Category: music

“It soon dawned on me that I was no longer in the realm of how to listen but that of why we must listen. The central tenet in John Cage’s philosophy of art — and, for that matter, of life — is the essential need to pay attention. Listening really does matter. That message, moreover, was all around us.” – Los Angeles Times

Statistics can’t begin to describe the importance of The Blue Whale to the jazz ecology, in Los Angeles and beyond. On social media, testimonials have flowed freely from musicians and fans, along with expressions of sorrow. – WBGO

As one bitterly disappointed singer posted on Facebook after the pandemic had ended all choir rehearsals, “Every time I hear someone go, ‘Hey, is there an app that can let me do a choir rehearsal with no latency?’ NOT UNLESS YOU BREAK PHYSICS, YA DUMMY.” Baritone David Newman replied, “Physics are not insurmountable.” And his solution requires only some inexpensive audio equipment available at almost any Walmart or Best Buy. – Los Angeles Times

The composer of the catchy tune, South African Solomon Linda, died destitute in 1962. While US artists were at loggerheads over the lucrative melody, he had been in and out of hospitals and suffering from kidney failure. – BBC

The Master of the Choristers at England’s Chapel Royal had the legal right to travel the land in search of the most talented young men and take them away to London to sing at the monarch’s religious services. This was, of course, a situation ripe for abuse, and in the days of Elizabeth I, Master Nathaniel Giles would conscript boys for his pal Henry Evans’s acting company at the Blackfriars Theatre — or they’d split the bribes from parents desperate to keep their families together. Then, one day in 1600, they chose the wrong target. – JSTOR Daily

The Dallas music critic has thousands of CDs accumulated over a long career. Of course he’s not going to give them up. Is it just habit, or is there something better about listening to music on plastic discs. Well, the first step in recovery is admitting you have a problem… – Dallas Morning News

The musicians’ union and management have agreed on terms for rehearsing and performing from February to May, wth players receiving 80% of their previous salary for 20 weeks beginning Jan. 4. Management will have increased flexibility (compared to the previous contract) to change programming and personnel and to record and stream concerts. – Arts Knoxville

Each holiday season, Mariah Carey’s song and other holiday tunes begin to climb the Billboard charts as their popularity resurfaces through streaming, radio play and even digital sales. Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” is No. 2 on the Hot 100 chart this week, followed by Bobby Helms’ “Jingle Bell Rock,“ Burl Ives’ “A Holly Jolly Christmas” and Andy Williams’ “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” – Toronto Star (AP)

From an 1805 concert for the gentry of Charleston featuring the first movement of the First Symphony through the flood of German immigrants in the 1840s, the establishment of orchestras in New York and Boston, and the rise of the Romantic cult of the lone genius, Beethoven’s music was what established both the habit of programming concerts focusing on dead composers’ works and the idea of classical music as an ennobling force with moral value. – Smithsonian Magazine