Kind of Blue: Revolutionary or Comfortable?

Courtesy of Pichars.org

My seventh wedding anniversary was on Monday. We cooked quinoa and corn, had a glass of Moscato, and watched The Office. My wife was in bed by 9:30. Lame, you say? Nah, it was just fine. Easy, comfortable, and familiar. I'll get back to that, later. Let's talk about jazz.

Jazz seems so hard to understand. Okay, lots of it is pleasant to listen to (although lots of it isn't), but what's the difference between great jazz and mediocre jazz? To someone just getting started in the world of jazz, there doesn't seem to be much. After hearing dozens of jazz recordings since starting this project, from free to bebop to New Orleans, my ears have started to pick up on the workings of a jazz song (with some thanks to the 1000 Recordings Podcast guys who walk listeners through some of the jazz recordings). Also, based on the recommendation of the 1000 Recordings Podcast I've started watching Ken Burns' Jazz on Netflix. I'm only on the first episode, but I can already tell that the story of jazz is interesting and important, even if I don't understand it, yet.

All of this brings me to what is widely considered the most influential piece of jazz (and, some would say, music) of the 20th Century, the highest selling jazz recording of all time, Kind of Blue by Miles Davis.



Artist: Miles Davis
Album: Kind of Blue
Recording #220ish
Stream here or here

Revolutionary, the critics say. Influential to the nth degree. Featuring Coltrane, Bill Evans, "Cannonball" Adderly (all featured elsewhere on the 1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die), this album will melt your brain, evidently.

Dinner music is what I call it.

I first arrived at this thought a few months back when my best friend, John, visited from New York. He moved there to go to culinary school, and instead got involved with a startup sandwich shop where he frequently invents sandwiches for their menu and runs one of the stores. When I lived in Texas he came to visit and destroyed my kitchen cooking us a watery coconut tofu dish, burning a piece of tofu to the bottom of my oven so bad that I'm not sure we ever got it off. He offered to cook us dinner on his most recent visit: I was, understandably, wary.

After a delicious meal of bone marrow, lemon-butter seafood pasta, and brandied pears I finally had to let go of my nearly-decade long grudge for John's previous cooking discrepancies. Letting him cook for us was more fun and easier than trying to take an eighteen-month old out to a nice dinner. Which brings me, again, back to the idea of comfortableness.

While we cooked and ate, I thought we needed a little mood music. John was a hipster music snob before the word hipster existed, my wife gladly listens to Top 40 radio, and I'm somewhere in between. Kind of Blue was something we could all agree on, which for an album with as many accolades as it has, is impressive. If you want to sit down with a pair of high quality headphones and pick this album apart, you can do that. It's incredible. I say have at it. Write a dissertation on it. But as background dinner music, it can't be beat. Modality is a word I've never written before, but if I understand it correctly, it's what makes this album so damn listenable. The subtle shifts in the songs were mindblowing at some point, but now they've become the premise behind easy listening.

This weekend I am taking my wife out for our nice anniversary dinner, to a french restaurant, white tablecloths, multiple courses and all that. I think there's a 50/50 chance my son will wake up and we'll have to abandon our high-class plans and return home early to a screaming child and a frazzled babysitter. I'm still looking forward to it, but sometimes easy and comfortable can be so much more than they seem.

Related posts:

• ...And We're Back
• Cool Struttin'
• Chardon, Portishead, and the Loss of Innocence

Chardon, Portishead, and the Loss of Innocence

Yesterday, a third teenager died as a result of the school shooting in Chardon, Ohio. My best friend, and musical guru, John, grew up in Chardon and graduated from CHS. He knows the families of two of the deceased students. He was yelled at when he wore his ratty, red hoodie to work yesterday because it was the only red item he had available to wear in solidarity with his hometown. Growing up on the West Side of Cleveland, I spent many weekends and summer days in Chardon, having sleepovers at John's. I've been to CHS and other schools in the Chardon system; I can remember going to a Fall Festival at the Middle School when I couldn't have been more than 10 years old.

John was the first person to teach me that there was more to music than what was playing on Jammin' 92 or Q104 (you don't even have to be from Cleveland to guess the music coming from those stations in the mid-'90s). Dookie by Green Day and Smash by The Offspring were contraband that I could only hear by borrowing the cassettes from John: music featuring the "F-word" was not allowed in my house, and would clearly have lead me to juvenile delinquency. To me, those tapes might as well have come from another planet; I was scandalized. I probably wore out the tape during the avalanche of swear words that pours out during The Offspring's "Bad Habit," rewinding that part over and over. The Rugburns, Belly, The Violent Femmes, They Might Be Giants, and Ween were all introduced to me by John in those early years of musical discovery.

Back then, there was no such thing as Columbine. School shootings in a quiet town didn't happen. When I went to Chardon the only concerns I had were how to meet girls in a rural town with no sidewalks, not getting caught listening to inappropriate music, and not getting beat up as we sat on the side of the road giving the finger to passing cars. When I put on the right music, I'm back there, listening to the big, old cassette player in John's room, twin beds with nets full of stuffed animals hanging overhead, whispering the things 12 year-old boys whisper to their best friends... at least until Aunt Sue got fed up with the noise and had to come in and sleep in our room so we would shut up.

Unfortunately, and incredibly, none of the bands listed above show up in the 1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die (with the exception of Green Day, whose American Idiot somehow trumped Dookie). I do remember being introduced to Portishead, and other "trip-hop" groups, though, by John. 

Artist: Portishead

Album: Dummy

Recording #30ish

Stream the album here

I have a very strong connection with singer Beth Gibbons' voice and John, and vicariously, Chardon. Although Portishead didn't grow on me like most of the other music John opened me up to, I have a strong emotional connection to this album. The sadness in Gibbons' voice and the melancholic way the music slurs along seem to capture the way this tragic event has affected me.

I think of the music of Portishead as fingerpainting, and Gibbons' voice is a paintbrush; not a particularly fine paintbrush, but one that can bring some detail to the hazy atmosphere created by the music. This is definitely a mood album, and in the right circumstances it has a very somber feel to it. I can't go back. I can't be a kid again, naive to the ills of this world. And worse still, now I have a kid that I have to protect from those ills. And it's not just the malicious acts, like kidnappings and school shootings and war: he could be taken away from me by the thoughtless acts of others, or even just by chance. How can we ever fully protect our children? It's an impossible task and one that every parent throws their full effort into. 

Portishead's song "Roads," in particular, with its bleakness, seems to sum it up: "From this moment/How can it feel/This wrong." In fact, I have just hit repeat on the song for the fourth time. I can't even protect my son's childhood. He will go to school where they do "Lockdown" drills, check IDs, maybe even use metal detectors. He will not have the chance at ignorant bliss I enjoyed. Social media will expose him at breakneck speed to the evils of this world, even if we keep the TV turned off at home. We want our kids to be safe, to "Just say no," not to talk to strangers, and at the same time we want them to be kids. To have fun, to play with abandon, to sit on the side of the road and give the finger to the pickup trucks (ok, maybe we don't want them to do that, but we don't want them to worry that someone is gonna pull out a gun because of it. Although, maybe someone will. And there again is the dilemma). Actually, now that I think about it, "Bad Habit" was about a guy with road rage and a gun. Maybe that was the gift my parents gave me when they were screening my music: protecting my simple view of a safe world.

All I can do is try to carry the load of worry so my son won't have to. I have sacrificed my innocence and my ignorance so that I can have the suspicious mind of a full-time bodyguard, a Superman who is hopelessly inept when it comes to the job of protecting those he loves. And when I need a mental break, I can always put on some music from the mid-'90s and be transported to those simpler times, when my own parents carried that mental load and I lived my life without fear. 

My heart goes out to the Chardon community, and especially those who have lost a child. It's unimaginable and my prayers go out to you.

Buy Dummy on Amazon.

Read Moon's entry here.

REVIEW: The Louvin Brothers - Satan Is Real

There's a lot of stress in my life right now. I am waiting to hear where I am headed for my next work assignment, and there are a lot of unknowns and fear involved-- no matter what, it's pretty much no good. I love where I am right now, but all good things must end. So I have been trying to do a lot of things lately. One is to just enjoy my life right now, even the parts that seem to suck (spending an hour to put my son to sleep every night, when my friends just place their kids in the crib and walk away) because I try to remind myself that I will never experience this time of my life again. Owen will never fall asleep in my arms as I walk him around singing softly, or yell "Dada!" as he hears the key in the lock when I come home from a (short) day of work.

The other thing I am trying to do is keep my faith that everything happens for a reason. Now I know that I can come up with lots of examples of things that seem to have no reason, and, ok, yeah, there are things that seem to make no sense in this world. But I try to have faith that things are supposed to happen, whether we understand them or not. I just heard The Roots "Dear God 2.0" last night (if you haven't heard it, you need to check it out) and it's all about having faith, and admitting how hard that is. Sometimes it's nice to listen to folks who clearly have some and aren't afraid to share it.

Artist: The Louvin Brothers
Album: Satan is Real
Recording #508


Stream the recording here

I used to think I hated country. Coming of age in the '90s, fully into grunge and alternative, with a dad who was into classic rock, country just sounded like twangy dudes, each playing the same song about their pickups and how their wife just left. Moon's book and the alt-country movement did a lot to remove that stigma (at least for the classic recordings he picked. I can't say I approve of most of what comes out of Nashville these days). I am still not a fan of too much twang, or slide guitars, or fiddles, or Toby Keith, or anyone who sounds too much like Toby Keith, but I no longer say "I don't like country."

The Louvin Brothers are about as country as you can get. Twang? Check. Slide guitar? Check. Simple chord progressions and steady beats? Check. But its got that old-timey style harmony and such wonderful melodies that it draws me in. And if nothing else, this album, from its title to its campy cover to the fervently sung lyrics, projects belief.

If you are an Atheist working your way through the 1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die, at this point you might be a bit sick of all the religiously themed entries, and I'll admit, there are quite a few. I found this one to be a real highlight among all the rest, though. You can hear that these guys are unshakable in their faith, and listening to it really raises my spirits. One of the best is "The Christian Life," made famous by the Byrds (who I assumed wrote it with ironic intentions) but honestly sung better by the Louvins (who wrote it in earnest). I could put that one on repeat, but I'm just as happy to put the whole album on repeat. I just want to listen to Ira and Charlie Louvin sing these songs all day. Think you hate country? Don't turn off your radio, just change the year. The further back I go in music history, the more I enjoy "country" music.

Buy this album here
Read Moon's entry here

Piano Concertos Nos. 4 and 5: Beethoven

My life, and my mindset, is shockingly different than it was just a few years ago. When my wife and I lived in Texas we went to the health food store to shop, mostly because they had great prices on bulk foods, and we even brought our own bags (a radical idea just 5 years ago), as I spent more time outdoors and started noticing how many plastic bags end up in our nature preserves. We started to eat more organics and I jumped on board with that because I grew up eating my grandpa's fresh vegetables and fruits. Once my son came along, we were full swing on the organic bandwagon, even members of an organic CSA, and then after I read Disease Proof Your Child by Dr. Fuhrman, my family moved to a "plant-based" diet: we still eat meat and bread, but we try to get the majority of our intake from plants (we plan to buy 2 shares at our CSA next year). If, 3 years ago, you had tried to get me to eat the way I do today, I would have laughed. Slowly, though, this way of living has become easier and easier, and combined with playing basketball once or twice a week, I have lost almost 20 pounds in the last year.

Once you start down this path, though, it's hard to stop. Now I am learning more and more about the simplicity movement. One idea I come back to over and over again is how folks work overtime and have such busy schedules that they don't have time to make coffee, so they buy a $4 coffee everyday, so they have to work overtime to pay for the coffee, and so on. That's not necessarily a perfect example, but you get the idea. Is there value added with all this extra stuff in my life? What if we could just cut more out? Do less? What would we do with that extra time? I am reading Simplicity Parenting, and so much of it resonates with me. I think back on the highlights of my own childhood; so many of the things I am nostalgic for are the simpler times, just hanging out in the neighborhood with my brothers, or going to the park with my parents.

Beethoven: hippie music, right? Ok, maybe not, but I was trying to keep up with the 1000 Recordings Podcast guys, and heard one of the recordings I had skipped the first time through because I couldn't find it. And it's all about simplicity.

Artist: Ludwig van Beethoven
Album: Piano Concertos Nos. 4 and 5, Arthur Schoonderwoerd, Ensemble Cristofori.
Recording #511
Stream the album here


I started reading the entry in Moon's book, and right away, I went, "Whoa." "This recording offers an excellent encounter with the early-music philosophy, which shares a kinship with heirloom vegetable farming and other back-to-basics movements." Seriously? Could this have been better timed? Had I read that when I first started this project, I might have thought, whatever. But now I really paid attention to it.

Beethoven is pretty easy to like: it's like a song with a great hook. He always comes back to these perfect melodies, and when you have a orchestra of only 20 members (the standard size in Beethoven's day), rather than the typical 80-100, you can really focus on those melodies. In general, this book has made me realize what a purist I am when it comes to music; simple is good, and the original is often the best. Some of my favorite discoveries have been totally old school: Roscoe Holcomb, the Louvin Brothers, the Carter Family. So, yeah, I DO want to hear what Beethoven had in mind when he wrote these pieces, by hearing it on the instruments of the day. Fortepiano and catgut strings and whatnot. So if you are looking for a jumping off place on classical, as a guy who really doesn't know much about classical, I can say this is a pretty good start. I found the overall tone very warm and inviting. Give it a listen and let me know what you think.

Check out Moon's entry here.

Charlie Christian, the Genius of the Electric Guitar

As I alluded to in my last post, my son is in that wonderful stage of development where he really likes repetition. An example: while grocery shopping I tapped his head with a package of tortillas and said "bonk" before throwing them in the shopping cart. This was met with hysterical giggles, and then, complete with puppy dog eyes, a pleading "mooooooore?" After about 10 "bonks" I finally decided I had to quit if I didn't want all my frozen goods to melt. Not too long ago, after we took down our Christmas lights, he pointed to the area on our back window where they used to hang and said "lights." I explained they were gone now. He then pointed to the front window: "lights." "All gone." Then the dining room light, blazing away, "lights." "Yep," I said, "lights." Back to the back window, then front, then dining room, over and over and over. My wife couldn't believe my patience with this game.

Of course, this trend also happens with respect to music. Soon after falling in love with "C'mon 'N Ride it" he found renewed interest in "Dis Doss" (Kris Kross). As soon as "Jump" ends, he calls for me to play it again. And again. And again. Sometimes he mixes it up, by asking for "Pain... House" halfway through the song (this is his way of asking me to switch to House of Pain's "Jump Around") and then, after a minute, asking for more Dis Doss. I used to know the lyrics to "Jump" fairly well, but now I can rattle off "Some of them try to rhyme but they can't rhyme like this" like the Micro Machines guy (by the way, ever notice that nothing rhymes in that lyric?). I worry about the affects of so much jumping on my son's body, because he seriously wants to jump for the entire length of the song (or, more likely, wants me to hold him and jump, because he doesn't really have that skill down yet-- it's more of a squat/fall).

I let my son get away with this because he's a toddler, and, well, he's my son. Tom Moon recently tried to get away with this repetition game, and I'm sorry Tom, but I just can't cut you too much slack.

Artist: Charlie Christian
Album: The Genius of the Electric Guitar
Recording #513


Stream the album here

Based on the title, I was really excited for this recording the first time I came across it about a year and a half ago. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the recording anywhere. Thankfully, I just discovered Spotify, and the entire 4-disc box set is on there. Woohoo! I shouted, prematurely. Because although the overall theme of this record is pretty nice - bebop and old school late '30s jazz, which is a type of jazz I can appreciate as a jazz newbie - there is a severe problem with this recording. Four discs of jazz is a lot for me in any setting, because my ears are just becoming used to it, but when I hear the song "Six Appeal" as the original, 3 alternate takes, and 2 false starts, I'm a little put off. "Breakfast Fued" was pretty enjoyable the first time; SEVEN alternate takes!? Plus 2 false starts? The entire 4th disc consists mostly of outtakes and practices, often interspersed with chatting about timing and technique. This might be interesting stuff to a real Benny Goodman or Charlie Christian fan, but does this really have the staying power to make it worthy to be one of the 1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die? With so many other single-disc collections to choose from, I am truly confused by Moon's choice here. Especially since Moon points out that due to Christian's untimely death he only recorded for 3 years.

OK, but enough about the format; I will say that the guitar work is superb. Not my favorite genre, but considering the early timeframe of these recordings (1939-41), these sound way ahead of their time because of the guitar. Again, because I am not an aficionado of jazz, I have to listen closely to hear the guitar and recognize the forward thinking, but when I really focus on the smooth lines of Christian, it's damn impressive. Again, I think Moon's selection here takes away from the focus on Christian: after 4 discs I really start to space out and only notice the big picture "jazz" instead of taking the time to hone in on the guitar, which is supposed to be the star. It's too bad that there aren't more recordings focused just on his guitar, and maybe Moon's intention was to give you every opportunity to hear everything Christian recorded, but I think he failed in that decision. Check out the first disc and a half to get a taste, unless you are a completionist like myself.

Read Moon's entry here.

The White Album Gets No Love from Me

My son is now old enough to have some well-defined favorite songs, and today he discovered a new one. At Christmas, both Nana and Grandma's house have train sets, and my son is now obsessed with trains (he doesn't really understand what they are yet aside from toys), and so I thought it would be funny to play Quad City DJs' "C'Mon 'N Ride it (The Train)" and teach him a conga line dance. And I was right, it was funny... the first five times through. I lost count after that, and we could barely get through breakfast because everytime the song ended he would point at the computer and shout "TRAIN!"

So, I can now add that to his list of other favorites: "I Want to Be Your Driver" by Chuck Berry ( yes, 1000 Recording entry), "Barbara Ann" by the Beach Boys (no, not 1000 RTHBYD), "Here Comes the Sun" by the Beatles (yes), "Jump" by Kris Kross (surprisingly, no), and "Yellow Submarine" and "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" by The Beatles (yes and yes). The last one is from the Beatles' self-titled/"White" album, and that's what I'm going to talk about today.

Artist: The Beatles
Album: The Beatles (The White Album)
Recording #175ish


Stream this on Youtube

I said before that choosing a favorite Radiohead album opens one up to attacks; multiply that by 1000 when you're talking about a Beatles album. There are entire college courses dedicated to studying the Beatles and how influential their albums were. But here it goes: The White Album is my least favorite Beatles album. Maybe it's because it's the last one I heard, and maybe Abbey Road is my favorite because it was the first. Maybe it's because there are so few singles on it, so I was totally unfamiliar with it. Considering it's their best selling album, I am clearly in the minority. But the overall theme I get from the album (strange that I notice one, considering the band had basically broken up by this point and it's a double album) is a melancholy, sludgy one. The songs don't have a lot of oomph, aside from the singles, which are generally the most interesting.

My first experience with this album was actually hearing The Gray Album by Danger Mouse (another 1000 Recording), which is a mix of Jay-Z's Black Album and the Beatles. I remember thinking, "the backing music sounds nothing like the Beatles." Now, in part, that was Danger Mouse's genius, but it also stems from the fact that much of this album does not sound like what most would think of as the Beatles. I wonder how many people felt as confused by this when it was first released as I did the first time I heard it. After hearing the guys from the 1000 Recordings Podcast talk about this one, I understood it a little better, especially the nuances between the different members and how they were all exploring their own styles. When I went back and listened to it again, I realize it's a "grower," but I'm still not there. There are some great songs on here ("Yer Blues," "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," - which I did not particularly like the first time, and "Blackbird"), but only one album's worth in my opinion (I could do without "Piggies," and "Revolution 9" for example). Let the skewering begin, but I can't honestly say I dig this one.

How many stars would you give this recording?

Buy this album here

Huun-Huur Tu: My Son Busts His First Dance Move to Tuvan Throat Singing

As I was writing a recent post I noticed this one was sitting in my drafts! It's from back in February, but I think the timing is actually good, as my son is now a dancing machine, and it's strange to remember a time when he was not.

When I decided to start writing a blog about working my way through the 1000 recordings I think part of the reason was my son. I know he is going to be influenced by Top 40 radio and probably try to rebel and listen to whatever he thinks we won't approve of (I think I'm making that part tough on him, though, by liking a wide variety of music), but I want to foster in him a love of music.

I think my love of music stems from my dad. My dad's love of music isn't quite as obsessive as mine, but he plays music loudly in the car, he dances with reckless abandon when the mood and the music hit him, and when he has a few drinks he sits in his leather chair with a big set of headphones and a huge collection of CDs. I remember him telling me once that Grand Funk Railroad's "I'm Your Captain" was the song he listened to before he went to bed every night for months as a kid.

That's the kind of appreciation I hope is something I can foster in my son, because while my wife enjoys music and has her favorite songs and loves going to concerts, she just doesn't really care that much. She has no idea what the words are to any song, usually doesn't know song titles, and, most importantly, only listens to it once in awhile, whereas I prefer to have music on at all times. If this sort of connection to music is genetic, my son has a shot, but if it's learned behavior, I am trying to provide him with the right tools.

With that in mind, I still never expected his first dancing would occur to the strangest music I've ever heard.

Artist: Huun-Huur Tu

Album: The Orphan's Lament

Recording #413

I had heard of Tuvan throat singing before in reference to Howlin' Wolf's intro to "Howlin' in the Moonlight," but I still wasn't prepared for the weirdness I got from Tuva's most famous band, Huun-Huur Tu. At first I wasn't that impressed with the throat singing part, but I did enjoy the harmonies and the chant-like style. By the time I got to the song "Aa-shuu Dekei-oo," though, I was thoroughly engrossed. This upbeat song is the one that caused my son to stare at the speakers, smile, and then start shaking his money maker. The best part about it is that it seems he, Tom Moon, and I are the only ones who can stand it: my brother, wife, and office mate all asked me to turn it off. For sure, this album isn't for everyone, and I don't think I'll be pulling it up often, but it's definitely a good one to have in my back pocket when I really want to weird someone out or just need to get outside the norm. I hope you are one of the few who enjoys it like I do.

Buy this album at Amazon
Read Moon's Entry

Chicago Gets No Love From My Parents

They say you can't go home again, and this Christmas might be the first time I not only knew this to be true, but accepted it. It was my son's second Christmas, but his first as a toddler with his own clear inclinations, and I truly felt that my family was in visiting from out of town rather than the usual feeling I get of being "home." That's not to say that I didn't feel at home, and in fact it was probably the best Christmas since I left Cleveland for college, but I recognized my small family unit, and was recognized, as a separate family this year.

But staying in my parents' house always turns me a little bit into the teenager I used to be, which, lucky for them, was a pretty good one. Everyone rebels against or aims to please their parents to varying degrees, and I went through my rebellious phases. But, as is my nature, I generally tried to make everyone happy (which, incidentally, has created plenty of situations where no one was happy). Of course I can relate this to music: I'll never forget the pure joy and elation I got back in High School when my brothers and I were listening to Soul Coughing's El Oso and my uncle walked through the room, protesting, "You guys actually listen to this stuff and think it's music?" Damn, I was hipster before that word existed.

But typically I try to find musical common ground with my parents. I remember when Cake's Fashion Nugget came out and my mom borrowed my copy for a party she was having. I had to tell my friend to come over and trade me for his Walmart-edited version so my parents didn't catch me with a CD that had cursing on it, but I was happy that I had introduced them to a new band. And most of my classic rock collection on my iPod was ripped from my dad's CDs (the Who, the Doors, Grand Funk Railroad, Creedance featured prominently; Dylan? Never heard of him).

So while I was home this week for the holidays I pulled up the latest 1000 Recordings Podcast to finish listening to it, and heard a plug for my blog at the end (thanks Tony and Mitch!). My parents overheard and asked about it, so I told them about the blog and when I started playing cards with my dad I queued up Chicago soul singer Baby Huey and the Babysitters, which I had mentioned in my email to the podcast. My mom was laying down on the couch, dozing, and after a few songs asked, "What is this?" I told her, and then asked, "You don't like it?" "I don't know..." and then after a brief pause, "no."

I browsed my library for something more worthy of an evening card game. Sufjan Stevens' Illinois, I thought, would be much more appreciated. After about five songs, my mom again asked me to put on something good. I was shocked. My aunt and cousin had shown up at that point, and although my aunt was lukewarm to it, my 18-year old cousin was wholeheartedly on my side. My dad, though, was not impressed either. So, as far as I'm concerned, taste is not genetic, because these two albums absolutely hold a place on the 1000 Recordings You Should Hear Before You Die.

Artist: Baby Huey and the Babysitters
Album: Living Legend: The Baby Huey Story
Recording #125ish


Of all the things I learned about my musical tastes from this book, the most shocking was how much I like some good soul music. Generally, R&B meant to me a more grooving version of smooth jazz. This book has shown me that if there's a singer with passion and a band that can rock (Sam Cooke, James Brown, Baby Huey) I am all about it. The first track, "Listen to Me" has a killer bass line and right away Baby Huey's voice, coming from his 400+ pound frame, is booming. I have a particular affinity for the piercing "SAY!" that he throws out there every once in awhile (probably the part my mom was not a fan of). "A Change is Gonna Come" sounds like a thunderstorm on the horizon. And my personal favorite is probably "Hard Times." The horn section is incredible; I want to simultaneously dance and be involved in a '70s era car chase when I hear it. There are a few too many instrumentals for my taste, but that's part of the legacy of this album: Baby Huey died of an overdose during the recording of the album at the incredibly young age of 26, leaving many of the songs without vocals. This one is beautifully introspective and at the same time will get you moving.

Buy the album at Amazon

Artist: Sufjan Stevens
Album: Illinois
Recording #75ish

From the opening piano salvo, quickly joined with fluttering flutes, you know this one is going to be pretty. Sufjan doesn't disappoint on this one if you are looking for orchestral pop music. I heard Sufjan first on Pitchfork.com, back in the early 2000s, when it was known only by the most pretentious music snobs (I actually found it so snobby I couldn't read it). They gave away tons of free music, and one of them was "Sister" off Sufjan's album Seven Swans. I loved it, and quickly sought out more, and discovered Michigan, which had been released the year earlier. The album was totally dedicated to Stevens' home state, and supposedly the first of 50 such "State Albums." When Illinois came out, my brother gave me a copy; while I had high hopes because I liked Michigan so much, I did not expect that his second state album would actually be BETTER. But it is. Michigan is very soft, dark, and sparse, while Illinois includes not only tons of horns and strings, but a group of backup singers dubbed the "Illinoisemaker Choir." I have a compulsion to rank and list (can you tell? I write a blog about a list) and on my iPod, with over 20,000 songs, I have only 133 "5-star" songs. This album has TWO of them: "John Wayne Gacy, Jr." and "The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades is out to Get Us!" The first is the most sympathetic song ever written about a serial killer, with Stevens darkly comparing his (and everyone's) own dark secrets with that of a man who killed 27 or more people. This song is worthy of multiple "goosebump" moments- his falsetto "Oh my God" and his final confession to look beneath his floorboards before the haunted ending are two obvious ones. I'm not real sure what I love about "The Predatory Wasp." The structure of the song is actually pretty simple compared to most of the album, but the words paint such a beautiful and confusing picture that I am drawn in. Is the story about a best friend, or a lover? The song invokes the confusing, tumbling emotions of teenage years, further highlighted by longing of the shouts of "We were in love," and "I love him each day." This touching song is followed by the funky bassline and staccato shouts of "They are Night Zombies!! They are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from the Dead!! Ahhhh!" The beauty of the album is how Stevens can take these disjointed themes and ideas and make them all fit into one cohesive album.

Buy the album at Amazon
Read Moon's Entry

I highly recommend making each of these a priority to add to your music collection. What are your thoughts on these? Let me know in the comments section.

B.B. King - Live at the Regal

Last night my son was asleep by 7:15. It was amazing. Most nights I barely have enough energy to do anything more than crash on the couch next to my wife and watch a half hour of TV before going to sleep. That's not to complain; life is good right now. But every day seems to take every ounce of energy.

Last night though, I danced as I did the dishes. I was listening to my iPod on random when "Worry, Worry" by B.B. King popped up. My hips started to sway involuntarily, my shoulders slumped, head rolled back. King's guitar put me in a trance and I was just glad I had the blinds down, because I have the dancing skills of a Peanuts character. Usually if I listen to one of the 1000 Recordings while doing dishes, I listen to classical or opera; in fact, opera while doing dishes makes the job seem so IMPORTANT! But last night I put the whole B.B. King album on and shimmied through the rest of the dishes, finishing with a flourish and a smile.

Artist: B.B. King
Album: Live at the Regal
Recording #200ish


When did I first hear this album? I think I must have picked it up at the library in Jacksonville way back when I first got the book. The Jacksonville library had an incredible blues CD collection, and I really realized how much the blues matched my musical tastes by perusing their shelves. I knew nothing about B.B. King before I heard him on a collection I got out from the library. In fact, when I heard the song "How Blue Can You Get," I was shocked to realize it was the sample used in Primitive Radio Gods "Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Change in My Pocket" (yes, I did that title from memory-- my brother was obsessed with that song when we were kids).

When this album starts, the first thing I think is "Damn, this is sexxy!" As Moon points out in the book, the crowd goes NUTS for King. "Sweet Little Angel" actually made me blush when it came on last night-- maybe that means I have a dirty mind for thinking the song is dirty, but I don't think so. Read between the lines; that song is dirty as hell.

King's voice alone is worthy of praise, but when he picks up a guitar it's game over. The thing about rock guitar is that it impresses with its speed and seeming impossibility. Blues guitar is sneakier. King's lines are so slow and organic that they seem simple. Go ahead and try to play along with him though, because it's maddeningly hard. His guitar sounds so smooth and clean and he doesn't even play with a slide, which is just awesome. If you aren't under his spell by the end of this album, check your pulse.

Read the book entry
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Led Zeppelin - How the West was Won

Ah, it's good to be back. With all the time I'm spending at work plus the hectic job of having an 18-month old, it's hard to listen to much new music. I write for the covers site, so really the only new music I hear are covers; in fact, I'm introduced to a lot of new music by hearing the cover first. So lately I have been catching up on stuff I wanted to hear before the end of the year as I make my 2011 Best Albums list, which is obviously not optional. Plus, it's Christmas season, which meant that the week after Thanksgiving I had already gone through my 10 hour playlist of Christmas music. So until I listened to this album, it had been over a month since I heard an entry from the 1000 Recordings. I knew I left off on a good one, though, and was excited to get back to it.

Artist: Led Zeppelin

Album: How the West was Won

Recording #492

Everyone has heard of the Zep, but hearing a bunch of songs on the radio and being familiar with their music are two different things, and in the past couple of years I have gone back and listened to all of their albums. And holy crap, these guys are awesome! I mean, you probably already knew that, but I was shocked at the songs I didn't know and how good they were. Hit after hit after hit rolls off their records. So I was really looking forward to hearing more from them.

This one doesn't disappoint. In fact, by the time you get to the guitar solo on "Heartbreaker," the third track, you should be pretty well hooked for the rest of the 3 disc live recording. I heard Kyle Gass of Tenacious D play Bach and had no idea it was referencing Page's incredible solo work (maybe it goes even farther back than that, but I don't know). The whole band sounds great on this but Page plays guitar like a god! The most interesting fact to me is that this came out in 2003-- the recordings themselves are from two shows in 1972, but this was their first official release. It hit #1, but is one of the worst selling #1 albums of all time. I guess there is some sense to this; if you were a Led Zeppelin fan you obviously would have gone out and scooped this up right away, but the wider public wouldn't necessarily continue the buying trend.

My son's favorite track is "Moby Dick," which is mostly drum solo... for NINETEEN MINUTES! But you can't argue when an 18 month old is bobbing his head and drumming on stuff-- there is something primal in that. Anyways, if you are unfamiliar with Led Zeppelin's work, start with some of the self-titled albums (IV is probably your best bet), but if you are already a bit of a fan, I think this is going to be a must-have for you. Listen to the whole thing below, and let me know your thoughts.

Read Tom's entry
Buy it at Amazon

The Art of Evolution: Radiohead Continues to Lead the Way

Now that I am so far behind on my recording of the recordings, I realize I don't have to faithfully record them in the order I hear them. I am free to cherry pick whatever recording seems to work the best for the events of the world. For example, on Friday Radiohead released their new album, The King of Limbs, their first release since 2007's critically acclaimed In Rainbows. In fact, as they always seem to do, the band released this one with a twist-- the album was released a day early due to the fact that it was "a full moon." I won't get too into the new album except to say it's worth a listen if you have liked anything Radiohead has done since OK Computer, which is apropos considering that it's one of the 1000 Recordings.

Artist: Radiohead

Album: OK Computer

Recording #80ish

Back in 1997 I was only a few years removed from my discovery that the music I bought didn't have to come from what was being played on the radio. Experimentation was at an all-time high in my musical taste, yet somehow I missed this the first time around. Perhaps that's the reason my favorite Radiohead album is still Kid A (I understand that it is a very dangerous thing to list a favorite Radiohead album. People are as defensive about this opinion as they are about their favorite sports team or their religion. I will not defend my choice except to say that I can understand why you like better and I'm glad that works for you).

I won't get too far into reviewing this album because there are people with PhD's in Radiohead's music and a few seconds on Google will produce more than enough opinions (my friend John87 actually wrote a term paper on the discography of Radiohead about seven years ago, plus check out the Amazon stats). What I would like to say about this album is that it was the first of Radiohead's albums to really foretell their reign as rock's unlikely king. "Paranoid Android" seems as schizophrenic and dense today as it was at its release, and yet it is supremely listenable. The song takes about five unexpected right angle turns and yet the final destination still seems so obvious... once you get there. "Karma Police" was the radio favorite at the time of release, and I still don't understand how I didn't buy the album after hearing it, as "I lost myself" in it every time it came on the air. The rest of the album is full of strong tracks that take you to another world, full of darkness and beauty.

OK Computer led to Kid A, which was the real game-changer in alt-rock and it opened the door for electronic rock that actually, well, rocked. At the same time, OK's not a period piece: it truly is a great listen from start to finish. Whether it's the devastating "Exit Music (for a Film)" or the jarring riffage of "Electioneering," every note evokes distopia while sounding like paradise. And if that sounds like hyperbole, then you just haven't listened to enough Radiohead yet to appreciate it. I know after listening to the newest album I'm ready to return to the catalog and witness the evolution of music happen again.

Buy it at Amazon where you will find 2076 user reviews, 1799 of them 5-stars.

...And We're Back

So it's been awhile since my last post. With grad school and baby duties and work I realized I just wasn't able to keep up. In fact, my obsessive desire to write about my project was slowing down the project itself. I couldn't listen to and write a post every single day, which is about how fast I was listening to the recordings. So the baby is getting bigger and (moderately) easier to take care of, grad school is out the window, and I have settled into a routine at work. The last part of the equation is that I just applied for and got a spot writing for the music blog Cover Me. I realize that if I'm spending time listening to and thinking about these recordings, I might as well keep writing about it. The problem is 156 recordings have gone by at this point since my last post. So for that reason, I'm going to make this more of a highlight reel than a play-by-play, talking about the recordings I find the most interesting. With that in mind, I will move on to the next most interesting recording:

Artist: John Coltrane

Album: Blue Train

Recording #262

I heard this recording back in August of last year. My son was only a couple of months old and my parents had just come out to visit. I remember putting this on at work and not finishing it, but when I got home I realized that it actually made great dinner music. I had heard of Coltrane, but really didn't know anything about the kind of jazz he did and I was pleasantly surprised by this album. Having recently slogging through avant garde noise entries, I found myself melting into the soothing, pulsating backbeat and stellar solos. This isn't exactly smooth jazz, but at the same time the dissonance of most of the modern jazz in this book is, thankfully, missing. I still enjoyed the next recording on the list, Coltrane's more challenging "A Love Supreme," but this just happened to be the perfect sound for a home cooked meal on a lazy summer night. If you need something sweet, but not saccharine, pick this one up.

Recordings I skipped:

#257: Joe Cocker- Mad Dogs and Englishmen: Overall impression was this sounded like a fun concert, similar to Van Morrison, had never heard him before, but I have a few songs now

#258: Codona- Codona 3: Genre hopping jazz. Free jazz to African/World. Final track is nice

#259: Leonard Cohen- Songs of Leonard Cohen: Another artist I knew a little about, but not much. Reminded me of Lou Reed and Simon & Garfunkel. Not real impressed overall

#260: Nat King Cole and His Trio- The Complete After Midnight Sessions: Very relaxed jazz, wonderful dinner/after dinner music

#261: Ornette Coleman- The Shape of Jazz to Come: Experimental, but listenable. Steady rhythm, lots of good, fast sax

Like Vanilla Ice Cream for Your Shave Ice

Get out your Mai Tai and beach chair- Hawai'i is brought to you on this outstanding recording.

*HIGHLY RECOMMENDED*
Artist: Sonny Chillingworth
Album: Endlessly
Recording #256


So I had to go out of order for this one- I couldn't find the whole album online so I skipped it, but I was really disappointed to have to do that based on the write up in the book. So last week I was checking the library to see if they had any of the recordings I liked, and I found out they had this one. From track one I knew I had something special. While I believe most, if not all, of these are covers, Sonny's voice and guitar fully capture the songs and make them his own. His deep, clear voice is classic crooner, and while I found it very enjoyable, the real stars here are the guitar instrumentals. The perfectly kept island rhythm, the intricate finger work, including hitting all those well-placed harmonics, is as entrancing as it is relaxing. If you enjoy acoustic guitar you can't go wrong picking up this one.

Buy this album here

There Ain't No Cure for the Summertime Blues

As advertised, here is the 2nd summer song in a row.

Artist: Eddie Cochran
Recording: "Summertime Blues"
Recording #255


With only a few days left in the summer, anyone who had the summer off is starting to feel the summertime blues right now. This song works perfectly with that sentiment, but if you listen to the lyrics the song is actually about the pains of parents and bosses during summer. Great lyrics, great riff, but I still can't figure out whose version of this song I've heard, because I've definitely never heard this version before (after some research I think it was the George Thorogood version). I have the Black Keys cover song, but even when I downloaded it I knew I had heard someone else do it. Cochran's version is much older and earler rock than I thought it would be. I was expecting a harder, more electric blues version. So while I enjoy the song, I prefer most of the covers-- even the very rockabilly Alan Jackson version. So pull up the above playlist and pick your preferred version to round out the summer. Mine is presented below. Goodbye best summer ever (not only due to the birth of my first son), I hope next summer can compete with the bliss of this one.

Don't Talk Back!

First of 2 summer hits to wrap up the summer.

Artist: The Coasters
Recording: Yakety Yak
Recording #1?



Is there a person reading this that doesn't know this song? I'm pretty sure I heard this song on Sesame Street or some other show as a very little kid. Is there any better song to represent the child's viewpoint of parenting? The Coasters nailed it, right down to the silly bass "Don't talk back" made to represent the authority figure. As demonstrated by my 2 year old nephew, who was recently heard having a conversation with himself in which he impersonated his mom by lowering his voice, you don't have to have much time as on this planet to get the reference. Now that I am a parent I wonder if I'll quote this song as much as my mom did when I was a kid. Although the song definitely sounds dated, coming from the very early days of rock, it still works in a different format: surprisingly good raggae reinventions here and here. But if the original doesn't take you back to your childhood, I feel bad for you. This one brings back all the best parts of the worst parts of being a kid, and I'm starting my son early-- he's sleeping in my arm as I type this, so maybe he'll have an even earlier memory attached to this classic.

Country Music Playing on the Radio

The title is a reference to a dirty lyric in NOFX's "Together on the Sand." I won't go into why it's inappropriate, but the next part is "...so I turned it off." This was generally my opinion about country music for a long time-- it belonged in pickup trucks and on the beaches of the gulf coast. But I've come around and realized there are very specific country music styles that I dislike; mostly anything considered "pop" or "Nashville." I slowly became a country fan through the alt.country genre, specifically through Ryan Adams' work, and then I finally came to enjoy what I consider "classic" country when I heard Johnny Cash. So I knew who Patsy Cline was, but never really heard her music.

*HIGHLY RECOMMENDED*
Artist: Patsy Cline
Album: The Patsy Cline Collection (4 discs)
Recording #254
Stream all 103 songs here
So at first listen, I thought "well this is nice, but I don't think I need 4 CDs worth of Patsy Cline." FALSE! The more I listened, the more I craved. My favorite track, "Lovesick Blues," I had never heard until this book and the Hank Williams version. It's one of those standards that everyone has done, but Patsy's version is really the only one that I can put up there with Williams' as just an awesome song (want to hear other versions, including Ryan Adams and LeAnne Rimes?) By the time I got to the more famous songs, like "Crazy," I had already fallen in love with the stripped down versions of her stuff she was doing on the radio before she became big. Her voice is so big, and I see the influence it had on some of my favorite female singers (Neko Case and Jenny Lewis at her most country-tinged) and she just knows how to sing a love song. So if you've heard Patsy before, and found her stuff not bad, then I think you might want to start this box set at "Walking the Dog" and just sit back and take in the breadth of her catalog. Worth the trip.

Buy the album here

Don't Stop This Train

Sometimes I am woefully ignorant of the history of music I enjoy. The next album is on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums, and the title track is on the 500 Greatest Songs list, and yet I had never heard of Jimmy Cliff. Pre-parenthood my wife and I used to watch the Daily Show and Colbert Report every night, but now it's just if it happens to be on, and yesterday Jimmy Cliff was the guest on Colbert. At least now I know who he is.

*HIGHLY RECOMMENDED*

Artist: Jimmy Cliff

Album: The Harder They Come

Recording #253

Stream this album here

Everyone knows Bob Marley, and that's about where my raggae knowledge ended. But Cliff preceded the mainstream explosion of Marley, with a raggae style that took more from R&B than Marley. I actually first heard Cliff on NPR's All Songs Considered when Tom Moon went on and played a few tracks from the book, and I believe he played the song "Pressure Drop." Even back then I thought this sounded like a good album, and now that I've heard the whole thing I know I have to add it to my collection to become my 2nd raggae album, next to Marley's "Legend." Songs like "Draw Your Brakes" (the chorus that Vanilla Ice lifted for one of his songs on his debut) and "River of Babylon" (which is much better than the other version I had heard by Sublime) are incredible. And start to finish this takes you to that island vacation, even while laying down the heavy political and social message. If you like Bob Marley, and who doesn't, this is definitely the next step.

Buy the album here

Music Soothes the Savage Beast

Things are ramping up for the school year, both teaching and taking my master's classes. That combined with my son's continued sleep strike and all the standard household chores make every day a race against the clock to get anything done. So it's nice to come across a recording like this one that helps to smooth out my day.

Artist: Van Cliburn
Album: Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3, Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 3
Recording #252
Stream the first concerto here and the second here

I have already stressed my general apathy towards classical music, but it turns out I really like the sound of piano soloists. The first concerto here is really good, particularly the "intricate fingerwork" in the first movement. It all sounds very nice, calm, steady; the right soundtrack for background baby music. The 2nd, however, sounds like the accompanying music to a silent film. If I had to use an adjective for it, it would be melodramatic-- like those new 1-800 Contacts commercials with the "overly dramatic reenactments." I felt like if I was a music critic I could MST3K this one. But I can recommend the first concerto if you need some chill music.

Buy the album here

When They Kick At Your Front Door, How You Gonna Come?

I had the chance to go back and revisit this one, and it was nice to see that I got a different perspective.

Artist: The Clash
Album: London Calling
Recording #120ish
Stream this album here

I guess I had heard this whole album before, as most of the songs were rated on my iPod, but I'm not sure I ever sat down and heard the whole thing consecutively. So I started the whole thing at the start, with the incredible title track, and I found out my initial impression (that this was noisy, dated music) was actually a bit off the mark. A lot of the songs on this album sound pretty fresh for the fact that they are over 30 years old. The raggae is popping, and punk is angry, and the themes are as potent today as they were back then. Are there some clunkers? Yeah, but it's a double album-- there are very few double albums that should be double albums in my opinion. Being overblown is usually part of the joy of a double album, rather than 2 full discs worth of great songs, but there's definitely enough here for 1 CD worth of 4-star songs. The great neighborhood banger "Guns of Brixton," the fun and poppy "Rudie Can't Fail," and the blistering title track are great examples of how good this band can be, even if you have to plow through some mediocre songs ("Spanish Bombs," which is a recommended track by Tom Moon, is one of my least favorites.) Anyways, glad I went back and heard it.

Buy the album here

Cool Struttin'

After a night like I had last night, Sonny Clark is the perfect jazz to listen to. That's right, I used "perfect" and "jazz" in the same sentence.

Artist: Sonny Clark
Album: Cool Struttin'
Recording #251

Enjoy the Peanuts' Christmas theme music? Does it make you feel relaxed and happy to hear Schroeder laying it down? Well, this has that same feel-good, beat-poet happy jazz feeling. For some reason I had the chance to be asleep last night between midnight and 2:30 AM and I could NOT sleep. This is not a common occurance for me, but today I had to teach class, and it was the first time I ever taught my own material, and everyone else was teaching the same material. I guess I just couldn't stop thinking about different things I had to fix or check up on or add-- so I am beat. But the sweet, smooth trumpet, piano, sax combination of this recording, added to the staccoto drums and walking (strutting, I guess, is more accurate) bassline are making me feel pretty relaxed, even though I feel kind of pissed off. I was going to talk about how this is great dinner music, but it's even better cocktail music-- just use it to take the edge off.

Buy this at amazon