Saturday Sounds - MOSHPIT

Today, instead of featuring a single recording or performance, I'm featuring a website. And it's a good one.

MOSHPIT  is an archive of live music performances from a variety of sources including the Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals, Bill Graham Presents, the King Biscuit Flower Hour, and several other syndicated programs. It's huge.  They claim to have over a quarter million recodings from over 11,000 performers with performances (and some interviews) from the 1950s through into the 2020s.

Unlike the Internet Live Music Archive, most of the recordings are professionally recorded concerts with decent to excellent sound. The site is searchable and you can browse by performer or through their catalogs of sources like the King Biscuit Flower Hour, which includes over 1600 performances alone. Performances are playable track by track and web pages include links to other performances as well as interviews. 

I do wish they had an Android app for it though. 

I'm going to include links to three performances that I picked, more or less at random. 

• Richard Thompson Band, The Music Hall, April 22, 1994
• Miles David Quintet, Newport Jazz Festival, July 4, 1966
• William Prince, Paste Studio ATX, March 16, 2023

That's just a very small sample. I'm gong to be spending a lot of time browsing through MOSHPIT. 

Saturday Sounds - John Coltrane

YouTube keeps surprising me with great videos that randomly pop up in my feed. Last night, Nancy and I had just finished watching season 4 of Reacher and we didn't have time to watch another show, so I opened YouTube and it came up with a video of John Coltrane performing "Afro Blue". Given when Coltrane was performing, it had never occurred to me to look for videos of his performances. But lo and behold, there are quite a few. 

So today's musical treat is a selection of live performances by John Coltrane and his quartet. I was a bit too young to have a chance to see him live (though I did get to see McCoy Tyner and Pharoah Sanders several times), so this will have to do. Given the era, the video quality is not great, but the sound is just fine. 

First up, the John Coltrane Quartet live in Dusseldorf, Germany in 1960. 

Next, some performances from Ralph J. Gleason's Jazz Casual TV show: "Afro Blue", "Alabama", and "Impressions". 

Finally, here's a spectacular performance of "My Favourite Things" by the John Coltrane Quartet in Comblain-La-Tour in 1965.

YouTube has many more videos of Coltrane performing, but that will have to do for now. Maybe I'll do another post one of these days. Enjoy!

Saturday Sounds - Still Inside - The Tony Rice Unit

Today's musical treat is an album that I've been trying to find for several years, Still Inside by The Tony Rice Unit. Although best known as a bluegrass musician, he had a jazzier side, which is in full bloom on Still Inside. AFAIK the album, originally release in 1981, has never had a CD release, but it has shown up as a playlist on YouTube Music. Some of the tracks appeared later on his album, Devlin. 

From Wikipedia:

Following that with the Tony Rice Unit, he pursued experimental "spacegrass" music on the Mar West, Still Inside, and Backwaters albums. Members of the Unit included Jimmy Gaudreau (mandolin), Wyatt Rice (guitar), Ronnie Simpkins (bass), John Reischman (mandolin), and Rickie Simpkins (fiddle).

I'm not sure I've head the term "spacegrass" before, but it seems appropriate. It's jazzy, improvisational acoustic music with bluegrass elements, much like that played by David Grisman and Jerry Garcia in the 80s and 90s. I love every note of Still Inside and I hope you will too. 

Saturday Sounds - Jethro Tull - 1977/11/21 - Landover, MA

This week's musical treat takes us back to late 1977 for a concert by Jethro Tull. I saw Tull at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto about a year later and this concert brings back some memories. Tull was much better and more powerful live than I expected from their recordings and this concert covers a full range of their music. 

The video doesn't look like it's been upgraded with modern tools but the sound quality is just fine. Setlist is below. Enjoy!

Setlist:

0:00:00 Wond'ring Aloud 

0:02:33 Skating Away On The Thin Ice Of The New Day 

0:06:53 Jack-In-The-Green 

0:10:28 Thick As A Brick 

0:24:13 Songs From The Wood 0:30:15 Instrumental / Drum Solo Improvisation 

0:37:00 To Cry You A Song 

0:39:32 A New Day Yesterday 

0:42:27 Flute Solo Improvisation / 0:45:55 God Rest Ye Gentlemen / 0:48:34 Bouree 

0:50:40 Living In The Past / 52:19 A New Day Yesterday (Reprise) --- 

0:53:17 Second Half Of The Concert – Opening 

0:54:55 Velvet Green 

1:01:20 Hunting Girl 

1:07:10 Too Old To Rock 'n' Roll, Too Young To Die 

1:11:32 Minstrel In The Gallery 

1:17:12 Cross Eyed Mary 

1:21:58 Aqualung --- 1:30:56 Instrumental Improvisation 

1:34:28 Wind Up 1:39:24 Back Door Angels / Guitar Improvisation / 1:44:43 Wind Up (Reprise) 

1:47:06 Locomotive Breath 

1:53:00 Land Of Hope And Glory / Improvisation / 1:55:43 Back Door Angels (Reprise)

track listing and time, thanks to Tony Taurus

Saturday Sounds - Miles Davis Live in Berlin 1969

YouTube's algorithm keeps presenting me with some real gems, and today's post is one of them: Miles David Live in Berlin 1969. I don't know anything about the video other than it appear to be from a German jazz festival and I'm guessing it was shown on German TV. The video quality is about what you'd expect from 1969 but the sound is fine. 

In any case, it's a spectacular performance featuring, along with Davis, Jack DeJohnette on drums, Dave Holland on bass, Chick Corea on keys, and Wayne Shorter on sax. You can't ask for more, except maybe for a longer video.

Here's the tracklist.

00:00 - Introduction

02:02 - Directions

08:52 - Bitches Brew

22:41 - It's About That Time

37:22 - I Fall in Love Too Easily

40:50 - Sanctuary

44:27 - The Theme

It's interesting to hear early versions of some of the material ("Bitches Brew" and "Sanctuary:" that ended up on the Bitches Brew album the next year. I have to wonder what the audience thought of the new material. Enjoy!

Saturday Sounds - The Tragically Hip - Live July 22 - August 20, 2016

Today's musical treat is something very special, especially if you are Canadian. Live July 22 - August 20, 2016 is a live album culled from the last concert tour of Canada's most beloved band, The Tragically Hip. 

That isn't hyperbole, by the way. Their last concert was broadcast live over the CBC and watched by an estimated 11, 700, 000 people, about one third of all Canadians. (The CBC will be rebroadcasting it tonight at 7:00 p.m. eastern, on TV and radio, CBC GEM on the web, Sirius XM and YouTube. I will be watching, with beer and Kleenex in hand).

As for the album, I think it will eventually become known as one of rock's greatest live albums. The band, and especially lead singer and lyricist Gord Downie, who was dying of brain cancer during the tourn, gave it their all. It's far more than a greatest hits album; the hits are there, but so are a large number of deep tracks from their catalog, all brilliantly played. If you are new to The Hip, check out "Nautical Disaster", "50 Mission Cap", "New Orleans Is Sinking", or "Bobcaygeon", to name a few of their most popular songs..

Play it often and play it loud.

 

Saturday Sounds - Girma Woldemichael - Nafqóté

This week's musical treat is from Girma Woldemichael, an Ethiopian-Canadian saxophonist living in Toronto. I was completely unfamiliar with him or his music until hearing an interview with him on CBC radio. His music synthesizes African elements with jazz, and funk and I quite like it. Nafqóté is his most recent album. You can find several more on YouTube Music. 

Saturday Sounds - Philip Glass

I recently broke down and subscribed to YouTube Premium because the ads were getting too annoying. A subscription to YouTube Music Premium was also included, and I've been browsing through the music library. So today,  here are three recent albums of Philip Glass's music and one special treat. (YouTube Music doesn't allow embeds so I'm just providing links to the albums). 

• Einstein on the Beach: Ictus, Suzanne Vega, Collegium Vocale Gent, and Tom De Cock. Einstein on the Beach is perhaps Glass's best known work but its a monumental piece and rarely performed in its entirely. I was fortunate to see it in Toronto in 2014, and it was one of the musical highlights of my life. This recording is a new arrangement for performance as a concert and is somewhat shorter than the original opera. It's been performed in Europe since 2018.

• Knee Plays from Einstein on the Beach: Arranged by Vox Sarenrae. The Knee Plays are my favourite pieces of music from the opera so I'm glad to see them excerpted in an album. The orchestration makes me think of what Einstein on the Beach would sound like if it had been performed by Emerson Lake and Palmer. 

• The Tao of Glass: Philip Glass and Phelim McDermott. This EP has five of the pieces of music featured in the theatrical production currently playing in London. You can buy the EP on Bandcamp. 

• And finally, we have this: Philip Glass: Etudes Polka by Joseph. C. Krause. It's short, which is probably a good thing. 

Saturday Sounds - The Rolling Stones - Foreign Tongues

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. 

 

Saturday Sounds - Philip Glass: The Hours performed live by Anton Batagov, piano

This week's musical treat once again features the music of Philip Glass. It's a live performance by pianist Anton Batagov of Glass's music for the soundtrack of the movie, The Hours. 

I've heard some of this played by the Philip Glass Ensemble, but I much prefer the solo piano version. It's lovely, contemplative music; just what I need to take my mind off the chaos of the current political scene. Enjoy.

Saturday Sounds - Don Was and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble

Today's musical treat is from Don Was, a Detroit-based musician and producer who, over the last few years, has been playing bass with Bob Weir and Wolf Brothers. He's currently touring with a new group, Don Was and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble. It's a large group, playing jazz, funk, and R&B; as he says in a "mission to chronicle the native sounds of our home city, Detroit". It reminds me a bit of Kamasi Washington's band. To sweeten the mix, he's been throwing in some Grateful Dead covers into his sets. 

They'll be playing in Toronto at Koerner Hall on January 30, 2027. I might go. 

Here are three recent sets that have shown up on YouTube. 

Don Was and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble: Tiny Desk Concert

WNRN In-Studio Session: Don Was and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble

Don Was and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble - 15 January 2026 - The Atlantis, Washington, D.C. (full show)

Saturday Sounds - Garnet Rogers - Burnham 2026/03/07

This week's musical treat is a live performance by Garnet Rogers, who Nancy and I have seen more times than I can remember. We haven't seen him perform in a couple of years, so finding this recent performance is a treat. I don't know anything about the venue, but it's a professional recording with good sound. Enjoy.

Saturday Sounds - Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts - Corduroy Plants

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". 

 

The Philip Glass Ensemble - 2026/06/20 - A review

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:

Glassworks (1981

1. Opening 2. Floe 3. Islands 4. Rubric

5. Facades

6. Closing 

Rescue from Satyagraha (1979)

Grid from Koyaanisqatsi (1982)

Dance 1 from Einstein on the Beach  (1976)

Funeral from Akhnaten (1983)

Spaceship (Encore) from Einstein on the Beach (19776)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo of the Week

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. 

The Philip Glass Ensemble at Koerner Hall

Saturday Sounds - Relisten and Ratdog

Today's musical treat isn't an album or a concert but instead an app: Relisten. 

I have been a fan and a user of the Internet Archive's Live Music Archive for many years. I have downloaded gigabytes of music from the Grateful Dead, Phish, and many other bands. But trying to find a specific show or band is painful. It's not quite like trying to find a needle in a haystack, but it comes close.

Relisten solves that problem. It's a front end to the live music archive and gives you easy browsable and searchable access live music recordings from more than 4,300 artists. You can easily filter by popularity (a list of a few hundred artists), date, or venue, keep a list of favourite songs or performance, and download to your device. There are three verions: a web interface and Android and IOS apps. And it's free and open source.

Note that Relisten doesn't share information between platforms so if you have favourites in your app list, they won't show up in the web version. 

Major failing: The web interface is pretty basic and doesn't seem to offer all the features of the apps. For example, I can't switch from the Featured to All Artists views and I can't find a way to save or view favourites, and there's no searching. 

I found about Relisten from The Intelligence's Cool Tools newsletter. There doesn't seem to be an archive of back issues so I can't share the original newsletter article. If anyone knows how, please leave the info in a comment and I'll update this. 

Relisten is a great way to follow current bands that allow taping and an even better way to delve into a lot of musical history.

Since my Saturday posts usually feature some music, here's a concert from Ratdog at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York on March 2, 2014. It's a soundboard recording and features the great Steve Kimock on lead guitar. 

Saturday Sounds - Pharoah Sanders Live

Since I've been featuring jazz saxophonists here recently, I thought it was time to post some performances from the great Pharoah Sanders. I first heard his music when I was in university and his "The Creator Has a Master Plan" has been the soundtrack to much of my life. I was fortunate to have seen him play four times and wish there had been more. 

These are a few of the many videos of his live performances on YouTube.  Four are good quality, pro-shot videos. The Grace Cathedral performance is an audience audio recording but I've included it because of the way Pharoah plays off of the cathedral's acoustics. It's a beautiful and  spiritual performance. Enjoy. 

Pharoah Sanders/John Hicks Live in Frankfurt 1986

Pharoah Sanders Quartet with Tony Hewitt, Live at Dizzy's, 2015/01/31 

Pharoah Sanders - 1995/11/17 - Late Show

Pharoah Sanders & William Henderson - 2006-04-21, Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA

Pharoah Sanders - Iowa City Jazz Festival - 2013/07/07

Saturday Sounds -- Sonny Rollins

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.

Saturday Sounds - New Riders of the Purple Sage - Powerglide

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.

Phish Have Transformed The Sphere

Phish were one of the first bands to play Las Vegas' futuristic venu, The Sphere. Given the band's penchant for theatrical extravaganzas as seen at their New Years concerts, fans expected quite a bit fromt he band's performances there and they weren't disappointed. But with their latest residency there in Apri, they've taken the visual elements offered by The Sphere's technology to a new level, as described in this article from GQ (archive link). 

Most bands have used The Sphere's immense screen to display various images and computerized animations. Phish have done something different and new; they've created a virtual version of their touring lighting rig and expanded it many times over to fill the screen, then added effects that aren't possible with a physical rig. The results are stunning. 

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.