The Whole Music Experience

Jazz   Joe Barbieri   Chet Lives!   Le Chant du Monde/Harmonia Mundi     For anyone familiar with the history of American jazz will have heard the name Chet Baker.   I had heard the name, but had never officially listened to any of Baker’s iconic songs.   A trumpeter and vocalist, Baker focused on lyrical jazz which he sung with sedated, sultry voice with hints of Brazilian bossa nova.   Sadly, Baker’s story is mostly tragic with his mysterious death in the Netherlands and a drug addiction that plagued him for most of his career.   You would never have guessed this from the brightness of his voice and horn or from the songs he sung.   Italian crooner-guitarist Joe Barbieri along with his trio (Antonio Fresa on piano and Luca Aquino on trumpet and flugel horn), render the spirit of the late Baker by revisiting the songs Baker performed in Italy on Chet Lives! Oddly, with some of the songs delving into bos...

These days, I'm practicing what I preach about the healing power of music.  During winter days I have a difficult time waking up, but I like to greet the sunrise at least.  So today, (and I recommend this practice), I pulled out Michel Camillo and the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra's Rhapsody in Blue (a George Gershwin classic) and I listened to it while I watched the sun rise. Of course you have a variety of morning music to choose from, such as Indian morning ragas, kirtans, Gregorian chants for specific times of day, the morning piece of Ferde Groffe's The Grand Canyon Suite , etc...  Basically you need a piece of music that last at least 10 minutes or if you have time up to 30 minutes then meditate on the sun rising as you listen to the music via headphones (if you don't want to wake others up).  You can also choose music for sun set too. If you want to take an afternoon break, pull out Claude Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of the Faun or La Me...

Rhythm: Gotta Have It For many years I felt self-conscious about keeping rhythm with other musicians. I thought I lacked a sense of rhythm because a male musician had spread ugly innuendos about me in regard to rhythm, which I won’t describe here. Then I met a woman at a new age shop who wondered why I mentioned that I had no sense of rhythm. Impossible, she said. Then she asked, do you breathe, does your heart beat? We all have a sense of rhythm. Every creatures on this earth from the dog wagging his tail to the rhythms of Bob Marley’s reggae to the squirrel running in staccato up and down the tree. The fish swimming slowly in the murky pond has rhythm, and as we know, George Gershwin got rhythm too, so did Fred Astaire. If you breathe, if you have a heartbeat, brainwaves, and if you walk, talk, sing, dance, run, crawl, or eat, you do so with rhythm. Back in the mid-1990s I came across Gabrielle Roth’s five rhythms, which included among them, “flowing” and “staccato,” to na...

Jon Manasse and Jon Nakamatsu Bernstein, Gershwin, Novacek, D’Rivera American Music for Clarinet and Piano Harmonia Mundi The clarinet either rubs people the wrong way or in the right hands, enchants its listeners. The reed instrument finds itself in the right hands with Jon Manasse when he pairs up with pianist John Nakamatsu, performing compositions by Leonard Bernstein, George Gershwin, John Novacek and Paquito d’Rivera. On the recording, American Music for Clarinet and Piano , listeners (even those who don’t enjoy the clarinet), find themselves immersed in a diverse range of musical genres, from blues to nuevo tango, jazz, and of course, American classical. Bernstein and Gershwin of course need no introduction unless you’re reading this review from a remote part of the world. But outside of Pan-Latin jazz, Paquito d’Rivera might be new to listeners’ ears (though hardly new to mine), and John Novacek (the youngest composer on the recording, in his 40s), actually waxes...

Gershwin by Grofè Lincoln Mayorga/Al Gallodoro/Harmony Ensemble Conductor Steven Richman Harmonia Mundi The Pacific Northwest sky opens up and rain falls like shards of glass onto the deck outside my window while a small creek forms in the garden. As this is happening, I’m listening to George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and the rain has decided to join the percussion section of the orchestra. And if I forget that summer is only two weeks away, this disc, Gershwin by Grofè also features Summertime , originally composed for Gershwin’s jazz opera, Porgy and Bess . But if you’re like me, you’ve heard many versions of this jazz classic. Many people know George Gershwin’s music from watching classical Hollywood musicals, and in fact, I just watched the DVD of Funny Face featuring Gershwin’s Hollywood movie songs. But what some people don’t know is that Gershwin also composed classical music and built a bridge between the new African-American jazz of the turn-of-the-last cent...