What are you listening to today?

A.David.MacKinnon · Post by **A.David.MacKinnon** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 7:12 pm

It's the Johnny Hartman part of the equation that's not doing it for me. It's really of an era of jazz vocal that I don't connect with.

A.David.MacKinnon · Post by **A.David.MacKinnon** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 7:14 pm

Now I've moved on to The Velvet Underground's self titled third record and Swordfishtrombones.
I just moved and haven't unpacked the records yet. I'm just openning boxes and blindly pulling vinyl out. So far so good.

shedshrine · Post by **shedshrine** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 3:28 pm

vvv wrote:
junkshop wrote:
John Coltrain and Johnny Hartman on vinyl (an impulse buy and maybe not a great one)
REally?

I always keep meaning to get that one ...

Here in back at the office we went through a 'get all the Coltrane"phase, and once we'd pretty much loaded up on his instrumental stuff, somebody ventured to purchase the Hartmann cd. All I remember is when the lyrics come in "..throoough the trees." we just busted up laughing. I don't know why exactly. I guess we figured anybody who would sing with coltrane would have to be more "hardcore", like soaring scat singing or something

DrummerMan · Post by **DrummerMan** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 3:42 pm

wow. Coltrane and Hartman is one of my all time favorite albums. period. Sure, his vocals are a bit stylized, but sometimes I get so sick of all the fancy vocal footwork of even someone like Ella and want to just listen to someone singing songs. IMO, a beautiful and simple album. Lush Life send chills up my spine. To each his own....

I listened to "In the aeroplane over the sea" today for the first time in a long while. Definitely into it still.

joninc · Post by **joninc** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 4:06 pm

mixes, more mixes.

shedshrine · Post by **shedshrine** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 5:41 pm

DrummerMan wrote:wow. Coltrane and Hartman is one of my all time favorite albums. period. Sure, his vocals are a bit stylized, but sometimes I get so sick of all the fancy vocal footwork of even someone like Ella and want to just listen to someone singing songs. IMO, a beautiful and simple album. Lush Life send chills up my spine. To each his own....

I listened to "In the aeroplane over the sea" today for the first time in a long while. Definitely into it still.

I'll give it another try. Might be one of those "give it time to grow on you" type things..

MoreSpaceEcho · Post by **MoreSpaceEcho** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 6:04 pm

speaking of coltrane, this'll make your eyes cross:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kotK9FN ... r_embedded

A.David.MacKinnon · Post by **A.David.MacKinnon** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 7:37 pm

DrummerMan wrote:wow. Coltrane and Hartman is one of my all time favorite albums. period. Sure, his vocals are a bit stylized, but sometimes I get so sick of all the fancy vocal footwork of even someone like Ella and want to just listen to someone singing songs.

but it's so stylized in it's own way. I agree that it's fairly straight forward and true to the melody but it's also so.............I don't know what, affected? Something seems so unnatural about that style of singing. Maybe it's a generational thing. I can't listen to Nat King Cole or Bing Crosby either.

Give me Nina Simone any day.

A.David.MacKinnon · Post by **A.David.MacKinnon** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 7:45 pm

junkshop wrote:
DrummerMan wrote:wow. Coltrane and Hartman is one of my all time favorite albums. period. Sure, his vocals are a bit stylized, but sometimes I get so sick of all the fancy vocal footwork of even someone like Ella and want to just listen to someone singing songs.
but it's so stylized in it's own way. I agree that it's fairly straight forward and true to the melody but it's also so.............I don't know what, affected? Something seems so unnatural about that style of singing. Maybe it's a generational thing. I can't listen to Nat King Cole or Bing Crosby either.

Give me Nina Simone any day.

As was typing this I remembered how huch I love the Hoagy Carmichael sings Hoagy Carmichael record (I may have the name way wrong, it's Hoagy and the cream of the west coast scene circalate 50's/ early 60's) and how that record is not all that different in terms of singing style.

I don't know. It's a taste thing I guess. I seems real and true coming from Hoagy Carmichael but somehow seems put on coming from Hartman.

This all probably says more about me than anything else.

DrummerMan · Post by **DrummerMan** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 8:26 pm

I wouldn't want to tell anyone to like something they just don't, but I will say that, IMO, most singers are stylized. Nina Simone is totally stylized. Nothing about Johnny Hartman's singing seem forced or dishonest, but that's just my own opinion. I never took the time to get into his repertoire so I don't know about what his "true" voice might sound like. If you don't like Nat King Cole either, then maybe that stuff just isn't for you. You wouldn't be alone at all in that sentiment. That's all ok. I, personally, don't care for Tom Waits' music, though that's considered blasphemy to many good friends of mine. I used to blame it on what I perceived as some over-stylized "schtick" of his, but came to that same conclusion, which is that most the modern music I DO like wouldn't even exist unless somewhere down the line, someone had pretended to sing in a way that's totally unnatural to them. I had to accept that there was no reason other than that his thing just doesn't click with me. I don't hate it or even dislike, but I don't care about listening to it ever, and that's ok.

It's funny because, as I mentioned, I was listening to Neutral Milk Hotel today. When I first heard that album, it took me a while to get over that thing that many, many american singers do of kind of trying to sound like a whiny british person, whether or not they call it that. That's a big thing that I hated about a lot of music in the 80's, and it was a "thing" I kept on holding against singers pretty much up until the point where I decided that I liked In The Aeroplane Over The Sea more than I disliked something he's doing with his voice. It's still gets me sometimes when others do it. I'm sure if I went to therapy about it I'd figure out what the underlying issue with it is, but it doesn't really matter.

To me, the idea of Coltrane picking some bad-ass skatter seems atrocious, especially in that period with that band, but again, that's just me.

Babaluma · Post by **Babaluma** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 2:39 am

hawkwind - quark, strangeness and charm
the rocky horror picture show soundtrack
the elephant table album (early '80's british industrial compilation - coil, nurse with wound, chris and cosey, lustmord etc.)

ofajen · Post by **ofajen** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 4:52 pm

I had been listening to a couple of Radiohead albums (OK Computer and Amnesiac) in the car lately. I realized I had never actually listened to them in my accurate listening space. Two things were obvious: first, they are loud tracks, louder than I realized in the car and two, there are a lot of things that sound way different or only show up in my accurate listening space. My car has a decent enough system, but there were still a lot of things that sounded almost like different mixes once I could really hear what was on the track. Quite a revelation.

Cheers,

Otto

shedshrine · Post by **shedshrine** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 10:09 am

Jeff Beck-Blow by Blow

..remastered. Doesn't sound like some ancient relic anymore, t'sall fesh n xiting.

vvv · Post by **vvv** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 11:26 am

11th Dream Day Eighth: this is an odd one, with intentional distortion and sound FX floating through some pretty dreamy songs with lots of instrumental parts, and really only one rocker. Not my fave by them, but really good.

The Church Untitled #22: psychadelic, and wall-of sound spacey; love it.

Built to Spill 7-19-09 (Maxwell's, Hoboken, NJ) Bootleg: poppier than I would have thought, and better vocals than I expected.

Depeche Mode "personal Jesus": trying to show a buddy how cool that slide sample works as I explain my main use of my resonater.

joninc · Post by **joninc** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 11:35 am

more mixes.

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