Inger Marie Gundersen

Inger Marie Gundersen is a wonderful smokey voiced lady from the land of the Fjords. Her latest album "My Heart would have a reason" has not been removed from my music player for a while now. It is an awesome album.
I remember fondly my years in Norway, and how much more into Jazz the Scandinavians were, than the Americans who created Jazz in the first place.

Thanks to banattan for the intro.
Inger Marie’s third CD release proves that the success of her previous two albums was no coincidence. She and her new collaborator, producer and guitarist Georg Wadenius, have handpicked a selection of extremely well suited songs, which she and her band – and featured guest, trumpeter Mathias Eick – perform to near perfection.

Norwegian jazz diva Inger Marie Gundersen spreads a contagious mood of unstressed well being. Her style is relaxed and her vocal phrasing is rock-steady. Once you’ve heard her interpret one of the songs that are so dear to her heart, her voice will never be a stranger to you. Few European female vocalists can match her penetrating charisma. Her art is deeply embedded in her own original musical world. Her sound is personal, and she has the courage to choose tunes from a broader palette than the usual American Songbook. This selection includes her own originals as well as songs by Norwegian colleagues and composers from the outskirts of jazz such as Sting and Bob Marley.

Inger Marie strikes a seductive, blue, vibrant note and leaves her audience with a luscious velvety, dusty feeling. Such is the smooth and credible sound of an experienced woman – it is the sound of reflection, love and longing. She administers her extraordinary vocal talent with authority.

I don't want to talk about it


A beautiful, beautiful version of Will you love me tomorrow.


Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight

Madeleine Peyroux

I was listening to Madeleine's CD's today and I had the horrible feeling that I had never featured her on the blog.

Well that horrible feeling was correct.
So now we have to make up for it.

I first was attracted to her sound when I heard her tremendous version of Leonard Cohen's Dance me to the end of love. And I was hooked from then on.
Sometimes she sound like Billie Holiday, other times like Patsy Cline, but all in all she is Madeleine Peyroux.



Dance me to the end of love




Don't Wait Too Long

Replaced, for the usual reasons May Day 2012.

Instead

Replaced, for the usual reasons May Day 2012.

Amy Winehouse 2009

Looks like the long Caribbean vacation worked wonders. Here's Amy looking fresh and sounding great with The Specials. This is from the V Festival on August 22, 2009.
Hopefully she will start recording again.
Check out the coverage at Rolling Stone.

100 Years plus of FX

Have they gotten better over that time? You betcha!
How many of these movies do you remember?
How often were you impressed by the effects?
One thing that strikes me is that movies that originally impressed with their visuals when re-visited years later are somewhat diminished.
My real case in point, I remember seeing Jason and the Argonauts as a kid and thinking that the Ray Harryhausen effects were mind boggling. But even 14 years later they looked so cheesy compared to Star Wars.
My how time flies when you are having fun. Great sounds by the Blue Man Group,"Rods and Cones".

1900 - The Enchanted Drawing
1903 - The Great Train Robbery
1923 - The Ten Commandments (Silent)
1927 - Sunrise
1933 - King Kong
1939 - The Wizard of Oz
1940 - The Thief of Bagdad
1954 - 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
1956 - Forbidden Planet
1963 - Jason and the Argonauts
1964 - Mary Poppins
1977 - Star Wars
1982 - Tron
1985 - Back to the Future
1988 - Who Framed Roger Rabbit
1989 - The Abyss
1991 - Terminator 2: Judgement Day
1992 - The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles
1993 - Jurassic Park
2004 - Spider-Man 2
2005 - King Kong
2006 - Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
2007 - Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
2007 - The Golden Compass
2008 - The Spiderwick Chronicles
2008 - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Thanks to bengraphics

Hot Club Of Cowtown

Now here is a great band with a terrific fiddle player. She toured with Bob Dylan back in 2005, that is a great pedigree.
This will really get you stompin'.


Appearing on Jools Holland show, man he get's some good artists on there.
fiddle: Elana James aka Elana Fremerman
guitar: Whit Smith
bass: Jake Erwin

tunes:
Orange Blossom Special (Rouse/Wise)
There'll Be Some Changes Made (Higgins/Overstreet)

Here's Elana James again, performing Exactly Like You


And finally today, here is Elana again with "Fuli Tschai".

Layla

Derek and The Dominos? Eric Clapton acoustic? Eric Clapton Band (many forms)? Eric Clapton with the Allman Brothers Band?
Which is the best version of this venerable song? I think this version with The Allman Brothers band from March 19,2009 at the Beacon Theatre in New York City has to stand with the best of them. Whatever your choice Layla still stands out as an exceptional song.

See what you think, and be on the lookout for a bootleg of the concert, awesome.

Hayward on the Bayou

Normally you expect so see airboats in the Bayou or down in the Florida everglades. But while I was taking my lunchtime stroll down by the Hayward Regional Shoreline Interpretive Center I came across one doing some spraying. Some folks have cool jobs.

Jon Stewart Rules

And so does Barney Frank. It is refreshing to see a politician speaking the truth.
Here's a couple of great clips from recent editions of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. If you don't watch any other "news" show, you should try and watch the Daily Show. And if you are regularly watching Fox News, you may want to get that checked.

Barney Frank's Town Hall Snaps

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Barney Frank's Town Hall Snaps
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

The new liberalism at Fox

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Fox News: The New Liberals
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

Crime of the Century

No, it's not the Supertramp version. This is the real thing baby.
Michael Moore is back and he's telling it like it is, as always.
Love him or hate him, he will always make you think. Unless of course you are brain dead in which case this movie could be about you.

'CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY' - In Theaters October 2nd

"It's a crime story. But it's also a war story about class warfare. And a vampire movie, with the upper 1 percent feeding off the rest of us. And, of course, it's also a love story. Only it's about an abusive relationship.

"It's not about an individual, like Roger Smith, or a corporation, or even an issue, like health care. This is the big enchilada. This is about the thing that dominates all our lives — the economy. I made this movie as if it was going to be the last movie I was allowed to make.

"It's a comedy." — Michael Moore

Hard to Handle

Hard to handle, a 1968 song originally recorded by Otis Redding and written by Otis, Al Bell and Allen Jones. It has been covered many times over the years and I was thinking maybe you may find a couple of them interesting.

Let me know which one you prefer.

Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain


The Black Crowes


Grateful Dead & Etta James

Grateful Dead with the Tower of Power horns & Etta James perform New Years Eve 1982.

Tom Jones


Otis Redding

Sadly I cannot find any performance video, because to see Otis perform this would blow all of the others out of the water.

Hey there, here I am
I'm the man on the scene
I can give you what you want
But you got to come home with me

I forgot some good old lovin'
And I got me some more in store
When I get to thrown it on you
You got to come back for more

Toys and things that come by the dozen
That ain't nothin' but drug store lovin'
Pretty little thing, let me light your candle
'Cause mama I'm sure hard to handle, now, gets around

Action speaks louder than words
And I'm a man of great experience
I know you got another man
But I can love you better than him

Take my hand, don't be afraid
I'm wanna prove every word I say
I'm advertisin' love for free
So, you can place your ad with me

Once it come along a dime by the dozen
That ain't nothin' but ten cent lovin'
Pretty little thing, let me light your candle
'Cause mama I'm sure hard to handle, now, gets around

Baby, here I am
The man on your scene
I can give you what you want
But you got to come home with me

I forgot some good old lovin'
And I got some more in store
When I get to thrown it on you
You got to come runnin' back for more

Once it come along a dime by the dozen
That ain't nothin' but drug store lovin'
Pretty little thing, let me light your candle
'Cause mama I'm sure hard to handle, now, gets around

United vs Guitar - take two

Dave Carroll is back, as he promised with song number two. I think the first song was funnier, but the production on this is pretty amazing.

and the saga continues

On Tuesday August 5 we reconvened at the field behind the Station 41 fire department in Waverley NS to shoot the second video in the trilogy, United Breaks Guitars: Song 2. Once again, everyone volunteered their time and talent to produce an outstanding video; however, Song 2 was a much bigger production than United Breaks Guitars. In addition to the main roles, we had nearly 100 extras in the cast and in order to say everything we wanted to say with the video, we required a broken guitar, an imitation broken guitar, a 40 foot high scissor lift, a limousine (complete with secret service agents), one genuine imitation space capsule, a space suit, a tuba, 3 suits of German Lederhosen, a canoe, one white panel van and a woman willing to wear tights and a big dollar sign.

Here is Dave bringing us up to date, just before the second song hit.

Teresa Salgueiro and Madredeus

Cool sounds for a Sunday morning.



Teresa Salgueiro joins Madredeus to produce a beautiful experience.







Ao Longe o Mar

Mississippi John Hurt

It's about time we had some more blues. After all it's Friday afternoon, we can't proceed to the weekend without some good blues to tide us over . Well here is one of the great ones.
Mississippi John Hurt (July 3, 1893 or March 8, 1892 — November 2, 1966) was an influential country blues singer and guitarist. He sang in a loud whisper, to a melodious finger-picked guitar accompaniment.
Born John Smith Hurt in Teoc, Carroll County, Mississippi and raised in Avalon, Mississippi, Hurt learned to play guitar at age 9. He spent much of his youth playing old time music for friends and dances, earning a living as a farm hand into the 1920s. In 1923 he partnered with the fiddle player Willie Narmour as a substitute for his regular partner Shell Smith. When Narmour got a chance to record for Okeh Records as a prize for winning first place in a 1928 fiddle contest, Narmour recommended John Hurt to Okeh Records producer Tommy Rockwell. After auditioning "Monday Morning Blues" at his home, he took part in two recording sessions, in Memphis and New York City. The "Mississippi" tag was added by Okeh as a sales gimmick. After the commercial failure of the resulting records, and Okeh Records going out of business during the Great Depression, Hurt returned to Avalon and obscurity, working as a sharecropper and playing local parties and dances.


Candy Man Blues


You got to walk that lonesome valley


Frankie

András Adorján

Finally a flautist to compare to the late great Jean-Pierre Rampal. András Adorján, not to be confused with the chess champion who borrowed his name, is an awesome player with a tremendous sound.

Just listen to a couple of pieces.

First up the wonderful CPE Bach D minor flute concert III.mvm


And we will follow that with The Magic Flute part II


This should keep you happy through the weekend.

[Thanks]

Les Paul

The world lost one of the greatest guitar players and inventors today.

Les Paul, the jazz guitarist who died on August 13 aged 94, invented the solid body electric guitar and revolutionised the sound of pop music recordings. [Telegraph]

Without Les Paul most of today's artists would still be playing acoustic guitar. Can you imagine no Jimi Hendrix, no Metallica, no Led Zeppelin, no Pink Floyd, no Elvis Presley. That is the flat truth, without his invention of the electric guitar they could just as easily have been mandolin players.



Thanks to Totally Fuzzy for the heads up.

E-Mailing lessons on life

This is a hoot. Maybe not for the receiver originally, but for the outside observer.
Lessons to be learned.



The other important message from the other side of this scene, drunk e-mailing no better then drunk dialing. Just not so immediate.

During the Summer of 2007, I had the opportunity to backpack around Europe for 2 weeks. I talked about it often before I left. My girlfriend however, although great in many respects, was not the world's greatest listener. I left on Friday June 1st. Despite even calling her to say goodbye the night before, she never realized I left. When I arrived home 2 weeks later, I had several emails from her, waiting in my inbox...

For this and more, check out jdsmanstories.

And because this comes up so much... the songs in the video are, in order: Klint - Diamond, Mirwais - Disco Science, Wir Sind Helden - Guten Tag

[thejdspot]

Rain

A good friend in England sent me this in an e-mail. An amazing performance by a choir creating a rain storm in sound. Just amazing.



Thanks Maggie.

Katie Melua

Something cool and groovy for a Saturday night. Katie Melua, such a songbird.
Ketevan "Katie" Melua (Georgian: ქეთევან "ქეთი" მელუა; English pronunciation: /ˈmɛluːə/; born 16 September 1984) is a Georgian/British singer, songwriter and musician. She was born in Georgia, but moved to Northern Ireland at the age of eight and then relocated to England at the age of 14. Melua is signed to the small Dramatico record label, under the management of songwriter Mike Batt, and made her musical debut in 2003. In 2006, she was the United Kingdom's biggest-selling female artist and Europe's highest selling European female artist. [Wikipedia]
Give her a listen, you will love her.


Shy Boy

re-posted 6-22-2011

Just Like Heaven

re-posted 6-22-2011


The Closest Thing to Crazy

Sarah Jarosz

Sarah Jarosz is a seventeen year old Bluegrass phenom. She hails from Austin, Texas. And they know their music down there. Austin is one of my favorite cities to visit, I had a great time down there back in the eighties. But be careful there if it snows, slows things down somewhat.


Here's a few samples to make this Saturday evening a little more pleasant.


Sarah Jarosz live at Old Settlers Music Festival 2008


Come on up 2 the house [Tom Waits song]


Greencards with Sarah sitting in, Wintergrass 2007

Japandroids

This high-energy performance Japandroids' "Young Hearts Spark Fire" caused ripples of enthusiasm throughout the TORO offices. And what's not to like, with lyrics about "sunshine girls." The Vancouver duo's new album "Post-Nothing" comes out back in April on vinyl and as a digital download (no CD version available). Did I mention they're called Japandroids? It is now available on a CD.



Plenty of excitement here. Enjoy them.

Mustang Musings

We just bought a Mustang, so it created a new interest. Convertible 2006 4.0 very cool.
So you know you start searching the web for relevant stuff. And I came across this video, actually the guy commented on one of my videos about the Fremont Art and Wine festival, and I thought it was kinda neat. It combines music, talent and a Mustang. What more can you ask for.

Mylène Farmer

Mylène Farmer born Mylène Jeanne Gautier (born 12 September 1961; Montreal, Quebec, Canada) is a French singer, songwriter, occasional actress and author. She has sold more than 45 million records and is among the most successful recording artists of all time in France. And as usual pretty much ignored in the US.
A possible reason being Farmer gained fame with songs featuring shocking yet poetic lyrics, and explicit music videos: "Maman a tort" was about the love of a young girl for her female hospital nurse. "Pourvu qu'elles soient douces" contains hints of sodomy; the video, set in the 18th century, featured a caning. "Libertine" is said to feature the first full frontal nudity appearance by a singer on a major music video. "Que mon cœur lâche" was about love with condoms in the age of AIDS; the video for the song features a scene in which God tells Jesus he won't send him to Earth again because the last time "it was a disaster."
And as we all know America doesn't do shocking, do they Janet.

L'amour n'est rien


Mylène in concert


Here is another of her songs, really cool, but it will never get played on MTV USA.


Check out also her duet with Moby, which of course is set up as Embedding disabled by request.

Chocolate Elvis Dubs - Tosca

Cool sounds from Tosca (a side project of Kruder & Dorfmeister). Check out their album: Chocolate Elvis Dubs. Since I got it it has been on my play list permanently. As was one of their earlier albums "Opera". Groovy stuff.

Bloody Mary

No, not the drink. I don't have a hangover. This is Bloody Mary the DJ.

Contexterrior is to release Black Pearl by Marjorie Migliaccio aka Bloody Mary – not only is it her debut full-length, but also the first artist album to appear on the label in its seven-year history. Mary presents 11 tracks that explore techno, melodic ambience and haphazard breakbeats, resulting in an album that stays true to the spirit of Contexterrior: dancefloor expediency balanced with unapologetic experimentalism.

More than just a slapdash collection of tracks, Bloody Mary’s album is woven together by a common theme: discovering beauty buried beneath the darkness. This idea of contrast was inspired by the poetry of Charles Baudelaire, especially Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil) from 1857. In this controversial work, he used symbols (jewels, alcohol, lesbians, vampires) to express greater themes of erotic love, decadence and mortality.

[Bloody Mary]

Just some really cool sounds.

Prisluhni školjki - Perpetuum Jazzile

Finally something new from Perpetuum Jazzile. Do you remember their version of the Toto classic Africa? This is a great new video from a group of people who look like they are having fun.




jantrost says:

Prisluhni školjki (A Song in a Seashell) is the first single from our fourth album Africa, which will be released in October 2009. It is an a capella arrangement of the theme song from the film "Poletje v školjki" (A Summer in a Seashell). The movie was filmed in 1985 and is still one of the most popular in Slovenian film history.

Author of the music is Jani Golob, lyrics by Milan Dekleva. Author of the arrangement is Perpetuum Jazzile's artistic director and conductor Tomaž Kozlevčar, who also sang solo in the original from 1985.

The video was filmed in Portorož, Slovenia on 18th of July 2009.

Directed by: Matija Ošlak
Camera: Tanja Taštanoska
Head of production: Janez Trontelj
Scenario: Matija Ošlak & Janez Trontelj

Kaweh

One of the things I bought, apart from beer, at the Fremont Art and Wine Festival (see below) was a CD/DVD from Kaweh. I remember hearing their music there last year and this year they have released this DVD of a concert in San Francisco. We played it last night after we got back. This band is really cool. Give them a listen.




Persia

Bamboleo a snippet from the DVD to peak your interest.

Marina

Kaweh is a local artist in the San Francisco Bay Area in California. His music can be best described as World Jazz Nuevo Flamenco with a touch of Latin, Brazilian, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern flavors with vocals in English, Spanish, Italian and German.
Kaweh was born in Saarbruecken, Germany and lived his first seven years there. Having lived in Europe, he was introduced to many types of music in various languages from all over the world early on. He did spent four and a half years in Iran acquiring the Farsi language and some of the culture. Hence, the middle eastern influence in his music.

Find out more.

If you are lucky enough to be in California you can see them in
Santa Cruz August 15
Redwood City August 20
San Jose September 18
San Francisco October 6
For more info check their Web page.

Fremont Art and Wine Festival 2009

The first weekend in August, you know it is festival time in Fremont. They are expecting to attract 400,000 visitors over the two day event, I think they were all in front of me in the Beer line. But as usual the sun shone down and a great time was had by all.
Here's a brief taste.


The photo here is of my normal view, the beer line.

Leadbelly

I have to thank my friend Mark for his suggestion. I've always been a fan of Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter, but assumed since it was so long ago there would be no video of him. Then a found this gem, apparently the only film ever made of him. And in color.


I was surprised to hear that he spelt his nickname Lead Belly, two words!
Although there is no video, as such, check out his seminal take on The house of the rising sun. Heartfelt.