March 2nd, 2010 §
Superb trumpet play, along with quiet mastery on the guitar. Your ears are there for Paolo Fresu but Ralph Towner makes it all possible.
I bought the Chiaroscuro CD while I was there. Surprisingly the CD is just a shadow of how Fresu and Towner play live together. This is one rare occasion where the live performance clearly outranks what the musicians can do in the studio. I guess you had to be there.
Porgy & Bess artistic director Christoph Huber was very animated after the show as well. It was one of the top five concerts I've ever attended there in five years.
Paolo Fresu on trumpet
Paolo Fresu on trumpet
Paolo Fresu on trumpet
Paolo Fresu and Ralph Towner at Porgy & Bess: Chiaroscuro tour Continues »
November 9th, 2009 §
Managed to catch some Viennale films and a couple of Viennale parties.
The strange thing at the parties is that many of the people there had not been to any films or to just one film. I suppose at the films many of the people had not been to any parties.
If you get the chance, I'd recommend to do both.
While I was at the Soul Powered evening on 31 October I managed to snap some photos both upstairs and downstairs.
Viennale party upstairs Badeschiff
Viennale Soul Powered on Badeschiff Continues »
April 6th, 2009 §
Tomasz Stanko is a legend of Jazz trumpet. He's won more prizes than you or I could forget. So what has he done with his later years?
Instead of getting toasty around the couch playing old standbys (often what happens to older jazz musicians and even more so with rockers), boring himself and us, Stanko puts together a new collective every two or three years with hand-picked younger recruits.
With fresh blood in his veins (Stanko refers to himself as a vampire), he infects his young with his talent and musical ingenuity. The result tonight is called the Tomasz Stanko Nordic Quintet.
The music was langorous and melodic. An easy to degust, but complex pleasure.
Alexi Tuomarila's work on the piano was understated but overwhelming. Olavi Louhivuori showed more flash on drums but equal power. While less scintillating themselves, Jakob Bro and Anders Christensen on electric guitar and electric bass solidly held up the foundation under Stanko, Tuomarila and Louhivuori.
Not to be missed if you get the chance.
Here are some pictures of Tomasz Stanko Nordic Quintet in action at Porgy & Bess - I recommend clicking an image for the slideshow as that houndstooth jacket wreaks havoc with the ImageMagick thumbnail algorithms.
Alexi Tuomarila Tomasz Stanko (Leica 90mm 2.8)
Alexi Tuomarila Tomasz Stanko Jakob Bro (Leica 90mm 2.8)
Tomasz Stanko Nordic Quintet at Porgy & Bess Continues »
March 27th, 2009 §
On Monday, I thought I was dropping in on a young composers concert at Porgy and Bess. Something about the Konservatorium Wien. To my surprise, there turned out to be as much dance and performance as music.
MIR geht es gut - Petra Straussová
The best dance piece which I saw was called MIR geht es gut. It's about two girlfriends who meet repeatedly in the underground or at a joga class or via a quick handy call. If you've lived in Vienna any period of time, you are familiar with the persistenty shallow "Mir geht's gut und dir?" At first you think they really want to know. But not at all. It's equivalent of the empty North American. "How are you?" for which there is only one acceptable answer. "I'm great and how are you?"
MIR geht es gut - Petra Straussová
It's an absurd situation. Why do people speak at all if they have nothing to say. Both Petra Staussová and Simone Kühle managed to catch the inflection and frantic feel-good vibe of the modern urban woman perfectly.
MIR geht es gut at the Fidelio-Wettbewerb Konservatorium Wien Continues »
February 24th, 2009 §
Rigmor Gustafsson Quartet at Porgy and Bess Vienna February 24 2009.
The club was quite full. The audience really enjoyed Rigmor Gustafsson's sets. The musicians were very professional. A good chill atmosphere. Nothing electric though. An agreeable evening of pop-jazz.
Something of a time-warp back to the days of James Taylor and Carly Simon. Amusingly enough those two are now bourgeois.
Rigmor Gustafsson Quartet 1
Rigmor Gustafsson Quartet 9
Rigmor Gustafsson Quartet 19
Rigmor Gustafsson Quartet at Porgy and Bess Vienna Continues »
January 30th, 2007 §
Great party on an icy Saturday night in Vienna.
Great dancing from this group of friends
this is what I love about goa
the music, the light and the joy
flowing through one's whole body.
Perfect moment.
Beautiful people. Nice atmosphere. Full, but not too crowded. Nothing worse than a goatrance party where there is no space to dance.
Austrian GoaTrance Photos: Cosmic Party WUK 27-1-2007 Continues »
June 26th, 2006 §
In the Eroica Hall of the Austrian Theater Museum in the Lobkowitz Palace, I was both a fortunate participant and observer of a wonderful talk given by Christa Ludwig, a former opera star about her time in the limelight together with Maria Callus.
Christa Ludwig - Personal Recollections of Maria Callas Continues »
March 20th, 2006 §
On a sidenote, I am certainly glad that I bought the CD's at the concerts as from both the Viktoria Tolstoy website and the ACT music website for her albums My Swedish Heart and Shining on You, there are no direct links to buy either of her CD's. It shouldn't be this hard to buy music. I criticise the Americans for their crass commercialism, but a discreet buy here link would be just fine.
Zeebee does a little better with a direct link on the album page to its page at the iTunes store. But no link to actually obtain a physical CD.
We are a long way away from (and in aesthetic terms, thank heavens) from the CDBaby site.
March 20th, 2006 §
Zeebee - Priorities (album cover)
I was at the ZeeBee album launch on Saturday night where legendary Vienna DJ Klaus Waldeck was playing afterwards. ZeeBee is an FM4 Vienna creation. If you don't know FM4 is an Austrian phenomenon. The radio station has an incredible popularity among most people from 20 to 40. Personally I don't like FM4 much.
The English langauge DJ's are annoying and some of the German-speaking ones even more so, with a kind of cool pushed to insupportable. The musical taste strives to cover all its bases a little too much for my tastes. Many of the DJ's seem to play whatever is ghetto and cool in the United States (not the mainstream charts, but underground ones) without thinking much if they like it or not, if the music is any good or not, or whether the music means a damn thing to someone sitting in beautiful Vienna.
But I should be careful what I write about FM4 - as I said, FM4 is very popular. They do contribute a lot to cultural happenings around Vienna with all kinds of promotions of clubs and releases of special compilation albums.
What do I listen to then? Osterreich Einz. Great talk shows and special reports and cultural news and great classical music with a midnight book reading every evening. But the Austrians are right about one thing - those are the only two conceivable choices on the Vienna radio dial. Austrian radio would be much poorer for the absence of FM4.
Zeebee came out of their studios and playlists to a cult following for her first album Tender in 2003. Then she disappeared for a couple of years while making her second album priorities which was released on Friday.
Zeebee played us a short set from priorities in the Rot Bar (in Volkstheater right next to Museumsquartier just outside the first district - great location).
The sound was catchy and engaging - it was just zeebee and her keyboardist. The show had a lot of panache - many songs of spurned love, much about independence.
be good to yourself
stop eating when you're full
preserve the beauty
for times when you are angry
the time with yourself
is no luxury
these are my priorities
a simple life is all i need
Two problems. The volume gradually became too loud. When will people realise one can't push speakers and amps to the breaking point without destroying the music with distortion?
Second problem was that too many of the songs sounded the same. Zeebee has this little girl raspy vocal style. Think of Portishead's Beth Gibbons. Which would be alright - except that a lot of the music reminds one of Portishead's instrumentation and style as well. Too much. Much too much.
After listening to the CD a couple of times, there are a few outstanding songs but too much filler. It's not a CD I can listen to straight through without pushing the skip track button four or five times (there are thirteen tracks). And all of it too much like ten year old Portishead. On the other hand, the music is well enough executed that a Portishead fan might be thrilled to get Zeebee's Priorities into his or her hands.
Zeebee has a lot of style and her website is a wonder to behold full of great photography and some amazing photoshop work - according to the credits zeebee does a lot of both herself. Well worth a visit to take a look yourself and for a second opinion. A lot of reviews of her earlier work are posted there.
Viktoria Tolstoy
Tonight I managed to get out for the second half of the Viktoria Tolstoy concert over at Porgy and Bess, Vienna's best musical club (mainly jazz but not only). Viktoria Tolstoy is a female jazz singer in the Rebekka Bakken mode. Tolstoy herself is a tall, fairly good woman with a good stage presence. Apparently she is a direct descendent of Leo Tolstoy's son (also named Leo, who emigrated to Sweden).
The crowd went wild for her performance, bringing her out for something like four or five encores. What amazed me was the great work of her pianist Jakob Karlzon who occasionally hit the keyboard like a demon and sometimes light as an angel. The piano seemed to take on a whole life of its own. The bass player and drummer in the tight three man group also seemed to be enjoying playing together very much and each put in a good effort.
Viktoria Tolstoy has a very nice voice, smooth and velvety. She doesn't have perfect pitch though. In normal singing, it's not noticeable but occasionally Tolstoy catches one of her extended notes wrong and we have to suffer for about twenty seconds while she finds her way back to the instruments. It happened often enough to push things back from brilliant to very good.
Most remarkable though is that Viktoria Tolstoy's singing is much like three or four other jazz divas (and it's not a genre I spend a lot of time with) - it could be her ACT label mate Rebekka Bakken, or any of the others up there on stage if you just close your eyes singing,
I thought we were meant to be
Time has brought some changes
In love I feel alone
I thought it would last forever
But now I am standing all alone
But no one seems to mind when Jazz singers sound alike. All we care about is their individual delivery. The quality of their voice. The emotional intonation they can impart. It's something like classical dance. All the ballerinas dance more or less the same steps, with more or less the same style (within any one national school). Yet some (myself) are happy to go back and see a bunch of different versions of the same Swan Lake or Gisele.
Many of the female vocalists in country music are indistinguishable as well, unless you are looking at them.
What I don't understand is how we have so little tolerance of sonic resemblance in alternative and pop music. If something sounds too much like another group, it irritates. Zeebee is less like Portishead than Viktoria Tolstoy is like Rebekka Bakken, yet the resemblance is far more grating in the first case.
Viktoria Tolstoy was promoting her second album My Swedish Heart which is a tribute to something called Swedish jazz - when jazz first came to Sweden in the 1950's and through the 60's. It's a silly title and I've listened to My Swedish Heart a couple of times and can tell you I don't like Swedish jazz much. But her first album Shining on You, entirely composed by well known composer Esbjörn Svensson, is a much more coherent and stronger bit of work.
Viktoria Tolstoy's version of "Things that Happen" is particularly moving. But generally on CD her whole performance has a superficial and commercial gloss which I don't find at appealing. While the voices may be similar, there is whole lot more sincere emotion in Rebekka Bakken's work.
Two derivative but strong singers, two genres, two totally different reactions. If anyone else has any ideas on why our standards for originality are so different for jazz vocalists and pop singers, please let me know.
March 14th, 2006 §
Remember Van Halen?
Well I do. Lead singer David Lee Roth was referenced in an article I'm reading so I decided to check up on him. Apparently he's done a dozen things since then, none of them to quite the same fame and fortune than his halycon Van Halen days.
His latest ongoing gig is as a radio host. But what is really shocking is that David Lee Roth now looks like my childhood Jewish dentist. Really. David Lee Roth. Time is marching on all of us. (Speaking of which the pictures of Slobodan Milosevic this year and in 1990 were a real shock as well. Whatever his crimes, Milosevic always looked hale and hearty. Not at the end.)
I suppose Kurt Cobain and Jim Morrison were onto something. Those blokes died rock stars. Mick Jagger is somehow managing it as well - one begins to wonder about the early Sympathy for the Devil songs...did the man cut a deal with Satan to be able to maintain his energy and his voice in the face of massive drug and woman abuse? I mean, I understand our Tyrollian farmers and their Swiss neighbours remaining spry into their seventies, but how the hell does Jagger manage it.
In any case, not to take the spotlight away from David Lee Roth, it turns out he is quite a witty chap. There is a whole page of his bon mots at Wikipedia:
It's not who wants to sleep with you; it's who wants to sleep with you again.
After all these years of bright lights, I still don't need glasses--I drink straight from the bottle.
I used to have a drug problem, but now I make enough money so that it's not a problem anymore.
For some reason David Lee Roth is also doing double-duty on emergency ambulances as a paramedic. Good on you DLR! I much prefer the reincarnation to the original.
