Category Archives: Poet

Five 2013 Blogging Projects

Posted on by Musicofourheart

I love the time I get to spend between Christmas and New Year reflecting upon and renewing commitments to an ongoing pursuit of the arts. Its treasured down time from a perpetual teaching schedule that runs day and night, all year round.  I try to spend the time productively, teaching myself new software, preparing for certification exams, etc. I also spend time listening to music that escaped my grasp during the year, reading through my significant music magazine and book pile, visiting Barnes & Noble to stay vibrant and aware.

As a result I have accumulated some meaty writing topics for the coming year. They represent more substantive research into genres/artists I want to explore more in-depth, hopefully across multiple blog posts. This is my revised approach to professional blogging in 2013, which I hope my readers will like and seek to learn along with me (or teach me something new they know in these areas).

The five 2013 art blogging projects are:

  • Smashing Pumpkins, Billy Corgan – I just heard Billy Corgan‘s interview with Howard Stern on Sirius XM. Oceania is a recording I did not do justice to in 2012. I have discovered more about the Smashing Pumpkin/Corgan direction as well as the various side projects by past/current members. The Teargarden by Kaleidyscope initiative interests me greatly. Time to do some justice about the art of Smashing Pumpkins in the music of our heart.

Oceania

  • I was leaving through the current newsstand issue of Uncut Magazine last week at Barnes & Noble when I discovered a review of Joni Mitchell‘s box set, Studio Albums 1968-1979. The box set is a UK import via Rhino that is presently stocked out on Amazon. Once I can get my order fulfilled and I have given these 10 CDs a thorough listening I will write a blog series about that experience.

Studio Albums 1968 - 1979

  • I was browsing the music book section when I discovered the On The Road: The Official Movie Companion trade paperback. This stirred my sentiment about The Beats. I realized very quickly I had not really delved effectively into the writings of Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg. Patti Smith has galvanized the poetic pentameter in the music of our heart for this halcyon period of art. I resolve to see the movie On The Road in New York City  before the wider theater release. I also make a commitment to read more of Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs books (and of course Patti Smith’s poetry books until her new book(s) come out!). I also plan to get some of the books by the “authoritative” researchers/biographers of The Beat, most notably Ann Charters. I must follow through on this as my core initiative for the arts in 2013. The movie has become the impetus for renewing my kinship with The Beats.

On the Road: The Official Movie Companion

  • I picked up another of The Ultimate Music Guide’s from the publishers of Uncut Magazine. This one is about The Kinks. The 146 page special collector’s edition covers each album in the Kinks discography, the solo albums from Ray and Dave Davies, rarities and singles. It is just the compendium I had looked for about The Kinks. I plan to summarize this satisfying publication in a later blog post article.

Uncut presents The Kinks: The Ultimate Music Guide

  • I am continually impressed by the quality and substance of the British magazine publications. I need to get that iPad 4 with Retina so I can electronically subscribe to Uncut and NME. The magazine I’ve had in my hands twice now at Barnes & Noble is the The Story of Joy Division and New Order. I readily admit I don’t know enough about this band. Realizing I should correct that problem makes this my fifth blogging project for 2013.

NME - Joy Division - Collectors Magazine

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Bob Dylan’s Timeless Classic, Blood on the Tracks

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The superlative release Tempest is Bob Dylan’s 35th studio recording has reawakened my passion for Dylan’s 50 year library of work. Rolling Stone Magazine recently asked its readers to vote on the best Bob Dylan album of all time. I cast my vote without provocation for Blood on the Tracks. The readers of Rolling Stone Magazine validated my choice by choosing Blood on the Tracks as that best Dylan album of all time.

Playing Blood on the Tracks is like spending time with an old friend that you haven’t seen in a while and it feels like no time has passed. I love the feeling that comes over me when Blood on the Tracks unfolds on the car or home audio system. Bob Dylan’s stream of consciousness inside his series of songs is acute, articulate, piercing and truly memorable. The common thread through all the songs is the pain that comes when love dies.

I am eager to read the Rolling Stone interview with Bob Dylan conducted by Mikal Gilmore. All the quotes I’ve read so far tells me we are in for another insightful session with Mr. Dylan, poet extraordinaire.

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Leonard Cohen – Old Ideas

Posted on by Musicofourheart

Like many others music fans I have anticipated the new Leonard Cohen recording, Old Ideas. I caught his television spot this past Sunday during CBS Sunday Morning and it’s message really stayed with me.

Leonard Cohen is a renowned Canadian singer-songwriter, novelist, poet, and painter. I feel guilty I haven’t allocated enough time to listen to and appreciate his art. I know his classic standard-bearer songs such as  ”Suzanne” and “Bird on the Wire”, but I truly don’t know the artist and his muse better than I should.

Granted there is so much music in this garden music and only so much time to listen appreciably to great music. I am trying to correct that mistake by starting with his latest effort, Old Ideas and working backwards in time.  Wikipedia does an effective job of letting us shuttle through a musicians discography in chronological reverse order.

Wish me well as I try yet again to become better acquainted with one of the great artists of our time :)

 

 

 

 

 

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Gil Scott-Heron Collaboration

Posted on by Musicofourheart

I love the collaboration that is taking place for the spirit and consciousness for Gil Scott-Heron. I wrote about Bill Ortiz’s CD Winter in America on Friday 1/13/12 (see Related Articles). I have discovered more information from special collaborators I wish to share with you.

Gil Scott-Heron will be honored at the 2012 Grammy Awards with a Lifetime Achievement Award. You can learn more here at this micro-site established by his son, Rumal Rackley, his family and the Gil Scott-Heron estate.

I am energized to connect once with the spirit of  urban poet Gil Scott-Heron through the online Web site and the vibrant pages of  his new book, The Last Holiday: A Memoir. 

I applaud the efforts of Tim Mohr in his editorial capacity for this volume. The book lives and breathes Gil Scott-Heron. Thank you Tim for the collaborative respect you evidence throughout the book.

The book cover displayed below is the edition published in Great Britain by Canongate Books Ltd. Canongate has a long history in earnest with Gil Scott-Heron. I encourage you to visit the Gil Scott-Heron Canongate TV Book Channel to view a video interview and gain more insight into the artist’s spirit.

Oscar Wilson’s dust jacket illustration art is richly compelling. Oscar’s vivid portfolio is published on Debut Art here.

Illustration by Oscar Wilson - Debut Art

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Bill Ortiz, Winter In America, A Tribute to Gil Scott-Heron and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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Gil Scott-Heron is our greatest urban poet. His words take us beneath the veneer of society where subsistence  merges to form a greater understanding. It is Winter in America, 2012.

Bill Ortiz‘s EP recording Winter In America is a heroic attempt that helps us to avoid despair. The music and the message push us safely back from the precipice of the winter of our discontent.

The opening track  is an ingenious remix of Gil Scott-Heron’s ”Winter In America”. It commences with Bill Ortiz’s horn compelling us to take heed and listen. The track is gutsy and edgy. It crystallizes our attention on what is really going on in the streets across America.

“Winter In America” smartly acknowledges the Godfather of Hip-Hop, Gil Scott-Heron with lead vocalist Tony Lindsay (Santana) trading off lyrics with “The Grouch” on vocals and rap.

Well they say it’s a cold world

But we got a cold play my man

Rest in Peace, Gil Scott

Without you the revolution would not

What makes this EP even more full circle is the track, “I Still Believe”, a Phoenix Black remix with the eloquent spoken word voice of Linda Tillery and “Zumbi” from Zion I accenting with spoken word/rap. “I Still Believe” contains excerpts from Rev. Martin Luther King’s Nobel Peace Prize speech in Oslo.

The co-operation of Gil Scott-Heron’s revolutionary spirit lives on in his recently published posthumous memoir, “A Last Holiday“. There is a chapter in the book which details the tour that Stevie Wonder and Gil Scott-Heron were on to together where they lobbied for a national holiday for the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Gil Scott-Heron draws the correlation between the assassination of John Lennon and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. two great men of peace struck down by violence. As I write this review we are on the edge of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s  birthday and U.S. federal holiday. It just so happens that the Winter in America EP drops on Martin Luther King Day, January 16th, 2012 direct to fans.

Bill Ortiz states the purpose of this recording best when he says, “I try to bring all these elements of who I am musically into one voice.” You’ve done all that and more Bill with your fine achievement, Winter In America.

Winter In America
Bill Ortiz
Released: January 16, 2012
Label: Left Angle Records

Produced By Ali Zandinejad aka Phoenix Black, Bill Ortiz and Steve Heithecker

Track Listing:

1. Winter In America
2. I Still Believe (Remix)
3. Word Play (Remix)
4. I Still Believe (Instrumental)
5. Winter In America (Radio Edit)

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Patti Smith’s Exhibtion, Camera Solo at the Wadsworth Atheneum

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Rosemary and I spent a delightful afternoon in Hartford, CT at the Wadsworth Atheneum. Our mission was to spend quality time with Patti Smith‘s photography exhibition entitled Camera Solo.

It was our second visit to the Wadsworth Atheneum in three days. We were first there on Friday October 21, 2011 for the opening of the exhibition. We attended a signing by Patti Smith in the Avery Court at 11:00 a.m.

We brought a copy of the exhibition catalog and Patti Smith’s latest CD, Outside Society for Patti to sign. It’s always a friendly interchange with Patti Smith. She signed both the cover and the liner notes for Outside Society as well as the inner pages of the catalog.

Patti Smith was gracious to allow me a photograph of her after she signed.

We couldn’t stay to pursue the exhibition on Friday as we wanted to get to Mohegan Sun to get online to see Stephen Stills at the Wolf Den. (see yesterday’s blog post for that event). We made a pact that we would return to the Wadsworth Atheneum on Sunday.

We love what we learn each time we have a touch point with Patti Smith. Our art tastes have been extended to a whole new plane of thought. Patti Smith is a prism into many forms of art, visual, audio, literature, poetry and now photographic experiences.

The Patti Smith: Camera Solo exhibition was exquisitely curated. There were more than 70 photographs by Patti Smith, displayed along the walls.

There was also interesting physical mementos such as Robert Mapplethorpe‘s slippers and Patti Smith’s father’s Charles Dickens cup she had gotten him in London. You could just see her father savoring his coffee in it :)

We especially liked the 7+ minute 16 mm black and white film about Rene Daumal that Patti Smith directed and narrated with her articulate voice adding poetic emotion. This was the first time we had seen the film. It was a visual excursion in Paris that taught us more about the life of  a great poet. Jem Cohen did the camera work which was a visual  surreal immersion.

My favorite Patti Smith Polaroid photograph was the bed of Virginia Wolf where the sheet forms a raised cross.  I found this photograph the most peaceful as it represents the rising of one’s spirit. It fortified today’s homily at mass about how we move to the afterlife at the moment of death.

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Patti Smith:Camera Solo, First Exhibition of Her Photography in the United States

Posted on by Musicofourheart

The Wadsworth Atheneum

Patti Smith: Camera Solo

Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art

600 Main Street, Hartford, CT, 06103, (860) 278-2670

Press Release

Book Signing/Reading – October 21, 2011, 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

On the opening day of Patti Smith: Camera Solo, the artist will be present for a book signing in Avery Court. Patti Smith will sign one item per person. Per her request, please do not bring a guitar to be signed. You may bring one item to be signed, or purchase the exhibition catalogue from our shop. If you have questions please contact us at (860) 278-2670. Access to Avery Court for the book signing is free with museum admission.

The Doors – Waiting For The Sun

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The Doors Waiting For The Sun (1968) was both their third Elektra Records studio album and the title song that appeared later on the Morrison Hotel (1970) recording.

Elektra Records publicity photo taken by Henry Diltz

Natalie Merchant – Creative Expression

Posted on by Musicofourheart

I close this week ‘s music blog series about female singer/songwriters by examining the latest work of artist Natalie Merchant.

Natalie Merchant

Natalie Merchant’s creative muse is highly attuned at this stage of her career. Her artistry is evidencing adventurous theater techniques coupled with discovery poetry interpretations as performed at TED 2010.  I’m intrigued with Natalie Merchant’s painstaking research for her latest recording which covers 150 poets in a rich literary tapestry

Natalie’s latest recording, Leave Your Sleep is a double CD set of new songs, working with folk, jazz, reggae, and R&B players as well as gorgeously arranged chamber ensembles. She brilliantly adapts the works of such poets as Edward Lear, Ogden Nash, and Robert Graves into a musical kaleidoscope.

Leave Your Sleep cover art

I will be purchasing the digital edition of Leave Your Sleep today. I love the education Natalie’s recording and booklet have to offer me as a listener.