Through a process unimaginatively named “sonification”, engineers at CERN have converted the vibrations of the long-sought Higgs boson into audio. It’s not bad, actually; too bad Richard Wright isn’t around to hear it. Here. Related content from Sphere
One of my oldest and closest music-biz pals is the great jazz guitarist Steve Khan. Here’s an interview he did recently for the new Inside Musicast website.
I note with heartfelt sorrow the death of the great recording engineer Walter Sear, who died on April 29th from complications of a fall. (Somehow I missed his obituary notices at the time, and have only just heard the news.) Walter occupied a very special place in the New York recording community. Having never joined [...]
I realize that the recent flooding in Nashville has imposed a frightful toll of hardship in all the many ways that such disasters always do, but as a musician and recording engineer I find this particularly poignant. Related content from Sphere
April 27, 2010 – 10:38 pm
When I was a young man I played the drums, and was pretty sure that one day I would be a Great Big Rock Star. To advance this project, I went looking for a job at a New York City recording studio, on the theory that I’d then be right in the thick of things, [...]
Last night, unable to decide what I wanted to listen to, I stuck my hand into the CD cabinet and pulled a record out at random. It turned out to be one I hadn’t listened to in a while, and one that brought back quite a few memories — some very sad, and one that [...]
October 5, 2009 – 10:18 pm
With thanks to my colleague Eugene Dushlin for sending this my way, here’s a delightful video clip featuring some very nimble guitar-playing.
September 17, 2009 – 11:54 am
We note with sadness the death of singer Mary Travers, of complication from leukemia. She was 72. I spent some time with Ms. Travers many years ago, in the course of mixing two albums for Peter, Paul, and Mary, and it was a pleasure getting to know her. She was cheery and affable, with a [...]
September 16, 2009 – 11:59 pm
In a recent post we celebrated the healing power of music. But often, when a song touches our very plimsoul, the real baraka is in the lyrics. Here, with a hat tip to Ellisson by way of Kevin Kim, is a splendid example. Related content from Sphere
August 23, 2009 – 10:24 pm
Regular visitors to these pages will know that, in sharp contrast to the shallowness and frivolity of most weblogs, we concern ourselves here only with serious matters of the utmost philosophical import and urgency. In particular, we know that many of you turn, sometimes in bleak existential despair, to waka waka waka as place where [...]
August 10, 2009 – 7:27 pm
Back in 1994 or thereabouts, it was my pleasure to spend a few weeks recording and mixing the Bobby McFerrin album Bang! Zoom!. The album, a collaboration with the band the Yellowjackets, has remained one of my favorites — not only because of the high quality of the music, and the fun I had recording [...]
August 3, 2009 – 12:48 pm
There’s an item at CNN today about a mechanical music-maker called Cybraphon. It’s the product of a few months of work by a Scottish artist’s collective, and I think it’s rather a nifty bit of work. Automated music-making is obviously nothing new — music boxes, band organs, and hurdy-gurdys have been around for ages, and [...]
With a hat tip to bassist Alex Wan, here’s something enjoyable and instructive: Queen’s Bohemian Rahpsody, arranged for the classical guitar by one Edgar Cruz. Most impressive. Related content from Sphere
According to an item over at CNN, former Procol Harum keyboardist Matthew Fisher has won a lawsuit seeking a portion of the royalties for the band’s classic tune “A Whiter Shade of Pale”. This certainly seems fair, though I wasn’t present as the song was being written: Fisher’s plangent organ-playing is the soul of the [...]
So distracted am I, and so out of touch with the world of music just at the moment, that I didn’t know it until I read it in today’s Times: the incomparable Manny’s, midtown Manhattan’s Mecca of musical merchandise, has closed its doors. This lavish emporium, set in “Music Row” on West 48th Street amongst [...]
From our friend Sarah Zimmerman comes a link to an article by Steven Van Zandt about just what it is that ails the music business. Readers will know Steve as Bruce Springsteen’s long-time associate in the E Street Band, and as consigliere Silvio Dante from The Sopranos. I got to know Steven myself during the [...]
Our friend G. Orcalimbo Jones, during the course of his radio show last Friday, tipped off his listeners to a marvelous Internet resource: a compendious archive of live recordings from the glory days of the old Fillmore and the King Biscuit Flower Hour. It’s called Wolfgang’s Vault, and you can find it here. Related content [...]
A little while back I confessed my infatuation with Porcupine Tree‘s extraordinary drummer Gavin Harrison, who is, I still think, pretty much the bee’s knees when it comes to tapping the tubs. In that recent post I encouraged readers to go have a look for themselves, and linked to a YouTube clip of one of [...]
I’ve mentioned that I have sort of a drummer’s crush lately on Porcupine Tree / King Crimson batteur Gavin Harrison — who, I have decided, may not be human (I’m well acquainted with others of his alien species: Dennis Chambers, Keith Carlock, Peter Erskine, etc.). Here he is again. Related content from Sphere
February 16, 2009 – 11:39 pm
One of the enjoyable quirks of the Outer Cape is Provincetown’s own radio station, WOMR (“Outermost Radio”). The station is everything you might expect from a place as full of artists, writers, musicians, eccentrics, oddballs, and misfits as the far end of Cape Cod is, and the playlist is eclectic, and seldom boring. A particular [...]
January 7, 2009 – 12:00 am
New York City is a crowded, chaotic place. The public transit is bad and getting worse, and the weather is, generally, awful. Housing is cramped and expensive. The Mets and Jets collapse, like clockwork, year after year. But there are times when I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. This evening the lovely Nina and [...]
October 28, 2008 – 11:08 am
I haven’t written much about music lately, and have almost never, I think, written about my own musical background, other than as a recording engineer. But I have played the drums and the guitar since I was a boy, and before I landed my first job in a recording studio and began a career at [...]
September 15, 2008 – 10:18 pm
We must note with sadness the death, from cancer, of one of the founding members of Pink Floyd, keyboardist Richard Wright. His Times obituary is here.
March 12, 2008 – 10:26 am
We note with sadness the death of bassist Dennis Irwin. I didn’t know Dennis well, but I had met him on many occasions, and did record him once or twice. He was, in addition to being an outstanding player, a wonderfully sweet-natured man. Dennis died soon after having been diagnosed with cancer late last year, [...]
We respectfully pause to note the death of Norman Smith, the EMI engineer who not only recorded the Beatles’ audition tape, and went on to be the lead engineer on all of their recordings up to and including Rubber Soul, but who also signed to EMI a band called “The Pink Floyd”, and produced their [...]
February 27, 2008 – 10:23 pm
Another sad note: from my friend Pat Goldsmith I have just learned that drummer Buddy Miles, best known for his playing in Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsies, has died. Related content from Sphere
February 18, 2008 – 10:53 pm
Not having finished a couple of longer posts I am gestating, for this evening I can only offer lighter fare: everything you ever wanted to know about lockgrooves.
February 10, 2008 – 11:01 pm
Well, your humble correspondent had an album up for a Grammy this time around: Borrowed Time (Tiempo Prestado), by guitarist Steve Khan, which was nominated in the Best Latin Jazz Album category — but the award went to another outstanding artist, Paquito D’Rivera. Sorry Steve! We’ll get ‘em next time. Related content from Sphere
February 9, 2008 – 8:22 pm
Putting aside the pressing issues of the day for a moment, it’s time for a personal item. My 19-year-old son Nick, having taken up the guitar about three years ago at the urging of his old dad, has been writing music like mad. He spends most of his time playing his Dean Evo, but has [...]
December 22, 2007 – 9:22 pm
Following a link from Bill Vallicella, I’ve just read a review of the movie Pete Seeger: The Power of Song, in which the reviewer, the historian Ronald Radosh — who knew Seeger personally, and admires him as an artist and a man of peace, generally — nonetheless calls attention to the unrepentance of those of [...]
December 6, 2007 – 10:59 pm
I was gratified today to learn that the album Borrowed Time, which I recorded and mixed last winter for my old pal, the great jazz guitarist Steve Khan, has just been nominated for a Grammy in the “Best Latin Jazz Album” category. Steve is an outstandingly creative musician, and he certainly deserves this nomination. The [...]
October 30, 2007 – 11:34 pm
I’ve been a fan of Don Van Vliet, alias Captain Beefheart, for a very long time. Though you may not be familiar with him, he is one of the more influential figures in late 20th-century American music, and without question one of the oddest. Related content from Sphere
September 22, 2007 – 9:52 pm
I have been busy this weekend with a two-day Iron Wire seminar (which is turning out to be one of the most interesting and esoteric experiences I’ve had in 32 years of kung-fu training), so for tonight I’ll just leave you with an engaging little diversion. It’s an online test of your ability to perceive [...]
September 11, 2007 – 11:53 pm
I was saddened to see in today’s news that the great Joe Zawinul has died, of cancer, at the age of 75.
August 19, 2007 – 10:20 pm
Many, perhaps most, fans would, if asked, name Sgt. Pepper’s as the greatest Beatles album of them all — and it was, without question, a work of coruscating brilliance. But many of us who grew up during that extraordinary period in musical and cultural history feel that it was the album immediately preceding that was [...]
August 7, 2007 – 10:42 am
Kevin Kim, in today’s edition, outlines the typical career arc of a successful stand-up comic, from early aspirations at the microphone to washed-up Hollywood star. After spending many years doing freelance recording for the music-for-hire houses here in New York, I can offer a similar timeline, The Life of a Jingle Singer. Let’s say his [...]
With a hat tip to my old pal and fellow Power Station alumnus, engineer extraordinaire Larry Alexander, comes a mesmerizing animation of this John Coltrane classic, one of the high-water marks of Western civilization. Tommy Flanagan, piano; Paul Chambers, bass, Art Taylor, drums, and of course John Coltrane on tenor. If there is anything more [...]
There’ll be nothing in this space today about dualism, Darwin, Iraq, religion, or any of the rest of the tedium that usually plumps up these pages. No, today was a day to set all that dull and dreary business aside, because the Incredible Casuals were kicking off their 27th season at the legendary Wellfleet Beachcomber. [...]
As long as I’m shirking serious duties here today, I offer another amusing item, courtesy of my son Nick.
Well, I promised you all some froth, and here it is. Tonight we have, courtesy of my childhood friend Nick Nicholes, who now lives in a scenic vale in remotest Montana, a polka band that does Pink Floyd covers, and pretty well too. No quadrophonic mixes, though; you’ll just have to use your imagination. Related [...]
February 21, 2007 – 12:39 am
Saxophonist Michael Brecker, who died most unjustly a few weeks ago, was remembered tonight in a memorial service at Town Hall, which was filled to capacity by the people who knew and loved him.
February 16, 2007 – 11:49 pm
From trumpeter John McNeil, who’s been through a lot:
You don’t have to fail absolutely to have no confidence: you just have to fail every so often.
February 7, 2007 – 11:04 pm
I don’t often recommend recordings in these pages, as people’s tastes vary greatly — but maybe I should, as I have, in the course of thirty years as a recording engineer, been exposed to an awful lot of good music. So here’s one, if you’re interested.
January 31, 2007 – 12:50 am
From my friend Eugene Jen comes an interesting item about one Dmitri Tymoczko (Harvard ’91), who has come up with a new way of mapping musical tonal clusters into the topological space known as an orbifold, with interesting results.
The interesting question, of course, is how the orbifold mapping would represent “Oh, Pretty Woman”, or perhaps “Only the Lonely”.
Read all about it.
January 16, 2007 – 11:14 pm
The musical community suffered an irreplaceable loss this weekend: saxophonist Michael Brecker has died at the age of 57. He had been fighting leukemia for years, and finally lost the battle.
January 11, 2007 – 12:37 am
Readers visiting waka waka waka this evening confident that yesterday’s service interruption must have been due to the gestation of a particularly expansive discursion upon some fascinating topic or other are, I’m sorry to report, mistaken. While there is, as always, no shortage of topics, events, and cultural foibles about which an essayist might comment, I am, tonight, unequal to the task, and must refrain.
December 27, 2006 – 12:51 am
We must note with sorrow the death of James Brown, progenitor of an entire species of music, an awful lot of which has been running through my head, and through my speakers, these past couple of days. He was no saint, especially if you happened to be married to him, but the man invented funk, and we mourn him.
December 18, 2006 – 10:33 pm
It might seem odd, given my background as a recording engineer, but I don’t own an iPod or similar device. I admire their sleek and efficient design, and the sound quality is acceptable, but I haven’t got one.
November 25, 2006 – 1:17 am
Here’s something wonderful, brought to our attention by my son Nick. From YouTube, it’s a clip of the Hawaiian ukulele master Jake Shimabukuro playing George Harrison’s While My Guitar Gently Weeps.
Enjoy.
November 18, 2006 – 2:38 pm
If you enjoy music, and have a broadband Internet connection, then I must recommend an outstandingly clever website, Pandora. The site allows you to create virtual streaming “radio stations” that you seed with music you like — after which the system analyzes your choices and scans its vast collection to find other music that it determines, by its proprietary algorithms, that you will be likely to enjoy as well. It’s a smart idea, and done very well, with a simple and intuitive user interface. Take it for a spin. One caveat: no classical music yet. Apparently the analysis and assortment of classical music is a more difficult problem. They’re working on it.