Catch Up Time
Apr. 9th, 2019 09:26 pmJust about to catch up with some telly - University Challenge, Cloak and Dagger, more Star Trek DS9 and Supergirl.
Meanwhile, here is the title track of Here's To Life (sung live by Shirey) and yes ordered the album from Amazon for £6.
Shirley Horn - Here's to Life
Wire magazine reviewed it in 1992 saying -
"With Sarah gone and both Ella and now Carmen out of action for some while, the baton has rather suddenly passed to Shirley Horn and Abbey Lincoln. According to the textbook, it ought to be Betty Carter, but she is still seen as too individualistic by those who like their standards, whereas Horn and Lincoln stay just the "right side" of idiosyncrasy; oddly enough, all three are signed to the same label. (Cassandra Wilson, as well as being the wrong generation, hasn't even arrived in the standards league - just in case you were wondering).
This is obviously the album which, with its strings arranged by Johnny Mandel (whom we now have to call "ex-Natalie Cole" rather than "ex-Basie"), is designed to make Horn's status obvious to a wider public. There's a George-and-Ira, a Richard-andLarry and three by Mandel ("A Time For Love" is his best-known here) as well as more recherche stuff, but the material does present problems for me. Not only "If You Love Me", written by (and only right for) Edith Piaf, but the title-track which is a straight steal from Aznavour's "Yesterday When I Was Young" plus a middle-eight lifted from Michel Legrand.
And talk about a midnight mood . . . if you listened to this in the wrong frame of mind, you'd certainly drop off, for hardly anything rises above the snails-pace that was impossible for singers pre-Carter (the film theme "Return To Paradise" is the exception, and features the only half-way heated slice of Horn piano). But, if you listen receptively, you can hear that her almost verbatim readings contain a wealth of subtlety, and her extraordinary voice (going more than an octave below middle-C at one point) can get painfully hypnotic after a while.
I sold some old paperbacks for a fiver in Faversham anyway whilst in town, today, which has gone towards this purchase
Tara for now.
Meanwhile, here is the title track of Here's To Life (sung live by Shirey) and yes ordered the album from Amazon for £6.
Shirley Horn - Here's to Life
Wire magazine reviewed it in 1992 saying -
"With Sarah gone and both Ella and now Carmen out of action for some while, the baton has rather suddenly passed to Shirley Horn and Abbey Lincoln. According to the textbook, it ought to be Betty Carter, but she is still seen as too individualistic by those who like their standards, whereas Horn and Lincoln stay just the "right side" of idiosyncrasy; oddly enough, all three are signed to the same label. (Cassandra Wilson, as well as being the wrong generation, hasn't even arrived in the standards league - just in case you were wondering).
This is obviously the album which, with its strings arranged by Johnny Mandel (whom we now have to call "ex-Natalie Cole" rather than "ex-Basie"), is designed to make Horn's status obvious to a wider public. There's a George-and-Ira, a Richard-andLarry and three by Mandel ("A Time For Love" is his best-known here) as well as more recherche stuff, but the material does present problems for me. Not only "If You Love Me", written by (and only right for) Edith Piaf, but the title-track which is a straight steal from Aznavour's "Yesterday When I Was Young" plus a middle-eight lifted from Michel Legrand.
And talk about a midnight mood . . . if you listened to this in the wrong frame of mind, you'd certainly drop off, for hardly anything rises above the snails-pace that was impossible for singers pre-Carter (the film theme "Return To Paradise" is the exception, and features the only half-way heated slice of Horn piano). But, if you listen receptively, you can hear that her almost verbatim readings contain a wealth of subtlety, and her extraordinary voice (going more than an octave below middle-C at one point) can get painfully hypnotic after a while.
I sold some old paperbacks for a fiver in Faversham anyway whilst in town, today, which has gone towards this purchase
Tara for now.
University Challenge
Sep. 11th, 2018 05:05 amI did better than expected on Monday's Univeristy Challenge and here is a claasic pro celebrity version from 1992 when it was stillon commercialTV rather than the BBC - Stephen Fry is on the pro team. This clip also features a quick potted history of the show which is still going strong on BBBC 2 now.
The sound quality is a bit poor though.
And here is a more recent edition from 2014.
A University Challenge special.
Magdalen College, Oxford and Manchester University have both won the quiz four times. Now they battle it out to become the Champion of Champions.
Aired date:19th April 2014
The sound quality is a bit poor though.
And here is a more recent edition from 2014.
A University Challenge special.
Magdalen College, Oxford and Manchester University have both won the quiz four times. Now they battle it out to become the Champion of Champions.
Aired date:19th April 2014
Some Random Thoughts
Sep. 23rd, 2014 10:32 amI am looking forward to my next gig under my nom de guerre Jazzy D on Wednesday night as I have a number of tunes that I have re-discovered or not realised I had when I played them from the external hard drive over the weekend.
I was reading a book the other day about the Cuban revolution, and what I did not know, and is not so well known outside of the country , is that since the turn of the 20th century there has been a sizeable Chinese community. Chinese immigration to Cuba started in the middle of the nineteenth century. That is one factoid that was new to me.
You know it is becoming autumnal when the nights draw in and you have to turn on the lights at earlier times in the evening. I have noticed that the last couple of days have felt chillier, although the forecast is for one last bout of heatwave for the next few days.
I think my brain must have been floating in space last night as I tried to answer some of the questions in University Challenge and attempted the connections in Only Connect. I found myself floundering , and as it dawned on me today, that disengagement gave me a very good night's sleep. I am usually sharp as a pin and apart from getting the Gladstone answer right, and the science ones, my mind must have drifted into a sea of tranquillity.
A Facebook colleague was gushing praise over the portrayal of Cilla Black in the three part dramatization of her life by actor Sheridan Smith on the ITV channel. He has not heard of her before. Well, Barry, she first came to my notice years ago in the BBC 3 comedy Two Pints of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps. As well as being on TV she is an excellent theatre actor and a wonderful singer. Not only that, but she played Lucy Miller in the Big Finish audio dramas alongside Paul McGann as the 8th Doctor, and for awhile was the travelling companion of the Meddling Monk, as revealed at the end of the Book Of Kells episode.
Last night, after thinking about the Monk's nom de guerre, Thelonios, I played some music by the jazz pianist Thelonious Monk, followed by some early thirties blues from Blind Willie McTell. Listening to Monk is getting to be a kind of habit (pun intended).
I was reading a book the other day about the Cuban revolution, and what I did not know, and is not so well known outside of the country , is that since the turn of the 20th century there has been a sizeable Chinese community. Chinese immigration to Cuba started in the middle of the nineteenth century. That is one factoid that was new to me.
You know it is becoming autumnal when the nights draw in and you have to turn on the lights at earlier times in the evening. I have noticed that the last couple of days have felt chillier, although the forecast is for one last bout of heatwave for the next few days.
I think my brain must have been floating in space last night as I tried to answer some of the questions in University Challenge and attempted the connections in Only Connect. I found myself floundering , and as it dawned on me today, that disengagement gave me a very good night's sleep. I am usually sharp as a pin and apart from getting the Gladstone answer right, and the science ones, my mind must have drifted into a sea of tranquillity.
A Facebook colleague was gushing praise over the portrayal of Cilla Black in the three part dramatization of her life by actor Sheridan Smith on the ITV channel. He has not heard of her before. Well, Barry, she first came to my notice years ago in the BBC 3 comedy Two Pints of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps. As well as being on TV she is an excellent theatre actor and a wonderful singer. Not only that, but she played Lucy Miller in the Big Finish audio dramas alongside Paul McGann as the 8th Doctor, and for awhile was the travelling companion of the Meddling Monk, as revealed at the end of the Book Of Kells episode.
Last night, after thinking about the Monk's nom de guerre, Thelonios, I played some music by the jazz pianist Thelonious Monk, followed by some early thirties blues from Blind Willie McTell. Listening to Monk is getting to be a kind of habit (pun intended).