What about Music ?

[Cappy]

I'm well aware that the two fandoms probably rarely overlap, but is anyone excited about Eminem's upcoming album The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce)? I've been a big fan ever since The Marshall Mathers LP days and remain ever loyal.

Everything that has been made known about the new album so far points to Marshall potentially revisiting his roots, so I'm more hyped than usual. I guess we'll have a clearer picture on Friday.

Shady’s Back with Magic Up His Sleeve: Eminem Announces New Single | Eminem.Pro - the biggest and most trusted source of Eminem

Marshall aims to make his career disappear with the new track “Houdini”, the first single from his upcoming album “The Death of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce)”. The track arrives in just two days, this Friday, just like Marshall hinted last week. Eminem himself dropped the news on social media with...

eminem.news

I think his first three albums or so are great, with Marshall Mathers LP being a masterpiece. But I dunno… I feel like he hasn’t had that energy and creativity in a very long time. I hope he can surprise me though.

 

[Dom]

I think his first three albums or so are great, with Marshall Mathers LP being a masterpiece. But I dunno… I feel like he hasn’t had that energy and creativity in a very long time. I hope he can surprise me though.

He's one of those guys who's just drifted out of my mind. The Eminem Show was the last album of his I listened to!! I must have got rid of the discs years ago and the rips aren't in my iTunes folder. I had no idea he was even still working and - looking him up - I see he's been churning out albums regularly for years! Just goes to show!!

 

[MasterMastermnd]

Was pleasantly surprised to learn that one of the biggest songs of the summer, Kendrick Lamar's incendiary diss track Meet the Graham's, is based around a pitch-shifted sample of Laura Palmer's theme! The Weeknd sampled Laura Palmer's voice in his song The Hills a few years ago.

 

[Stavrogyn]

 

[Tulpa]

Now that’s a throwback.

 

[Stavrogyn]

Does anyone know where to buy new music on Manhattan? CDs and vinyls? Specifically, I'm interested in Eminem's The Death of Slim Shady, out last Friday.

I've checked Rough Trade and Rock and Soul, but they both seemed like smaller, independent stores aimed at niche audiences, which is cool in itself, but what I'm looking for right now is full-blown commercial.

 

[Jasper]

We watched The City on the Edge of Forever yesterday. An instant favourite! The title felt familiar, so I supposed that we were in for a treat, and I was not mistaken. By browsing through the Internet afterwards, I learned that it’s considered to be one of the highlights of the whole franchise, and rightfully so.

Such a simple, brave, and powerful story. And a great, poignant ending.

It also felt special seeing the Brooklyn Bridge on the TV screen, because that was the first time ever that I saw an American landmark in a movie or TV show after I had actually visited it (I was there last Tuesday). The world has surely become a smaller place, but in a nice, inspiring way.

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Utterly on-topic:

 

[Stavrogyn]

Utterly on-topic:

I've been a huge Frank Sinatra fan since I was twelve (he's still my favourite singer), but I've never heard this before... How is that even possible??? The man left such a rich legacy, it's astonishing.

It's from It Happened in Brooklyn, right? I thought of watching it soon, but now it's become a no-brainer.

A wonderful song, thank you!

 

[Jasper]

I've been a huge Frank Sinatra fan since I was twelve (he's still my favourite singer), but I've never heard this before... How is that even possible??? The man left such a rich legacy, it's astonishing.

It's from It Happened in Brooklyn, right? I thought of watching it soon, but now it's become a no-brainer.

A wonderful song, thank you!

Yes, that's the film. I love this era. Axel Stordahl is a brilliant arranger, but he gets overshadowed by the great Nelson Riddle, just as the Columbia era is overshadowed by the Capitol era. Stordahl is known for lush, dreamy ballads, but he could arrange great lightly swinging material. The Columbia era didn't end well, but it was overall great. I remember methodically building this song and others into a loose concept album with other Columbia era tracks, mostly or all arranged by Stordahl. It really worked as a listening experience, kind of based upon a single day and night of one man in NYC. I burned it onto a CD, and I wonder if I can find it in a box somewhere. If I ever do, I'll tell you the track list!

In an attempt to tie this into the thread, I'll mention that Brent Spiner released a (relatively amateur) collection of Great American Songbook tunes with a title referencing Sinatra; "Ol' Yellow Eyes Is Back".

EDIT: That was fast, I already found it. It wasn't in a box, just on a shelf with about a million other Sinatra discs. It has the very creative title of "Columbia Swing". No track list though, so I'll have to get it into a player and figure that out. I also found another collection I made of Columbia torch songs entitled, "Songs for Losers", which is what Frank wanted to call what became known as Frank Sinatra Sings for Only The Lonely. (For some reason Capitol thought that asking people to walk up to the register to buy an album called "Songs for Losers" wasn't a good marketing ploy.)

 

[Jasper]

@Stavrogyn

OK, I don’t know how Paris fits with New York, but the track definitely fits musically, and the flow is very much daytime into night. It also shows how Stordahl could really swing. It’s possible that I had another, shorter version that was more conceptually strict, because I remember giving one to my friend, but this is great, functioning as an unexpectedly swing-oriented Columbia collection. It’s sort of making a proto-Capitol Sinatra swing album from the many Columbia recordings (which are overall not oriented towards this sort of material). In fact, there's basically a Side A (daytime, tracks 1-8) and Side B (nighttime, tracks 9-17). Sinatra rerecords songs here and there along his career, but this is supposed to be all Columbia. I believe that I selected these from the 285 track(!) box set, The Columbia Years 1943–1952: The Complete Recordings.

1. When You’re Smiling
2. Blue Skies
3. Brooklyn Bridge
4. All of Me
5. Sweet Loraine
6. S’posin’
7. Azure-Te (Paris Blues)
8. Once In Love With Amy
9. Saturday Night (Is the Loneliest Night of the Week)
10. Meet Me at the Copa
11. You Do Something To Me
12. It All Depends On You
13. Deep Night
14. The Birth of the Blues
15. Begin the Beguine
16. Five Minutes More
17. Bye Bye Baby

 

[Stavrogyn]

@Jasper

Thank you! I'll create the same playlist myself and give it a listen (under the title "Columbia Swing", of course). But I already know most of the songs. The only titles that I'm not familiar with are Sweet Lorraine, Azure-Te (Paris Blues), Once in Love With Amy, and Deep Night.

There are some great songs on your list, but my favourite has to be Blue Skies. I listened to the 1946 version a lot back in 2010 and even made a short film built around it. It probably has my favourite instrumental intermission of all the Frank Sinatra songs that I'm familiar with.

 

[Stavrogyn]

And since we're already discussing similar kinds of music, I have to mention that I went to see Bill Saxton and the Harlem All-Stars at Bill's Place in Harlem, New York City, on July 12th. It was probably the best jazz show I ever attended!

Bill Saxton played the clarinet and saxophone (he also sang some blues in the latter part of the show), and the band was also comprised of drums, bass, and piano.



They kicked off the show with a long rendition of Duke Ellington's Caravan (15 or maybe even 20 minutes) and played a total of 8 or 9 songs in an hour and a half. They also played The Way You Look Tonight, some Billie Holiday (she was supposedly discovered on that spot back in 1933), a few songs that I didn't know, and three real blues bangers at the end.


All in all, it was a night to remember! I even bought a Bill's Place T-shirt and took a photo with Bill himself. I also have to applaud their policy of bringing your own booze, because prices in New York can be... as you can imagine. So I was able to get properly jolly thanks to a few strong beerlike drinks from Whole Foods.

 

[Jasper]

@Jasper

Thank you! I'll create the same playlist myself and give it a listen (under the title "Columbia Swing", of course). But I already know most of the songs. The only titles that I'm not familiar with are Sweet Lorraine, Azure-Te (Paris Blues), Once in Love With Amy, and Deep Night.

There are some great songs on your list, but my favourite has to be Blue Skies. I listened to the 1946 version a lot back in 2010 and even made a short film built around it. It probably has my favourite instrumental intermission of all the Frank Sinatra songs that I'm familiar with.

Well, the good news is that all of those songs are fantastic.

I've got to give a special shout out to Sweet Lorraine, especially since you were just writing about jazz.

Sweet Lorraine is from 17 December, 1946. One of the reasons that it’s so phenomenal is that it’s not a regular Sinatra studio recording of the time, but features the very aptly named Metronome All Stars, an ever-evolving group put together by Metronome magazine based upon reader polls of the top musicians of the year. Sinatra tended to always have excellent musicians on his sessions, but this still stands out as an unusual and amazing straight up jazz lineup. It’s pretty mind-boggling, really:

Charlie Shavers, trumpet
Lawrence Brown, trombone
Johnny Hodges, alto sax
Coleman Hawkins, tenor sax
Harry Carney, baritone sax
Nat King Cole, piano
Bob Ahern, guitar
Eddie Safranski, bass
Buddy Rich, drums
Frank Sinatra, vocal

Frank’s ease with the rest of these giants is so pleasing. You can just hear that these fellows are having quite a pleasant time. The recording date might be adding a little holiday merriment.

 

[secretlettermkr]

@sssabrinasssarah you have to get David to use some FNM or another Patton music on his next movie/series project!

 

[Jordan Cole]

Does anyone know where to buy new music on Manhattan? CDs and vinyls? Specifically, I'm interested in Eminem's The Death of Slim Shady, out last Friday.

"on Manhattan"

Man, you really are a tourist!

There aren't really any commercial music stores left. Only cool indie shops. A few around Avenue A, I think. There's a big used book/movies/music etc store somewhere in midtown but I can't remember the name of it.

 

[Stavrogyn]

"on Manhattan"

Well, it's an island, isn't it?

Man, you really are a tourist!

Well, yes, I am! This was my first time outside of Europe.

Or, I was a tourist, because I returned home two weeks ago.

There aren't really any commercial music stores left. Only cool indie shops. A few around Avenue A, I think. There's a big used book/movies/music etc store somewhere in midtown but I can't remember the name of it.

That was my impression as well and it really surprised me.

 

[Jordan Cole]

Well, it's an island, isn't it?

Yes, but Manhattan is all consuming. You don't stand on Manhattan, you are within Manhattan.

Nobody here says "hey, want to meet on Manhattan?"

We say "in Manhattan" or usually, we call Manhattan "the city." "I'm going into the city to sell some books." "Aww, my doctor's appointment is in the city? Damn it."

Anyway, all the big music stores closed a long time ago. The Tower Records I used to go to is gone. Virgin Megastore on 14th Street is gone. There's a few Barnes and Nobles and some of those have music areas where you could see some tumbleweeds rolling by.

 

[Stavrogyn]

Yes, but Manhattan is all consuming. You don't stand on Manhattan, you are within Manhattan.

Nobody here says "hey, want to meet on Manhattan?"

We say "in Manhattan" or usually, we call Manhattan "the city." "I'm going into the city to sell some books." "Aww, my doctor's appointment is in the city? Damn it."

Ah, yes, that all makes sense. But it's a foreign language and a foreign place, and I just didn't think everything through when writing that post... It's fascinating how these things differ from language to language, while also depending on the cultural context.

 

[Stavrogyn]

@Jasper I've listened to Sweet Lorraine, and wow, what a lineup indeed! I never would have imagined Nat King Cole playing the piano on a Frank Sinatra song.

I also have to brag a bit: I'm about to become a next-level music connoisseur - that is, we moved into a new house three days ago, and the previous owners left us two functional gramophones, as well as a certain number of LP records (mostly classical music and a few German and Croatian singers). The highlights of their collection - at least if you ask me - are Liza Minnelli's Liza with a 'Z' and George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue/An American in Paris. I also have Hank Williams' I Saw the Light, which I bought myself almost two years ago, but never had the opportunity to play.



At my parents' place, I also have one Benny Goodman, two Bob Dylan records, and, if I recall correctly, one The Doors record and one record by Haustor (a great ex-Yu band).

I'll have to start buying LPs. I need at least one Frank Sinatra record as soon as possible, and I would also like to get anything by Thelonious Monk (I love Straight, No Chaser and Underground).

 

[Stavrogyn]

I've put some effort into finding cool record stores with LPs and such in my city, and I ended up with a nice addition to my (still quite humble) collection:



At the same time, I'm stunned, embarrassed, and excited to say that I've never heard of the song titled My Heart Would Know... How is that even possible?