lively

SHAME WEEK! Funk Friday: “Kalimba,” Mr Scruff

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Mr Scruff is a legitimately good DJ.  This song is a pretty good song – maybe a little repetitive and pointless, but it’s got a good groove.  So what’s so embarrassing about this song?

Anyone reading this blog on a PC knows exactly why this song is so embarrassing.  It’s because this is one of three or four songs pre-loaded onto the Windows Media Player as sample pieces.  I don’t know why they did that.  All I know is that, one day, when I had to work at another facility and I didn’t have my own music with me, I hoped against hope there would be something already on the Windows machine I had to use – and, God bless America, there was.  I listened to this song on repeat for eight hours.

Eight.  Hours.

Stockholm syndrome is real, my friends.

SHAME WEEK! Worldly Wednesday: “Dragostea Din Tei,” O-Zone

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Oh you totally knew this was coming.  Like there is any other song I could post on Wednesday during Shame Week.  (Happily I don’t own any Venga Boys.  This entry could have taken way longer to come up with.)  And don’t pretend like you don’t secretly love this song.  It’s a great song!  It’s also so terrible that I have never once wondered what it actually means.  It just doesn’t make that much of a difference to me.  It’s fun to yell “maaayaHEEE, maaayaHOOO” while bopping up and down at a house party, and that’s good enough for me.

Sacred Sunday: “Gloria,” from Leonard Bernstein’s Mass

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This is such a bonkers piece in a way and I just love it.  It’s so very Broadway, with some serious “West Side Story” throwbacks from around 1:55 to 2:15; it’s got a very Latin vibe to it; and its various rhythms give it a colorful brightness that other stolid versions just don’t have.  It’s a good piece for today – Pentecost Sunday, the day that (according to the Bible) Jesus’s disciples received the Holy Spirit through wind and fire and baptized thousands of people.  In effect, it’s the day the Christian church was born.

Salubrious Saturday: “Shattered,” The Rolling Stones

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Look at me!  I’m in tatters!  So I’m going to go play kickball in the park today.  And then?  I might take a nap.  And after that?  I might go dancing.  Success success success!  Does it matter?  Pride and joy and dirty dreams – that’s what makes our town the best.  Also: kickball in the park.  That’s my reasoned opinion.

Throwback Thursday: “La Canarie,” Michael Praetorius

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I’m sorry, Tune-Up fans – this week is bananas so I don’t have an inspiring (or even amusing) write-up for you today.  But I wanted to at least give you something cheerful to listen to.  I love Praetorius, as you’ve probably picked up, and the man who does these recordings, Eduardo Antonello, is a just amazing.  Hey, Folger Consort: call him.  From what I can tell, he is self-taught and a complete early music instrument savant.  I am so grateful to musicians like him who are keeping gorgeous pieces like this alive and well.

Salubrious Saturday: “Live It Up,” 11 Acorn Lane

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Some Saturdays, you want to relax in a hammock, or take a long walk around town, or go for a hike, or file, or spy on your neighbors, or read the complete works of Kierkegaard.  Then there are other, special Saturdays when you want to gather all your best friends, get a suite at the Ritz, make a number of cocktails, play MarioKart on the TV, and have an adult slumber party.  This is one of those Saturdays.

Modernism Monday: “Struttin’ with Some Barbecue,” Ray McKinley

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I was going to hesitate to assert that this is the finest song one could listen to on Memorial Day, since it embodies the stereotypical Memorial Day activities of barbecuing and playing the clarinet, and then I realized that this my blog and I can assert whatever I damn well please.  So: this is the finest song one can listen to on Memorial Day – barbecue, clarinet, etc.  I will also assert that this is the finest version of this finest song.  I do love Jim Cullum and his Happy Jazz Band, but you have to love Ray McKinley’s panache.

Throwback Thursday: “Symphony No. 9,” Ludwig Van Beethoven

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Beethoven wrote some of the most famous “first few notes” in the history of music.  The beginning of the first and second movements are definitely among those.  But that’s not why I’m posting this.  You already know all of this.

I’m posting this because of Maestro Paavo Järvi and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen.  Järvi is famously devoted to Beethoven’s original tempo markings, which are quite faster than how modern conductors usually take his works.  Such speed with a two-bit orchestra would make this music sound sloppy and muddy.  But the DKB produces razor-sharp, gloriously precise phrasing.

If you want to enjoy this properly, make this video full screen and watch the orchestra.  The entire collective is at the top of their game.  They are throwing everything they have into the notes.  The cellist at 0:28.  The violinist at 0:39.  Järvi himself from 1:28-:136.  They are an army of music, and it is glorious.  Because here’s the thing: the 9th is standard orchestra fare.  These people have played this hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times before.  But in this recording, in this video, it’s like they’ve just been rehearsing their whole lives. This is their first real performance.  It’s one of the most exhilarating things I’ve seen in ages.

Worldly Wednesday: “Tango Fugata,” Astor Piazzolla

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I’m about to head into three days of mostly day-long meetings and I am fully anticipating that they will be feel and sound like this, one of my favorite pieces by Argentine tango genius, Astor Piazzolla.  Put a group of fun, smart, interesting people together in a room, give them a cool topic and a lot of coffee, and watch them go.  Nothing better.