Prashaanth Davidson

Prashaanth's life was a quiet one. He was one of the best bass players in Bangalore and he was one of my closest friends.

There is a tribute to him tonight at B Flat and I am begging anyone in Bangalore to come for it. There is a great line up of local musicians and it is bound to be a great gig.

I've never really thought about dedicating this blog to anyone but now I know that this is one person whom i wish would have seen this.

I love you.

Prashaanth Davidson

the Vocapeople

I tried looking them up but it is all very vague...This is really funny and extremely good!

A tribute to round midnight

"You know, anybody can play a composition and use far-out chords and make it sound wrong. It’s making it sound right that’s not easy."

Thelonious Monk

Round Midnight is one of those standards my father introduced me to very early. It was one of those songs we would work on to see if i could actually manage to sing. I don't think i will ever do justice to this song. I stopped trying but I was still curious to see how other musicians interpreted this song. It is one of the most recorded songs in jazz history but what makes it so popular?
You don't understand how tough it is until you try to sing/play it, the melody is not easy to listen to and yet it touched so many hearts. If you ask me its one of those songs monk composed that came from his gut. The music is haunting and beautiful sometimes even claustrophobic not really giving you any space to breathe with him cutting the meditative atmosphere with strange half notes.

It is said that Monk composed this track in the 1940s. Miles Davis used this track later as the name of his album Round about midnight. The thing about Monks compositions were that his music was way ahead of his time and that his music was never fully appreciated when it was released. Now however is a completely different story!

This first version is one by Bobby McFerrin and Chick Corea. They are just fantastic together, voice and piano flowing into each other like water. This one came from the album play something i will be putting up most of in later posts. It captures that haunting quality I'm so bad at describing!It is one of my or maybe my favourite version of this track. All these versions are vocal renditions of the track.

How can one have a vocal tribute to a jazz melody without Ella? This was the first version I heard of this song after which I got slightly obsessive! She brings Round Midnight to the big band with such class. I don't know how she makes this song sound so easy! Her sense of rhythm is unbeatable she brings the swing to the song.

Cassandra Wilson has the voice for this song. Its beautiful earthy timbre was made for singing music with this kind of atmosphere. I personally prefer it to the Ella version, its got more soul.

I know Jazz hardcore's will kill me for this but when i was looking for versions on youtube I found one by Amy Winehouse! Its the most accessible version and is actually quite nice. Please listen with an open heart and open mind!

Regina Spektor

Once again this song came from Myrthe. Regina Spektor is slightly hard to describe. She is like a box covered in beautiful, really intricate wrapping paper and when you open it there is this whole slightly twisted Dr Suess kind of world inside.

Consequence of sounds i one of those songs that describes her the best. Its got fantastic slightly retarded lyrics and an amazing half rap, half melodic sound. I am not going to put the lyrics down because its one of those songs that you can keep listening to and discover new things!

Ani DiFranco

I'm not sure who introduced me to AniDifranco so whomever it was may you live a thousand years. I discovered this song on my ipod on the way to Rajasthan. Shilo and I used to sit at the doorway of the train listening to this on repeat while she got her smoke. We hummed along and watched the scenery go by. It's a lovely song to listen to as a background score when you travel. The lyrics to this song are also fantastic! Her music is like poetry.

When I tried introducing Lata to her she told me that this woman was one of the most politically active musicians of her times! It's funny how we discover these singers not knowing where they came from and it what context their music was heard. So I did some research.

At a very young age Ani Difranco toured with her music teacher performing at bars playing Beatles covers. In 1989 she started her own record company: Righteous Records (later renamed Righteous Babe records in 1994) The ownership of this record label allowed her incredible artistic freedom on her album. She later began propagating local artists in her hometown of buffalo.

Although much of DiFranco's material is autobiographical, it is often also strongly political. Many of her songs are concerned with contemporary social issues such as racism, sexism, homophobia, Reproductive rights and war. The combination of personal and political is partially responsible for DiFranco's early popularity among politically active college students, particularly those of the left wing, some of whom set up fan pages to document her life as early as 1994. Her rise to popularity was more through word of mouth than media hype. It also helped that she was an artist who toured most of her life.

On the subject of religion, DiFranco said:

"Well, I'm not a religious person myself. I'm an atheist. I think religion serves a lot of different purposes in people's lives, and I can recognize the value of that, you know, the value of ceremony, the value of community, or even just having a forum to get together and talk about ideas, about morals — that's a cool concept. But then, of course, institutional religions are so problematic."

Red letter year is DiFranco's most recent studio album, released on September 30th 2008. Says DiFranco about the album: “When I listen to my new record, I hear a very relaxed me, which I think has been absent in a lot of my recorded canon. Now I feel like I’m in a really good place. My partner Mike Napolitano co-produced this record – my guitar and voice have never sounded better, and that’s because of him. I’ve got this great band and crew. And my baby, she teaches me how to just be in my skin, to do less and be more.

I am putting up the lyrics as well just because they are just beautiful even to read.

rush hour

and the day's dawning

the rain came

and pushed me under the awning

the puddles grew and threw themselves at me

with every passing car

I'm shielding my guitar

and there were some things that I

did not tell him

there were certain things

he did not need to know

and there were some days

when I did not love him

he didn't understand me

and I don't know why

I didn't go

he said change the channel

I've got problems of my own

I'm so sick of hearing about drugs

and aids

and people without homes

and I said, well,

I'd like to sympathize with that

but if you don't understand

then how can you act

I expected summer to be there in the morning

I woke to the alarm

but she was out of arms reach

sneaking out

on silent thighs

that were spent and sore

from the hot nights that came before

he said I looked for you

I don't know why

I said I was wearing black so you could

see me against the sky

take your big leather boots

and your buckles and your chains

put them on a downtown train

I expected he would be there in the morning

I awoke to the alarm

he was still in arm's reach

but his body was just a disguise

his mind had wandered off long ago

you see in his eyes

love isn't over when the sheets are stained

in my head there remains

so much left to be said

make me laugh, make me cry, enrage me

but just don't try to disengage me

Radiohead

Radiohead and I have had a bumpy affair. When My schoolmates first started listening to it I didn't much care for it.
I just couldn't seem to figure out what the whole hoopla was all about. But that was in school.

Rishabh, a school friend was an obsessive radiohead fan and he just refused to believe that I didn't connect with the band. This is when he gave me the live Avenches album and I found love. Their music is fantastic, they have the perfect mix of electronic sound with real instruments. and Thom Yorke of course is fantastic with his vocals. They are such a well formed band.
What amazes me is every album has its individual sound and they always seem to outdo themselves every time.

Both Amnesiac and Radiohead's album Kid A, which was released eight months earlier in 2000, were recorded in the same period. Most songs on Amnesiac were recorded during the same recording sessions that produced Kid A. A lot of people refer to Amnesiac as the B sides to Kid A but I personally like Amnesiac better. Maybe I have a more conventional ear but I could relate to songs in this album much more.

While explaining the decision to release two albums rather than one, singer Thom Yorke said, "They are separate because they cannot run in a straight line with each other. They cancel each other out as overall finished things... In some weird way, I think Amnesiac gives another take on Kid A, a form of explanation." He continued: "Something traumatic is happening in Kid A, and this is looking back at it, trying to piece together what has happened." About the differences with the previous record he says: "I think the artwork is the best way of explaining it. The artwork to Kid A was all in the distance. The fires were all going on the other side of the hill. With Amnesiac, you're actually in the forest while the fire's happening." If you listen to both albums back to back you can see what he is talking about.

I might be wrong was first released as a radio single before the album. This is one of my most favourite songs. Its got a great rhythm and every time I listen to it I get into this really heady sort of trance.

While searching for videos I came across an acoustic version of this song. I didn't really want to listen to it because I thought the ambient effect would be lost but hey, its not bad at all! The full blown version is a live version. Personally any musician or band whose performances are better than their albums are true musicians. Anyway I'm putting both versions in, tell me what you think!