Music Phenomena

Brazil’s first phonographic record  (or Edison wax cylinder?) was “Pelo Telefone”, On the Telephone, in 1916.  It was a samba by a guy named Donga.  Here is a youtube video of it:

Later, in the 1990′s, Gilberto Gil created a new song based on the old one, called “Pelo Internet” — on the internet.  And just the other day, I received a new cd, The …

Ary Barroso isn’t a household name here or even now in contemporary Brazil, but he wrote the most famous song, “Aquarela do Brasil” (Brazilian Watercolor), whose fame was only surpassed by Jobim’s “Girl from Ipanema” which came twenty years later with the Bossa Nova wave of the early 1960s.  Barroso’s song was featured in the great Disney cartoon of the same name, featuring …

The other night I was listening to a Beirut-born, Paris-based quarter-tone trumpeter named Ibrahim Maalouf.  He’s the son of the renowned master of the Arabic trumpet, Nassim Maalouf.   Most people have heard this unusual instrument in Jon Hassell’s muscial dreamscapes.
As I was listening, the band kicked into a modal groove and the stars aligned.  This is the groove base of Arabic, Indian and …

Why do they hate music?
“Without music, life would be a mistake”.
~-Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols (1889)
“Music is no different than opium. Music affects the human mind in a way that makes people think of nothing but music and sensual matters. Music is a treason to the country, a treason to our youth, and we should cut out all this music and replace it with …

I’ve written before on talented felines (http://blogs.kcrw.com/rhythmplanet/cat-lovers-pomeranians-scarlatti-and-the-cat-fugue/) and talented pooches (http://blogs.kcrw.com/rhythmplanet/a-pooch-with-perfect-pitch/).
This kitty has gone one step further and inspired a piano concerto! My KCRW production assistant Bob Werne discovered this cat concerto and I had to share it.  First we see a Lithuanian TV broadcast about the musical kitty—–then, in the second video, we see the concerto being performed.

….and the premiere of the Cat …

Miles Davis and Gil Evans first worked together in 1949 on the seminal Birth of the Cool, which took jazz away from bebop and introduced the cool sound.  Gone was the frenetic flurry of notes, replaced by a smoother, softer groove.   Their next big collaboration was Miles Ahead:  Miles Davis + 19;  it was their first record for Columbia, two years before the …

Ibrahim Maalouf isn’t a household name in most music circles, unless maybe you live in Paris and are a jazz fan.  He’s an interesting trumpet player in that he improvises on a quarter-tone trumpet.  Western ears may think something’s wrong when he goes between the notes in our European 12-note scale, but any lover of Arabic music knows that’s where the gestalt and the …

Lester Koenig, founder of Contemporary Records in LA in 1951, was a Hollywood screen writer and producer who’d been blacklisted by Joseph McCarthy and the HUAC (House of Un-American Activities).  Koenig worked with William Wyler on such films as the 1953 romantic comedy Roman Holiday, starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck.   Like so many other writers, artists, and even architects (geniuses like Richard …

We all know by now that Psy’s “Gangnam Style” has won the Guiness Record for most youtube hits:  over a billion.  But here’s a song from a transplanted Pakistani fishmonger whose song “One Pound Fish” is catching up.  While it’s not as catchy as Gangnam and doesn’t have a dance to go along with it, it still has become phenomenally popular.
Here’s the story:   …

Remember that classic early 80s hip hop song “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life” by Indeep?  Sure you do, you probably danced to it.  It’s the song where they say “down go your troubles down the drain”, then the toilet flushes your worries away.   If you don’t remember, here’s a reminder:
Well, this guy goes one step further.  He’s saving a bunch of …