What 🎶music are you listening to at this moment?

Now I'm hesitating. I wanted a change of instrument from guitar to piano, specifically one of the Jazz piano giants Oscar Peterson.
And one of the stellar performances I have on vinyl LP is "The Oscar Peterson Big 6 at the Montreux Jazz Festival 1975".
I also own six of the other vinyl LPs of this awesome festival - or actually all seven others, as I now also have my deceased dad's record collection, and he bought the eighth LP published by Pablo Records (a German label?), "Ella". BTW, this was the first concert again held at the Montreux Casino after the 1971 Frank Zappa incident immortalized in Deep Purple's 1972 "Smoke On The Water". The Pablo Records 8-record collection concentrated on the Jazz artists (by then, Montreux had opened to other genres), but the lineup gathers some serious giants of Jazz of the mid-1970s: just here Oscar Peterson, Milt Jackson, Joe Pass; Dizzy Gillespie; Roy Eldridge, Zoot Sims, Cark Terry; Count Basie, Johnny Griffin; Ella Fitzgerald. And some serious luminaries too, Toots Thielemans (yes, the harmonica can also be a Jazz instrument!), Niels Pedersen, Louis Bellson, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis; Tommy Flanagan, Mickey Roker; Benny Carter, Keter Betts, Bobby Durham.
Can't decide on any single tune. May be difficult anyway, as sometimes these performances are continuous, without a natural break like on studio albums.
Guess I'll just have to link the entire album … (to which I have almost finished listening; I'm not the world's fastest typist, anything but … 😜 )

You keep egging me on, S-eS!!!

But this time I'm not hesitating.
Stan Getz, his album "Captain Marvel", variously credited to 1972, 1974 (Wiki) or 1975 (my very worn vinyl LP)
Supergroup territory here, besides Getz the musicians are Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Airto Moreira and Tony Williams!!!
Awks!!! just noticed that my ear-bender was not the title song (not quite, anyway), but the opener "La Fiesta" - and the more I listen to the latter, the more certain I am.
Looks like complete album territory again - but again as above I do not hesitate.
Or not.
OK, "La Fiesta" is a good intro. Seems YouTube wants you to search for the other titles by yourself - or is just being annoying to me. I'm starting to "Wolverine" … 👹

OK then. Here's some cross-posting, genre-bending, and general mashing-upness. Fleetwood Mac:

I'm definitely getting old. Confused them with Jethro Tull. (Even though I own their 1981 album "Rumours").
But they did have one monster: "The Chain" *goosebumps*

"Oh Well" is from back when they were a blues band. Oh well.

I posted some jazz and bossa nova from mai waifu earlier, so I won't be naughty by reposting. This comes close, though:


Still hoping for a jazz CD from her. She's got that kind of voice. 😍

Squint-eyed Southerner said:

… Still hoping for a jazz CD from her. She's got that kind of voice. 😍

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True. But for a true Jazz CD, Spica should not have disbanded. A notch even above Mamamoo.

☀

Olorgando said:

A notch even above Mamamoo.

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Whoah there -- hold up! I certainly admire Spica, but they're disbanded. Various reasons have been given, one of them that they weren't signed to one of the powerful "Big 3" companies, which controlled much of what got airplay and exposure. But that goes for Mamamoo too, who are with the much smaller and newer RBW.

Another reason is perhaps the fault of Kpop fans themselves, and the "Idol" image that one could argue was enforced on them, but which they adopted: the need for "visuals" and dancing, which interferes with singing to the point where many groups lipsynch in performances (in much the same way it happened in the US and elsewhere). In fact, most Kpop Idol groups are lucky if they possess more than one decent singer, the emphasis on other aspects being so primary. Spica, concentrating on singing as they did, and perforce neglecting these other elements, fell victim to those expectations. Unfortunately.

Question is, is it possible to overcome those obstacles, without losing vocal performance? I think Mamamoo has demonstrated that it is. I'm going to delve a little deeper into Kpop Land here, so apologies in advance to those who find this stuff of no interest whatever -- feel free to post as many eye roll emojis as you think necessary!

There's a TV series called "Immortal Song" in which various people perform "classic" songs from the past. Most of them would be unfamiliar to (most) of us, of course, so I'll first post an original version, just for reference. This is from the 80's, pre-Kpop, and I suppose would be considered a "trot song" (I'm open to correction):


A few seconds will give you the idea.

About a year after their debut, Spica performed a version:


A perfectly good performance, even though missing a couple of members -- but that brought them down to the same number of powerful singers in Mamamoo, I'd point out; it's difficult to achieve 5-part harmonies with only four members! You'll notice the backup dancers.

About a year after their debut, Mamamoo performed their version -- and what did they do? Turned it into a full-fledged Vegas act -- without losing a bit of vocal performance!


You can checklist all the genres they include in the performance, so I won't bother, but notice how they draw the audience in (an audience, I'd mention, that is not the usual Kpop audience of kids -- you can see many older faces; they come to this show to hear the music of their youth, but are still as excited as the kids). Mamamoo's enthusiasm is infectious; they're almost bursting with personality, and throwing themselves into the performance. Dancing like crazy, and singing their hearts out. How they manage both is beyond me, but I suspect they carefully design their choreography so that the two don't conflict.

Note: no backup dancers required. In fact, I can almost see the backup singers thinking "what are we even doing here?"

OK -- back to regularly scheduled programming.

Or not. Just to right the balance, here's a clip showcasing Spica's two most powerful singers, Kim Boa and Kim Bohyung:

The tune sounds vaguely familiar. Is this a cover of some song from the English-speaking world?

Yep.

Inziladun said:

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...and then the acid kicked in....

"Think before you click" time: do you really want to add to the view total for this?


Not that a few more will matter, at this point!

Halasían said:

...and then the acid kicked in....

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Still like their "The Chain" best, found a video version of it that matches the original from their "Rumours" LP.

Damn YouTube suggestion list! Has me running every which way, and all at the same time (the term "Chicken Little" comes to mind unbidden … 🤪 ). But I remembered one gem. My favorite and (most heard) Lynyrd Skynyrd song. Never mind "Alabama" and "Bird".

Squint-eyed Southerner said:

"Think before you click" time: do you really want to add to the view total for this?
Not that a few more will matter, at this point!

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Some good guitar-work there at the beginning (yes, I noticed the guitar work! 😎)
My revenge: Di Meola, McLaughlin, De Lucia, Friday Night In San Francisco - Mediterranean Sundance; I saw and heard a live performance of this in Berlin in 1983.
The venue erupted like a volcano after this piece, and I was part of the lava … 🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸


While pecking away at my post, I carelessly let YouTube continue with its suggestion list on the other tab - meaning acoustically; serious "what the" moment, a piece by Albéniz of which I have more than one version, played by a young lady classical guitarist - and awesomely so. Reminds me I could throw some of my classical guitar LP stuff at you too - Christopher Parkening or the Master of Masters, Andres Segovia ...

I really like this lady! I have her CDs on their way to oz!

Wild Eyes by Mariee Sioux

Tiny darling ghost holder
Tiny darling ghost holder
You our soft spirit breather and
You our bark skinned weaver
Remember you could weep fire
Remember you could weep fire with wild eyes
With wild eyes, oh those wild eyes

If you ring your cells like bells in a garden that
You plant your burdens way deep down in
And water them daily from wells of salty
Guilt for sons who pollinate the deadly
That wild eye, oh that wild eye

Papa my pine whistler sparrow-eyed sun misser
Papa my pine whistler sparrow-eyed moon blisser
Mama my jaw clincher spirit mouthed ghost dancer
Mama my vein braider thousand year bone burner
Mama my tongue twister thousand pronged antlers
Mama my tongue twister thousand pronged antlers
Mama my vein braider thousand pronged antlers, antlers
And oh her wild eyes, oh her wild eyes

So I will ring my cells like bells as you
Bind your father's molecules with roots of silver
Pierce him cedars with eyes like fingers
Picking bloody flowers
His wild eyes, oh his wild eyes

Papa my pine whistler sparrow-eyed sun misser
Papa my pine whistler sparrow-eyed moon blisser
Mama my jaw clincher spirit mouthed ghost dancer
Mama my vein braider thousand year bone burner
Mama my tongue twister thousand pronged antlers
Mama my tongue twister thousand pronged antlers
Mama my vein braider thousand pronged antlers, antlers
And oh her wild eyes, oh her wild eyes

Tiny green moss collector
Sweet tiny green moss collector
Remember you could catch fire
Remember you could catch fire with wild eyes
With wild eyes, oh with those wild eyes

And once the river is rolling lower
We'll gather lichen from the boulders
We'll keep it dry inside our lockets
We'll put this town down into our pockets
We'll try...

To leave these branch arms behind
The swaying hands of pines
Their needles tugging at your skin
Trying to pull you back deep in their wooden womb
Of a hundred hearts hanging suspended, moth-eaten
Those muscles the size of your fist
All floating around your head
Not knowing who they're a loving
Not knowing how fast they're a pumping
Not knowing how hard they're a beating
Not knowing who they're a punching
Those muscles the size of your fist
All floating around your head
And throwing punches like we throw the stones to
The bottom of river beds
Who knows whose next
To watch from under the currents
The rapids rapidly raging while rapid
While we're rapidly blinking our wild
Our wild eyes

Olorgando said:

Still like their "The Chain" best, found a video version of it that matches the original from their "Rumours" LP.

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Yeah that song was a theme between me and my 1st wife. I wish I still had the photographs of us trying to mimic the Rumours album cover.

On a slight bend.... covers of The Chain

I like this tribute/cover band called 'Tusk's performance of The Chain...

A black metal version by Taking Dawn

And a nice heartfelt cover by Jordana...

And The Highwomen did a respectable cover for the movie soundtrack The Kitchen

"Tirage au Sort" by The Ever After, a band originally from New York that suddenly sings in french, that's interesting, to say the least...