Some very different eye tracks... jazz vocal, trip hop, psychedelic garage pop..
starting with "Angel Eyes", sung by multi-tracked acapella group The Singers Unlimited. I always loved the vulnerable, slightly paranoid feel of this track, very dark despite the harmonics.
Mel Torme delivers an upbeat version of "old devil moon", certainly more saccharine than Sinatra's, but Torme's voice luxuriates in the west coast jazz setting as only he can. But I've removed him, and put in Irene Kral's version of "when I look in your eyes" instead.
Change of mood for DJ Krush- "Light-can you see it- 3rd eye mix" by DJ Cam. Perfectly paced trip hop.
Finally the 3Ds' "one eye opened". He has triple vision, but only has one eye. Got that?
OK, I relented and put Mel back in the list. Sweet but brilliant. And I've added Bill Evan's beautiful Jade Visions, with Scott laFaro on bass.
To finish with, more DJ Krush: "40 Winks" from Cold Krush Cuts.
But wait! I'll add Ella Fitzgerald singing "wait till you see him", and the Verve remix of same by Dephazz. I think this is a wonderful lyric from Lorenz Hart, one of Ella's most perfectly judged performances, and a creditable, achingly restrained remix by the Heidelberg based Nu-jazzers.
The Go-betweens "the devils eye", just to add some acoustic, folk-inflected pop to the mix.. an exquisite track.
"Look up dere", Karma. atmospheric downbeat nu-jazz built around a few simple soundbites.
(Player removed)
27 comments:
Not the streets of Stuggart - that photo. Or is it? Shall enjoy your list tomorrow. I think it was Toffee having problems with the site. I've installed Firefox and it works great. I had the same problems.
Ha, actually more your backyard- Strasbourg, Christmas, 2000. The blog continues to crash on me unless I open it from my Blogspot dashboard, in which case it behaves.
I.E is shot and just crashes for me..
firefox is fine and safari too (even tho on a PC it's fuzzy)
Really like 1/3/4 but Devil Moon does nothing for me... there could be a long explanation for that. .but I can't type that much.
(Is Strasbourg in France? ... not taking my Geography lessons from The Rakes any more)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGmysOkruGo
3 out of 4 ain't bad.. I come and go with the style of Devil Moon myself, but at the moment I'm into that sort of thing again.. 5 years ago I'd have hated it.. Strasbourg is in France, the Germans call it Straßburg, but it is definitely on the west side of the border now.. although it could be that the Alsatians consider themselves neither French nor German... best not to navigate by the Rakes, I would say start off at the Gare du Nord with Bugge Wesseltoft
http://www.lastfm.de/music/Bugge+Wesseltoft/_/Gare+du+Nord and take the Trans Europe Express (Christian Prommer instead of Kraftwerk, they serve better beer in the bistro wagon)
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=_9oWI3n2KG8
Still playing messing with Firefox - don't tell IE7 now, will you? I love the way it spots your spelling mistakes - fp, is this what you've been waiting for??!!
Nice playlist, nilpferd - I loved Angel Eyes - we need more of this sort of music on the 'Spill. Gorgeous. Like saneshane though, I'm not too keen on the Mel Torme track...
Strasbourg always causes me problems as well. People at work have been asking me about my recent holiday and their eyes always tend to glaze over when I say that I went to Germany. 'Oh, nice...', they say - in a particularly unconvincing manner, while desperately trying to think of something else to say '...what part?'. It's difficult to describe to people who have never heard of the Pfalz so I usually end up saying that it's near Strasbourg and then they say, 'but isn't that in France?' and then I wish I hadn't bothered in the first place. I've said it before, but borders are strange things for us 'insel afen'.
Hmm, Mel's not doing it tonight- he was actually a late replacement for an Irene Kral sung ballad called When I look into your eyes, so maybe I'll put that back up instead.. funny, I thought people would be more iffy about the Singers U. with their acapella stigma, etc. The Pfalz is special- just got my quarter yearly delivery of wine from there- yum.
Nilp: Must say right off that the pic caught my eye, but I was disappointed that Mel Torme was relegated to the wherever, he was after all perhaps the greatest unappreciated male vocalist of his time, not counting Johnny Hartman: forget the Sinatra's et al, Torme´ was IT! You buckled to the great unwashed, you need to whip them harder, make them understand!
Angel Eyes, I must admit that I prefer the Sinatra version regardless of all of the foregoing; I think I also have Ella's version and that must also count in the scheme of things: Singers Unlimited, I could take 'em or leave 'em, always thought they were a struggling studio group, mostly good for commercials.
Irene Kral I've always enjoyed but she's no substitute for Mel.
DJ Krush: Boring in the extreme, 4 min 18sec of deadly boring drum machine plus other electronics in a 5min+ piece before the voice enters!
And then it's mic'd low and in French! Sorry, didn't care for that one.
One eye opened: I shouldn't say any more.
Cheers GF! Sorry for being so spineless. I do sometimes find Mel's style too smooth and pert myself, even though deep down I know he's a genius.
What I love about this S.U. is the vocal arranging, and this track convinces me for its subtle orchestral arrangement too. Although from about 100 tracks on their recent compendium I downloaded about 5, they lapse into kitsch too often for my tastes.
Re the DJ Krush: in principle you're right, and it's laudable that you even waited long enough to register exactly when the voice comes in! However the groove and the mood itself is the thing, the voice is more or less incidental.
Morning my cyber-cronies. Yes, Nilpferd, that street is so familar to me. I know exactly which one it is - and even which window - having filmed it several times! I have a nice wee short of Strasbourg Christmas market which I'll post in Deember. And in a way Blimpy has done us all a favour in making me install Firefox on the laptop - it's soooo much better than Internet explorer - harder, faster, fitter, stronger, so to speak. Have been a bit busy of late but am now on holiday wooo hoooo! So can catch up with blogging matters. Strasbourg really is a place all its own. The Strasbourgeois DO consider themselves to be French and proudly so, having suffered invasion and annexation during the war. They were made to learn German at school. The older members of the Bloke's family speak fluent German as well as Alsacian which is a dialect of German, not French. One always suspects that it's always the older Alsacians who speak it but this is not the case. The young man I bought my salmon off last night - early twenties - was jesting around with one of the sales girls - in Alsacian. And yet they refer to the rest of the country as "Les Français de l'intérieur" so there IS a notion of 'apartness', of 'them and us'. Beautiful region, though.
Toffee - the spellcheck is fine, except that I have French firefox (reynard de feu!) and so every English word is underlined - choh! Still a nice function though and sure I'll get round to parametering it. Sometime. Never. And I tried Nilpferd's suggestion of opening t'Spill from the blogger dashboard in I.E.. Crashed and burned on the first date, so to speak.
I've also switched to firefox, it is much quicker than I.E. and doesn't crash.. all good..
I've relented and put Mel back in, to balance things I've also added another DJ Krush track and Bill Evan's Jade Visions. Was toying with Miles' Double Image but that might be pushing it a bit.
If you all work with tabs like I do, on Firefox place your cursor in the browser address field and Ctrl + T opens a new tab.
fp - thanks - tabs were the one thing I was missing. I may have left IE for good...
Right behind you in the IE exodus...
...and if you go to 'Tools' > 'Options' and select 'Tabs' you get all sorts of options including 'Always show the tab bar' - you can then open new tabs by right clicking in the grey bar. I think I'm in love...
(Ctl. T's new window in Firefox to check blog)
Oy!!! Stop computer geeking my post you lot!!
(makes secret note of TB's latest FF tip)
Falling about at Toffee's comment. FF is rather dandy. We use it at work too. Very occasionally you get a site which doesn't work with FF but it's about 1% of the time. So don't delete your IE just yet. Just shove it in the corner where it belongs.
hey you lot ...sorry nilpf...
if it's wet where you are.. here is the guide to 'pimping your firefox'
from the lovely DorkTalk:
http://stephenfry.com/blog/?p=29
I don't understand computers at all so this was great...
Great cos when I switch on Midnight thursdays..one click and RR, A-Z, Deezer and I-tunes all open at once.
(except when they forget to post it up!)
the spill, boxstr, podbean, photoshop one click as well....
(I'm getting SO sad.. I'm almost enjoying the stupid lump of plastic.... but a long way off Blimpys Apple pleasure though)
here is the continuing article...
http://stephenfry.com/blog/?p=31
have fun.
I'm enjoying Jade Visions and I may have to search out Cold Krush Cuts for some afternoon listening.
Nilp: Thank you, you did the right thing, now those with ears can hear.
I have a jazz DJ friend who, 'on principle' refused to ever play pop vocalists on his program, Billie was an exception because Lester was usually there, and then he 'found' Mel Torme´, now he gets regular airplay. I think he's probably the only real male jazz vocalist, he understands the medium and uses it and he has great arrangements in his backing band.
About 3 days after I arrived in the US in 1958 I went to a supermarket, at the checkout there was a display of albums priced at 88 cents, I couldn't believe it, in England they cost pounds not cents; I bought two, the original Ellington Diminuendo and Crescendo in blue and a Mel Torme´album, my first.
cheers shane, looks like a good resource.
GF- agreed, M.T. is probably the most instrumentally sympathetic male jazz vocalist. Marty Paich also understood how to incorporate his voice into the overall scheme of his arrangements. I think for people more attuned to pop, it can be difficult to get into the sheer "musicality" of his voice, on the other hand more highbrow jazz fans reject the smoothness. The track in question was recorded in L.A. 1960 for an album called "Swings Schubert Alley" and features Art Pepper, by the way.
How about Chet Baker? I know he was primarily a trumpeter but I love his lazy, can't quite be arsed, delivery.
I think Chet sang like a pop singer, or perhaps a torch singer, his delivery emphasises the vulnerablity of his voice above all. That is a different, more emotional approach to Mel Torme, who had more musical virtuosity, without wanting that to seem like a value judgement. However there are also jazz instrumentalists who play like Chet sung, which probably renders the above analysis redundant.
So I think GF and I appreciate the swing and bebop feel of Mel Torme's singing, which was heavily dependent on tone, musical dexterity and perfect pitch delivery, applied to musical genres which require high levels of technical skill. In those areas he was probably unequalled.
Well said and thanks for the album info, I wondered who did the arrangement, I love Art Pepper, I'll look for the album.
NOW you're talking. Chet's voice is one of my greatest sources of happiness; You have to listen to his voice when he was a young man - recordings called 'Young Chet' - when compared with the wrecked but mellow instrument of a voice he had at the end. And don't forget that Bruce Weber's 'Let's Get Lost' documentary has just been re-released in the cinemas. Compulsory viewing if you love Chet Baker. He sang like he played, with cool, throwaway genius.
I'd like to see Let's get lost, if I can find the time in the school hols.. in the spirit of keeping on adding to my post I've now put up an original and a remix of Ella Fitzgerald singing "wait till you see him."
Loved the Light, Can You See It? track.
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