esrosedotblog

Ethnic. It has not arrived but has always been here. It is just that now the reach of the internet allows us to see a wider range.

This is a little like Klezmer but not. It probably comes from the same place though. I think they are Hungarian.

I love music that laughs.

Thanks to my Canadian friend for this. And be careful. When you YouTube it there will be more and more and maybe you will get hooked.

It is OK to tap your feet and snap your fingers. That is what makes folk folk. It touches us.

Labels: music

That song that clings, and sings.

This has been going on in my head for two days. I hope this might help get it out of there.

I had forgotten that it was Johnny Mathis.

I thought Nat King Cole. Sue me.

Mathis sort of came out as a gay man then back pedaled.

Management told him to get back into the closet.

I was surprised to find that he is still very much alive! And still working. He is 78.

I don't need him to come out. He has gone from a guy who was gay being famous and successful to being a guy who is almost as old as I am and still working, riding those hits to the end.

Labels: gay history, music

Lambert and Stamp were rock stars who never performed before an audience.

They did try to make a film and that is when they found The Who, a struggling rock band.

They decided to film the band in the hope that success would provide a nice story for their documentary.

'Lambert And Stamp': The Story Of The Men Who Helped Make The Who (2015)

In the process, they found themselves sort of managing the situation so they could get good footage. And that involved some attention to performance details, costume, music and the like.

Before they or the band realized it they are the managers and had a runaway success on their hands.

They went on, in time, to manage other stars as well. Jimmy Hendrix for one.

Only one of the team survives and he is a charming story teller.

Members of the band are also seen.

It is a sideways doc of the band and the business which is unique and fascinating.

I would not mind seeing it again. A 4 out of Netflix5.

Labels: documentary, films, music

Of course, at my age (moan moan) everything and nothing is a surprise.

We list an important member of our cohort today.

David Bowie Dies at 69; a Chameleon in Music, Art and Fashion

I feel surprised at the empty feeling, of loss, at his death.

The chorus of "Young Americans" is running through my mind.

Watch the video and stay for the next one too.*

*And if that isn't enough for you here are 17! videos in order of greatest hits. Look at him. The ch-ch-changes!

Labels: music, obituary

Bob Dylan has been both in and out of favor with me.

I think there is a reason for that. He has swung all along the road from one lane to another and down another road again during his career.

Here, he breaks it down for us. I truly believe all the words he is saying here.

Grammys 2015: Transcript of Bob Dylan's MusiCares Person of Year speech

It is long but it is a virtual history of his work and the times he did that work in.

He has endured. He did not go out on drugs or alcohol. He has not killed himself for real or symbolically. He has just writ the songs and sung them.

I commend to you: Bob Dylan.

Labels: heroes, music

I have been listening to Clark Terry play the horn most of my life.

Here and there. On the Tonight Shows. A genius.

Now this film on his life and work.

Keep On Keepin' On (2014)

There is a lot of music from Terry on this. But it is all clips. He is hitting 90 and is seriously diabetic. The ravages of the road.

Featured is a young, blind protogé, Justin Kauflin. Magic.

It is wonderful to see how Terry has spread the jazz gospel and equally supported other her musicians. Some of these appear in the doc.

I loved this film. It is a definite 5 out of Netflix5. I will see it again when I need a taste of sublime jazz playing and thought.

And a bonus round.

Labels: films, jazz, music

Today, a movie performed in the nude.

Actually, a long running stage show refitted for the DVD. With very little embellishment. Get it? Little embellishment.

What I mean is that it is the show and the show and the performers from the show which has been done live in many cities for many years by many many male singer/dancers and as far as I know it is still running in off the main road places. But I doubt it. I think that it has had to run its course by now.

Wait!

Stop the press!

It is still running off Broadway in NYC at the Kirk Theater.

This is a show based on the standard musical review format. Nothing new there. The talent is quite good at singing and dancing. Nothing new there. They are quite good looking. Not new either. And we get to see all of them! New. Definitely new.

Some of the tunes and lyrics are so good that they will bring tears. While the audience is quite mixed in age and gender it is obviously a gay show from the very start. Men hug, kiss, admire each others' anatomy. All of it.

But it goes down quite smoothly I think (!?) because the show is funny, wise, pointed and topical.

It moves. Not a single moment lags.

And finally, the men while attractive are quite "normal". That is, the bodies while athletic, they are dancers, are not extraordinary and the male equipment ranges in size and conformity across a wide range. No man should feel inadequate watching this. There is one set of genitals in their somewhere that are just like yours.

The usual seems to occur, just an expert observation. The littlest and skinniest guys have the biggest dicks. Why is that?

One thing I like about this show is that it confronts its main criticism straight on. The first number is called Gratuitous Nudity which this obviously is and those of us who wish to say it get called out right away.

And, there are many scenes with the bodies clothed, wisely observing the fact that continuous nudity is boring and not very interesting. It is at its best when it is shown a little at a time. Gypsy Rose Lee (look it up) knew this and kept a career as a stripper going for many years after her prime.

She sold it, bit by bit.

Labels: broadway, films, gay films, music

There is a whole period in Rock and Roll history where everything happened on the West Coast.

A lot of hits were churned out during this period. Today's film is a documentary about the studio musicians who worked as backup for the star artists. They often made the whole thing work with their sounds an innovations.

The Wrecking Crew (2015)

The film is made by a son of one of the guys who did the heavy lifting behind the scenes for major acts.

There doesn't seem to be any anger around this at all. It is more about illuminating a side of that business that has been kept quiet because, hey, who wants to know that their favorite rock star can't lay down a decent lick?

I liked it. There were even some teary moments as always occur in one of these things. Nice feelings.

Labels: documentary, films, music

A successful transfer from stage to film is rare.

Especially musicals.

But the film version of Stephen Sondheim's

Into the Woods (2014)

is the rare exception.

It helps that Sondheim's music is near symphonic so the film score is not overblown as is often the case.

And to be quite pedestrian about it, the sound synch with the actor's is superb.

I saw that they were singing it on set and that conveys.

It is a bit shorter than the stage version which we saw in New York but that is OK. I was not keeping time.

The surprise is Meryl Streep. I am not usually a fan but she excels here as do all the others. Chris Pine, Anne Kendrick and our Johnny Depp as the Wolf.

Very good. I suppose we will buy it. That makes it a 5 out of Netflix5.

Labels: films, music

I am so pleased to see this.

Nina Simone’s Time Is Now, Again

Her voice is so alive in my heart and mind.

Montreux 1976 - How it Feels to be Free

Labels: music

I came a little late to hear this kind of music for real.

But it was still around through the Thirties.

The style of the videos is very much like the musical shorts that were still playing when I was a kid.

Many thanks to Kelvin for pointing this video out.

You can continue on your own if you like this one. Just watch the "next" that comes up at the end.

Labels: fun, music

The city is very peaceful this weekend.

That is because they are all at The Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival in Indio.

Fortunately they are way down there and not anywhere near up here although all our hotels are filled with Coachella guests.

I don't know much about it. It is a world that passed by me. Or I passed by it. I know about or have heard of exactly two of the acts before. And only by reputation.

I am glad they are doing it. It is good for the economy. But I can't help but think that it may not be very good for the desert.

Or, what the hell. The desert is pretty barren. It isn't as though anything was disturbed for the fest to happen. Just wildlife, the ecology and the neighbors.

Curmudgeon.

The desert is still considered a dump by some.

The evidence for that is strewn along the highways and even in the fields.

It was always thus.

Of course, I am doing my part. Grassing over a part of it and using up the water we do not have. I sit on the condo board. We will be turning off the spigots soon.

But I digress.

Let's have some music and keep the hotels going. By all means.

They chose a good time incidentally. This is the prime time of the year. Temperatures and conditions. No rain. No clouds. There will be a lot of sunburns though.

They are considering going to January but I am not sure that is a good idea. It can get cold and there are the winter rains. But they won't ask me, huh?

Labels: coachella valley, desert, music, Palm Springs

It is hard to adapt any original material for film, let alone a musical.

Often what is charming and engaging on stage dies on the screen, the withers on the teevee version.

To all this critical nonsense I have to admit that I do not give a shit.

I will never go see the stage version. I am not in the great, late NYC swim.

So, my standards are twisted by being provincial. And so I find

Jersey Boys (2014)

great entertainment fun and worth a 5 out of Netflix5.

There is no way to make this appreciation abstract.

In a way you had to be there. All of it. The shows, the cars, the clothes and above all Franky and the boys.

This is a wonderful bath in the traditional bio-musical form. They pulled it off.

Directed by Clint Easta\wood of all people. Genius. It helps that the singing us quite immediate and real. The real actors, I believe, undubbed although I could be wrong about that part.

Sit back. Listen. Watch. See it all. The clothes, the shows, the music, the joy.

A 5. I want to buy this one.

Labels: films, music

Tony Danza in a new hit broadway show.

The review is here

Good for him.

I have always liked him. He rode over the cynics and wise guys who tried to take him down.

It seems to me that the song is as much about himself as anything else. The best kind of connection.

Labels: comebacks, music

Today's film was a concert.

Hall and Oates Live at the Troubador (2008)

They opened the Troubador 35 years before and they return for the anniversary.

These are all the hits, all the ones we memorized.

It is as fresh as the first time around. At least to me.

I only look in on them from time to time. I worry that a steady diet will wear them out.

I do not want that to ever happen.

It is a thrill to watch them make the sounds live. I have seen them before. There is no other group that I am this interested in.

Chemistry.

Labels: music

With John gone it has been very quiet in the house.

Not that he makes a lot of noise. But he does have a sound. Sounds.

Yesterday the silence got pretty strong and I turned on the FM radio. KUSC. The LA classical station. The only classics we can get.

All music all the time.

And not a lot of talk although during the day some of the announcers think their job includes lame humor and comment. The music is a little more easy listening during the day as well.

I had forgotten how nice it is to have a sonic blanket.

I am in and out. I listen, then not and then something catches my ear and I am into it. I have even walked to the radio and stood there, rapt.

We do not have "stereo" anymore, incidentally. A sophisticated sound system like we used to have is now wasted on old men. Acuity has gone. I am not deaf but the wave lengths are attenuated. Besides, the big Bose radio player is very good indeed.

It is a lot like WCRB or WBUR in Boston. Not NPR which we do get but is too much of an ego fest for me. When did these assholes get on board?

Of course, WHDH in Boston had Robert J Lurtsema in the morning for decades. More arch you could not get. A lonely bachelor, now deceased, who took it out on his audience. A lonely mama's boy.

But that is long ago and far away. At least he kept it down to a low basso profound drone and sort of became part of the aural landscape. Here, not so much. Intrusion. Fucking jokes. But it is all we have here so I am grateful.

Labels: music, radio

The pianist and composer Conrad Tao performs the third movement of Prokofiev’s Seventh Piano Sonata.

Labels: music

I am not a particular Dolly Parton fan but I can remember her songs on the jukebox at Sporters, a long gone deeply mourned gay bar.

Frisson. Every time.

"Here you come again."

Holy shit. A gay anthem of regret and happiness all in one simple song.

I find that I am not the only gay boy who liked Dolly. Look at this.

Dollywood, a Little Bit Country and a Little Bit Gay

She is a universal gay icon which makes the whole Dollywood thing even more delicious. All those Southern Baptists haven't a clue. Or maybe they do.

I have always suspected the buttoned up choirboys (I was one) and the well behaved young men of some hidden sins which bend in my direction.

Should I mention that I am married to one of that kind of southern boy. Even though he was not a baptist boy in the practicing sense, his roots in country are as deep as mine.

But mine extend down in hillbilly soil. Appalachia.

And there is Dolly. Overdressed, and over the top with the emotion. She learned from the drag queens, just as we all did whether we liked it or not. They fed us their glorious spinach. Let it all out girl.

It brings tears to my eyes. So much. So much. In just one little song and songbird.

Labels: gay heroes, gay life, music

It isn't often that pop music yields a beautiful ode to numbers.

But Kate Bush did it.

Beautifully.

I am reminded of this because Ms. Bush is giving a live concert in London, the first one in 35 years. Be sure to look at all the pictures at the link. She is a diva.

If you want to sing along, here are the lyrics.

I have never heard this before even though I am familiar with Ms. Bush' work.

All the more reason to love her.

It would be nice to know who this man is and if he went to MIT!

Labels: mathematics, music

I woke up with this in my head and then spent half an hour looking at all the versions.

This is a two-fer. A great Dylan song and the Byrds.

Poor quality doesn't prevent seeing a great tune well done.

I loved the Byrds. Still do. When it came down to it, they did the best job on Bob Dylan's music. Better than the man himself.

Labels: music