Rubénerd!

Finally, I had the time today to create a new article for my beloved WikiProject Jazz group on Wikipedia.

Summer Night: Live is a live jazz album by the Chick Corea Akoustic Band trio, featuring Chick Corea, John Patitucci and Dave Weckl. Recorded during a concert in Belgrade in 1987, it was released with Jazz Door, the former recorded and live jazz record label.

The set contained jazz standards from Miles Davis and John Coltrane, as well as several original quartets by Corea.

I could see why Wikipedians had skipped this particular album in Chick's discography; information about it online is scant. I was just lucky that we had the physical album here to reference! Oh yeah, and the music is friggen good too.

Given we're all watching Sakamichi no Apollon (or at least, we all should be!), it only seemed fitting to have an unofficial UTS anime club meetup at the 2012 Jazz and Blues Festival at Darling Harbour in Sydney. Even with my speed challenged lenses and low ISO camera (ahem) I still was able to get a couple of decent shots :'D

From the event website site (well, that last word was entirely superfluous).

Darling Harbour Jazz & Blues Festival

A stellar line up of blues, soul, funk and swing talent from big open air sets to intimate jazz sessions.

The Darling Harbour Jazz & Blues Festival showcases legendary names in jazz and blues, rubbing shoulders with emerging and young Australian musicians.

The Festival's eclectic programming reflects the broadening of the contemporary jazz music scene incorporating funk, soul, big band swing, hip pop, jazz-rock, R&B and New Orleans jazz sounds.

With exams and assignments weighing down on us like a veritable double bassoon, none of us have the time to go for the full three days of the event, which is a shame. Still, what we ended up seeing (and hearing) last night swung our socks off! For those of us wearing socks.

Firstly, a terribly flattering photo of all of us in our little troupe! Not pictured is Sebastian, given he was taking the photo. An equally flattering photo of him has been included below for convenience.

After meeting up at UTS we headed to Darling Harbour to pick up guides and see what was up. In an attempt to look like a beatnik jazz guy I wore my red beret I bought from a tourist trap store in Paris, but unfortunately a trip to the washing machine had rendered it smaller than it was at the time of purchase and allegedly made me look like a girl. #batseyelashes

We wandered around and watched some pretty amazing acts, before finally making our way to the gigantic big tent to catch the opening of James Morrison. Yes, THE James Morrison!

Suffice to say, he was amazing. When he wasn't playing his trumpet and keyboard at the SAME TIME, or holding a roaring note for so long I was panting in sympathy, he was trolling us with terrible puns and bad jokes! Booting up your keytar [sic] faster by defragging it, oh James XD;

His band was equally stunning. I didn't catch the guest singer's name or the band member on the alto sax, but they were just as much of a treat as James was!

They played all the classics, including some Aretha Franklin, Pink Panther tunes and unashamedly one of my favourite friggen songs of all time, Pick Up the Pieces by those Average White Band folks. Hearing THAT live with such an epic horn section, guitars, drums and keyboards not only made me completely forget about my burning sore throat, but had me doing a nerdy jig on the spot as I hummed along. It was dark, so not too many people saw, fortunately ^^;

The atmosphere was incredible. The tent we were all huddled under on an otherwise freezing Sydney winter night was ablaze with colour almost as bright as the music!

What made it even better though was the company. I've been to several jazz concerts around the place (black tie and informal), but often times by myself :'D. Laughing with Vadim as we deciphered James's bad jokes, watching the baristas make our hot drinks with Clara, poking fun at the French with Cindy, discussing hat fashion and photography with Seb... these are the kind of people that make an outing even more fun and memorable :D

To quote Penn and Teller:

My only regret: I packed my kit lens and not my NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8 by accident! My 55/200mm f/5.6 was able to take some decent shots at the range I needed from where I was in the crowd with VR enabled, but the narrow depth of field and speed of that 35mm could have made some pretty amazing shots. Oh well, better than nothing!

To top it off, we made our way back towards Central and headed to Mappen for dinner. I'd had a giant coffee and had plenty of food at home, so I took advantage of their free water and just sat there looking through all the photos. Photos I knew were all shot in RAW, and would take forever today to go through XD.

Thank you for an epic evening guys! :D

Related reviews!

• Jamie Jakov!

I've been so thorougly soaked with assignments and work over the last week or so, I've barely had time to eat let alone blog! To break the silence on this glorious Saturday evening, I thought I'd share this ridiculously amazing rendition of Avalon by one of my all time favourite jazz/swing musicians John Pizzarelli!

By all accounts that guitar should have CAUGHT FIRE! Jazz and big band forever :'D

Michael G. Nastos reviewing John Pizzarelli's 1996 album One Night with You:

If you like your contemporary jazz crooners smooth and sweet, then likely John Pizzarelli is your main man [..]

Aww! I'll admit it, as a kid his name was enough to reel me in. His distinctive jazz, big band style was what kept me listening ever since. In my world of ripped audio and iDevices, his physical CDs grace my precious shelf space with Michael Franks :).

Ironically, I'll bet I'm of the few people who heard of him before his famous dad.

My latest entry to the Anime@UTS blog, which has nothing to do with anime whatsoever! If you want to comment, do so over there :D.

And now for something completely different!

So I was sitting here this afternoon thinking about what I should write for Music Monday, given I’d elected to do so again. I wasn’t short of inspiration, Nisemonogatari had just started the previous day and I’d been obsessed enough with Bakemonogatari to consider using the theme for that. Amagami SS was a series I never admitted to watching in polite company, but I did, and I could talk about the music from there.

Stretching and staring blankly at the ceiling as I often find myself doing when faced with an existential quandary, iTunes kicked in with a tune on random that suddenly plunged me into my childhood. Memories of large signs in characters I couldn’t understand, and friends long since lost to time. It was perfect!

Growing up in Singapore in the 1990s I was exposed to a lot of Japanese culture. Despite having brutally ruled the country during World War II, surveys of young Singaporeans repeatedly demonstrate they wish they were either “Western” or Japanese. They would have loved a friend of mine from the time, his mother was Australian and his father Japanese!

In exchange for taking this partner in crime to the German club (best cakes on the island, no joke!), his family would often invite me to the Japanese club. The unassuming building from the outside was a cavernous expanse of wonder, particularly to a young kid. Along with all the regular amenities such as tennis courts and amazing places to eat, they also had rooms catered to keep children occupied. Capsule machines, multicoloured carpet, game machines, walls upon walls of manga, giant TVs for playing Pokemon, DragonBallZ and other series I’d probably recognise now but didn’t at the time, board games.

And what would they be playing softly on the speakers as you entered the building? Lisa Ono. Ono Risa. Both! ;)

A native of Japan but born in Brazil, Lisa Ono is a singer and musician perhaps best known amongst young people for her appearances on advertisements on Japanese television, ironically enough. Her upbringing in Sao Paulo and time spent at her father’s jazz club exposed her to bossa nova, and at the age of 15 she started playing the guitar and singing. By 1989 she signed a record contract, and today tours the world.

Clearly inspired by other luminaries such as Astrud Gilberto, she brings her own distinct twist to the genre with a mix of Portuguese, English and Japanese lyrics. For those who know their jazz standards, her reinterpretations are subtle, but clever. And then out of the blue there’s Red Blouse, a tune that ranks among The Bird is The Word as a tune that’s thoroughly addictive for different reasons ;) .

I’ve been listening to Lisa for years, but whenever she comes up on random on my computers, phones and the like, I’m taken back to that lobby in my childhood, a time when I knew the afternoon would be fun and surrounded by lovely people in a world of fascinating Japanese culture. In a different time and place, that’s what the Anime@UTS club is to me now.

And when they're done their set, they can say "you don't have to go home but you can't Fate/Stay here!" It practically writes itself.

As a fan of the genre, and an unashamed fan of Nyan Cat, this was a perfect fit!

NoScript (and equivalent) users will have to make a temporary exception for YouTube.com to see the video. And you'll want to.

I'm unreasonably excited! And the art is beautiful! From the official mailing list:

Hi Everyone,

Michael's new album, "Time Together," was officially released officially yesterday. It is available online from most retailers including Amazon.com as well as in music stores around the country. Digital downloads are available from most services including iTunes.

Michael Franks has been my favourite singer/songwriter since before I could walk; my beautiful late mum passed on her enthusiasm of his offbeat, interesting and just a little cheeky lyrics and unmistakable smooth jazz sounds. This will be the first of his albums we won't be sharing together, though I'd like to think she approves that I'm carrying on the family tradition :").

I just ordered his album on Amazon so I can rip it as FLAC and Apple Lossless. They estimate shipping to take two weeks; I hope I can survive that long without it! I suppose I could buy a few digital download tracks, just to keep me going, right?

If you'd like to buy the album, you can use the link below which will earn me some referral commission, or if you'd prefer you can skip it. Cheers! ^_^

In this final entry in our series of fascinating lyrical anecdotes derived from Ben Sidran's 1990 album Cool Paradise, Ben leaves us with his impression of what it's been like to weather critics and be featured on Rubenerd.com, in the song Searching For a Girl Like You:

Folks say I shouldn't care,
I got to be right there!

By "right there" I'm assuming Rubenerd.com, in which case... hell yeah! :D

That concludes this out-of-context lyrics post series of utter pointless fun. But don't fret, you can still read them all in their entirety in the archives where forever they'll belong, into eternity, or at least until I stop paying my webhosting bills. Goodnight everyone! Peace out!