#Hal Willner

[folkimplosionmusic]

April 26, 1991

[infiniterichesinalittleroom]

Not just a physical release, although there is that, too, but to be held by an artist at the crucial moment of expression — to be awed, second by second, at the way a song or piece of music unfolds, to be held on the edge of tears by the drama of it all, and to be, as an audience member, an essential participant in the drama itself. That is a wonderful thing. With Nina Simone, of course, and The Saints, many times. Neubauten in their prime. The Dirty Three. I experienced it the first time I saw Crime and the City Solution in some shithole in Sydney in the late seventies — a kind of crucial beauty. Swans. The Cramps. Johnny Cash. Emmylou Harris singing at a Hal Willner event, Led Zeppelin in Kooyong Park in Melbourne back in the mid-seventies, Bryan Ferry singing 'The Butcher Boy' alone at the piano, Bob Dylan in a tiny club in Rio. So thank God, quite literally, for music, because it's one of the last remaining places, beyond raw nature, that people can feel awed by something happening in real time, that feeling of reverence and wonder. Fucking Al Green running up and down the aisles, screaming his head off, a James Blood Ulmer gig in a tiny club in London, Martin Rev's legendary fifteen-minute gig upstairs at the Garage in Islington, back in the nineties. These are sacred moments.

Nick Cave • Faith, Hope and Carnage

[nedison]

Who By Fire - Leonard Cohen & Sonny Rollins (1989)

RIP David Sanborn who, along with Hal Willner and Jools Holland, got Sonny to play with Leonard.

[krispyweiss]

Friday Flashback: Todd Rundgren, Taj Mahal and Michele Grey Tell “Night Music” Viewers “Never Mind the Why and Wherefore”

In character and in costume, Todd Rundgren, Taj Mahal and Michele Grey infused “Night Music” with a little Gilbert and Sullivan in 1989.

The three principals are at once serious and silly as they act out their version of “Never Mind the Why and Wherefore” from “H.M.S. Pinafore.”

The band includes David Sanborn on saxophone, Pat Metheny on guitar and Hal Willner on all-important triangle.

Rundgren, as the Captain, uses everything his nimble voice has to offer, plugging his nose at one point and inhaling and exhaling dramatically for effect.

As Sir Joseph and Josephine, respectively, Mahal and Grey are similarly ridiculous, with the former moving stiffly and the latter emitting and exaggerated, sex-kitten vibe, no doubt drawing on her time with the Tubes.

It’s a remarkable performance, made all the more so by the fact they’re all simply clowning around.

Friday Flashback is an occasional series in which Sound Bites looks back at memorable musical moments on television

4/21/23

[jgthirlwell]

Jennifer Charles of Elysian Fields at Amarcord Nino Rota, a reimagining of the Hal Willner's Nino Rota tribute album, at Roulette Intermedium.

[waderockett]

Stay Awake

Who was it that said “Damn it all. Damn everything But the circus”?

[nonesuchrecords]

It was 20 years ago today: Bill Frisell's Unspeakable, which would go on to win the GRAMMY Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album, was released on Nonesuch. You can hear it here.

With vintage sound samples as the jumping-off point for the guitarist's playful, eclectic, and groove-oriented collaboration with producer Hal Willner, the album features Willner on turntables, Tony Scherr on bass, Kenny Wollesen on drums, Don Alias on percussion, Steven Bernstein on trumpet, Briggan Krauss on baritone saxophone, Curtis Fowlkes on trombone, Adam Dorn on synth, and The 858 Strings: violinist Jenny Scheinman, violist Eyvind Kang, and cellist Hank Roberts.

Design by Barbara deWilde. Illustrations by Noah Woods.

[sinceileftyoublog]

Beth Orton Live Preview: 11/10, Mayfair Theatre, Chicago

Photo by Eliot Lee Hazel

BY JORDAN MAINZER

For Beth Orton, Weather Alive (Partisan) is somewhat of a rebirth. Her first album in 6 years, it was written on a described “cheap, crappy” piano set up in her garden shed that she had purchased at Camden Market. Following periods of grief and trauma surrounding the deaths of close collaborators Andrew Weatherall and Hal Willner and incorrectly diagnosed health problems, Orton was able to write songs about simple, yet abstract things that moved her: love, sex, music, and, yes, the weather. She found an all-star band to help realize her compositions, including drummer Tom Skinner, multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily, bassist Tom Herbert and saxophonist Alabaster dePlume. Best, Orton self-produced the record, name-checking and somehow nailing a who’s who of influences: Solange, Talk Talk, Springsteen’s Nebraska. The result is easily the best album of her career.

From the get-go, with its stunning title track, Weather Alive introduces its palate, clacking, gentle percussion and piano, muted, but emotive saxophone and bass, and Orton’s raspy, weary drawl. “Almost makes me wanna cry,” she sings, “The weather’s so beautiful outside.” Coming out of an age where realized how much we took for granted the ability to simply be outside, it’s easy to resonate with Orton’s words, awestruck at the natural world. On “Fractals”, explicitly inspired by Willner and Weatherall’s deaths, Orton sings over funky bass, skittering hi hats, and fluttering saxophone. The mathematical nature of the title contrasts how Orton describes creating with cohorts past and present: as “magic.” “Friday Night” is like a microcosm of the beginning of the summer, a symbol for vague hope before a period of time. For Orton, it’s a feeling of being able to potentially see loved ones again. “And though I’ll never get too close,” she sings, “I still hold you now and then.”

At the same time, Weather Alive is sometimes subsumed by dark moments that are no less gorgeous than the hopeful ones. “Lonely” begins with trombone from Aaron Roche, which has a suitably more foreboding quality than dePlume’s saxophone, and goes on to illustrate the depths of Orton’s shame. “Lonely likes my company,” she sings as Skinner’s drums crash. Later, her parents, who passed away when she was a teenager, appear on the song to scold her, telling her to “shut your mouth if someone desires you.” On “Haunted Satellite”, Orton’s voice is persistent, but ultimately shaky and broken. Album closer “Unwritten” unfurls over 7 minutes of sprinkling piano and light drums. “I was getting unwritten,” signs Orton before a droning instrumental outro. It’s an appropriate ending for an album steeped in mortality and sadness but appreciating the dreams along the way.

Tonight, as part of her first US headlining tour in 5 years, Orton performs at the Mayfair Theatre in the Irish American Heritage Center, somehow, someway adapting the “magic” of Weather Alive to the live stage. Expect to hear the full album as well as favorites from favorite records like Trailer Park and Central Reservation. Musician and composer Heather Woods Broderick, who’s playing in Orton’s band, will give an opening set of her material.

[thesobsister]

Great piece by @alanlicht on the occasion of the passing of Hal Willner, discussing Willner's impactful, subversive music show, Sunday Night/Night Music.

On Hal Willner & Night Music

I wrote about Hal Willner’s late 80s TV series Night Music at the WIRE’s website, here.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Photograph by Guido Harari.

* * *

"Lou was sick for the last couple of years, first from treatments of interferon, a vile but sometimes effective series of injections that treats hepatitis C and comes with lots of nasty side effects. Then he developed liver cancer, topped off with advancing diabetes. We got good at hospitals. He learned everything about the diseases, and treatments. He kept doing tai chi every day for two hours, plus photography, books, recordings, his radio show with Hal Willner and many other projects. He loved his friends, and called, texted, e-mailed when he couldn’t be with them. We tried to understand and apply things our teacher Mingyur Rinpoche said – especially hard ones like, 'You need to try to master the ability to feel sad without actually being sad.'

"Last spring, at the last minute, he received a liver transplant, which seemed to work perfectly, and he almost instantly regained his health and energy. Then that, too, began to fail, and there was no way out. But when the doctor said, 'That’s it. We have no more options,' the only part of that Lou heard was 'options' – he didn’t give up until the last half-hour of his life, when he suddenly accepted it – all at once and completely. We were at home – I’d gotten him out of the hospital a few days before – and even though he was extremely weak, he insisted on going out into the bright morning light.

"As meditators, we had prepared for this – how to move the energy up from the belly and into the heart and out through the head. I have never seen an expression as full of wonder as Lou’s as he died. His hands were doing the water-flowing 21-form of tai chi. His eyes were wide open. I was holding in my arms the person I loved the most in the world, and talking to him as he died. His heart stopped. He wasn’t afraid. I had gotten to walk with him to the end of the world. Life – so beautiful, painful and dazzling – does not get better than that. And death? I believe that the purpose of death is the release of love.

"At the moment, I have only the greatest happiness and I am so proud of the way he lived and died, of his incredible power and grace.

"I’m sure he will come to me in my dreams and will seem to be alive again. And I am suddenly standing here by myself stunned and grateful. How strange, exciting and miraculous that we can change each other so much, love each other so much through our words and music and our real lives.--Laurie Anderson on Lou Reed for Rolling Stone, November 6, 2013.

According to Will Hermes, in his biography "Lou Reed: The King of New York," Reed's final words to Laurie Anderson were “Take me into the light.”

[Follies Of God]

[sweetdreamsjeff]

Obituary: The son who soared: Jeff Buckley

Date: June 6, 1997

From: The Guardian (London, England)

Publisher: Guardian News & Media

Document Type: Obituary

Byline: ADAM SWEETING

FEW ROCK business careers began more tantalisingly than that of Jeff Buckley, who has drowned in the Mississippi river, aged 30 (his body was found on Wednesday this week). In 1991, record producer Hal Willner, known for assembling imaginative, star-studded tributes to Charles Mingus and Kurt Weill, put together a tribute concert for Jeff's father, Tim Buckley, at St Ann's Church, Brooklyn, New York. Tim had died of a heroin overdose in 1975, aged 28, but his early death ignited a slow-burning musical legend. It was founded on his recorded legacy in which soul, blues and jazz influences mingled freely, the process stirred by his arrestingly elastic vocal style.

His son Jeff, born in California during Tim's brief marriage to Panama-born Mary Guibert, had always been ambivalent about his father. Tim left Mary when Jeff was six months old, and his son was brought up by his mother and stepfather during a peripatetic childhood. 'We moved so often I had to put all my stuff in paper bags,' Jeff recalled. 'My childhood was pretty much marijuana and rock 'n' roll.'His decision to participate in Willner's tribute event launched Buckley Junior as a new phenomenon on the New York music scene, and simultaneously affirmed his quasi-mythic credentials, particularly when he performed his father's song Once I Was. 'It bothered me that I hadn't been to his funeral, that I've never been able to tell him anything,' said Jeff. 'I used that show to pay my last respects.'

Thus launched in public, Buckley was rescued from a string of odd jobs by joining the avant-garde combo Gods & Monsters, which featured Pere Ubu's ex-bassist Tony Maimone and Captain Beefheart's erstwhile guitarist Gary Lucas. But it was more a loose group of individuals than a real band and Buckley quit in early 1992 to pursue a solo career.

He began performing at small Manhattan clubs, particularly the Cafe Sin-e, where record company executives and A&R men were soon arriving by the limo-full, waving chequebooks. 'I went into those cafes because I really felt I had to go to an impossibly intimate setting where there's no escape, where there's no hiding yourself,' he explained.

Buckley's remarkable voice (his most obvious inheritance from his father) and movie-star looks left nobody in doubt that he was a star in the making, though the eclecticism of his shows confused some listeners. Buckley would pluck songs out of the air as the mood took him. It might be something by Van Morrison, the Hollies or Big Star, or a tune made famous by Nina Simone or Mahalia Jackson.

With a hippie-esque suspicion of large corporations, he turned down several deals before signing with Columbia at the end of 1992, apparently because he knew and trusted the label's A&R man Steve Berkowitz. The company previewed their new acquisition with a live EP, Live At Sin-e, following which Buckley travelled upstate to Bearsville to start work on his debut album, Grace.

The disc was released in 1994 to instant critical adulation. The sleeve pictured Buckley clutching a microphone and looking poetically dishevelled, while the music inside was a cornucopia of rockers, ballads, hymns and even a bold rendition of Benjamin Britten's Corpus Christi Carol, by no means standard rock 'n' roll fare. His voice was wild, passionate and sensual. If his music was hard to describe in a soundbite, it was bursting with hidden depths and infinite potential. Grace won Buckley the Best New Artist award from Rolling Stone magazine in 1995.

Buckley's inquisitiveness and musical ambition earned him acceptance across a broad spectrum of fellow performers. Elvis Costello brought him over in 1995 to perform at London's Meltdown Festival, where he easily held his own among string quartets and jazz ensembles, and last year he featured on Patti Smith's comeback album, Gone Again. He was also a fan of Eastern music, particularly the Islamic devotional Qawwali songs of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

Buckley had been in Memphis since February, recording new material. He decided to go swimming in the Mississippi, fully clothed and carrying his guitar, but was apparently pulled under by the wash from a passing tug.

Jeff Buckley, rock singer, born August 1, 1966; died May 29, 1997

[burlveneer-music]

Ghost Train Orchestra & Kronos Quartet - Songs and Symphoniques: The Music of Moondog

On "Songs and Symphoniques: The Music of Moondog," Ghost Train Orchestra teams up with the trailblazing Kronos Quartet to celebrate and reimagine the music of Louis Hardin, aka Moondog, the ground-breaking composer and poet who lived on the streets of New York City in the 50s and 60s, and influenced the minimalists Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Terry Riley. A blind composer who moved from Kansas to New York City and built his own instruments and mythology, Moondog's story and music continue to be an inspiration to many. Along with guests Sam Amidon, Jarvis Cocker, Petra Haden, Karen Mantler, Marissa Nadler, Aoife O'Donovan, Rufus Wainwright and Joan Wasser, the two groups explore Moondog's sense of whimsy, wonder and adventure through a cross-section of songs and instrumentals for large ensemble, string ensemble, percussion and voice. The vinyl and CD packages include an essay by biographer Robert Scotto, Moondog's song lyrics, extensive in-studio photographs by Dan Efram, and an interview with Kronos Quartet founder David Harrington and Ghost Train Orchestra founder Brian Carpenter, mediated by music historian Irwin Chusid. Kronos Quartet David Harrington - violin John Sherba - violin Hank Dutt - viola Sunny Yang - cello Ghost Train Orchestra Brian Carpenter, trumpet, harmonica, vocals Andy Laster, alto saxophone, flute Dennis Lichtman, clarinet Matt Bauder, bass clarinet, tenor, baritone saxophones Sara Schoenbeck, bassoon Curtis Hasselbring, trombone, guitar Ron Caswell, tuba Brandon Seabrook, guitar Chris Lightcap, bass Rob Garcia, drums David Cossin, marimba, percussion Maxim Moston, violin Colin Stetson, bass saxophone Guests: Sam Amidon, Jarvis Cocker, Petra Haden, Karen Mantler, Marissa Nadler, Aoife O'Donovan, Rufus Wainwright, and Joan Wasser All new arrangements by Ghost Train Orchestra Dedicated to the memory of Hal Willner

[melodiousmonk]

LAURIE ANDERSON on her life with LOU REED:

′′Lou and I played together, became best friends, and then comrades, we traveled, listened and criticized each other's work, studied things together (butterfly hunting, meditation, kayaking). We made ridiculous jokes; quit smoking 20 times; fought; learned to hold our breath underwater; went to Africa; sang opera arias in the elevator; made friends with unlikely people; followed each other on tour when possible; we had a sweet dog playing piano; shared a house that was different to our respective apartments; we protected and loved each other. We often went to see art, music, shows, theatre and I watched how he loved and appreciated other artists and musicians. He was always so generous. He knew how difficult the environment was. We loved our West Village life and our friends; and we always did everything in the best way we could.

Like many couples, each of us has built a way of being: strategies, sometimes compromised, which allowed us to be part of a couple. Sometimes we lost a little more than what we were capable of giving, or gave in a little too much, or felt abandoned. Sometimes we really got angry. But even when I was out of my mind, I was never bored. We learned to forgive each other. And somehow, for 21 years, we've intertwined our minds and hearts together.

It was spring 2008. I was walking down the street in California feeling knocked down and talking on my phone with Lou. ‘There are so many things I never did and want to do?’ I told him.

′′ Like what, for example?"

′′ I don't know, I never learned German, I never studied physics, I never married ′′

′′ Why don't we get married?" he asked. ′′ We could meet halfway there. Arriving in Colorado. How about tomorrow?"

′′ Uhm... don't you think tomorrow is a little early?"

′′ No, I don't think so ".

And so the next day we met in Boulder, Colorado, and married in a friend's garden on Saturday, wearing our normal Saturday clothes, and although I had to play a show right after the ceremony, Lou was ok with it. (Musicians marrying is like when two lawyers marry. When you say ′′damn I have to work in the studio until 2am,” or cancel all your appointments to close the case. You know exactly what it means and you don't necessarily jump for joy).

I guess there are many ways to get married. Some people marry someone they barely know, which can even work. When you marry what's also your best friend for several years, there should be another name for it. But the thing that surprised me the most about getting married is how time changes. And also how it somehow adds a tenderness that was, in some way, completely new. To paraphrase the great Willie Nelson: ′′ 90 % of people this way end up with the wrong person, and that's what still makes juke boxes play." Lou's Jukebox was full of love and many other things : beauty, pain, history, courage, mystery.

Lou had been sick for two years now: first for interferon treatment, a series of vile but often effective injections to treat hepatitis C which is equipped with a good series of annoying side effects. Then a liver cancer took over, which was added to an advanced form of diabetes. We achieved good results in the hospital. He learned everything about these diseases and their treatments. He continued to do Tai Chi every day for two hours plus photographs, books, recordings, his radio broadcast with Hal Willner and many other projects. He loved his friends, and called, texted, emails when he couldn't be with them. We tried to understand and apply the teachings that our master Mingyur Rinpoche imparted; especially the most difficult ones such as ′′ you must learn to master the ability to feel sad without actually being sad ".

Last spring, at the last minute, he received a liver transplant that seemed to have worked completely and instantly regained health and energy. Then even that started working badly, and there was no escape. When the doctor said, ′′ It's over. There are no options anymore ", the only part Lou heard was ′′ options ". He didn't give up until the last half hour of his life, when he suddenly accepted it: suddenly and completely.

We were at home. I had taken him out of the hospital a few days earlier. And even though he was very weak, he insisted on coming out in the morning blinding light.

As people used to meditation, we were prepared for this: how to move energy from your belly to your core and then push it out of your head. I've never seen an expression as full of wonder as Lou's when he died. His hands were doing the shape 21 of Tai Chi, that of flowing water. Her eyes were wide open. I was holding in my arms the person I loved more than anything in the world and talking to him while he died. His heart stopped beating. He wasn't scared. I was able to walk with him to the end of the world. Life - so beautiful, painful and spectacular - can't give anything more than this.

What about death? I think the purpose of death is to free love."

~Laurie Anderson~

[brandnulife]

Celebrities Who Had Covid-19, Part Two

Abby Mueller

Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne (deceased)

Al Sharpton

Amy Robach

Ana Narvaro

Angela Kinsey

Anthony Fauci

Antonia Banderas

Ashanti

Beanie Feldstein

Ben Carson

Bill and Guiliana Rancic

Brian Cox

Brielle Biermann

Boris Johnson

Camila Cabello

Charlotte Lawrence

Chris Christie

Coco Gauff

D’Andra Simmons

Drew Pinsky

Ellen DeGeneres

George Stephanopoulus

Gloria Estefan

Grimes

Gwyneth Paltrow

Hal Willner (deceased)

Hannah Brown and Adam Woolard

Hilary Duff

Hugh Grant

Indira Varma

J.K. Rowling

Jason Tartick and Kaitlyn Bristowe

Jay Benedict (deceased)

Jimmy Kimmel

Joe Exotic

John Prine (deceased)

Kellyanne Conway

Kenzo Takada (deceased)

Khloe Kardashian

Kristofer Hivju

Larry King (deceased)

Lena Dunham

Lewis Hamilton

Lil Cease

Liv Tyler

Marcus Smart

Maxine Waters

Michael Strahan

Nancy Grace

Peter Giannikopoulos

The Pretty Reckless

Prince Charles and Duchess Camilla

Queen Elizabeth II

Rev. John Jenkins

Rachel Matthews

Robin Roberts

Rudy Guiliani

Sara Bareilles

Sarah Michelle Gellar

Sarah Palin

Sean Payton

Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne

Shawn Johnson

Sunny Hostin

Tiffany Haddish

Tom Brady

Trisha Yearwood

Vivek Murthy

Whoopi Goldberg

Xavier Becerra

[chez-mimich]

BILL FRISELL, “FOUR”

Nel grandioso programma di JazzMi 2024 ho scelto, per motivi sentimentali, Bill Frisell e il suo “Four”, che si sono esibiti, venerdì scorso, al Teatro dell’Arte di Milano; “Four” è anche il titolo del suo ultimo lavoro, quello che è stato riproposto a JazzMi. In realtà questo concerto era doppio, con uno spettacolo alle venti e uno, diverso, alle ventidue: come da buona abitudine del jazz, meglio non essere troppo abitudinari. Con Bill una formazione che come li definisce il programma ufficiale, è costituita da “spiriti indipendenti e menti affini” che rispondono ai nomi di Gerard Clayton al pianoforte, Johnathan Blake alla batteria e, naturalmente Greg Tardy, al sax e al clarinetto. Un lavoro magnifico che armonizza vecchio e nuovo, con vecchi pezzi elegantemente insinuati e rivisitati in altre nuove composizioni, tutto senza scossoni eccessivi per un pubblico, piuttosto maturo (ma questa non è una novità nel Jazz), che dava l’impressione di essere lì per essere rassicurato dalla musica di Frisell e non certo per essere sconvolto da travolgenti novità. Giusto così, anche se i dischi di Frisell non sono mai “troppo uguali”, non si può certo dire che in essi non sia presente quel “marchio di fabbrica” costituito dalla sua chitarra dolce, intima e insinuante. Frisell, però è riuscito a mettere insieme un gruppo di talentosi musicisti e concede ampi spazi al suo collaboratore preferito, ovvero quel Greg Tardy che incanta col suo sax e seduce col suo clarinetto, senza mai diventare protagonista assoluto. Un jazz caldo e pastoso che lascia spazio ad una improvvisazione misurata, ma con la barra del timone ben stretta nelle mani di Frisell che riporta sempre ogni divagazione “ab origine”, tornando sulla minimalissima melodia iniziale. Potrà sembrare strano, ma molti dei brani ascoltati questa sera, e presenti nel disco in uscita l’undici novembre per l’etichetta “Blue Note Records”, sono stati composti durante il lockdown, che da un punto di vista della creazione artistica, possiamo ben dire non sia stato certo un periodo poco felice, visto che in tutti gli ambiti le creazioni sono state fiorenti. Nel concerto per JazzMi, un brano su tutti ha raccolto il favore del pubblico, ovvero “Walz for Hal Willner”, dedicato al produttore scomparso, che, ricordiamo, ha prodotto tributi a tanti altri grandi musicisti di generi diversi come Thelonious Monk, Kurt Cobain e Leonard Cohen. (Per chi volesse “assaggiare il prodotto”, corredato da raffinate e delicatissime immagini può trovare il video del pezzo a fondo di questo articolo). Un altro omaggio in “Dear Old Friend” è dedicato ad un compagno di scuola, Alan Woodward. Magnifico anche il rockeggiante “Lookout For Hope”, anche questo un brano del passato, riproposto con qualche variazione (Frisell non è certo tipo da lacrimare per la nostalgia) al pubblico di Milano. Più sperimentale e di ricerca è certamente “Blues from Before”, mentre struggente e malinconico un altro brano del passato (prossimo) come “The Pioneers”. Nel dolce sapore novembrino ascoltare Frisell è quasi un dovere morale, ascoltarlo in un luogo pieno di suggestioni come il complesso della Triennale di Milano, un grande piacere, ascoltarlo dal vivo, ovviamente, una delizia…