Category Archives: Music

The Jazz Chain – Link 2: Sabu Martinez

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It’s time to forge the second link in our jazz chain. What’s this ‘jazz chain’ you ask? Well, I’m taking a tour through the history of jazz, one album at a time, and each week’s album will be linked to the previous week’s selection by a common artist.

For example: last week the chain started with Art Blakey’s Orgy in Rhythm. One of the musicians from that album was Sabu Martinez who played percussion and provided the vocals for three of it’s tracks. This week we’re looking at Sabu Martinez’s album Sorcery!. Next week’s album will be lead by one of the the other musicians playing on Sorcery!.1I’ve already chosen the artist and album for next week, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Sorcery! – Sabu Martinez – 1958

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The Jazz Chain – Link 1: Art Blakey

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Today I’m starting a new weekly series. When I created this website I called it “Looking for a Rabbit Hole” for a reason. Along with being a place to showcase some of my writing it was also supposed to be a place for me to talk about all the various bits of entertainment I like to lose myself in. I love stories in all the forms stories take, and I love music, and I love talking about stories and music. To that end I’m working up some on-going features I’d like to have here on the blog where I talk about the “Rabbit Holes” of story and music I’m losing myself in whether new, new-to-me, or old favorites.

This series then, “The Jazz Chain”, will be the first of these projects. Continue reading →

The Music I Can’t Stop Listening Too Lately

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So I’m becoming more and more of a music omnivore. There are very few genres of music I don’t like, and in fact my music collection probably has at least one representative of most any well known genre. They only major exception I can think of off the top of my head are Boy/Girl Group Pop Genres where how pretty the singer(s) are and how well they dance are often as or more important than the actual music. No. Sorry – this is not, has never been, and probably will never be my thing.

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Jazz Collection Update

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I’ve written previously about my growing interest in and enjoyment of jazz here and here. Since then I’ve added quite a bit to the collection picking up some new albums for musicians I already had, like Art Blakey and Charles Mingus and adding many new jazz artists and groups to the collection. Some of these have become favorites of mine. Charles Mingus’ The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady is nothing short of incredible, a true work of genius. Clifford Brown is great and his work with Art Blakey (possibly my favorite jazz musician) on A Night At Birdland Vol. 1 & 2 is really enjoyable. Pharoah Sanders’ Elevation gets a lot of plays as does Bobby Hutcherson’s Dialogue.

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Covers and Shared Worlds

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Prepare for my thoughts! And a ridiculous amount of links!

I love covers. Not book covers, though there are plenty of nice examples of those out there, but covers of songs. Just love them. Discovering a new take on a song I like, or even one I hadn’t before, just puts a smile on my face.

I also enjoy living in the future. Thanks to YouTube and streaming music services I can now go on quests to find covers I’d never heard before. Do you have any idea how many versions of Sting’s “Fields of Gold” there are? I have to be careful though, because I can turn such quests into tools of procrastination like no other.

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Reading and Writing: A Couple Challenges for 2013

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A few weeks ago I took on two new challenges that will run the span of 2013. The first was a writing challenge and the second was a reading one.

The writing challenge came from the fantastic musician John Anealio. Well, to be specific this isn’t a writing challenge, its a challenge to be creative. He’s calling it “23 in ’13” and, as you might guess, it’s all about doing 23 creative things over the course of the year. His goal is to create 23 new songs this year. My goal is to create 23 new short stories that I consider good enough in quality to submit to editors. I’m a little behind myself but I’ve got one new story out in the slush piles (it’s already gained it’s first rejection) and one new installment of Empire and Animal.

You can join in the fun over at John’s blog. I recommend getting on his mailing list. You can also download the three instrumental pieces he’s made for the challenge so far or pick up his album “Laser Zombie Robot Love” which is really good.

The reading challenge comes from Worlds Without End. They are having a Women of Genre Fiction Reading Challenge. The goal is to read 12 books this year each by a different woman author that you have never read before. If you sign up they’ve got a great tracking page set up for the challenge and a huge list of authors to explore. Full participationi also includes writing at least a small review for each book you read but it gives you a chance to be featured on their blog. If that happens you also get put into a poll for a chance to win Amazon gift cards! I highly recommend joining in this.

I’ve read my first book for the challenge, Lauren Beukes amazing “Zoo City”, and I’ll be posting my review in the next day or two. I’ve started my second book, Kelly Link’s “Stranger Things Happen”. After that it’ll be Octavia E. Butler’s “Wild Seed”. After that? Who knows. Something awesome I’d bet.

Any of you participating in these challenges? Know of another great one? Got your own? Shout it out in the comments!