Happy Labor Day weekend to one and all. I'll be celebrating by working tonight. I'm curious, what are the best songs about working? What are your thoughts?
Labor Day weekend is the unofficial last weekend of the summer, so I hope you all have some spectacular festivities planned. If you don't, might I suggest one to those in the Chicago area: the Chicago Jazz Fest in Grant Park, which goes on today and tomorrow.
I've often wondered how this fest can be so packed with people every year, but then you never hear anyone talking much about going to jazz venues or concerts. I suppose part of the charm of Jazz or Blues Fest is that you can sit around the lawn in Grant Park, enjoy some expensive food and beer, and spend time with your friends on a beautiful Chicago day--which as most know, we only get a handful of all year. The music almost becomes an after-thought. In fact if you walk around, you'll see a great number who definitely have no interest in the music itself and are merely using it like a soundtrack playing in the background, which is fine I suppose, but personally I don't get it.
Jazz is America's one true artform. It is spontaneous, at times energetic, at times thoughtful, at times a canvas of aural color, tone, and nuance. But to be truly appreciated, it needs to be LISTENED to. It takes work, but once you develop an ear for it, jazz will reward you time and time again. It's hard to shift between pop music and jazz music, as pop can be listened to very passively, and while you might even miss things with pop if you're not careful, you can still appreciate it on a certain level while doing about ten different things at once, as we Americans, the Kings and Queens of Multi-tasking tend to do. I encourage you to go to Jazz Fest and just listen. If you can't get there, get yourself some Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, and Billie Holliday albums and do the same. "Kind of Blue" by Miles and "Blue Train" by Coltrane are good starting points. Give them a couple of real, fully devoted listens and I think you'll get something out of them. Then if you're feeling really adventurous, check out "A Love Supreme" by Coltrane and "Bitches Brew" by Miles. Any thing by Charlie Parker is amazing. I recommend "The Quintet at Massey Hall", though, which also features Dizzy Gillespe, Bud Powell, and Charles Mingus (who may very well be one of the greatest American composers of all time).
That's my jazz rant of the day. I wanted to talk a little bit about Dylan playing 3 shows at the end of October, which coincides with the release of his Christmas album, but I'll save that for later.
Oh and did you know that the Sony Walkman outsells the iPod in Japan? I know it's the modern version of the Walkman, but in my mind I have visions of hip Japanese youth carrying around the big 'ol '80s style tape deck Walkman! Hey, I made some great mix tapes in my day! In a way, I kind of miss it.
And also, I'm thinking of the Dylan song, "Idiot Wind". Just wanted to let you know. Long story. Might have to do with politics, might not.
Oh, and here's some Bird and Diz, once again I'm technology stupid, so you might have to copy and paste this into your browser since I can't figure out how to create a link!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkvCDCOGzGc
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment