A rhetorical post to the previous music thread, can I suggest limited to one album post a day, so we can enjoy the discerning tastes of PS Audio forum members and hope that listening to albums posted will be an enlightening and pleasurable experience.
PLEASE add a link or two to related articles or reviews that give the music context, so we can listen AND learn.
Occasional restaurant recommendations to reflect those discerning tastes may be a nice alternative.
Anyway, reposting this one. It’s very well regarded, superb sound quality and also available on SACD (for people with such things).
Have tickets for him playing Beethoven in July. Should be fun.
Interview here:
I would like to think that this thread was not just a reaction to the volume of Dirk’s posts in ‘What are you spinning right now’. I guess there is a case for a separate thread for albums which you think are of exceptional merit, but you could always put that as commentary in the original thread. We shall have to see how it develops.
‘Disc of the day’ to me would be an album that I play repeatedly during a day. Sometimes I do that. The same disc over and over again, because it fascinates me for some reason. I may listen concentrated for a while or let it play in the background while doing other things…
Dish of today would be ‘Tournedos Rossini’, but I do not have the ingredients available. Nevertheless I studied the recipe today and kept thinking about it all the time…
By the way, the Beethoven mentioned above is 9 discs for one day
John Hartford’s Nobody Knows What You Do (1976) is the third record in what one critic calls “the Holy Trinity of John Hartford.” The same critic described Nobody Knows What You Do as “an absolute dervish of musical intelligence, fearless compositions, and the manifestation of influences ranging from electric guitar great and Miles Davis collaborator John McLaughlin (who has a song on the album penned after him) to old-time fiddle breakdowns.”
I had the privilege of meeting John Hartford in September 1994 following a concert at the South Street Seaport in New York City. I asked him to autograph my LP copy of Aereo-Plain (1971), and he did so graciously in calligraphy-like script (see below). I told him I had been listening to the album regularly since acquiring it in the early 1970’s. “You poor thing,” he replied with perfect self-deprecating comedic timing.
I’m truly enlightened. A bit of a culture shock. A bit like recommending some in St Louis listen to Chas and Dave. I like Nickel Creek, but this is hardcore picking. Nobody Knows not listed, but just finished Aereo Plain and Morning Bugle about to start.
Glad you are enjoying the Hartford Trilogy! Listening to the three records in chronological order makes the most sense. I am surprised you are not seeing “Nobody Knows What You Do,” though. It is available on TIDAL and Spotify (along with the other two), at least in the USA.
This is truly scary music, especially the third piece. It’s the soundtrack Hitchcock always wanted. Even Beckett would have been terrified. I was on the edge of my seat after about 5 minutes, had to get up and walk around, make a cup of tea. She says she wants the listener to feel “the magical physicality of sound”. She certainly succeeded on that one. The rasping accordion just makes the whole thing very creepy. The end is rather anticlimactic.
Thanks Boot!! I’ve been a ‘70s fan of John H. And just recently exhumed my LP of Mark Twang, then ordered and got/played Aereo Plain…And also got Steam Powered Aereo-Takes (much recommended) Now, thanks to you, I’ve just found the rest of the trilogy on Discogs and they are on the way to me. Lots of old hippie bluegrass connections for me!
I didn’t say I didn’t find it fascinating! It’s exactly what I was hoping from this new thread. I just couldn’t listen to it all day long. Thank you for posting it. See post below.
In The Middle Somewhat Elevated (first track on this disc)
p.s. This is good track to test the dynamics of your audio system.
Thom Willems has been composing music for William Forsythe for decades. This piece was commissioned by Rudolf Nureyev to showcase his new star at the Paris Ballet, Sylvie Guillem. She became the greatest dancer of her generation. This piece, first performed on 30 May 1987, changed dance forever. I saw it at Covent Garden in 1992 (Guillem/Laurent Hilaire/Darcey Bussell). It was instrumental in my marrying my wife, and one of our first dates was to see most of the original performers (Laurent Hilaire/Isabelle Guérin/Manuel Legris) at the Paris Opera Ballet. We saw pretty much everything Guillem did until she retired in 2015 and had the opportunity to discuss the influence this piece had on us with Laurent Hilaire, who is dancing in the video snippet below, when we met him at a show in London about 3 years ago. It is regularly performed by most major ballet companies around the world. I last saw it in February, by SemperOper Dresden, with whom Forsythe now works.
The music stands up on its own, but if there is one contemporary ballet to see in your life, this is it.
I bought this when the LP was originally released and have lived with it for over four and a half decades. This music keeps intriguing me; there’s so much in its dense tapestry.
Are you or anyone else on this forum going to the John Hartford Memorial Blue Grass Festival on May 29 in Bean Blossom, Ind.? I am. Maybe we can meet up.
Okay, well, Sun Ra’s “The Magic City” (1965) is futuristic, so hopefully it is acceptable here. This is not background music. As Jazzwise contributor Edwin Pouncey wrote about the album:
“Made up of four multi-dimensional sounding pieces of music, The Magic City is partly Sun Ra’s reflection on the city of Birmingham, Alabama where he was born and raised. Few, however, could have foreseen the dramatic musical change that Ra had in mind when composing this music, a senses altering series of sonic experiments that took his music to another level of creativity. Alongside the epic title track – and the shorter sound poems ‘Abstract Eye’ and ‘Abstract I’ – the centerpiece here is ‘The Shadow World,’ a frantic fusion of jazz and avant-garde classical music that still sounds totally unique.”
