Hello and welcome back for another sunday at Bob's! I hope you are all doing well. I shall start by telling you that I will be away for the whole month of March, I was invited to a painting residency in the Norwegian village of Høyanger and most likely won't have the time to keep up with the playlists. However, to our great pleasure, a good friend of mine and a Sunday at Bob's early afficionado will take over for one session. I don't know yet what will happen to the second one but I should figure something out by then, no worries. Now let's have a look at what we have this week.
Today we begin and end with piano. Here is a wonderful Hungarian dance composed by Schubert in 1824 and performed by Alfred Brendel, who is also a poet and a musicology writer. I heard this composition for the first time in Bertrand Blier's Préparez vos mouchoirs, which is really not his best work if you ask me, but presents this asset that it features really cool classical music, thanks to Georges Delerue I guess.
Now what follows Schubert is a bit taken from a live concert of the immense Gil Scott Heron and it is not randomly that I feature it right after a piece of classical music. The problematic expressed by this monument of music and poetry is one that has messed with my mind continuously during my art studies and still does on daily basis. He presents it from his point of vue, of course, to which I cannot relate. However I can say that: I have had many discussions since the first time I read The Society of Spectacle up until now about a fact that appeared to me, at the time, as contradictory. If the author was reaching to a working class audience, why was he using what appeared to me as a "bourgeois" vocabulary and mode of expression? To that contradiction at first sight I believe we can object that it is even more "bourgeois" to assume that the working class is unable to understand a sophisticated vocabulary. I heard in a conference a communist thinker saying on that matter that if a thing is complicated, it can only be described with as complicated words since these words are supposed to designate it.
The second (intertwined) problematic I hear is one that has been sharply expressed by a French rapper I don't particularly enjoy but who managed to slide a sentence in my head that will probably never get out:
C'est pas parce qu'on comprend pas ce que t'écris que tu fais de la poésie (It's not because we don't understand what you write, that you are doing poetry) source
How many times have I entered an exhibition with works so heavily encrypted that I felt I was being mocked? Add to that the unbearable doubt constantly in the back of one's head that maybe, just maybe, one simply isn't fit to understand? What a relief to hear such a great artist, in the smoothest voice telling you that you are not alone trapped in that artistic dilemma.
We go on with still Gil Scott Heron on an album that was recently released. It is Heron's last album skillfully revisited by Chicago drummer Mackaya McCraven. I really recommend it, even if like a friend confessed, we would love it to last (a lot) longer. But I don't think we can blame McCraven who did such a wonderful, and difficult job.
After that comes another recent release with a track from Michael Kiwanuka's impressive last album.
We then take a turn and meet again with the fantastic Erkin Koray, this time sampled by Gonjasufi, for a crazy song that opened to me the universe of Anatolian rock when Turkish tourists, while checking in, indicated to me the nature of the sample. I cannot thank them enough. We pursue with the very dancable Africaspaceprogram by Nacho Patrol, one of Legowelt's alias if I am not mistaken. It is followed by another track I have to thank Disco Arabesquo for. I don't know much about Simone, a close friend from Palestine told me she was probably from a Greek family of Egypt, and that she was very famous at some point, however I am having difficulties finding out more music from her and more informations about her. Don't hesitate to share if you do!
Mohamed Lamouri was introduced to me by a very skilled French sculptor who heard him play in the subway of Paris during his childhood way to school. I had one listen and purchased the album on bandcamp, I think there is a documentary about him, but I haven't taken the time to look more into it so far.
Then we have a pleasant surprise with a song that is using the same melody as Aris San's Boumpam which we heard last time I believe. I am really intrigued by that, and I am once again calling out to you for clues as to where does that melody come from. The two songs seem very different beside it, not the same language, not the same lyrics (actually what do I know?). Anyway, this blog has precisely zero comments so far, if the first one could be a piece of that puzzle it would be wonderful.
We end with Keith Jarrett, introduced by a Greek tune relating to a local event.
What can I say about Keith Jarrett?
Enjoy,
Check out time is 10h30.
The receptionist
Today we begin and end with piano. Here is a wonderful Hungarian dance composed by Schubert in 1824 and performed by Alfred Brendel, who is also a poet and a musicology writer. I heard this composition for the first time in Bertrand Blier's Préparez vos mouchoirs, which is really not his best work if you ask me, but presents this asset that it features really cool classical music, thanks to Georges Delerue I guess.
Now what follows Schubert is a bit taken from a live concert of the immense Gil Scott Heron and it is not randomly that I feature it right after a piece of classical music. The problematic expressed by this monument of music and poetry is one that has messed with my mind continuously during my art studies and still does on daily basis. He presents it from his point of vue, of course, to which I cannot relate. However I can say that: I have had many discussions since the first time I read The Society of Spectacle up until now about a fact that appeared to me, at the time, as contradictory. If the author was reaching to a working class audience, why was he using what appeared to me as a "bourgeois" vocabulary and mode of expression? To that contradiction at first sight I believe we can object that it is even more "bourgeois" to assume that the working class is unable to understand a sophisticated vocabulary. I heard in a conference a communist thinker saying on that matter that if a thing is complicated, it can only be described with as complicated words since these words are supposed to designate it.
The second (intertwined) problematic I hear is one that has been sharply expressed by a French rapper I don't particularly enjoy but who managed to slide a sentence in my head that will probably never get out:
C'est pas parce qu'on comprend pas ce que t'écris que tu fais de la poésie (It's not because we don't understand what you write, that you are doing poetry) source
How many times have I entered an exhibition with works so heavily encrypted that I felt I was being mocked? Add to that the unbearable doubt constantly in the back of one's head that maybe, just maybe, one simply isn't fit to understand? What a relief to hear such a great artist, in the smoothest voice telling you that you are not alone trapped in that artistic dilemma.
We go on with still Gil Scott Heron on an album that was recently released. It is Heron's last album skillfully revisited by Chicago drummer Mackaya McCraven. I really recommend it, even if like a friend confessed, we would love it to last (a lot) longer. But I don't think we can blame McCraven who did such a wonderful, and difficult job.
After that comes another recent release with a track from Michael Kiwanuka's impressive last album.
We then take a turn and meet again with the fantastic Erkin Koray, this time sampled by Gonjasufi, for a crazy song that opened to me the universe of Anatolian rock when Turkish tourists, while checking in, indicated to me the nature of the sample. I cannot thank them enough. We pursue with the very dancable Africaspaceprogram by Nacho Patrol, one of Legowelt's alias if I am not mistaken. It is followed by another track I have to thank Disco Arabesquo for. I don't know much about Simone, a close friend from Palestine told me she was probably from a Greek family of Egypt, and that she was very famous at some point, however I am having difficulties finding out more music from her and more informations about her. Don't hesitate to share if you do!
Mohamed Lamouri was introduced to me by a very skilled French sculptor who heard him play in the subway of Paris during his childhood way to school. I had one listen and purchased the album on bandcamp, I think there is a documentary about him, but I haven't taken the time to look more into it so far.
Then we have a pleasant surprise with a song that is using the same melody as Aris San's Boumpam which we heard last time I believe. I am really intrigued by that, and I am once again calling out to you for clues as to where does that melody come from. The two songs seem very different beside it, not the same language, not the same lyrics (actually what do I know?). Anyway, this blog has precisely zero comments so far, if the first one could be a piece of that puzzle it would be wonderful.
We end with Keith Jarrett, introduced by a Greek tune relating to a local event.
What can I say about Keith Jarrett?
Enjoy,
Check out time is 10h30.
The receptionist
Playlist:
1. Alfred Brendel - Hungarian melody in B minor, D. 817
2. Gil Scott Heron - This Must Be Deep
3. Gil Scott-Heron & Makaya Mccraven - I’m New Here
4. Michael Kiwanuka - Piano Joint (This Kind Of Love)
5. Gonjasufi - I’ve Given
6. Nacho Patrol - Africaspaceprogram
7. Simone - Merci
8. Mohamed Lamouri & Groupe Mostla - Sbart Ou Tal Adabi
9. Schal Sick Brass Band - Anschab
10. Panajótis Brátzos, Stávros Ródhanos, Harílaos Ródhanos - Ta Tabánia (The Beams) A Tune Relating To A Local Event
11. Keith Jarrett - I Fall In Love Too Easily / The Fire Within
