Bart – Ray Stevens – “I’m My Own Grandpa” – Weird one! I love the confusing relationship maps in the video and the song. It’s really hard to write a humorous song, and to write any song that gets an audience to take a specific emotional ride with you. Particularly in contemporary times I think listeners appropriate a song’s meaning and focus more on themselves, using the song as a personal soundtrack, or as something to accentuate personal moments, or accompanying photos. This is song is written to be intentionally confusing and dizzyingly silly, I’m not sure that type of song would be written today.
Matt – Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey, Sonny Stitt, Dizzy Gillespie – “Round Midnight” • World of Jazz – Matt plays this primarily for the Monk appearance, though the entire performance is of interest. Monk sounds great and also seems entirely detached. Dizzy is an egregious personalty and it is always fun to listen to his banter, but it doesn’t look like Monk could speak to the crowd if he even wanted to. I’ve seen several performances by older musicians where they sit right down and can play despite whatever health issues they are dealing with and Monk looks lost but sounds solid.
Travis – Lovely, dripping, saturated guitar. It feels like it’s melting into your ears. Ben Monder – “O Sacrum Convivium” – I’ve heard of Mr. Monder, but I am not specifically aware that I have heard his playing before, I just know he is a popular contemporary guitarist. Arranging this type of vocal piece for guitar is an interesting choice. It feels like Travis was directing this play towards Matt, based on their guitarnerdness, but the realization of the vocal harmonies on guitar is pretty mesmerizing.
Dan – Chico Hamilton – “A Trip” – I think this is Larry Coryell’s first recording and he sounds different than what I pegged him for. I have been listening to a lot of Chico Hamilton lately and everything, from his earliest records to his last recordings, sounds sonically realized to me. I wonder how he achieved that? It could be somewhat of a recording studio feature, yet this recording feels like it is musically achieved. My sense is that drummers are arrangers (they always are, they play many instruments and organize them) and that is a Chico Hamilton strength. He can design the band sound as a leader, and like Blakey his concept permeates the music and the side people. This song is all vibes and a free playing, good, band, and it is sonically unlike his earlier recordings in many ways, vampy, psychedelic, free improv, Rock-ish concepts. It surprises me that in all the contexts of these various Hamilton recordings there is always a sense of sonic clarity, even with the musicians around him.
Found Sounds 