The Lemon Fool

I love most music, Classical, church music, and at least as much as anything else, New Orleans Jazz music, Some call it Dixieland but that is quite different. I am currently listening to George Lewis at Manny's Tavern in 1949. Weary Blues, Bugle Call Rag? Marvellous. George Lewis, Elmer Tarbert, Alcide Pavageau, Johnny Wiggs. Classics of N O of the period. No 'Big' Jim Robinson though.

For those who know it, Tishomingo Blues? Wonderful stuff.

Dod

Thanks for pointing those out Dod, wonderful stuff as you rightly say. Reminds me of my only visit to N'orlens about 15 years ago, must go back when the world reopens.

MM

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i was brought up on classical , since being in my pram .

worked through the popular classics , brahms , beethoven , mozart etc , then shostokovich . prokokiev bruckner .,

not that keen on mahler , elgar ..

some great women composers surfacing at last .

jazz just hasnt appealed as yet .

MaraMan wrote:Thanks for pointing those out Dod, wonderful stuff as you rightly say. Reminds me of my only visit to N'orlens about 15 years ago, must go back when the world reopens.

MM

When a good friend of mine with an enormous collection of vinyl jazz records (of all types) left HK he paid me the greatest complement on jazz that I have ever had. He said that he reckoned I had the biggest collection of New Orleans jazz in HK at the time. I still have it but mostly these days on CD. George H Buck in New Orleans has an enormous catalogue or did at least the last time I looked-some time ago now. I used to haunt James Asman and Dobells in London but they are long gone.

We were set to go to new Orleans a few days after 9/11. Cancelled of course and I have never got there (as yet anyway)

Dod

jackdaww wrote:.

i was brought up on classical , since being in my pram .

worked through the popular classics , brahms , beethoven , mozart etc , then shostokovich . prokokiev bruckner .,

not that keen on mahler , elgar ..

some great women composers surfacing at last .

jazz just hasnt appealed as yet .

Yes, it is a massive canon to explore, there's no end really. Years ago I discovered Beethoven's late string quartets and have listened to them many times. In recent years I've discovered Bartok's string quartets which to my ear did need several listens before they started to make some sense. Thought I would like Shostakovich so bought a collection of his symphonies; I've concluded that he isn't right for me, he seems to throw in every compositional device when less might be more.

Jazz and poetry are two art forms that I have always struggled with, despite repeated attempts to enjoy them.

bluedonkey wrote:
Jazz and poetry are two art forms that I have always struggled with, despite repeated attempts to enjoy them.

Jazz of course comes in all shapes and sizes and my little corner of it has very little in common with the likes of Coltrane or even with the more middle of the road stuff. The main art form that I do not 'get' is ballet although often the music makes up for it.

Beethoven must be my favourite classical music although I enjoy most composers, even Mahler as I have got older.

Dod

"Even Mahler" !

Yes, I forgot ballet. Slightly easier than the others that I struggle with, perhaps it gets upgraded to a "meh".

bluedonkey wrote:"Even Mahler" !

Yes, I forgot ballet. Slightly easier than the others that I struggle with, perhaps it gets upgraded to a "meh".

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ballet and opera are great music - with knobs on ....

poetry and literature have passed me by .

jackdaww wrote:

bluedonkey wrote:"Even Mahler" !

Yes, I forgot ballet. Slightly easier than the others that I struggle with, perhaps it gets upgraded to a "meh".

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ballet and opera are great music - with knobs on ....

poetry and literature have passed me by .

What's the most famous piece of literature that you couldn't get into?

bluedonkey wrote:

jackdaww wrote:

bluedonkey wrote:"Even Mahler" !

Yes, I forgot ballet. Slightly easier than the others that I struggle with, perhaps it gets upgraded to a "meh".

=======================================

ballet and opera are great music - with knobs on ....

poetry and literature have passed me by .

What's the most famous piece of literature that you couldn't get into?

=================================

Dostoevsky - crime and punishment - started but gave up ..

re ballet , the matthew bourne versions are worth a try - ballet plus entertainment .

jackdaww wrote:

bluedonkey wrote:

jackdaww wrote:
=======================================

ballet and opera are great music - with knobs on ....

poetry and literature have passed me by .

What's the most famous piece of literature that you couldn't get into?

=================================

Dostoevsky - crime and punishment - started but gave up ..

re ballet , the matthew bourne versions are worth a try - ballet plus entertainment .

I think I might struggle with Dostoevsky now. Read his novels when I was a great deal younger when I had more mental stamina!

I listen to some classical, mostly earlier rather than later. My mother exclusively listened to classical, and radio 3. I think she went over the top trying to push it on me, and I rebelled musically. As a teen, when your mum says "ooh, isn't this lovely", there is pretty much only one response..No!. Even today I'd probably avoid letting on to her that I'd listened to a bit of Bach. And she still maintains that everything outside classical has no tune. She is free to dislike the Beatles, or find it too simplistic or something, but to argue that they have no tunes is a difficult position to maintain.

I really struggle with the excessive vibrato of female classical singers, to the extent that I have to turn it off rapidly. I find this style of singing really painful to listen to.

I too don't really get ballet. But I think almost all dance is really something to enjoy by participating (not that I do much!) more than watching.

Rather than Classical vs Ephemeral, I think it's more helpful to think of music as being Universal or Tribal. Universal music - music that stands on its own merits - is most commonly but by no means always loosely labelled "classical". Tribal music is of its time and/or place, and asserts what is today fashionably called "identity": religious, nationalistic, generational, etc.

Of course the two are not mutually exclusive. Religious music is inherently tribal, none more so than early polyphonic music of the counter-reformation that is the ancestor of so much. Music that was never intended to be tribal can be appropriated, as happens when someone writes words like "land of hope and glory" or "I vow to thee my country" to a purely orchestral piece. Handel's Messiah is universal music with obvious appeal and deservedly hugely popular, yet I've heard someone argue that atheists have no business with it: she wanted to claim it for her tribe! Modern arguments over "black" music and cultural appropriation boil down to an argument over whether something is purely tribal, and (if so) whether the tribe is defined by race.

Mahler and Wagner in the same tribe. Discuss.

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interesting thread , pros and cons of this and that .

apparently thomas beecham once said -- " ..... people dont know much about music , they just like the sound it makes ".

thats the camp i am in .

jackdaww wrote:.thomas beecham once said -- " ..... people dont know much about music , they just like the sound it makes ".

Better than that. He said: "The English may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes".

He is also said to have compared the sound of the harpsichord to "two skeletons copulating on a tin roof".

Anybody else think it's time we had a Beecham thread?

BJ

Just to return to the OP, here is my one and only Jazz anecdote.

Back in the 1980s a friend who was keen on jazz took me to a jazz club. There was a bar there - of course - so I was happy whatever the music might turn out to be. The artist was a guitarist, I think he played a semi-acoustic. Anyway, even to my dull ears, I was impressed. I reckon this guy was capable of playing absolutely anything he wanted on his guitar to an incredibly high standard, he was clearly extremely skilful.

It was Joe Pass.

An interesting thread, I think I must have very wide musical tastes. I love jazz, everything from Esbjorn Svensson Trio through Miles Davis and John Coltrane to Weather Report, the Spanish Harlem Orchestra and Art Blakey. I can now add some great New Orleans jazz thanks to Dod. Classical music likes range from Philip Glass and Steve Reich through Barber, Elgar, Mahler, Wagner, Mendelssohn Beethoven etc to Monteverdi and other renaissance heavyweights. Modern music, everything from Cohen and Dylan through Kraftwerk to the Foo Fighters and Rammstein.
Poetry I am far more picky about, Gerard Manly Hopkins, T S Elliot and R S Thomas being some of the few that I like.
I agree about Matthew Bourne for Ballet, I would add Wayne MacGregor and Akram Kahn in the contempory category.
I don't think I am very that widely read although I have always read a lot. I have never managed to finish The Lord of the Rings, despite several attempts.
I don't have any jazz anecdotes unfortunately, other than my daughter in law's father was a famous Hungarian jazz bass guitarist, but sadly I never got to meet him. I did once sit with a Juilliard trained classical piano soloist in a quiet bar in Seoul while he played extracts from some great piano pieces (such as Rach 3 which he had recently recorded with the Seoul Philharmonic) for me. It was spine tingling. I won't say much about meeting a pissed Paul Weller in a bar in Osaka, not quite so spine tingling, although I like much of his music.
MM

I was mightily impressed when we went to Venice for an out of season trip in early one December (I do not recommend it, cold and wet) My wife said 'This evening we are going to the jazz club'. My answer was 'What jazz club?' She had done it all on the internet and when we got there, we were ushered in to our table, complete with my name on it. I was impressed. It even had half decent food. It was not by any means my usual jazz fair but was very good and a great experience which I can recommend.

Dod

Dod101 wrote:I was mightily impressed when we went to Venice for an out of season trip in early one December (I do not recommend it, cold and wet) My wife said 'This evening we are going to the jazz club'. My answer was 'What jazz club?' She had done it all on the internet and when we got there, we were ushered in to our table, complete with my name on it. I was impressed. It even had half decent food. It was not by any means my usual jazz fair but was very good and a great experience which I can recommend.

Dod

Myself and Mrs Arb enjoyed our one and only trip to Venice and would love to go again. We bought impromptu tickets for a performance at Il Fenice, the operahouse. I didn't expect to be able to, for in London you have to book ages ahead, but there we were with quite reasonably priced tickets in the best seats bought on the day. Not only that, but it was a comfortable ten minute amble from our hotel and no problems with trains getting home afterwards.
I was thinking of arranging another trip one day, but I can't afford the orient express every time!

Arb.