinkle over top the band filling the dead spaces with elaborate riffs, making it seem simple and obvious. While I can't pinpoint exactly when I first started to listen to Frank Sinatra, I shouldn't need to tell anyone why you should listen to Frank Sinatra.
As for the album, it was Sinatra's first live album to be released commercially. It's got most of Sinatra's best songs, a few charming monologues, and Basie's band has a big enough sound to stand up to Sinatra without being overpowered, or overpowering. Highlights include Come Fly with Me, Fly Me to the Moon, amazing instrumental versions of All of Me, and Makin' Whoopee, and Luck Be a Lady (which wasn't on the original LP). If you are a fan of either Sinatra or Basie, the original Ocean's 11, the movie Swingers, cocktail culture, 90s swing revival bands, or AMC's Mad Men, I highly recommend this album.
Around 1999, I bought the CD of Sinatra at the Sands, and thought it was a great album. The music swings in a way that is tight, without sounding overly rehearsed, a difficult accomplishment for a show that ran for 4 months. The It enjoyed a place in my CD wallet when I started driving, I took it with me to DC when I came up for college, as I didn't have an iPod, and often grabbed it and 1 or 2 other discs when I would visit my grandfather, aunt, uncle, and cousins, in Maryland for holidays. Freshman year, I think it was second seder at my aunt and uncle's house, after dinner I put on my headphones and my grandfather asked me what I was listening to. I said, "Sinatra and Count Basie at the Sands" and he told me that was one of my grandmother's favorite albums. He bought it on vinyl for her when it was released in 1966, and somewhere along the years it got lost, or sold, or just plum worn out. He smiled, and his eyes had a far-away look about them. I never knew my grandmother, she died 4 years before I was born. We always lit her yahrtzeit candle, but for whatever reason we didn't talk about her much. We had a few pictures of her from my parents wedding, but I never heard stories about what she was actually like. I didn't know if I had her ears, or her sense of humor, but for the first time in my life I felt a connection to her. My grandfather died a few months later, a couple of weeks before the start of sophomore year. Whenever I want to think of him, I listen to songs off this album, and whenever I listen to songs off this album, I think of him, and smile.
While I think everyone should hear this album, I don't expect it to show up on anyone else's favorites list. I know I wasn't the first to get overly sentimental thinking of an album, and I'm sure I won't be the last… unless I just took the longest to get around to writing my post, in which case, sorry, Evan.
Der Mazur is a saxophonist, encyclopedic pop culture connoisseur, and occasional guest blogger for Atomic Sam who lives in DC. The editor is also truly, truly shocked at seeing Der Mazur vulnerable for the first time in their ten year friendship. He likes it...
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Works of art, music, songs and albums are for me intimately linked to personal moments of learning and growth from love and relationships with others, friendship or romantic, joyful and painful. From these experiences I embrace a strength in vulnerability, having learned to be present and choosing everyday to grow from love.
The albums that mean more to be than any else embody a raw, visceral, sincere and sweetly honest existence without being apologetic. They encompass love’s process in its joy, ache, sweetness, spirituality, pain and chest-opening catharsis.
The album I chose to highlight encourages this sentiment and has absolutely lovely harmonies with an acoustic guitar to boot. It’s meditative, sad, sweet, eerie, calm and anxious, all at the same time. I shake it to How’m I doin’, cry to “Loon Song” and feel at peace to “”Buffalo”. For me this album is a soul cleanser and reminds me of the importance and strength of being able to love. Artist: Mountain Man Album: Made in the Harbor Some tracks to point out: Animal Tracks How’m I doin’ (Mills Brothers cover) Sewee Sewee Honeybee Bathtub
La Cohen is a visual artist, guitarist, ukulalist, singer, kazoo-player, and opera lover in the Baltimore area.
Click here for Il Greenwood's Contribution Click here for Der Thobaben's Contribution Click here for Doundou Tchil's Contribution Click here for Eta Boris's Contribution Click here for HaWinograd's Contribution Click here for Le Malon's Contribution Click here for Atomic Sam's Contribution
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A bit of a con in that this title is a four CD box set, initially a six LP series, compiled from the performances of various artists. Well, I’m going anyway. Let’s talk about something important.
This is the music of history and ritual tradition, recorded at a certain point in time, frozen for posterity. A collection of striking field recordings put down by Alan Lomax in the American south of 1959, over two summer months of travel from Virginia to the Ozarks to the Delta to the Georgia Sea Islands.
The music he captured is naked humanity. It is simultaneously raw tradition and raw expression. Simultaneously completely relatable and totally alien (at least to this yankee), it has many qualities of history/anthropology injected into the music.
Mostly small scale performances that would fall into the folk and blues idioms, the music is drawn from traditions in the mountains, bayou, prisons, fields and elsewhere. The original disc titles are: Sounds of the South, Blue Ridge Mountain Music, Roots of the Blues, Blues Roll On, Negro Church Music, White Spirituals, and American Folk Songs for Children.
The massed hymns of the Negro Church Music/White Spirituals disc are likely my favorite by a slim margin. Perhaps due to their disembodied, communal character and borderline creepiness, they are unironic and rawly heartfelt. The children’s folks songs disc is unique, with rarely recognizable songs. Anecdotally, much of this music was sampled by Moby, most prominently “Trouble So Hard”, for his “Play” album.
Certain elements are under/unrepresented (native songs, dance songs) but this remains the finest collection of American music on record, easily surpassing the justly famous Anthology of American Folk Music compiled by Harry Smith. The fact that it remains out of print is purely criminal. The humanity in this music reveals itself completely and transparently. When Mrs. Mary Lee and her congregation intone “Jesus Is Real to Me”, the power of their beliefs is apparent and astounding.
Il Greenwood is a music lover, opera lover, and guitarist extraordinaire residing in Baltimore.
Click here for Der Thobaben's Contribution Click here for Doundou Tchil's Contribution Click here for Eta Boris's Contribution Click here for HaWinograd's Contribution Click here for Le Malon's Contribution Click here for Atomic Sam's Contribution
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It’s the word “favorite,” though. None of these are my favorite. Some of them, in fact, make me feel sort of awful. Certain pieces often remind me of the times in which I sought refuge in them. Music has been at best my therapy, at worst my retreat. There is one record, however, that returns me to perhaps the best and smallest moment of my life.
I listen to Weather Report’s Heavy Weather maybe once a year. Maybe. If frequency of experience is a barometer of “favorite,” then this album hasn’t been a favorite of mine since 2001. The reason I don’t listen to it often, however, is because I can hear it in my head just as clearly as I could in my headphones. The number of times I hear Heavy Weather per year is startling and almost subliminal. I hear bits of this album hundreds of times a year, and in thinking about this essay, I’ve realized why. My subconscious mind remembers something very important and powerful about the album and it really, really wants my active mind to remember as well.
For the uninitiated, let’s talk about the band and album for a minute. Weather Report was a jazz fusion powerhouse that, like most others in the genre, came out of the Bitches Brew sessions under Miles Davis. Joe Zawinul (keyboard instruments) co-founded the group with Wayne Shorter (saxophones).
Their music began as sprawling, esoteric, atmospheric funk jams and gradually became more melodic. In 1976, they recruited Jaco Pastorius to fill the bass chair. Jaco had made a name for himself playing with Pet Metheny and Joni Mitchell. I could go on and on about this guy, but suffice it to say that Jaco is the greatest electric bass player who ever was, and if you don’t know, you should.
Heavy Weather, released in 1977, was their first with Jaco on every track. It was a commercial success, largely because of the Zawinul-penned “Birdland.” The song, and its cover by Manhattan Transfer, launched the record all the way up to #30 on the Billboard Charts, which is unheard of territory for a jazz fusion group. “Birdland” is catchy and worth a YouTube, but is not my favorite.
The thing that fascinates me most about the album is its extreme use of space. The amount of space is vast, both horizontally (time) and vertically (texture/sonority). The second track “A Remark You Made” begins with a soupy synthesizer mix. The first chords, once played, simply hang in the air like mist while they dissipate. It is a sound that makes me feel alone. Not lonely; solitary.
This type of sound can be found in many places. “Teen Town,” the bass showcase, is a favorite of mine, less because I am a bass player but again because of the comfort the band has with space. “Harlequin,” “Palladium,” and “The Juggler” all do similar things. The music, even when loud, fills me with quiet somehow. “The Juggler,” in particular, is a great example of how a band with so many 1970s patch cable synths can remarkably sound like a rain forest. Wooden, watery. This music anticipates and bests the “world music” aesthetic that many 80s pop acts would adopt.
The final track, “Havona,” was written by Jaco and features his best solo. The notes throughout the entire piece come fast and furious, and something interesting happens here. Most times, fast music sounds manic and tense. Sometimes, with a gifted compositional touch, fast music sounds ebullient.
Rarer still, a composer or group will understand how to make fast music sound like air, or like water over a rock. Steve Reich accomplishes this in his seminal Music for 18 Musicians. This type of aesthetic takes time to form, time to write and arrange, and it also takes the exactly right kind of performance.
(Havona)
This brings me to my moment. It was May of 2000. I was perhaps a week away from my high school graduation. It was a busy time, like it is for everyone: prom, AP exams, the school play, last jazz band concerts of the year, and so on. I finished a random night’s (Wednesday?) events at school that evening and hopped in my 1992 Buick Century to head home. Nothing about the evening was noteworthy, with the exception of the weather. May in Ohio can sometimes be like early March everywhere else, but this particular evening was exquisite. The sun had just set and the air was starting to cool. I put the windows down and “Havona” just happened to come on my car stereo.
There has to be a better way to describe the way I felt. My mind became completely uncluttered. I had no thoughts - not even my usual self-conscious awareness of not having thoughts. I have never been one to feel truly relaxed. My inner monologue seems to only stop when I’m exercising or playing an instrument, and most times not even then. I have struggled with anxiety my whole life, and I seem to be forever possessed by imagining what worst-case scenario the next moment has in store. My mind, without careful management, is perpetually falling forward, and I lose the present. It is very frustrating at times and is a 31 year work in progress.
Heavy Weather is beloved by many for many grand reasons: its implications about the fusion of jazz and rock, its cultural and ethnic diversity, its crossover appeal, its ability to endure. People go apeshit for Jaco’s solos, for Joe’s synthesizer textures, for Wayne’s sinewy soprano sax lines. It is beloved by me because, for a moment when I was 18, its sound coalesced with the still, springtime air in Ohio and I felt completely present. It was a mystical, transitory moment; gone before I had realized it had occurred.
I struggle with fully remembering how to feel this way, but Heavy Weather prevents me from fully forgetting.
Der Thobaben used to write “classical” music and play in a band full time. He now lives a much happier life, always in pursuit of Sophrosyne. Click here for Doundou Tchil's Contribution Click here for Eta Boris's Contribution Click here for HaWinograd's Contribution Click here for Le Malon's Contribution Click here for Atomic Sam's Contribution
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Schütz was born one hundred years before J S Bach. He studied with Monteverdi, which probably makes him a link between the Italian and German baroque. Yet he was a Protestant, in an era where people killed each other over religion. He lived through the Thirty Years War, perhaps the most savage conflict Europe experienced before the 20th century. Millions were killed. Entire regions were devastated. Although Schütz worked for the Elector of Saxony in relative comfort, the world around him had been in turmoil since the Reformation. That kind of concentrates the mind. For Schütz, comfort was not a given. He writes glorious polyphony, but his beliefs were forged in fire.
Schütz's music is austere and deeply expressive. When you listen to things like Psalmen Davids or Musikalische Exequien you feel like you are totally alone in the darkness, sustained by faith in a power beyond human comprehension. Schütz founded what is now the Staatskappelle Dresden but he didn't have job security. When he fell,out of favour, he became impoverished. His family died young. He lived until the age of 87 which in those days was like Methuselah.
The first time I heard the Aufersthungshistorie was on a broadcast from the composer's beloved Dresden, it was like a kind of epiphany. I can't explain it, but the music shone out like a blast of light, illuminating everything with a kind of pure spiritual clarity. I don't follow Schütz's religion yet it moved me in a way I've never been able to rationalize.Maybe he connects to something very deep in the human soul penetrating past the trappings off church and society.
Schütz's Resurrection Story is written for simple forces. It is an interplay between the Evangelist and choir of youthful voices, supported by a cache of different violas de gambe and positive organ. Speaking about Bible-based music, a friend of mine recently said "We all know the story". What is so moving about Schütz's version is that it feels vivid, fresh, immediate. Until very recently, the Bible had been in Latin, not in German. It must still have felt shocking to hear Jesus depicted by a group of young male voices, their voices weaving like shimmering light. We're so used to Bach now, that we take Evangelists for granted. But Schütz's Evangelist tells the story in clear, direct terms, as if he's recounting something amazing happening right before his eyes. Even though the story itself is so well known we take it for granted, it IS amazing. A man defies death itself and rises to glory.
The recording was made in 1972, in the dark days of the DDR when faith was perhaps as dangerous as it had been in Schütz's time. Even if the performers didn't share the composer's beliefs they knew who he was and what he stood for in early 17th century Dresden. You can hear clips from the whole Schreier recording, on the www.jpc.dewebsite, and perhaps elsewhere. One of the male sopranos (singing Jesus and Mary Magdelene) is Olaf Bär, who's now a respected baritone. Another reason for tracking down the Schreier version is that it was made in Dresden, whetre the Schutz tradition is very, very strong. What's more Schierer, who sings the Evanfgelist was the son asnd grandson of Kappelmeisters and a choirboy like Schutz was hundreds of years before. In February 1945, the ancient city of Dresden was destroyed by a firebom raid - totally unneccessary as it was a hospital and refuggee town. Young Schreier and the other choirboys were sheltering in a cellar, and escaped the mayhem. They were of course scared witless, worried about their families outside. Then their Kappellmeister told them to sing and they threw their hearts into it. Doundou Tchil is an internationally renowned music blogger and critic who blogs at http://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.com/
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