The Coolest 9 Minutes and 35 Seconds Ever Broadcast?

A little more than 49 years ago, on July 21, 1960, CBS broadcast "The Sound of Miles Davis" on an episode of Robert Herridge Theater. The show featured a set recorded on April 2, 1959.

At the top of the program, the Miles Davis Quintet (including John Coltrane on tenor) launched into a soulful, stunning rendition of So What, the studio version of which was laid down one month earlier on March 2, 1959. For the millions of fans of jazz music who have memorized the studio version, the CBS version opens a window into how the song evolved in the months following its famous recording.

Since So What is the most memorable track on Kind of Blue, the most famous jazz album of all time, I think you're forced to conclude that these are the coolest 9 minutes, 35 seconds in the history of broadcast television.
Update (8/17): Kind of Blue was released fifty years ago today.

Turn Yourself Around

Now that Katie is about 2½, we've been singing a lot of the Hokey Pokey lately. Although some version of this song has been around since the mid-19th century, I was aware that the version of the song you and I recognize was not some traditional version, but rather a chart topper from the early 1950's recorded by bandleader Ray Anthony.

Amused that a song with all the complexity of a nursery rhyme could attain national popularity, I took a look at the list of mid-century chart toppers to get an idea of how many goofball songs made their way to the top of the list.

Although the Macarena, which surged to the top of the global charts in 1995 and 1996, proves that novelty songs can still sit at #1 inside and outside the U.S., the occasional rise of a goofball single over the past couple decades pales in comparison to the number of novelty songs that sat atop the U.S. Best Sellers in Stores charts during the late 40's and early 50's:

Song	First Week @ #1	Weeks @ #1
Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!	January 26, 1946	5 weeks
Open the Door, Richard	February 22, 1947	1
Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)	August 9, 1947	6
I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover	February 21, 1948	3
Woody Woodpecker	July 3, 1948	6
All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth	January 8, 1949	1
Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer	January 7, 1950	1
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus	December 27, 1952	2
(How Much is) That Doggie in the Window?	March 21, 1953	8

After this flurry of Christmas-themed #1 hits, no holiday songs have returned to the #1 perch.

The dawn of rock and roll largely kept novelty songs away from the #1 spot until the mid-1970's when Kung Fu Fighting and Disco Duck (Part 1) each found their way to #1 in 1974 and 1976, respectively. Of course, these tunes were just paving the way for the Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band by Meco, a disco version of the movie's theme that topped the charts for two weeks starting on October 1, 1978.

O Court, Please Leave Room for Great Use

It's been a long time since I've ruminated on the fair use copyright standard for video sharing websites, but whatever standard the court settles on, I hope they make room for fan-made music videos that I find amazing:

Death Cab for Cutie - Little Bribes from Ross Ching on Vimeo.

The Scene of the Crime Rovers

When I'm not doing science, I play music. Sometimes with real bands, and sometimes with this one. If you've any interest in seeing some really weird stuff, I encourage you to check out my new little blog on this music side-show. Hey, I'm not above e-busking.


Image courtesy of the News and Observer

Soundtrack for Obama '08

In the 1979 movie Manhattan, Woody Allen's character lists Louis Armstrong's 1927 recording of Potato Head Blues (RealAudio link) as one of a dozen reasons that life is worth living. Sitting in a jazz history course more than a decade ago, I recall my professor (the inimitable and irascible late Grover Sales) remarking to us that he agreed with Allen, and that if he were forced to choose one song to serve as a soundtrack to life, it'd be Potato Head Blues.

I know it's the sentimentalist in me, but since then I've found the notion of a "soundtrack to life" to be a potent one. Occasionally I'll stumble across a particular song and discover that it captures the emotion of a particular set of experiences in my life.

Now, I haven't written about it on this blog yet, but I'm keenly excited about the Barack Obama campaign. And I'm a bit stunned by how enthusiastically Senator Obama has been received by a needy public. When I read and watch the news, I see time and again stories of people who have invested their fondest hopes in him, and I see how he's responded to the moment, treating it as a call to action.

It's in this context that I stumbled across the song below. To me, this is the soundtrack to the Obama campaign as of February. The energy, the striving, the power, the feeling of being unsettled, the momentum — it's all there. Here's hoping that these themes continue to develop and build through November and then through the next four years.

Perpetuum Mobile by Penguin Cafe Orchestra
(Yes, it is in the completely unbelievable 15/16 time signature.)

Found On The Internets: Unusual Instruments' Music Videos

The creative and strange set of folks who brought you A Soviet Poster A Day now bring you the Unusual Instruments' Music Videos blog. As with its sister site, once you've written the title there's really no need to describe site's contents.

One of the gems from the site:



The instrument at the core of that performance is a theremin, played masterfully in the video by a musician adjusting the proximity and shape of his hand relative to two antennae. If you've ever heard the Beach Boys' song Good Vibrations, you've heard a theremin an instrument designed to sound like a theremin (see comments). The model above is an Etherwave Pro Limited Edition theremin recently manufactured by Moog.

Radiohead's In Rainbows: Online and Available for Free (or for Whatever Seems Fair)

Absurdly talented rock band Radiohead is a band unencumbered by a record contract. Thus, they can do great things like offer their new album In Rainbows available for download directly to their users without having to ask anyone's permission.

Since Radiohead gets 100% of the proceeds of the record (instead of the meager slice they'd get from a deal with a record company), they're comfortable letting users download the record and name their own price. Grab it for free if you'd like. I paid £5.00. That seemed fair.

The tracks don't have any accompanying cover art. Make you own art or obtain the Radiohead-blessed art here if you'd like to have something pretty staring back at you when you listen to the track on your music player.

Drama Chipmunks/Prairie Dogs & the DMCA

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Neither Big Bird Nor Doug E. Fresh Saw This Coming

Sleep deprivation will make you do funny things.

As Steph knows all too well, I have the really annoying habit of – occasionally, mind you – beatboxing to songs outside the hip-hop genre. Lately, I have been known to beatbox to the tinny electronic lullabies generated by our borrowed bassinet's onboard music box.

As a children's song/beatbox enthusiast, I was pleased to see flautist Greg Pattillo's interpretation of the Sesame Street theme — an interpretation where he plays the flute while simultaneously beatboxing:


Hap tip to Daddy Types.

Imagine. Just Imagine Having That On Your iPod

From the Washington Times, America's best Reverend Sun Myung Moon-owned newspaper:

Mrs. Bush also revealed that her IPod listening includes songs by Tina Turner and Dolly Parton. She said her musical tastes are somewhat different from those of her husband.
"He likes country music a little bit more than I do, although I actually really am very fond of country music, as well," she said. "One of the songs on my IPod that I love is Dolly Parton singing 'Stairway to Heaven.' So that's sort of a combination, country and pop." (iTunes link)

West Side Singing Subway: 2 Train Plays Minor Sevenths

My wife pointed this out ages ago, but I've only recently heard it myself.

As it leaves the station, the #2 subway train (which runs along Manhattan's West Side) converts DC to AC.

The sound created by this transformation is identical to the first three notes of Somewhere from West Side Story.

Our Day in the Independent Music Sun

Sinister Dexter's Morenita is the Latin track of the week on GarageBand.com. Check it out!

Sinister Dexter's New Year's Eve @ The Lost & Found Saloon

In San Francisco? Searching for a fantastic, nay, a SUPER-FANTASTIC New Year's Eve? Well, cease your searching and join Sinister Dexter @ the Lost and Found Saloon in North Beach.

A big band with 17 musicians onstage. Live Music from 9:30 till 1:30. $30 cover. Antimatter will be served. Funk. Blues. Swing. Latin. See you there.

Sinister Dexter on iTunes

Sinister Dexter is now available on iTunes. Now it's easy to enjoy Dexter a la carte or on thy iPod.

In case you're curious, our placement on iTunes was facilitated by CDBaby, an online distribution service for independent musicians. We signed up with CDBaby back in August. It took them about 130 days to get our stuff placed on iTunes.

Volcano

I'm normally not one to blog about online music, but this song's got me in its grip.

Damien Rice has a great video of a live performance of his song Volcano (Real Media link) on his website.

Close My Eyes, She's Somehow Closer Now

This upcoming weekend, I plan on writing what feels like my 90th post regarding the upcoming election. I hope to cover two items: [1] I plan on endorsing a presidential candidate (guess who?) and [2] I’m going to engage in a little armchair prognostication, discussing what the world will be like if Kerry is elected, and vice versa.

But for today, more light-hearted fare:

On a run last night, I was lucky enough to hear Ed Ward’s review of Brian Wilson’s 37-years-in-the-making album, SMiLE. (The review’s audio link is the bottom one on the linked HTML page)

Ed’s review is wonderful, and I’m happy that Wilson has finally completed this work. After the review, KQED played a great big chunk of Good Vibrations, the central track of SMiLE (of course, Good Vibrations was released in 1966, shortly after it was recorded; however, it was released as a single, not as a track in a larger album).

Running to Good Vibrations (iTunes link) felt, well… good. This song profoundly influenced rock music, challenging McCartney and Lennon to produce Sgt. Pepper and the White Album.

But a seminal place in rock history wasn’t why Good Vibrations soothed me. Good Vibrations does something else for me, something important. It manages to incorporate conflict, contradiction, and confusion into a central theme while retaining a hang-in-there inspirational quality.

For so many people, these days feel shifting and dangerous, important and decisive. Good Vibrations reminds me that uncertainty isn’t necessarily negative. Uncertainty can be neutral, even positive. When Wilson penned this song, the times – they were a-changin’. Same as now.

Who's the Black Sheep?

Larry Lessig points out a video remix of the first Presidential debate which will delight Kerry supporters.

p/s For you music fans out there, the audio is Black Sheep's "The Choice is Yours" (iTunes link)

Mountain View Voice profiles Sinister Dexter

Nothing tickles the ol' ego bone like being discussed in print.

Sinister Dexter @ CD Baby

Dexterity is now for sale at CD Baby, for a little cheaper than it's available at Amazon.com.

If you'd like to try before you buy, at CD Baby you can listen to samples of each song before you buy.

Sinister Dexter @ Amazon.com

My band's new album, Dexterity, is now for sale at Amazon.com.

Why buy just one?