This week's musical treat is a new album from none other than The Rolling Stones: Foreign Tongues. It's a good one, as the last couple of their albums have been. It's not Exile on Main Street but it's a pretty decent effort for a group of 80-year-olds. Play it loud.
This week's musical treat features Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts. It's a concert film from last year's tour called Corduroy Plants.
From Live for Live Music:
Neil Young surprised fans this week with the release of Corduroy Plants, a free one-hour concert film documenting his 2025 tour with The Chrome Hearts. The film follows last month’s release of As Time Explodes, a live album culled from the same tour and featuring all the same songs except for “After the Gold Rush” and “Looking Forward.”
If you like Neil's electric playing, you're going to love "Cortez the Killer" and "Like a Hurricane".
Nancy and I headed into a very lively Toronto last night to see the Philip Glass Ensemble at Koerner Hall. I've been a fan of Glass's music since I first heard it in the late 1970s and I've seen him and/or the Ensemble at least nine times.
The concert highlighted Glass's works from the late 1970s and early 1980s. The first set was the entire Glassworks album and was, for me, the highlight of the evening. I much prefer the Ensemble's arrangements to the more orchestral recording. The second set was music from Satyagraha, Koyaanisqatsi, Einstein on the Beach, and Akhnaten.
I enjoyed it much more than Nancy, who is not a fan of Glass's music. That being said, "Dance 1" from Einstein on the Beach wasn't the best choice to highlight music from that opera; I told Nancy it should have been titled "Enough Already". They did do "Spaceship" as an encore which is somewhat more succinct. .
I'm glad I had a chance to see the Ensemble again. Now if only the COC would perform Satyagraha or Akhnaten.
Setlist:
This is the Philip Glass Ensemble at Koerner Hall in Toronto last night. It was an excellent concert and I especially enjoyed hearing the suite of pieces from Glassworks. My view was restricted by the heads of the people in front of me so I couldn't get the two musicians on the far right of the stage in the frame.
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| The Philip Glass Ensemble at Koerner Hall |
Sadly, the great jazz saxophonist, Sonny Rollins, died recently. I never got to see him perform but have listened to and enjoyed many of his albums. For this week's musical treat, here are three concert videos of his performances, starting with a BBC recoding of a 1974 gig at Ronnie Scott's famous London club.
Next up, the Sonny Rollins Quintet Live at Jazz Festival Bern, Kursaal, Bern, Switzerland - 1985.
Finally, here's the Sonny Rollins Sextet live in Munich in 1992.
I first discovered the New Riders of The Purple Sage through their association with the Grateful Dead, who they opened for when I saw the Dead in 1970 and 1971. I enjoyed their music; I guess you could say they were my gateway to country and western.
From a post by Peter Christiansen in the Grateful Dead group on Facebook
"Powerglide". Second album by the New Riders of the Purple Sage. Wonderful followup to that most excellent first album. Buddy Cage replaces Jerry Garcia on pedal steel. A number of guest appearances including Jerry Garcia (banjo) and Bill Kreutzmann (percussion) from the Grateful Dead, and noted session player Nicky Hopkins (piano). Another fun, sing along, toe tapping collection of songs. Covers "Hello Mary Lou", "Willie and the Hand Jive", "I Don't Need No Doctor" "Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (And Loud, Loud Music)" take on the energy of the band while original writing on the others contributes significantly. Another important part of my high school days.
Of their albums, Powerglide was my favourite. It still holds up well after more than fifty years.
It was late April, the fourth night of a nine-show run at Sphere in Las Vegas, and the band had just begun its second set. As they slid from a thin boogie into an atonal blur, the screen that swallowed them took the sold-audience of about 17,000 on a grisly animated tour of a damaged body—teeth pocked with fillings, a tummy laden with plastic toys, lungs puffing hard. As the camera wormed its way up and out of the body and back to the mouth, a wrecking ball swung toward the teeth, smashing them with three terrifying hits. The image faded. The room went dark. The band kept playing. The crowd erupted.
The screen needed to go black because a fleet of video teams with a squadron of computers and servers at their command needed time to load a system that has forever reinvented the way Sphere can work: a physics-defying virtual model of Phish’s famous light rig, programmed and run by a pair of technicians so legendary in lighting and jam circles that they have been profiled by The New York Times. The system, the most expensive visual element of Phish’s two Sphere residences, allows Chris Kuroda and Andrew Giffin to control 7,080 individual sources of light, all designed to look like they’re part of physical light fixtures flying above the band. Because it is not mechanical, it can move in directions and with a nimbleness that traditional lighting rigs could never match. It can charge the audience like a bull or pull back into a bright vanishing point.WATCH
I've included some videos of their performance that show off the new capabilities. The first includes the songs mentioned in the above quote.
And here's one more that gives a sense of the scale of the venue.
Finally, here's a review of one of the concerts from the April residency. The author isn't a Phish fan but he was impressed by the visuals and has some advice about the best seating locations if you are planning to attend a concert at The Sphere.
More and more, I'm finding that jazz is the music that gives me the most comfort and enjoyment right now. This week's musical treat is a from an artist that I've not listened to much, Rahsaan Roland Kirk. I've known about him since I started listening to jazz and I knew he was a multi-instrumentalist (sax and flute, mostly) but for some reason never paid much attentin to his music.
One night recently, I was listening to the jazz channel on Sirius XM, as I often do at bedtime, and was blown away by what I was hearing. It was "You'll Never Get to Heaven" from Kirk's live album, Bright Moments. From Wikipedia:
Rahsaan Roland Kirk (born Ronald Theodore Kirk; August 7, 1935[1] – December 5, 1977),[2] known earlier in his career simply as Roland Kirk, was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist who played tenor saxophone, flute, and many other instruments. He was renowned for his onstage vitality; in his shows, virtuoso improvisation was accompanied by comic banter, political ranting, and the simultaneous playing of several instruments.
Bright Moments seems to be a good representation of Kirk's music. It was recorded in 1973, just a couple of years before a stroke restricted his playing and four years before his untimely death. I regret not paying more attention to his music before this, an oversight that I will be trying to rectify.
Here's something I didn't expect to find; a performance from the Montreux Jazz Festival, filmed in 1972. As you might expect given the period, the video quality isn't great but the audio is fine. It's an energetic performance and fascinating to see his multi-instrument technique in action.
Finally, here's a short (27 minute) documentary about his life.
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| Overlooking the marsh |
This week's musical treat is Remember the Humans, the latest album from Toronto's Broken Social Scene. I've seen them live four times and posted about them several times, so a new album is an event.
The new album is quite long, almost 50 minutes, and contains 12 tracks. The production hearkens back to their classic You Forgot It In People, with multiple overdubbed vocals and wall-of-sound instruments. It'll probably sound best on headphones.
They'll be out touring this summer and if they're anywhere near you, go; they're one of the best live bands I've seen.
Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.
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| Springtime swans |
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This week's musical treat is the new album from The Sheepdogs, one of Canada's better bands. Keep Out of the Storm is a solid rock album that sounds a bit like some classic Southern rock bands, which is a bit odd considering that The Sheepdogs are from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. No mater; it's a good album. Enjoy.
This week's musical treat is Future Soul, the latest album from the Tedeschi Trucks Band. I've featured them several times here and will probably continue to do so if they keep putting out albums of this quality. It's a tighter, more focused production than 2022's I Am the Moon with velvety smooth sound that begs to be cranked loud. I have been trying to think of a favourite track or two, but I can't. I like them all. Enjoy.
Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.
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| Boats at the marina waiting for summer |
