Artist: Akira Tana
Album: Moon over the world
Label/Catalog#: SONS OF SOUND/70018
This is one of those truly amazing musical moment: I was casually listening to the Jazz channel on Music Choice (the service bundled with Directv) and the familiar melody of a theme song from a Hong Kong kung fu TV series appeared which totally caught me off guard. I immediately paid closer attention and reconfirmed that I haven't mistaken. I was even more surprised when I saw the artist is a Japanese! Googled the name and found out he actually collaborated with Hong Kong jazz pianist Ted Lo so suddenly it all makes sense.
Ted is playing with words here: Condor Man in Chinese sounds the same as hero, which was part of the title of the kung fu series.
BTW, legendary Hong Kong singer/songwriter Sam Hui has made a parody cover version of this song. I'm actually more familiar with his version than the original. He sang about the heroics of winning the game of mahjong!
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Album: The Gathering
Artist: Geri Allen
Personally I think Geri Allen's work as a leader deserves more praises and attentions than it does now. "The Life Of A Song" released last year was a great example. In fact it was my top jazz CD of 2004.
Her only album on Rhapsody is "The Gathering" from 1998, which was equally interesting. These 2 tracks (Rhapsody Link) are especially recommended as they feature Vernon Reid (ex-guitarist of hard rock band Living Colour)
Personally I think Geri Allen's work as a leader deserves more praises and attentions than it does now. "The Life Of A Song" released last year was a great example. In fact it was my top jazz CD of 2004.
Her only album on Rhapsody is "The Gathering" from 1998, which was equally interesting. These 2 tracks (Rhapsody Link) are especially recommended as they feature Vernon Reid (ex-guitarist of hard rock band Living Colour)
Friday, August 26, 2005
Track: The Crunge
Artist: Joshua Redman Elastic Band
Album: Momentum
You might not find anything special about this track but there are 2 reasons I write about it: 1) it is a Led Zeppelin cover, 2) Flea from Red Hot Chilli Pepper plays bass on it. A lot of bass players, including myself, idolize Flea.
BTW, Joshua Redman's first Elastic band was an organ trio. This one is different: besides the trio, it also features additional musicians like guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel, Peter Bernstein, vibist Stefon Harris, trumpeter Nicholas Payton, appearing on different tracks. (Flea also played on "Blowing Changes" and "Double Jeopardy") I think this all-star lineup is appealing enough to give it a listen!
Rhapsody Link
Album: Momentum
You might not find anything special about this track but there are 2 reasons I write about it: 1) it is a Led Zeppelin cover, 2) Flea from Red Hot Chilli Pepper plays bass on it. A lot of bass players, including myself, idolize Flea.
BTW, Joshua Redman's first Elastic band was an organ trio. This one is different: besides the trio, it also features additional musicians like guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel, Peter Bernstein, vibist Stefon Harris, trumpeter Nicholas Payton, appearing on different tracks. (Flea also played on "Blowing Changes" and "Double Jeopardy") I think this all-star lineup is appealing enough to give it a listen!
Rhapsody Link
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Track: Shoots and Ladders
Artist: Korn
This song's lyric comes from many well-known nursery rhymes, e.g. Mary has a little lamb, London Bridge, Ring around the rosie...
The last one is not well-known to me though 'coz I just learned it from my daughter's swimming class.
You might have read that "Ring around the rosie" is from the Europe Middle Age plague
era, i.e., many died of the "black death disease" transmitted by rats. Scary huh?
"Shoots and Ladders" is about the dark origin of nursery rhymes. I think they want to ridicule that we teach such creepy songs to kids.
However, the Urban Legend page disputed the association of "Ring around the rosy" with the plague though.
Rhapsody Link
This song's lyric comes from many well-known nursery rhymes, e.g. Mary has a little lamb, London Bridge, Ring around the rosie...
The last one is not well-known to me though 'coz I just learned it from my daughter's swimming class.
You might have read that "Ring around the rosie" is from the Europe Middle Age plague
era, i.e., many died of the "black death disease" transmitted by rats. Scary huh?
"Shoots and Ladders" is about the dark origin of nursery rhymes. I think they want to ridicule that we teach such creepy songs to kids.
However, the Urban Legend page disputed the association of "Ring around the rosy" with the plague though.
Rhapsody Link
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Album: Frozen in Time
Track: Stand Alone
Artist: Obituary
"Frozen in Time" is indeed a well-suited title. Listening to this album will certainly reminds you of the glorious day of death metal, which was more than 10 years ago! In fact, this is the 1st studio album by Obituary since their last released 8 years ago. The track "Stand Alone" impressed me the most on this album in terms of guitar work. Of course I still miss the great guitar solo on "Cause of Death," Obituary's 2nd album, featuring James "the god of death metal guitar" Murphy.
Rhapsody Link
Artist: Obituary
"Frozen in Time" is indeed a well-suited title. Listening to this album will certainly reminds you of the glorious day of death metal, which was more than 10 years ago! In fact, this is the 1st studio album by Obituary since their last released 8 years ago. The track "Stand Alone" impressed me the most on this album in terms of guitar work. Of course I still miss the great guitar solo on "Cause of Death," Obituary's 2nd album, featuring James "the god of death metal guitar" Murphy.
Rhapsody Link
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Book: Sonic Boom
Author: John Alderman
I've just finished reading Sonic Boom: Napster, MP3 and the new Pioneers of music It is about the history of digital music from its infancy in the early 90s to the explosion of popularity of MP3 in 2000. This book does a good job covering almost everything in that decade from the most well-known companies like MP3.com, Real Network, and of course Napster, to the lesser-known ones, like Liquid Audio, Listen.com, Internet Underground Music Archive, Riffage.com, Nullsoft (the maker of Winamp, which is certainly more famous than the company itself) It ends with the ruling on the Napster case, which effectively shutdown the 1st generation Peer-to-peer music file sharing service.
I consider myself a close follower of the development of digital music and thus have a pretty good idea about what these major players did. However, this book went into much deeper levels of details about the stories and people behind the companies. A very interesting read I must say.
After reading this book, which was published in 2001 (that's why I picked it up dirt cheap at a discount bookstore,) the first thing came to my mind was that it would have a very interesting sequel, with developments after 2001, covering Apple's iPod and iTunes Music Store, Rhapsody (a music streaming service offered by Listen.com and later sold to Real Networks along with the company), the 2nd incarnation of Napster (the name was bought by Roxio, which sold off its software business, best known for its CD-burning software, and renamed itself to Napster!) and the Grokster ruling (the highest-profile case against P2P company after Napster)
Readers of this book would all agree that there is no way record companies could turn back the clock and go against the digital music revolution. Looks like some record companies are slowly but finally getting it. Here is a sign: Warner Music developing e-label
I've just finished reading Sonic Boom: Napster, MP3 and the new Pioneers of music It is about the history of digital music from its infancy in the early 90s to the explosion of popularity of MP3 in 2000. This book does a good job covering almost everything in that decade from the most well-known companies like MP3.com, Real Network, and of course Napster, to the lesser-known ones, like Liquid Audio, Listen.com, Internet Underground Music Archive, Riffage.com, Nullsoft (the maker of Winamp, which is certainly more famous than the company itself) It ends with the ruling on the Napster case, which effectively shutdown the 1st generation Peer-to-peer music file sharing service.
I consider myself a close follower of the development of digital music and thus have a pretty good idea about what these major players did. However, this book went into much deeper levels of details about the stories and people behind the companies. A very interesting read I must say.
After reading this book, which was published in 2001 (that's why I picked it up dirt cheap at a discount bookstore,) the first thing came to my mind was that it would have a very interesting sequel, with developments after 2001, covering Apple's iPod and iTunes Music Store, Rhapsody (a music streaming service offered by Listen.com and later sold to Real Networks along with the company), the 2nd incarnation of Napster (the name was bought by Roxio, which sold off its software business, best known for its CD-burning software, and renamed itself to Napster!) and the Grokster ruling (the highest-profile case against P2P company after Napster)
Readers of this book would all agree that there is no way record companies could turn back the clock and go against the digital music revolution. Looks like some record companies are slowly but finally getting it. Here is a sign: Warner Music developing e-label
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