Brett Domino returns with another pop songwriting guide, complete with his own potential hit single .
Dolly Parton On Her First Guitar
Reverb: Can you tell us about your very first guitar and the instrument that you dreamed of owning when you were growing up?
“Music was such a large part of our whole family. All of my mama’s people were musical. They all played some sort of musical instrument. Of course, I took my music real serious, and I was always plucking along on somebody’s instrument — whatever they would leave lying around or whenever my family would come. But I always loved the guitar.
“I had two uncles who played — Uncle Bill, who helped me get into the business, and Uncle Lewis, who was also a great guitar player. He had this little Martin guitar that I loved, so when he saw how serious I was about my music, he gave me his little Martin guitar. It was my treasure.”
“When I left home at 18, I put it in the loft because it was beat up. My plan was always to — when I got money, when I got rich and famous — have it fixed up. But the loft burned out of our house, and burned up my guitar, so I only have the neck of that one. But I have collected little Martin guitars all through the years. I have some classic little guitars, especially the Martins, the baby Martins.”
Unreleased Ella Fitzgerald Live Album, ‘Ella At Zardi’s’, Unearthed From Verve’s Vaults 60+ Years Later In Celebration Of Jazz Legend’s Centennial
Verve Records and UMe will close out their year-long celebration of jazz legend Ella Fitzgerald’s centennial with the ultimate present for her 100th birthday – a completely unreleased live album. More than 60 years after it was recorded, Ella At Zardi’s will finally be released on CD and digital on December 1. Today, WBGO, the global leader in jazz radio, premiered the album’s opening track, “It All Depends on You,” both on the air and at WBGO.org, with an accompanying article. The song, popularized by Doris Day, Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole, was never released on any of Fitzgerald’s albums, making this a truly rare performance. Listen at WBGO: http://wbgo.org/post/after-six-decades-vault-ella-zardis-brings-new-shine-ella-fitzgeralds-centennial
Recorded on February 2, 1956 at Zardi’s Jazzland in Hollywood, Ella At Zardi’s features the entirety of the evening’s two-set, 21-song performance, which captures an inspired Fitzgerald, backed by a stellar trio comprised of pianist Don Abney, bassist Vernon Alley and drummer Frank Capp, singing and swinging in front of an animated, adoring crowd, just days before she’d go on to record the album that would catapult her to stardom. The concert was originally recorded by Norman Granz to celebrate the creation of, and Fitzgerald’s signing to, Verve Records, which Granz founded largely to give Fitzgerald the attention that he felt she wasn’t receiving at her then-current label, Decca. Ella At Zardi’s was planned as the label’s inaugural release but shelved in favor of the now-classic studio album Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Cole Porter Song Book, which kicked off a best-selling, signature series of Song Book releases. The Zardi’s tapes languished in Verve’s vaults for six decades.
Ella At Zardi’s captures the brilliance and inspiration Fitzgerald’s performances embodied at the time. As veteran jazz journalist Kirk Silsbee observes in the album’s liner notes, “We can hear a fluid and joyous singer who operates with almost giddy authority. Ella manages to find a way of swinging almost every number, no matter the tempo. She anticipates her studio songbook albums with Duke Ellington’s ‘In A Mellow Tone,’ Cole Porter’s ‘My Heart Belongs To Daddy,’ the Gershwins’ ‘S’Wonderful’ and ‘I’ve Got a Crush On You,’ and Jerome Kern’s ‘A Fine Romance’… Ella uses her intelligent phrasing and rhythmic sense in inventive and exhilarating ways. Her repertoire was vast and she didn’t always remember the correct lyrics of a song. But the way she spontaneously redesigns the text in the most musical of ways is Fitzgerald’s signature.”
Ella At Zardi’s caps off Verve/UMe’s slate of releases in celebration of “Ella 100,” which has included the four-CD set 100 Songs For A Centennial; the six-LP vinyl box set Ella Fitzgerald Sings The George & Ira Gershwin Song Books and Someone to Watch Over Me, which marries Fitzgerald’s vocals with new instrumental tracks by the London Symphony Orchestra. The centennial has also seen the first-ever digital releases of her rare early singles for the Decca label.
Ella At Zardi’s stands out for its history-making rediscovery of a vintage performance by one of jazz’s greatest artists. As Granz enthuses in his stage introduction, “This is for real; for me she’s the greatest there is—Miss Ella Fitzgerald!”
First Set
1. It All Depends On You
2. Tenderly
3. Why Don’t You Do Right
4. Cry Me A River
5. In A Mellow Tone
6. Joe Williams’ Blues
7. A Fine Romance
8. How High The Moon
9. Gone With The Wind
10. Bernie’s Tune
Second Set
11. ‘S Wonderful
12. Glad To Be Unhappy
13. Lullaby of Birdland
14. The Tender Trap
15. And The Angels Sing
16. I Can’t Give You Anything But Love
17. Little Boy (a.k.a. Little Girl)
18. A-Tisket, A-Tisket
19. My Heart Belongs To Daddy
20. Airmail Special
21. I’ve Got A Crush On You
Alternative Love Blueprint – A History of Alternative Music
A wonderful print available for sale featuring history of alternative and independent music mapped out to the circuit board of an early transistor radio, courtesy of the site Dorothy.
Their Alternative Love Blueprint celebrates over 300 musicians, artists, managers and producers who (in our opinion) have been pivotal to the evolution of the alternative and independent music scene, from Bill Hayley & His Comets whose 1950s Rock Around the Clock became the first ever anthem for a rebellious youth, to the DIY ethic of present day bands like Arctic Monkeys and Radiohead.
The print weaves it way through many musical sub-genres and counter-cultures including early underground and experimental rock (The Velvet Underground), proto-punk (MC5, The Stooges), New York and CBGB’s Punk (Ramones, Patti Smith), UK Punk (Sex Pistols, The Clash), 2 Tone & Ska (The Specials), Krautrock (Kraftwerk, Can, Neu!), Hardcore (Black Flag, Hüsker Dü), Riot Grrrl (Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney), Post Punk and Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall fall-out (Joy Division, Buzzcocks, The Fall), Grunge (Nirvana, Pixies), Alternative (The Smiths, R.E.M) Madchester (The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays) and Garage Rock Revival (The White Stripes, The Strokes). The print also salutes creative catalysts such as Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood and innovative record labels including Stiff, Rough Trade and Postcard.
A Look At The Collaboration Between The White Stripes’ Videos And Director Michel Gondry
The White Stripes has always been one of the most interesting bands to Film Radar, not only for their incredible music but the effort they put in to each music video. Michel Gondry has directed five videos for the band to date, in this video, they cover three of them – Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground, Fell in Love With a Girl, and The Denial Twist. The video talks about how each video was filmed, and how challenging one’s self within constraints often leads to an artist’s best work.
Our synths weigh a ton: Inside Stones Throw Studios with Peanut Butter Wolf and Karriem Riggins
Just imagine what could happen in a studio where Madlib, Dâm-Funk, Egyptian Lover, Karriem Riggins and NxWorries might just pop by? That’s the new Stones Throw Records studio for you.
Table Reading Of “I Am McLovin'” Scene In Superbad Is Just As Funny As The Real Take
A hilarious bit of behind-the-scenes footage from the 2007 still-hilarious commedy Superbad. Watch Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Jonah Hill, and Michael Cera deliver a table readthrough of the classic McLovin fake ID scene.
Man Beatboxes While Playing Flute For His TEDx Talk
Since the early years of his life, Cosmin Cioca had a special connection with music.
His parents signed him up for flute classes and even though at first it was more of a love-hate relationship, in time he kept getting better and better.
After successfully winning classical music competitions, he decided to let the world know of his gift by participating in the Romanians Have Talent 2015 competition, where he won the Originality Prize.
Connect your sound system and turn up that bass, because this flute beatboxing will leave you breathless. Cosmin, this otherwise shy young man, shows onstage a real talent in mixing his flute performance with his passion for beatboxing, resulting in a skillful, delightful combination.
Motorhead’s Lemmy On Jimi Hendrix Bringing Acid Back To The UK
Back in 2000, Lemmy was the guest on Channel 4’s stripped-down series All Back to Mine. The premise is to talk to musicians in their homes about their favourite records of all time, but this time, it was filmed at a bar table with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.
No less than an achivement of fun interviewing, host Sean Rowley asks Lemmy about his time working with Jimi Hendix.
Lemmy: I was Jimi Hendrix’s roadie, what’d you expect? I mean, he’d come back from America with a hundred thousand tabs of acid, right?
Rowley: Who, Jimi had?
Lemmy: Yeah, and it wasn’t even illegal then. He brought it back in his suitcase. And he gave half of it ‘round the crew. I mean, that’s a lot of acid, you know.
Rowley: And you were part of the crew, at the time, then.
Lemmy: There was only two of us.
Loads of fun.
Watch Robert Glasper Connect Jazz To Hip-Hop
Why do hip-hop producers gravitate toward jazz samples? For a mood, for sonic timbre, for a unique rhythmic component. Swing is a precursor to the boom-bap. “If you’re a hip-hop producer that wants a lot of melodic stuff happening,” pianist Robert Glasper says, “you’re probably going to go to jazz first.”
Glasper has lived in an area of overlap between jazz and hip-hop for more than two decades — and you can hear it in his piano playing, which often drifts into cyclical rhythms akin to a beat-maker’s loops. It’s all one and the same to Glasper: recasting the music of Miles Davis for an R&B audience or rocking live shows with Q-Tip; playing acoustic jazz with his trio or streamlined soul with his Grammy-winning Robert Glasper Experiment.
In this short doc, Glasper identifies three jazz samples, from tracks by Ahmad Jamal and Herbie Hancock, that have served as source material for famed hip-hop producers J Dilla and Pete Rock.