#eastern european jazz

[vladdyissues]

They could have been BFFs

[meeblo]

Tag game, was tagged by @burstfoot

Shuffle your favorite playlist and list the first five songs to play!

I don't have a favorite playlist so I'm just doing spotify liked songs, let's see what it grabs out of that 10k+ pool of songs.

tagging: @narwhalrys, @cherry-blossomtea, @cloud-splitting-sword, sorry if any of you already did this idk

[thefallenangelsgang]

EDIT DOWN BELOW

I'm afraid I'm about to say something controversial but I don't say things like that often and perhaps I need a little controversy to knock me down a peg:

Katniss Everdeen's Ethnic and Racial ambiguity is important to her character.

She is at her core and everyman character. Working class, hard working, and loyal to a fault. Her ambiguity aids her in being recognizable to most.

A day doesn't go by where I don't see a post attributing a different ethnicity or race to Katniss. Native American, South Asian, Black, Mixed, etc. Personally I think of her as a wide mix of eastern European ethnicities (particularly dark Polish/Russian) because that's what I am and I come from a mining town in the smack dab of Appalachia with a massive swath of Poles and Slavs.

That's the beauty of a true everyman, they are recognizable in all of us. Suzanne knew what she was doing when she didn't specify Katniss's race or ethnicity.

EDIT: I feel like saying this now because this is getting a lot of notes very quickly. And that is scaring the hell out of me.

THIS IS NOT THE POST TO USE TO FURTHER BIGOTED TALKING POINTS

The intention of this post is to point out that Katniss doesn't belong to one single group. She could be any number of POC groups as well as white. If you are using this as a way to prove Katniss is white definitively or to further racist bullshit see my account banner: This Machine Bites Bigots Of ANY Kind. I will not have my thoughts used for anyone's hate. Especially when this post was made out of love for all the variations of Katniss's character.

Godspeed, Good Luck, Gangnem Style, and All That Jazz

Bigots eat shit <3

-Jericho

[cerame]

Artisan’s and Archer’s designs

So a little bit ago, I got a compliment on the two designs of Echoes of Courage I'm proudest of. I do love all these characters, but these two took a bit more creativity on my part, so I'm going to explain them because I am a sucker for design. I will try to remember as many of my own details as I can, but no promises.

Let's explain Archer first.

Behold, the most recent Link! Breath of the Wild took a departure from the classic green, so I kept with that and made his tunic the main splotch of color on him. The browns and monotone colors are subdued in comparison so that the blue can have the spotlight.

In regards to the tunic itself, botw and totk both have significant influence from traditional Japanese culture, as seen with the sheikah taking on a more japanese fashion sense and the dragons being eastern instead of european shaped, so I kept that with the design of his shirt. His tunic was originally the shape it was in botw, but after the calamity, it sustained such damage that Impa was only able to save some parts of the tunic. Using those parts, she repaired it as best she could, but Archer took a liking to Kakariko fashion anyway, so he's perfectly happy with it. In addition, with the looser fashion of the ancient clothes, I changed his belt to a more ribbony shape.

Thinking about how his shirt might have worked during botw. Perhaps he wore it as a haori, or maybe it was damaged, of a shorter cut, etc. and his Zelda made him the current one. Nothing is concrete about that yet, and I think it would be neat if it was different than it is post-totk.

The turtleneck and the leather armor from the new tunic in totk is incredibly charming to me, so I naturally had to keep it, but in order to show it off practically over the tunic I'd decided on, his sleeve got pulled down. I also designed him before totk came out but after the first trailer came out, and from the trailers, we could all tell that something was going to happen to his arm. I had no idea what purpose it would serve or how Link would end up by the end of the game, so I kept his arm covered up but outside his shirt. Turned out to be a good call.

As for his hair, I loved seeing his hair down so often in totk. It feels all free and wild and soft, so I kept it, except it felt a bit impractical to have it hanging all around him like that, so I did a half-bun. He gets to keep his hair down while tying it out of his face. This also lends itself further to eastern style inspiration.

A note on the smaller details: he does wear his amber earrings, and he's got scars across his body.

Now, we have Artisan.

It was a bit more difficult to figure out Artisan at first. I took inspiration from as many links meet aus as I could find, but everything for him is so varied, and while it's fun, it does make it difficult to nail down what does work. Unlike with Archer, I had no real direction in the beginning, so I searched for what made him unique as a Link. I also went back to the original ideas of character design, the most prominent being outlines and silhouettes. I'm still a bit iffy on his silhouette, but overall, he works.

First, the albw aspects: His bracelet from Ravio went inactive after the rifts between Lorule and Hyrule closed, but he still wears it. It's becoming comforting to him. As for the clasp on his cloak, it is absolutely the two triforces, and he got it custom-made in Hytopia. His pegasus boots are also from albw, and since Collector and Forge both had their unique pegasus boots, I had to come up with something just as striking for Artisan..... and then, I looked upon none other than the Zelda cartoon of olde, and I decided that Artisan would absolutely wear over-knee boots. So that's what he got.

Now, his triforce heroes parts. I know the green one is player one and all that jazz, but I wanted to see if I could do something not-green, just like Archer or even Piper. The sword suit in the costume catalogue stood out, and not just because the red link is wearing it in the official art. It's more tame than most other choices, and it's casually royal, which is a strange flavor of style, but I discovered after significant experimentation that when you pair it (or the idea of it) with poofy bardic sleeves (yellow, courtesy of albw's blue tunic) and gloves, it takes on an almost roguish look while maintaining the fancier feel. Also, when I lined him up next to Collector and Scout, I found that their colors together were red, blue, then green, and I couldn't not keep him blue after realizing that.

Notes: his cloak is still a bit weird to me, but I've gotten too used to it. Hytopia pushes the boundaries of fashion anyhow, so he can do whatever he likes. His hair is dyed because that's just fun, and it's braided because everyone else in this AU has short hair or a ponytail, and I wanted him to feel more well-groomed than everyone else. He gets to take care of it, and he has gotten hair care advice from Princess Styla. I didn't originally intend for this effect, but the pale outlines of white and gold on his clothing really make his outline pop. The consecutive dark colors of his tunic, pants, and boots would not work without those lines. His eyes are, in fact, purple! Ravio, in turn, has green eyes. I did doubt the choice of yellow sleeves at first, since it's not exactly the secondary color of my choice, but I went with it, and I was pleasantly surprised to see it work so well. Perhaps it was the yellow of his hair and the golden accents, but I am very pleased with it. He only comes a century or so after Collector, so I had to pick a tunic shape that could hold similarities between the two of them, which is why the collar of their outer layer is the same for both of them.

Archive

[gemsofgreece]

Have u seen the survey about "the most culturally chauvinistic Europeans"? I think you're gonna get a good laugh out of it

I laughed but it was a sad laughter. I had seen this map before but I have thoughts about it, in fact more for the other countries than Greece, and I will grasp this opportunity to discuss it here.

Okay lol I do not doubt at all that Greece is the most CULTURALLY (discreet emphasis) chauvinistic country. But I would like to discuss the data a little.

Although I would expect Greece to be at the top, I am a little surprised by the exact percentage. There are so many Greeks who are leftist, liberal, progressive and citizens of the world. This means that a large percentage of them also agreed that their culture is superior?! Or maybe the sample was not very diverse?

I did think the west would have lower percentages for reasons I will mention in a minute but I simply do not believe the percentages would be that low. No offense to anybody but neither Italy’s nor France’s percentage seems remotely realistic to me. I don’t know much about Spain’s case but I find this strange as well. Honestly no offense, a person from the 89% country is telling you that, you couldn’t get worse than this 😅 But some general attitudes I have observed, also from the center and the north, don’t make these look totally accurate unless I have stumbled onto all the weirdos.

I think a real factor that is ultimately not taken into consideration here is that it has been WAY more integrated in the western nations’ mentality to believe that appearing culturally chauvinistic is NOT OKAY. The very low percentages of France and Spain kinda scream ex colonialist guilt as well. This mindset has not spread nearly as much in the east. Because of less progressiveness but also because of less guilt, Eastern Europeans are way more brutally honest and less apologetic about how they feel regarding their cultures. Greeks also have all the cradle of western civilisation jazz following them, although they’re essentially easterners, which skyrockets their unapologetic stance.

In short, while I think the results have a lot of truth, I believe the gaps between east and west are not very sincere as western people are taught to believe it is not at all okay to express “too much” respect for their own culture but sometimes their acts show it more. At least enough to not be that low. They would still be lower anyway though, no objection to that.

And as a last note; you just know that a lot of the Greeks are just parroting things and have no clue about Greek culture apart from white statues, souvlaki and Syrtaki TM

[tourneyposting]

i decided to randomise megamix

see under the cut for sourcelists & fan-names

01 - MAU5TRAP

-Claymation/Stop Motion -Gnarls Barkley & It's members -Snakes, Serpents, & Reptiles -Kero Kero Bonito

02 - Summer Swimming

-Rivals of Aether & flashygoodness -Mysteries, Detective Media, & Puzzles -Royalty & Time -School & Education

03 - Lord Farquaad

-RayWilliamJohnson -Studio Ghibli & Their Image Albums -Pre-2012 Internet Culture & Bait-And-Switch memes (NO SIIVAGUNNER)

04 - Heaven Ascension Dio

-Big Time Rush/Stephen Glickman, Boy Bands & Their solo acts -Jojo's Bizzare Adventure & other Shonen Jump media -Wayforward & ArcSystem

05 - Ace D. Copular

-Smash Mouth & Shrek Artists -Webcomics, Animated Webseries, & Indie Web Animation -Quad City DJs/Space Jam Artists

06 - Maddumb

-90s Hip Hop/Rap -Lofi Hip-Hop & Shiloh Dynasty -Dreamworks -Pokémon & It's mainstay artists

07 - Neil Cipher

-Well-Known Music Producers -Insects & Skeletons -Otaku Culture/Sex -Alt Rock, Britpop, & Post-Britpop

08 - Tomska

-Sleep, Dreams, & Nightmares -Twitch/Esports games -Jojo's major antagonists references -First Person/Class-Based shooters, & Guns

09 - Tord

-Turner Broadcasting Media -Space & Aliens -Danny Baranowsky

10 - Charles "All-Star" Barkley

-Geico Commercials/Made for Ads -Progressive House & Dubstep -Sampled by Neil/Featured in his Mouth albums -Robots, Ghosts, & Felines

11 - Hot Hats

-Lou Bega, Mambo, & Big Band -Skating/Boarding & Skate Punk/Ska -Madeon & His collaboraters

12 - Last Peace

-S3RL/Happy Hardcore -SoundClown sources & SoundCloud rappers -Gears for Breakfast/Indie Platformers & Collectathons -Racing Games, Cars, & Bikes

13 - Scatman John

-Tally Hall & It's members -Christmas, Winter, Snow, & Ice -R&B & Soul

14 - Baba

-War, Explosives, & Flight -Electro Swing -Interscope solo female artists

15 - DARK ONES

-Voxel -Halley Labs -Psychadelic/Drugs

16 - UNCRE/ATIVE

-C418, Minecraft, & Sandbox -Lil Darkie/Spider Gang & Their Producers & Collaboraters -Gangs & Organised Crime -Creepypastas

17 - Oven Beats

-RPGMaker -Hardstyle/Trap Metal -88rising & Their collaboraters

18 - Elliana

-Streamers, Streaming, & Streamer BGM -Arena Fighters & 3D Brawlers (NO ARMS) -Live Action Sitcoms

19 - Sex Rulers

-Mods -The Apocalypse -Snail's House/Kawaii Future Bass

20 - Mettaton EX

-Tyler, The Creator & His collaboraters -Damon Albarn -Eddsworld & It's collaboraters -French Touch/Ed Banger

21 - Bad Snails

-Big Beat, Plunderphonics, & Turntablism -Gigi D'Agostino & Fatman Scoop -Undertale/Deltarune -Eastern European Culture, Food, & Culinary arts

22 - Sleepless Nights

-Deadmau5, his collaboraters, & Mau5trap artists -Bedroom Pop -VGM & Chiptune EDM

23 - The Mutant Enderman

-Beat Em Up -Game & Watch/Other Category -ARGs -Glam-Rock

24 - Rocque Banger

-Industrial, Dark Techno, & IDM -Bodies of Water & Sea Life -80s/90s Nintendo Non-VGM -Valve & It's fancontent

25 - CA7 & MATT

-NES, SNES, & Gameboy -FGC Competitions & 2D Fighting Games -Neil Cicierega -Money & Partying

26 - Cursed ARMS

-Nickelodeon/Nick Records -Vampires & Religion -Synthpop/Synthwave -One-Hit Wonders & 90s Hits (NO RAP/HIP HOP)

27 - Snail's Stream

-YTPs/YTPMVs & Keygen -Disney Channel/Disney XD & Disney child stars -Billboards Top 100 2010 & 2019

28 - Misako

-Newgrounds/Flash & Their creators -Rythm Games -Rick Astley/80s New Wave

29 - Lou Bega

-ARMS/Switch Exclusives -Huey Lewis & The News -Dungeon Crawlers/Roguelikes

30 - The Grinch

-Heat/Fire & Summer -Zombies -Chipzel

31 - Ke$ha

-Murder & Killing -Sports, Training Segments, & Montages -Ke$ha, Billie Eilish, & Their collaboraters

32 - GAME: BEAT: HUNT

-Cowboys, Deserts, & The Wild West -Illumination/Dr Seuss -Scatman John, Eurodance, & Jazz -Monstercat artists

i'm pretty sure i forgot a source in there. don't know what it is though. whatever it is goes to ke$ha.

[thinkbolt]

The Nutty Squirrels Present (1960) Zoo Revolution

Created by a pair of jazz musicians in 1958, as a parody of Alvin & the Chipmunks (who had a #1 hit song the year before), the Nutty Squirrels surprisingly popped out a top 40 hit with the song "Uh Oh."

While the Chipmunks were working on licensing issues, the Nutty Squirrels rushed out an animated "series," which was actually a collection of 150 cheaply acquired eastern European and Russian cartoons with hastily-added English narration. They made it into American TV syndication by 1960, a year before the Chipmunks.

After the fall of the Iron Curtain in the late 1980s, Soviet animators were surprised to find their work had been on American TV for decades.

[dustedmagazine]

Reverso — Shooting Star-Étoile Filante (self-released)

On previous recordings, Reverso has explored the music of French composers Gabriel Fauré and Maurice Ravel, linchpins of the early 20th century classical repertoire. Here, the trio of trombonist Ryan Keberle, pianist Frank Woeste, and cellist Vincent Courtois are inspired by another French composer, Lili Boulanger (1893-1918), the short-lived but prodigiously talented artist who was the first female to win the Prix de Rome. Such was the grief of her sister Nadia that she gave up her own promising composition career, devoting herself to pedagogy, a teacher to many Europeans and a raft of American expats. Reverso titles the recording Shooting Star as an acknowledgement of Lili’s extraordinary gifts. While the composer would likely have heard little jazz, her work serves as an excellent starting point for the original tunes written in response to it by Reverso. One wonders about balance issues a trio with this complement might encounter, but it never seems to be an issue, with Reverso careful to make every note heard.

“La Muse '' opens the album with liquid ostinatos from Woeste and legato melodies traded between Keberly and Courtois. “Obstination '' has a syncopated Iberian cast that recalls the craze for Spanish traditional music among the Impressionists. The solos use distinct registers, with Courtois flying high and Keberle playing resonant pedal tones. Woeste’s solo is a modal post-bop excursion that celebrates the off-kilter rhythms of the piece. Likewise, “Resilience” explores rhythmic variety, with alternations between quick polyrhythms and solos that vary it. A slow tune serves as an overarching motif. There is a bridge where small, repetitive segments take over before a return to the opening material, Keberle playing the main tune in octaves with Courtois.

The “Nocturne” is a venerable form, usually for solo piano. Reverso captures the mood with sculpted delicacy. A repeated tenor note in the piano underscores a chromatic bass-line alongside melancholy chords, as well as corruscating melodies between trombone and cello. Woeste brings out a filigreed soprano register melody in the bridge before returning to harmonies from the opening. Doubling of the melody by Keberle and Courtois gives way to another varied duet between them, culminating in a high trombone cry and a quick outro of repeated passagework. “Ma Jolie” has a bluesy trombone solo that is repeated with the cello playing liberal slides. The central section is led by Woeste, playing a zesty bit of cabaret music. Keberly returns to his solo while Courtois plays a pizzicato bass-line. The piano drops in with tasty harmonic fills. The quick cabaret music returns, and the piano and cello provide a sinuous take on the main tune to close.

“En Avant” deftly channels the texture and melodic approach of Impressionism, a style that, while not encompassing, appeared in Lili’s music. Courtois’s solo features Eastern sliding tone. Gamelan and other non-Western artists fascinated French musicians, notably Debussy, at the 1889 Paris Exhibition, and they continued to incorporate its signatures for decades. Keberle’s solo, on the other hand, is a more raucous affair, and Woeste plays dexterous small cells and a repeated stepwise progression. The close returns to referencing Impressionism and ends with halting utterances.

“Requiem” is a touching memento mori for Lili, with a haunting minor key melody that is deftly varied in its doublings. “Shine” too has a melancholy cast. However, the somber mood doesn’t prevail. “Lili’s Blues” imagines an introduction of Lili to “Le Jazz Hot,” with a plethora of glissandos and rollicking swing.

The recording closes with “Dernier Moteur” (“The Final Action”) in which bucolic riffs and mysterious, angular melodies are played by Woeste, Courtois adds a sumptuous solo, and Keberly provides countermelodies with slow glissandos that distress the crispness of the rest of the proceedings. A denouement is completed surprisingly, with the piano simply stopping to conclude the piece.

Creating “new standards” of early twentieth century music would be a far less imaginative choice than the approach taken on Shooting Star, where Lili Boulanger’s biography is as much an inspiration as her music. Reverso inhabits a musical space both of homage and innovation.

Christian Carey

[joemuggs]

BLACK WHITE YES NO ZERO ONE

A twitter thread from the other day, archived.

Something that's nagged at me for a REALLY long time about how cultural narratives get oversimplified, to the detriment of the best artists, came into relief for me at the weekend: the false dualities at the heart of American canonical criticism are the ghosts of segregation.

Recently on a FB group someone was asking why Latin freestyle wasn't better known. Valid question because it's one of THE keystones of the last 40 years of pop. Thinking back through reporting of the 80s it occurred: because history has been written - literally - as Black And White.

(Before this goes any further, pls note this is NOT to erase Black music or say it's all one big happy clappy melting pot, quite the opposite really)

When I was about 12 and first really into pop - so mid 80s - I got given a fat Rolling Stone tome that presented itself as a definitive history. It presented the birth of rock'n'roll as the Big Bang, the source of everything thereafter: and, crucially, it painted this origin point as what happened when black met white, specifically a fusion of R&B and country.

Very strong implication (possibly made explicit, I can't remember, but I feel like it was) was that this was "African rhythm plus European melody and harmony".

Fine, I was 12, I had no reason to doubt this, I was finding stuff out, great. As I learned more, for years I never came across much to make me question the Creation Myth or its assumptions; it was written into everything.

It was only YEARS later that I read a brilliant book about the Brill Building generation of songwriters, and understood the complexity of the rock'n'roll era and the birth of pop, soul etc. In particular: huge swathes of the songs were written by Jewish kids obsessed with Latin mambo.

(Side note - given that Spanish music contains huge amounts of Arabic influence, it's fun to whimsically think of this interface as a moment of Middle Eastern reunification)

Again, this is not to say that the African, Celtic, Anglo influences previously cited weren't real, even dominant, but suddenly the picture - and all the histories of migration, exile, colonialism, slavery etc -burst open, became three dimensional, came to life.

Around this time I also discovered Paul Gilroy and ideas about the Black Atlantic, i.e. that diaspora was multiple and complex with criss-crossing influences of its own. Realising that ofc "Latin" music included all sorts of African historical influence ("cumbia", or "cumbees", was noted as an African style in the 17th century!) made me realise that history was interwoven all the way down.

Since, it's nagged at me that American culture so often gets presented as Black Music / White Music as monolithic things - until recently, Latin was a category Somewhere Over There (even with its own separate Grammys) - but didn't really think about the root of that assumption.

But then yesterday, responding to that freestyle question, the term "Black And White" leapt out: having that binary opposition written into mainstream as the source of EVERYTHING in popular music is an expression of segregation mentality. The same mentality that kept radio, recording industry, etc so split apart in the US.

Yet as jazz and country hit 100 years old, and we look again at the history of THEIR genesis, they were each, as Beyoncé lately reminded us, SUCH a tangle - even in Jim Crow time, music WAS a place for information exchange that couldn't happen elsewhere.

AGAIN: this is not to say there's no such thing as Black Music in the USA, obviously there is. But as we start talking about decolonising history, reasserting things like the roots of house and disco etc, it's worth being vigilant for false binaries as a vehicle for stereotyping and oversimplification of multiplicities of history and identity.

(Another side note: it made me realise why I hate poptimism vs authentocrats etc, because that is just the FALSEST of false binaries)

(And another: if I see another false binary around "Were Kraftwerk the fathers of techno Y/N?" I'll scream down a vocoder loud enough to be heard in Dusseldorf)

Anyway just jotting that down before I forget. As you were.

[eretzyisrael]

22 Adar - The Jews of Hollywood - 1927

On this day in 1927, The Fox Film Corporation gave its first demonstration of the process that it would use for a new feature, Movietone News, that would allow filmgoers to see and hear scenes from recent events. Fifty reporters were escorted into Fox-Case's New York studios at 10:00 that morning and filmed. Four hours later, the same group saw and heard themselves when the film of the press conference was screened.

Fox Film Corporation was founded by William Fox. Born Wilheim Fuchs along with the founders of MGM, Paramount, Warner Bros., Universal, and Colombia Picture he was part of a small group of top-level Jewish-born entrepreneurs who fashioned Hollywood. Besides their professions, they practically all fit the same profile: 2nd generation Americans from observant Eastern European Jewish homes all abandoning the traditions of their youth.

It was not a coincidence that the first talking movie out of Hollywood was the Jazz Singer, produced by Warner Bros. The movie is the story of the son of a Jewish cantor, played by Al Jolson, whose father kicks him out of the house because he wants to become a jazz singer. In the process, he falls in love with a non-Jewish woman. The “happy ending” is when he returns home to chant the Kol Nidrei service with his mother and gentile girlfriend watching admirably, and subsequently, his mother comes to watch him perform on Broadway. The movie was quite auto-biographical for Jolson and the group of Jewish filmmakers. The movie was later remade twice. Once starring Jerry Lewis and once Neil Diamond. Again, quite an autobiographical role.

Rabbi Pinchas L. Landis

[burlveneer-music]

The Sorcerers/The Outer World Jazz Ensemble - split single from ATA Records, Ethio-jazz from Leeds

ATA Records are proud to announce this new double A-side from The Sorcerers featuring, on the flip, the first release by The Outer Worlds Jazz Ensemble. Exit Athens marks the start of a new era for The Sorcerers. Continuing their investigations of Ethio-Jazz and 60s and 70s European library music, the group is now formed around Joost Hendrickx (Kefaya, Shatner's Bassoon, Abstract Orchestra), Richard Ormrod (saxes, flute & keys) and ATA label head, bassist Neil Innes. Exit Athens features a driving funk engine room combined with exotic percussion, vintage keyboards, and the classic Addis Ababa combination of vibes, flute and oh-so-solid horns. Channelling the maximal, saturated aesthetic of 70s exploitation thrillers, The Sorcerers hope this sound will have you on the edge of your seat throughout! On the AA side, Beg, Borrow, Play marks the debut of The Outer Worlds Jazz Ensemble. The first in an ongoing series of 45s and LP issues, each Outer Worlds release will feature the immaculate grooves of the hard-working, unsung sidemen of the Leeds Funk, Latin and Ethio/Afrobeat scenes. The Outer Worlds series was conceived to feature visiting soloists who have made a beeline to ATA in search of a specific setting for their material. Beg, Borrow, Play kicks this off with ATA veteran Chip Wickham on baritone sax, and a slice of jazz exotica that owes as much to New Orleans Street Beat as to the Eastern moods of artists like Yusef Lateef and Ahmed Abdul-Malik. The result is loose and limber, with horns reminiscent of classic Art Ensemble of Chicago, and will appeal to fans of contemporary Afro-Futurist fusions as much as to devotees of the more esoteric side of 60s Blue Note, or early Hi-Life. 

[consolecadet]

Tagged by @specialagentartemis to post 10 songs I like with names in the title. It was easier to come up with these than I expected, even though I don't normally think about music by what's in the song title that way.

Cecilia, Simon and Garfunkel. I could easily have done this whole list as (Paul) Simon (and Garfunkel) songs tbh

Aisha, Death in Vegas ft. Iggy Pop

Clint Eastwood, Gorillaz

Cool as Kim Deal, Dandy Warhols. I looked up the lyrics to this for the first time today and realized that Courtney Taylor-Taylor is singing about wanting a girlfriend as cool as Kim Deal. I always thought he was saying "Just wanna [be?] as cool as Kim Deal"

Sarah, Hungry for Hands

Eggerson Keaveney, Jazz Emu. This has been stuck in my head for about a week, alternating with Not as Sexy.

Calling Elvis, Dire Straits

Elektrichka, The Projects. An elektrichka is a certain kind of Eastern European passenger train, but the album is called Elektrichka's Favourite Party Record, so I feel like it's addressed to a person with an unusual name.

Dr. Jeep, Sisters of Mercy. More people named after vehicles!

Rodney Yates, David Holmes

I tried to get a good genre range in here -- we've got classic rock, various electronic and trip hop adjacent somethings, a YouTuber's novelty song, a band which refuses to admit it makes goth music, and...sludgy post-metal?

Forgot to tag anyone, but do this if you like!

[djuvlipen]

Sort of a vent post but some Roma really think and act as if Western European Roma weren't Romani too, I'm on a zoom call for one of my uni classes and we were listening to some Sinti jazz and that one Romanian Rom went "no that's not real gypsy music I don't think these people are Roma" 🤨🤨🤨🤨 sorry we can't all be vlax mate. I've argued with him before because he keeps thinking the only Romani cultures are the Eastern European ones

[randomvarious]

Today’s compilation:

The Soul of Klezmer: Fantasy and Passion 1998 Klezmer / Folk / World Music

Never in my life have I ever deliberately gone out of my way to listen to klezmer music before, but all of that changed yesterday when I decided to give this 1998 double-disc from German world music label Network Medien a spin. Plus, it's Passover! So, a hearty chag Pesach kasher vesame'ach! / A koshern un freilichen Pesach to those who partake!

Now, this might sound a bit silly since klezmer is a traditional type of central and eastern European Jewish-rooted folk music, but I guess that, because most of the songs on this album appear to have been originally released in the 90s, I thought that they would've sounded more modern? I mean, like I said, I've never endeavored into listening to this music before, and have only been vaguely aware of what it sounds like, but along with the songs on here that were made in the 90s are also songs that are much older, dating all the way back to the 1920s. And beside the obvious difference in overall sound quality, there's not much of a discrepancy between how those much older songs and these more contemporary ones sound. The only band on here that appears to have incorporated a stroke of modernity are The Klezmatics.

So, just like how I have lots of respect and appreciation for old-time, pre-war jazz tunes, but don't enjoy listening to much of them, I feel the same way about these klezmer songs. But that's really not to knock the music at all. There is clearly a level of skill and dexterity needed to make klezmer well. "Purim," by The Andy Statman Quartet, has some really impressive folk guitar work on it, and Kroke's "Rumenisher Tants" contains some dazzling fiddle-playing, for example.

But I think I was also kind of deceived by this album cover too, which seems to depict a celebratory Jewish wedding. I guess I was expecting a bunch of foot-stomping and hand-clapping big band vibes, but a lot of these songs don't seem to be very upbeat or made by large ensembles either 🤷‍♂️. So, it looks like some of my preconceived notions about klezmer have been shattered here, which is good!

I'm also aware that there are some klezmer fusion genres out there too, like klezmer-punk and klezmer-jazz, and I thought that maybe, with a band name like New Orleans Klezmer All Stars, that might be a group that melds klezmer and a brass band sound together, but unfortunately, they don't 😔. But maybe there's a band out there that actually does that? Definitely still intrigued to hear some of that fusion stuff, or just klezmer that sounds more modern, in general. If you know of anything, feel free to holler.

No highlights.

[imathers]

Top 40: Black Ox Orkestar — Everything Returns

I am familiar with some of the other work of most of Montreal’s Black Ox Orkestar (as you might guess, the parts related to the Godspeed You! Black Emperor/Silver Mt. Zion axis) and especially these days with Jessica Moss (who will be reappearing in this list). I hadn’t heard this particular outfit before they went on hiatus in 2006, though, and the quartet’s music then and now draws on whole worlds I’m not super familiar with. Trying to describe it myself would be clumsy at best, so I’m going to copy from their Bandcamp page:

Black Ox Orkestar plays modern Jewish diasporic music that draws from Klezmer, Romani, Arabic, Balkan and other Eastern European folkways, through the lens of indie rock, experimental folk and avant-jazz sensibilities. 

None of that is my own background, but when I listen to Everything Returns it still touches and resonates somewhere deep down in me. I’m not trying to make any sort of centrist point (and certainly not an appropriative one: this is very much not ‘my’ music, and I’m moved and grateful it’s being shared with me and many others), and maybe I don’t mean or need to make any point beyond this is beautiful music. It’s worth clicking through to the YouTube page for this video for more context about how Erik Ruin made it, and an English translation of the Yiddish lyrics.

[ausetkmt]

Photo courtesy of “Environmental History in Detroit” University of Michigan

In Detroit, there are two precious historic places that have been lost to us: Black Bottom and Paradise Valley. Resembling famous epicenters of African American culture, history, and enterprise like New Orleans’s Bourbon Street and New York’s East Harlem, Black Bottom was a significant stronghold of Detroit’s African American population from the 1920s all the way to the 1960s.

So what exactly was Black Bottom and what happened to it? Black Bottom was an enclave located on Detroit’s near east side, bordered by Gratiot Avenue, Brush Street, Vernor Highway, and the Grand Trunk railroad tracks, with its main commercial strips on both Hastings Street and St. Antoine Street. Although primarily Eastern-European during its early years after World War I, Black Bottom began to become shaped by African Americans who participated in the Great Migration of Blacks escaping persecution in the South for economic opportunities in the North. Fueled by Henry Ford and his newly offered promise of five dollars a day for his workers, Black Bottom became an important destination to African Americans seeking higher wages, which permitted many to reach the middle class for the first time in generations. Because of the strict discriminatory laws that were aimed at keeping neighborhoods in Detroit segregated, Black Bottom became the place where African Americans could feel safe.

Hastings Street in Black Bottom is renowned for being a hub of bustling commerce and social institutions like independently owned businesses and hospitals, since African Americans were not allowed to conduct business at places frequented by their white counterparts or go to designated “white hospitals,” a result of the zoning and licensing laws of the time.Hastings Street once was home to as many as 300 black-owned businesses, a number that is even impressive by today’s standards, let alone for a segregated community.

Paradise Valley also contributed a great deal to the African American community of Detroit, being hailed as an entertainment center with its lively nightclubs and prominent hotels where African American superstars like Jackie Robinson and Duke Ellington went to stay when in town since African Americans were not allowed in most of the city’s hotels, which were reserved for whites only.

Paradise Valley’s music scene is of particular interest, as not many people are aware of the fact that jazz and big bang legends like Duke Ellington, Billy Eckstine, Pearl Bailey, and Ella Fitzgerald regularly performed in the local bars and clubs in the area. Black Bottom and Paradise Valley, before periods of civil unrest and heightened racial tensions, were tauted nationally as examples of integration between whites and blacks. Many whites would frequent the Paradise Valley entertainment district on their night on the town and would intermingle with African Americans, before soon returning to their neighborhoods.

Unfortunately, Black Bottom and Paradise Valley were both targeted for demolition and renovation in the 1960s, as urban renewal programs were implemented within the city of Detroit. City officials wanted to develop the area and also sought to address the housing concerns of the Black Bottom residents, who often resided in substandard, cramped living conditions without adequate kitchen and lavatory facilities. Peaking at nearly 1.8 million, the city experienced a population boom that created a housing crisis. The 1960s also marks when suburbanization became the norm, and houses started to become abandoned for more affordable and spacious opportunities outside the city’s boundaries. Part of that suburbanization was the building of freeways.

Now I-75 and I-375 occupy what was once Black Bottom and Paradise Valley; drivers in and out of Detroit may or may not have any knowledge of the historic space they pass daily.