2/2/13

Movie Notes - 'Sound City'

If you haven't yet caught some of the buzz surrounding Dave Grohl's documentary, Sound City, allow me to buzz a little more in your ear. After doing fairly well at a number of film festivals and getting positive feedback from pre-release screeners, Sound City had as large a release as it's probably going to get this week.

Sound City takes its title from the recording studio in Los Angeles where whole cratefulls of legendary rock albums were recorded.  Neil Young? Fleetwood Mac? Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers? Nirvana?  Dave Grohl, who we should all remember BF (Before Foo) as the drummer for Nirvana, now owns the legendary, hand-built Neve 8028 Console, which he bought when Sound City went out of business.  Not only has Grohl put together a fine documentary about rock and roll and what we might call "the ethos of the garage," in the second half of the film we get to see the Foo Fighters recording a new album with the likes of Stevie Nicks, Rick Springfield (who rocks), Trent Reznor, Josh Homme, and some dude from Liverpool named Paul (who shreds).

Recently, director and host and star and drummer and guitarist Dave Grohl made the media rounds in his own way -- I caught him on the podcasts WTF and Nerdist.  All the more interesting is the distribution model for the film's release, which you can see in theaters in a few markets -- but you can rent a download it as well for the price of a movie ticket or buy the film outright for $15.  You'd want to see it in the theater to hear the music -- and this is one downloaded movie that's worth watching on a computer so you can listen with headphones.  As you might expect, Sound City sounds great.

For audio nerds out there, Sound City is a movie to place alongside Tom Dowd and the Language of MusicLes Paul: Chasing Sound!, and some of the better episodes of Classic Albums for a introduction to how records get made and how the recording studio itself can be played like a musical instrument.

Remember -- use those headphones.  After Sound City is over, you might have that pleasant ringing in your ears.

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2/1/13

PN 231 - Rudresh Mahanthappa - 'Gamak'

Alto sax powerhouse Rudresh Mahanthappa continues to fuse East and West with a reconfigured quartet that features guitarist Dave Fiuczynski on the new album 'Gamak.'  Plus Mahanthappa drops a couple of prog references for everyone's Inner Peart.


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Rudresh Mahanthappa





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1/31/13

Video Jukebox - Sara Gazarek

Vocalist Sara Gazarek already has three albums out -- Yours (2005), Return To You (2007) and last year's outstanding Blossom and Bee.  This weeks playlist on the Video Jukebox has Gazarek performing with her own group and with the German group Triosence.  She'll be the featured guest on Segment3 this weekend on the Sunday Time Warp.





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1/29/13

PN Unscripted - Marc Myers



Jazz journalist  -- visit his website Jazzwax -- and Wall Street Journal writer Marc Myers breaks things down in his social history of the music, Why Jazz Happened, which provides a cultural context for developments in the music from the 1940s to the 1970s.

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1/28/13

Movie Notes - 'Let's Get Lost' (1988)



Last time around it was Thelonious Monk, and this week's jazz documentary from 1988 is Bruce Weber's elegant and mysterious examination of the life and celebrity of trumpeter and singer Chet Baker -- Let's Get Lost.  An icon of the West Coast school of cool, Baker did indeed get lost amid a heroin addiction, run-ins with the law, and a serious beatdown that trashed his embouchure for a number of years.  A fascinating life, a more fascinating film.



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1/27/13

Sunday Time Warp - Playlist 1/27/13

Song, Artist, Album

Freedom Jazz Dance, Don Ellis, Live in 3 2/3/4 Time
Waiting Is Forbidden, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Gamak
Nu-Bop, Matthew Shipp, Greatest Hits
Use Me, Nicole Henry, So Good So Right
Treat Me Right, Ironing Board Sam, B-Side to Orignal Funky Bell Bottom
The House of the Rising Sun, Nina Simone, Nina Simone Sings The Blues
Texas Flood, Whispering Smith, Blowing the Blues: A History of Blues Harmonica
Wasted Life Blues, Valerie Wellington, Life in the Big City


Cut Off My Right Arm, Johnny Copeland, Boom Boom
Chicken Walk, LVM Trio, LVM Trio
Hardest Button To Button, Louis Durra, Rocket Science
Tangled Up In Blue, Louis Durra, The Best of All Possible Worlds
Nine Eleven, Louis Durra, Rocket Science
All I Really Want, Luis Durra, The Best of All Possible Worlds
Where’s The Music?, Medeski Martin and Wood, Let’s Go Everywhere
Four on Six, Wes Montgomery, The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery
Mad World, Todd Clouser’s Love Electric, The Naked Beat
The Last Broken Heart (Prop 8), Christian Scott, Yesterday You Said Tomorrow
Whiplash, Branford Marsalis Quartet, Four MFs Playing Tunes

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Segment3 - Louis Durra


Pianist, bandleader, and arranger Louis Durra explains his approach to reworking songs from all over the musical map.  Bob Dylan, The White Stripes, Alanis Morissette, and even DJ Rob Swift inform Durra's distinctive approach to the piano trio.



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Louis Durra



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