What are you listening to now ?

Another month has gone by.

For a change of pace, kind of, here's one quintessential Italian aria ("Vesti la giubba" from Ruggero Leoncavallo's "Il pagliaccio" (The Clown) as performed by the stars big and small (and, in many cases, very big). In reverse chronological order, from the recent to the greatest.

Fabio Sartori


Luciano Pavarotti


Mario Lanza


And the greatest ever -- Beniamino Gigli.

 
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I was going to post something by Wonderlich or Gedda (two great tenors) but stumbled onto a fresh compilation of Richie Blackmore's solos. And since I am a huge Deep Purple fan and Richie is one of the all time guitar gods, here it is.


Though, of the alleged Top 16, he is missing "Wring that neck" and "Smoke on the Water" (ya, I can see how that might have slipped his mind).

To compensate for the omission, here's a 1969 live performance of "Wring that neck".

 
A few months went by ... and I am still listening to operetta ... that's because I can't really dance like these Hungarians ...

Emmerich Kalman's "Shimmy" (from "Die Bajadere", 1920)


Kalman's "Komm nach Varaszdin" (from "Gräfin Mariza", 1924)


Kalman ... long German title ... "Reg Volt" in Hungarian (from "Hollandweibchen", 1919)


Kalman, "Braunes Mädel von der Puszta" ("Gräfin Mariza")


Paul Abraham, "Ja so ein Mädel, ungarisches Mädel" (from "Victoria und ihr Husar", 1930)


Jeno Huszka, "En Teve" (from "Mária fôhadnagy", 1942)


Hope yous all enjoy.
 
Eh, one more shrimp on the barbie.

Bela Zerkovitz, "Gyere te nímand…" often performed with "Csokos asszony" (1926) as a throw-in number but actually a separate hit.

 

Right now I find it hard to get past this one. Maybe part of it is the fact that i've just come back to video games after a good 18 year break so everything is new to me. But I really dig this background track.
 
Lately I am listening to Valerie June.

Her sound isn't for everyone. But she is wholly authentic and her sound is 100% American roots music. A purity to her imperfection.


 
roxics said:
... Right now I find it hard to get past this one. Maybe part of it is the fact that i've just come back to video games after a good 18 year break so everything is new to me. But I really dig this background track.
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The violin melody reminds me of Mikael Tariverdiev, style wise

 
58 today. And I'm not even going to swear this time. Haha. -Cheers Jason and gang.


//edit: I did not know-> :)

 
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For being a non hip hop rap consuming old dude, I am really, surprisingly becoming quite impressed with Kendrick Lamar's last two albums, "To Pimp a Butterfly" and "DAMN". He is taking rap/hip hop to new and exciting places with a nod to rock and jazz from the past as well. His lyrics and raps are deep. Not just all about drugs, bitches, pimps and hos, it's some Biblical stuff, some amazing stuff about the black experience. I don't like every song, but a few of them are really quite epic, and I can tell, even as a rap/hip-hop outsider, genre redefining. Anyone who can get Don Cheadle to be in their video at this level has some impressive chops.


Also, The XX "I Saw You" is pretty amazing, a sound mixer I shot with last year turned me onto them as he worked with them at Coachella. They are not impressive musicians as far as chops but they do a lot with the chops they have, and are interesting songwriters and interpreters

St. Vincent (Annie Clark) had a good sort of prog rock meets Talking Heads album out last year, "St. Vincent" but there are a bunch of YouTube clips of her playing a festival in San Francisco and her cool, fembot-like stage persona crossed with her ferocious guitar chops are kind of intoxicating. She's not a virtuoso technician but she can rip it up pretty well. I like her, she could be around for a while. She's just sort of cool and sophisticated.

That's really all of the new stuff I have been obsessed with. The regular stuff I obsess over (XTC, Pretenders, Alison Krauss, Rosanne Cash, Sam Phillips, Everything But the Girl, Kate Bush, a ton of jazz, a little classical) is also in heavy rotation.
 
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Speak of the devil (and my hometown hero), saw Tom Petty last night. 2 hrs, Row 12. Perfect show.
Joe Walsh opened, "Life's Been Good To Me So Far..."

~~~~~~~

Rockin' Around (With You)
Mary Jane's Last Dance
You Don't Know How It Feels
Forgotten Man
You Got Lucky
I Won't Back Down
Free Fallin'
Walls
Don't Come Around Here No More
It's Good to Be King
Crawling Back to You
Wildflowers
Learning to Fly
Yer So Bad
I Should Have Known It
Refugee
Runnin' Down a Dream

Encore:
You Wreck Me
(Tom Petty song)
Play Video
American Girl





PS- Happy Belated Birthday, Gord...
 
groveChuck said:
Speak of the devil (and my hometown hero), saw Tom Petty last night. 2 hrs, Row 12. Perfect show.
Joe Walsh opened, "Life's Been Good To Me So Far..."

~~~~~~~

Rockin' Around (With You)
Mary Jane's Last Dance
You Don't Know How It Feels
Forgotten Man
You Got Lucky
I Won't Back Down
Free Fallin'
Walls
Don't Come Around Here No More
It's Good to Be King
Crawling Back to You
Wildflowers
Learning to Fly
Yer So Bad
I Should Have Known It
Refugee
Runnin' Down a Dream

Encore:
You Wreck Me
(Tom Petty song)
Play Video
American Girl





PS- Happy Belated Birthday, Gord...
Click to expand...

Did you watch the Scorsese Tom Petty doc on Netflix yet? If you haven't, do it, so good. It's about 4 hours long too, heaven for the Petty fan.
 
Oh yeah! Actually, it's Bogdanovich's Runnin' Down a Dream. Great stuff!
I grew up about 3 blocks from Petty, went to school with his younger brother.
Started seeing his first band Mudcrutch (when he played bass) at age 14...
Great American Roots Rock.
 
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