Jazz biographies

Via Arts and Letters Daily, there are two articles on two of my favourote jazz musicians, Thelonius Monk and Louis Armstrong (no, loving the music of one isn’t incompatible with loving the music of the other at all).

X’mas YouTube II and Open forum

I said I wouldn’t post the usual X’mas sap but Bill Evans can interpret anything into brilliance, even ‘Santa Claus is coming to town’

Anyway I'll be away from the web for a couple of days from the end of today. Since this is a new blog I don't expect many commenters and any new ones to register may be stuck in moderation until I come back to release them but let's see how this open forum works out. Comment away.

Christmas YouTube

Those who have read my scribblings in the past will know me to be a convinced secularist and philosophical naturalist.

So rest assured, do not interpret this post to be sign of a Damascene conversion. I just thought given that this is Christmas eve I’d offer up a YouTube with some stirring music that isn’t just the usual Christmas pap. And the superb gospel number by Bob Dylan ‘Gotta serve somebody’, covered by Shirley Caesar stirs even this atheist’s heart.

In any case the admonishment that everyone will have to ‘serve somebody’, whether the devil or the Lord, need not be interpreted supernaturally.

Some of the more message laden visuals in the video, compiled by a dedicated fan who more than makes up for them by his excellent musical taste are well worth sitting through to hear Ms Caesar’s voice.

Bob does X’mas

I’m a Bob Dylan fan but I don’t quite know what to make of this. (H/T to LikeItHateIt)

Anna Goldsworthy

One of the new writers I’ve come across from The Monthly whose work I’ve really come to enjoy is Anna Goldsworthy, a classical pianist who writes about her experiences in the performing arts. This is a world far removed from my own but one I’ve always appreciated as a keen fan of all kinds of music. She has a website here and you can find links to her superb pieces from The Monthly and other publications in the Writings section of her website. Her three pieces from The Monthly are here, here and here.