A Set of Four Tunes
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Artist:Nico, Michal Urbaniak, Living Daylights, Astor Piazzolla
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Album:Camera Obscura, Folk Songs, Children's Melodies, Jazz Tunes and Others, 500 Pound Cat, The Rough Dancer and the Cyclical Night (Tango Apasionado)
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Track:My Funny Valentine, Toy's Corner, Spaghetti Western, Finale (Tango Apasionado)
Pretend you’re driving at night alone and there’s only one station you can get on the radio. These four recordings are the ones you’re going to have to listen to, so resign yourself to it. Okay, I’ll make it a little easier on you; there are some text and photos here to help you. Also, there’s a theme: these tunes are not easy to categorize.Nico: 
First off is ex-Velvet Undergound member Nico singing “My Funny Valentine” from her 1985 album “Camera Obscura.” James Young is on keyboards, Ian Carr on trumpet and John Cale (also an ex-member of the Velvet Underground) arranging and producing. Can you think of a more poetic set of lyrics than Lorenz Hart’s here? Internal rhymes like they used to have. Melody by Richard Rodgers. The rest of the album was outside my tastes.
Next is Michal Urbaniak on violin and Vladislav Sendecki on piano playing the only duet and the only Sendecki tune on a 1988 album of Urbaniak’s. The rest of the album was outside my tastes. Urbaniak is one of Poland’s leading jazzmen and is featured in a 2/2/08 post by Mogger Reckon. This is the extent of my knowledge of postwar Eastern European jazz. This piece appears here partly because it doesn’t necessarily sound like jazz.
Living Daylights: (clockwise from top) Dale Fanning (drums), Jessica Lurie (alto sax) and Arne Livingston (bass), (The following paragraph is basically a comment I made on a 1/10/08 post http://mog.com/RGM/blog_post/136281#comments by Mogger RGM) Ten or so years ago I saw a trio from Seattle named Living Daylights perform live at a club, and their bassist, Arne Livingston, was the first that I'd ever come across who played so intricately. I hadn't conceived of this kind of playing before, even though I'd heard a Van Halen intro or two that might have started this whole phenomenon but I hadn't paid attention at the time. Livingston's ten fingers seemed capable of anything. He would play a phrase, push a pedal to make it repeat on its own, and then play chords octaves up over it. There must be buttons that double the pitch, right? He was able to use his technique to create beautiful music and not just flash. The drummer Dale Fanning was as awe-inspiring as well, and sax player Jessica Lurie likewise. Almost all their tunes were original, either by Livingston or Lurie, and often quite powerful. I asked Livingston who inspired him, and he mentioned Victor Wooten. A couple of years ago they broke up. This track, “Spaghetti Western,” written by Livingston, is from their 1998 CD “500 Pound Cat.” For a while, the popular NPR show “Fresh Air” used a smidgen of it as a music break.
Last but not least is Astor Piazzolla playing a bandoneon on “Finale (Tango Apasionado)” from his 1987 album “The Rough Dancer and the Cyclical Night (Tango Apasionado).” Because it doesn’t have a staccato downbeat, it doesn’t sound like a tango to me, but I’m not an expert on tangos. His group includes a pianist, a violinist, an alto sax player, a bassist and an electric guitarist. Most remarkable to me, beyond the beauty of this piece, is how he reached what might be his musical peak here at age 66.So about the theme of the post: these tunes are not easy to categorize. They don’t have the décor of genre; their arrangements are stripped down; they barely qualify as belonging to some category (though I think they’re beautiful enough to tempt various genres to want to include them). Does that make them pure music?
First off is ex-Velvet Undergound member Nico singing “My Funny Valentine” from her 1985 album “Camera Obscura.” James Young is on keyboards, Ian Carr on trumpet and John Cale (also an ex-member of the Velvet Underground) arranging and producing. Can you think of a more poetic set of lyrics than Lorenz Hart’s here? Internal rhymes like they used to have. Melody by Richard Rodgers. The rest of the album was outside my tastes.Next is Michal Urbaniak on violin and Vladislav Sendecki on piano playing the only duet and the only Sendecki tune on a 1988 album of Urbaniak’s. The rest of the album was outside my tastes. Urbaniak is one of Poland’s leading jazzmen and is featured in a 2/2/08 post by Mogger Reckon. This is the extent of my knowledge of postwar Eastern European jazz. This piece appears here partly because it doesn’t necessarily sound like jazz.
Living Daylights: (clockwise from top) Dale Fanning (drums), Jessica Lurie (alto sax) and Arne Livingston (bass), (The following paragraph is basically a comment I made on a 1/10/08 post http://mog.com/RGM/blog_post/136281#comments by Mogger RGM) Ten or so years ago I saw a trio from Seattle named Living Daylights perform live at a club, and their bassist, Arne Livingston, was the first that I'd ever come across who played so intricately. I hadn't conceived of this kind of playing before, even though I'd heard a Van Halen intro or two that might have started this whole phenomenon but I hadn't paid attention at the time. Livingston's ten fingers seemed capable of anything. He would play a phrase, push a pedal to make it repeat on its own, and then play chords octaves up over it. There must be buttons that double the pitch, right? He was able to use his technique to create beautiful music and not just flash. The drummer Dale Fanning was as awe-inspiring as well, and sax player Jessica Lurie likewise. Almost all their tunes were original, either by Livingston or Lurie, and often quite powerful. I asked Livingston who inspired him, and he mentioned Victor Wooten. A couple of years ago they broke up. This track, “Spaghetti Western,” written by Livingston, is from their 1998 CD “500 Pound Cat.” For a while, the popular NPR show “Fresh Air” used a smidgen of it as a music break.Last but not least is Astor Piazzolla playing a bandoneon on “Finale (Tango Apasionado)” from his 1987 album “The Rough Dancer and the Cyclical Night (Tango Apasionado).” Because it doesn’t have a staccato downbeat, it doesn’t sound like a tango to me, but I’m not an expert on tangos. His group includes a pianist, a violinist, an alto sax player, a bassist and an electric guitarist. Most remarkable to me, beyond the beauty of this piece, is how he reached what might be his musical peak here at age 66.So about the theme of the post: these tunes are not easy to categorize. They don’t have the décor of genre; their arrangements are stripped down; they barely qualify as belonging to some category (though I think they’re beautiful enough to tempt various genres to want to include them). Does that make them pure music?
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