August 19: Happy 78th Birthday Ginger Baker

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]“They credited us with the birth of that sort of heavy metal thing. Well, if that’s the case, there should be an immediate abortion.”
~Ginger Baker

If I am playing any music at all it is jazz music.
~Ginger Baker

There are a lot of great drummers. But Ginger Baker is an inspiration because of a certain almost relaxing quality that he brings to the drums. While a lot of drummers are putting speed and power first, Baker put rhythm first.
~bgamall.hubpages.com[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Ginger Baker Biography – youtube video:

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August 18: Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds released Kicking Against The Pricks in 1986

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]“And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks” 
– Acts 9:5[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Kicking Against the Pricks is the third album released by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. First released in 1986, the album is a collection of cover versions. Like many of our favorite artists (Dylan, Springsteen), Nick Cave dove into “the great songbook from the past” and gave us an album that really stood out in 1986. It wasn’t country, and it most certainly did not fit that new-wave look of Nick Cave and The Bad Seed. They play the songs in a straightforward way, not trying to modernize or make them more rock’n roll. This album was very important in my journey back to traditional folk music and blues standards.

It still stands up very well, and is one of my favorite Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds albums.

The Singer (made famous by Johnny Cash):

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August 16: The Late Jazz Legend Bill Evans was Born in 1929

Bill-Evans

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]”My creed for art in general is that it should enrich the soul; it should teach spirituality by showing a person a portion of himself that he would not discover otherwise…a part of yourself you never knew existed.”
~Bill Evans

“To the person who uses music as a medium for the expression of ideas, feelings, images, or what have you; anything which facilitates this expression is properly his instrument.”
~Bill Evans[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Bill Evans – Complete Last Performance’79:

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August 4: Late Jazz Legend Louis Daniel Armstrong Birthday

Louis armstrong

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]“If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.”
― Louis Armstrong

“Seems to me it ain’t the world that’s so bad but what we’re doing to it, and all I’m saying is: see what a wonderful world it would be if only we’d give it a chance. Love, baby – love. That’s the secret.”
― Louis Armstrong

“Louis Armstrong was the first important soloist to emerge in jazz, and he became the most influential musician in the music’s history.”
~William Ruhlmann (allmusic.com)[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

When The Saints Go Marching In:

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The Best Songs: Famous Blue Raincoat (Leonard Cohen)


[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]It’s four in the morning, the end of December
I’m writing you now just to see if you’re better
New York is cold, but I like where I’m living
There’s music on Clinton Street all through the evening.

The problem with that song is that I’ve forgotten the actual triangle. Whether it was my own – of course, I always felt that there was an invisible male seducing the woman I was with, now whether this one was incarnate or merely imaginary I don’t remember, I’ve always had the sense that either I’ve been that figure in relation to another couple or there’d been a figure like that in relation to my marriage. I don’t quite remember but I did have this feeling that there was always a third party, sometimes me, sometimes another man, sometimes another woman. It was a song I’ve never been satisfied with. It’s not that I’ve resisted an impressionistic approach to songwriting, but I’ve never felt that this one, that I really nailed the lyric. I’m ready to concede something to the mystery, but secretly I’ve always felt that there was something about the song that was unclear. So I’ve been very happy with some of the imagery, but a lot of the imagery.
~Leonard Cohen (BBC Radio Interview 1994)

Sometime in the early 1970s, a thief stole Leonard Cohen’s old raincoat from Marianne Ihlen’s New York apartment. God only know what happened to it, but the thief almost certainly had no idea he was stealing an object that belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, if not the Smithsonian. It was that very coat that inspired Cohen to write one of his most beloved and mysterious songs. It’s written in the form of a letter, possibly to the narrator’s brother, who stole his lover, Jane.
~rollingstone.com[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Famous Blue Raincoat (from the album – Songs of Love and Hate)

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July 30: Bruce Springsteen Released “The Rising” in 2002

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]A brave and beautiful album of humanity, hurt and hope from the songwriter best qualified to speak to and for his country…. A towering achievement.
-Uncut Magazine (Album of the Month, Sep 2002)

Impassioned and bold, this record is a triumph.
billboard.com

Over the years, it might not stand up to classics such as Nebraska or The River, but the The Rising gives us something more important right now: a reason to believe.
E! Online

Bruce Springsteen has gathered many a superlative over the years. His most resonant works stand as milestones in the lives of millions of fans. Even for him, though, The Rising, with its bold thematic concentration and penetrating emotional focus, is a singular triumph. I can’t think of another album in which such an abundance of great songs might be said to seem the least of its achievements.
-Kurt Loder (rollingstone.com)[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Released July 30, 2002
Recorded January–March 2002
Genre Rock, heartland rock
Length 72:52
Label Columbia
Producer Brendan O’Brien

 

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