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Wanderlust
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And while we’re on the topic of marimba: I think it’s just awesome when people experience so much fun and joy while making music, like this marimba band.
Have you also had nice experiences with street musicians somewhere in the world?
„Anyone who loves music can never be completely unhappy“
– Franz Schubert –
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Really enjoyed the Marimba video. It’s amazing how they all stay on point.
Are you all familiar with Pink Floyd’s classic “Echoes” ? I thought you might like this incredible interpretation of it by the Stickmen. This time it’s two guitars, a Chapman Stick, and a couple of effect pedals. They have captured a lot of the nuance of the original including the seagulls.
JP
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Thanks JP, you kept me busy for a while ????: No, I’m not familiar with the Pink Floyd track Echoes, so I listened to it on youtube first (yeah I like it, what album was the track released on?). After that I listened again to the interpretation of Stickmen and enjoyed it. Sounds pretty fantastic what the three musicians bring to the stage in terms of sound. They seem to be quite sound tinkerers. Most of the time, the two acoustic guitars sound like anything else, but not like acoustic guitars. I am fascinated by the Chapman Stick. It conveys a very full sound. How is the instrument played? Bass, rhythm and leading melody at the same time?
PS: I don’t know to what extent you are interested in progressive rock beyond Pink Floyd. You might also be interested in the German rock formation Eloy (they were quite popular in the 70s). The band certainly doesn’t come close to the class of Pink Floyd, but they also produced some very interesting music.
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Hi Jurgen,
Pink Floyd Meddle 1971
Echoes is actually 23 minutes+
Check out “Pillow of Clouds”and “Fearless” This was before DSOTM
I love that Jason Mraz video. Jason has a very friendly voice.
The Chapman Stick has four bass strings and six guitar strings. It is played by fretting the strings, no pick required. I have seen Tony Levin play years ago and it was mesmerizing. It can be difficult to keep up with what they are doing.
This is not an official Pink Floyd video, but it’s quite lovely just the same:
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Hi JP,
thanks for the information. I really like the animated watercolor drawings in this video. It’s very beautiful, when music and video art merge into one. Aesthetically very appealing and it fits really well with the Pink Floyd music. Maybe you should create your own topic about Pink Floyd. You would have one follower already. ????
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Jurgen. That’s very kool. Three dudes on such a vast location. Just a piano and a cello. The piano sounds quite nice.
JP
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While visiting the campus of the University of Wisconsin over twenty years ago, I encountered a flute band from the Peruvian Andes performing out in the open in an area with heavy pedestrian traffic. The sound was mesmerizing, and I watched till the end of the show. They mostly played versions of well-known songs like Simon and Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence” and ABBA’s “Fernando”, and they were just spot-on. Like Juergen I bought a copy of the CD they were selling on-site, and I listened to it often thereafter. But of course, the recorded sound quality can’t match what you hear when you’re there in person.
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Hi David. I also like music from Peru or the Andes very much. Yes, South American street musicians were very popular with us for many years. Especially in the run-up to Christmas in the shopping streets. When the first snowflakes fell they seemed particularly exotic… After that came the accordion players (more or less well). And for many years an old man with a barrel organ and a little monkey on his shoulder was a fixture in a shopping arcade. Even if the musical quality of these artists varied greatly, they always complemented the street scene and were a nice change from everyday life. It’s just a pity that especially traditional folklore music of other countries is sometimes reduced to a cliché. As a child, I was always fascinated by one man bands, like this musician here:
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Wanderlust is still going? Great job Juergen.
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Yes Tom, it’s still going on. As far as there’s interest, I’d like to go a little further. There is still enough music and themes. Very nice to hear from you again. I would also like to include Latin America musically. Any other interesting ideas?
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Juergen, et al
I am swamped at work and i am not getting email.
I hope everyone is well. I will catch up when i can.
Cheers
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Cheers Tom, I know what you mean. Hope you’re keeping well and things will get easier.
Stay Groovy!
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To stay a little longer in South Africa: In the 80s Paul Simon was looking for new musical inspiration and became increasingly enthusiastic about South African music. He was said to be inspired by the upbeat accordion jive music of the Boyoyo Boys from South Africa. Impressed by the music, Paul Simon flew to Johannesburg with a sound engineer and played there for twelve days with South African musicians: with Ray Phiri, the Ladysmith Black Mambazo choir, with General MD Shirinda & the Gaza Sisters. He listened to their songs, joined in, and arranged his own songs around them. An unconventional concept album was born: Graceland (incidentally it was produced at the Abbey Road Studios. where else?). A difficult undertaking, as the UN had imposed a cultural boycott on the South African government at the time to protest against the apartheid policy there. Paul Simon’s trip to South Africa and the music production there was therefore viewed very critically. However, his album and subsequent tour with the South African musicians was a success. Paul Simon won the 1987 Grammy for Album of the Year with „Graceland“ and was nominated for Producer of the Year and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. The song Graceland received a nomination for Song of the Year.
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…and a little more Africa…
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I would be glad to hear some more ideas from you on the musical theme of Africa
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A beautiful symbiosis of traditional African music and western ambience:
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Hi Jurgen
Those performers in Cape Town are great, and the 2nd video of the Marimba players are really awesome. Local musicians performing on the street really can make a place memorable and stay with you. I like those quotes you posted, especially the Franz Schubert one. Yeah that is my handwriting I did with my fountain pen, thanks.
I mentioned this a couple years ago on the Ask the MLT subforum, and I would say the most memorable street performer that had the greatest impact on me is a pianist, Jonny Hahn, whom I came across in the 90s in Seattle Pike Place Market. He had a great influence back in those days on my passion for learning the piano. Made me dream of being a musician one day. Maybe that one day is now. Anyway I use to go down to Seattle quite often back then in the early/mid 90s, and one of my favourite things to do was to go down to he popular Pike Place Market and watch Jonny busking on the piano, and wishing I could have that kind of dexterity and skill in my fingers to play the piano like him. I have a CD I bought from him. Around 2014 I went to Seattle and stopped in at Pike Place Market, wondering if that wonderful pianist was was still there, and to my delight he was, and I stood a long time at the street corner watching him. I think he noticed and our eyes crossed and we smiled. It felt so good to see him again. I have a video clip I filmed but can’t find it at the moment, but here is a Youtube clip I found of him playing 3 years ago. Hope he is still there, will look for him the next time I go to Seattle.
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A very touching story Jung. Yes, I think it is such and similar experiences in life that shape and influence a person in the long term. Talent is something we may have been given at birth, but the motivation and the will to do something is often given to us by those around us. A few encouraging words at the right time, support and backing from people who love us, or simply the smile of a passionate street musician. Thank you for the story of Jonny Hahn. Each of us has in his life his small or maybe big dreams. Often these remain only illusions, because we do not find time to realize them. Yes the everyday life presses. The job, the many small duties of everyday life and and and. How often have you gone to Pike Place Market to hear the street musician? You are already on your way Jung. On your way to your dream of becoming a musician. Play the music for yourself, for your loved ones and your friends. Just have fun with it. You don’t have to be a virtuoso to enjoy your music. You don’t have to become famous to enjoy your playing. That one look and that one smile from one of your listeners will be reward enough to keep you going.
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Jung, I went to Pike Place Market with my daughter when I visited her a couple of months ago. (We did all the touristy things.) I didn’t see or hear the piano guy, but I got to experience the fish toss and the gum wall. Both very cool!
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Hi David, yeah that fish toss at the fish market in Pike Place is quite iconic in Seattle, I remember seeing it when I was a kid. It’s amazing and great that place and tradition is still going strong. You certainly got to experience one of the most interesting and must see places in Seattle. Pike Place and that whole area has tons of interesting shops, markets, people, and artists. Did you grab a coffee at the very first Starbucks that is there? You could spend all day in that area taking in the uniqueness and tradition of Seattle.
Hi Jurgen, yes thanks I definitely will resume my piano, it will be a life long project with a goal to play an instrumental version of an MLT original, and one of Bach, Mozart or Beethoven’s piano Sonata’s proficiently. I always felt like I lost a little part of me when i stopped the piano lessons decades ago, and when I resumed lessons for the first time during the lockdowns, it felt like it awakened something in me I missed for a long time. Back around 1965-69 when I was very little we lived in Seattle and Tacoma for a bit, and remember coming to the Pike Place Market in Seattle and many other places there, so I’ve been to that market many dozen times in my life. As Seattle is only a 2 hours drive (120 miles) from Vancouver I used to go down there quite often on the weekends by myself or with friends. In the 90s when I got into learning piano, I use to stop by all the time to catch Jonny Hahn. I got into George Winston and other New Age genre piano music around that time.
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Jung, my daughter mentioned the first Starbucks, but I’m not a coffee drinker so it didn’t really interest me.
I used to live in southeastern Kentucky, not far from the very first KFC. It’s actually a modern KFC built onto the side of the Colonel’s original pre-franchise restaurant, and it has a little museum devoted to the history of the man and the mission. Not bad for an area of the country that doesn’t get a lot of tourists.
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These two guys also want to create some jungle atmosphere:
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“Kiss me a lot” (Besame Mucho), or something like that, sang the Beatles in January 1962 and hoped with the help of this cover version to get a record contract with Decca Record. „Good bye a lot“, or something like that, replied the manager in charge, and unfortunately nothing came of the contract. Why did they choose this Bolero classic? Who knows, maybe it was wanderlust. But that didn’t hurt the Beatles’ career, as we know today.
https://youtu.be/dg48JepkiRo?t=12
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Nice find Jurgen! I never heard the Beatles do a Latin song, and they did it great. It just goes to show the diversity the Beatles could do. It looks like the Beatles got a ton of styles under their belt in their time in Liverpool and Hamburg that made them the rich diverse group they became. I wonder for how many years Decca executives kicked themselves for letting the Beatles go.
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Hi Jung, I could imagine that the responsible decision-makers at Decca would have liked to bite the edge of the table with anger afterwards. Why the Beatles were finally not taken, maybe someone here in the forum knows something more precise. I found the following story about it:
The Decca Audition (also known as Decca Sessions or Decca Tapes) were test recordings of the Beatles at the label Decca Records. The Beatles applied for a record contract with these recordings on New Year’s Day 1962. How had it come about? Well, on October 23, 1961, Tony Sheridan & The Beat Brothers released the single My Bonnie / The Saints. Behind the name Beat Brothers hid the Beatles in the line-up John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pete Best. Through this single, Brian Epstein became aware of the Beatles and attended one of their concerts at the Cavern Club for the first time on November 9, 1961. After further meetings, he officially became the Beatles’ manager on January 24, 1962. Epstein immediately sought audition dates with various record companies. He received a refusal from EMI and then contacted Tony Barrow, who referred him to Mike Smith, an assistant in the A&R department at Decca. Decca was one of the two largest record companies in Britain in the early 1960s, along with EMI. Epstein was able to convince Smith to attend a Beatles concert at the Cavern Club on December 13, 1961. Smith was so impressed by the performance that he scheduled test recordings for January 1, 1962, at 11 a.m.; at that time, New Year’s Day was not yet a public holiday in Great Britain. While Epstein traveled by train, the Beatles, along with their road manager Neil Aspinall, drove from Liverpool to London in a van that was also loaded with their equipment. The trip took about ten hours. Well, as is known, nothing came of it. This refusal is considered one of the biggest mistakes in music history.
(all data without guarantee ????)
PS: I became aware of “Besame Mucho” many years ago when the double LP “The Beatles live at the Star Club” was released. There is also a nice cover version of “Stand by Me”, which John Lennon later re-recorded as part of his solo career. And of course the legendary song “My Bonnie” together with Tony Sheridan. I think young Paul sounds a bit like early Elvis. One of the reasons why I didn’t like songs like „Till there was you“ that much originally. Today I love the earlier songs.
PPS: Jung, were the Beach Boys also influenced by Latin music?
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The song was originally composed by Mexican composer Consuelo Velázquez, who also wrote the lyrics. She was just 19 years old when the song was recorded and published in 1941. The song became an international hit and a jazz standard. Which brings us to the charme of Latin America. So the Spanish and Portuguese speaking part of America. Actually a topic of it’s own…
Maybe you can also think of beautiful Latin American melodies, or western music that has its origins in the heart of Central or South America?
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“Aquarela do Brasil” (Portuguese for Watercolor of Brazil) is a samba tune composed in 1939 by Brazilian composer Ary Barroso. It became internationally known in a shortened form under the English title “Brazil” when Walt Disney used it in his 1942 film “Saludos Amigos”. In 1944, Barroso was nominated for an Oscar for it. In keeping with its popularity, there are also countless cover versions of this song.
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South America not only has great music to offer, but also a very varied landscape and a very eventful history. Hardly any continent is as diverse as South America: dry deserts meet colorful rain forests and thundering waterfalls meet lonely high plateaus.
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The following Beatles song also has a slight Latin touch. “Till there was you”, was originally written by Meredith Willson in 1950 for the Broadway show “The Music Man”. The Beatles version is sung by Paul, who is accompanied by George and John on dueling Spanish-style acoustic classical guitars over a bolero bongo beat by Ringo (…yes I know, there is also this wonderful cover version by Mona & Lisa…).
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Jurgen, I never knew this was a cover by the Beatles, and what a delightful performance by them. The young Paul was a stunning performer. And equally delightful is Mona and Lisa’s gorgeous version, and love how Lisa did the guitar work with the same finesse as George both on their Gretsch, and love Mona’s superb drums.
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