MLT Club Member Chris Weber
MLT Club MemberForum Replies Created
-
Jung,
Good timing on your comment about Liszt’s arrangements of classical works.
Yesterday I was planning what local concerts I was going to see this fall and winter, and one I am considering is from a pianist named Igor Levit. The last work on the list for his performance is:
Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55 (“Eroica”) (arr. for piano by Franz Liszt)
Should be very interesting. Thanks.
ums.org/performance/igor-levit-piano/
-
The theme of this thread being “pushing instruments”, I thought I’d also include Igor’s cover of one of my favorite Billy Joel songs, And So it Goes. Definitely an emotional tune, even if not always having the same twist to it as he shows here.
-
-
I don’t know if musicals qualify for this list, but Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, two masters, created something truly magical and timeless in West Side Story. I haven’t seen Spielberg’s take on it; this is from the first movie, in 1961.
-
Bud,
Art Tatum. There’s a reason people think he was the greatest pianist ever.
Of course Art improvised it. That’s what he did with every song. If he ever played a song the same way twice, he was cheating. That’s per Oscar Peterson, talking to Andre Previn, in another vid that I’ve mentioned before, in describing his discussions with Art.
Fats Waller. Ain’t Misbehavin’ is from the classic movie, Stormy Weather, which also starred Lena Horne, for whom it was her big break singing the title cut. It also starred Cab Calloway and Dooley Wilson, who played Sam in Casablance. Quite a movie. It’s old enough to be in the public domain, from 1943, so the full movie is on YouTube:
And here’s Lena singing Stormy Weather.
Billy Joel is one of my influences as a keyboard player. I used to play Prelude / Angry Young Man. The hardest part is finding a piano with a good enough action that you can do that drum roll on middle C. Most won’t recover fast enough. That’s a great live vid of him playing it.
Thanks, Bud, that’s all great stuff.
youtu.be
[FULL MOVIE] Stormy Weather (1943) | Classic Musical in 4K
▬ Public Domain Classic Musical, digitally restored, and upscaled to 4K ▬Synopsis: Dancing great, Bill 'Williamson', sees his face on the cover of Theatre Wo...
-
Jung,
Thanks for posting that. I think I’m going to enjoy seeing him. Ok, I’m up to 5 shows I’m going to, all of which are classical. First time that’s ever happened.
I was thinking of looking at Liszt’s arrangement. Haven’t found it yet, but I found a different one that he did on YT.
Liszt is not the only one to do arrangements for a smaller ensemble than the original. The idea of doing this sounds like a Duo Session for one.
-
Thanks they’re working now.
-
For all the times I’ve heard that Deep Purple song, that might be my favorite version of it. They really nailed it. Thanks for posting that.
It reminds me of something I was listening to the other day. The song below is from Billy Cobham’s first solo album, the first cut. He and Jan Hammer, the two Mahavishnu Orchestra alumni, lead it off, and it has Leland Sklar on bass and Tommy Bolin on guitar. Two years after this, Tommy joined Deep Purple.
For a lot of lovers of jazz rock fusion, this album is on their all time top 10 list, including me. They said it took 2 days to record, and it was basically done live – one or two takes at most, and no edits afterwards. Another track from it, Tommy broke his high E string, and they just kept going. It’s a lot of improvisation, Tommy hadn’t played with these guys before. And he was 22 years old.
As far as pushing their instruments, yeah, they did that. This album affected a lot of people. Nobody had heard drumming like this before, very singular style, for example. And Jan is Jan, always know it’s him too, and unique. These guys just let it rip.
If you like this, the whole album is on YT. What do you think? Maybe like Deep Purple with a bit more loose improvisation? With feeling. Released in 1973.
-
Jürgen,
I remember that song, a friend of mine’s band used to play it, long ago. Good fun, and as Jung said, a very big hit.
-
YouTube is similarly misbehaving with this video, the one with the Waterboys song; it says it is not available.
For any vids that I can’t see in America, which might be due to copyright issues – at least that’s one possibility – if you tell me the name of what you’re trying to show I might be able to find another copy of it. Thanks.
-
Jürgen,
Many thanks, to you and everyone else, for these recommendations. One of the great things about the Club is that it puts us in touch with people from all over the world, from different backgrounds. I know that there is an enormous amount of wonderful things in the world that I’ve not yet seen, and I very much appreciate you taking the time to post about them.
-
YouTube tells me this vid is private. Were you trying to show Back to the Future trailer?
-
Did they have chicken wire around the stage? I’ve never seen that outside of this movie. Just wondering. Come to think of it, one of the guys in the movie says “Chicken wire?” when they first get in there, so I guess they’d never seen it before either.
The only roadie I ever worked with was me. My Rhodes back in the old days weighed around 100#; that was loads of fun, literally. Never had a gig like you hear about where I had to carry it up 10 flights of stairs though.
-
Thanks David. I didn’t know about Spielberg’s version until I went to look up the old one. But I read a bit about it. Some say it’s Spielberg’s best film. Wikipedia says it had terrible box office numbers, and doesn’t mention that it was during the pandemic — who was going to see movies then?
That clip you posted is well done too. And now that I know the two movies are the same, I don’t have to see the other one. (Just kidding.)
-
Thanks. Yeah, I had heard that someone was using a more accurate way to measure that distance.
There are stories of scientists who worked for decades only to have their theories debunked. That must not be fun at all. Any theory as entrenched as the Big Bang would certainly need a lot of evidence to get people to desert it. And as the author was saying, it’s still too early to know if the Big Bang, or any other theory, is really in need of a repair, large or small. We will see.
But that’s why we build these things, we need evidence. One of my favorite theories involves 95% of the contents of the universe, dark energy + dark matter. And we have no idea what they are.
-
Valerian is currently free on the streaming service I subscribe to.
JWST has found some things that have people asking questions about the Big Bang theory. Like how is it possible to have full blown, mature galaxies so soon after the Big Bang? No one has an answer for that one yet. JWST is going to upset a few more theories before it’s done too I’m sure.
