Sunday, March 26, 2023
Music

Music

    From festivals in Florida to touring Dracula’s digs in Romania, we round up the best destinations to visit this October. As summer abandons Europe again this October, eke out the last of the rays and raves in Ibiza, where nightclubs will be going out with a bang for the winter break. When the party finally stops head to the island’s north.

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    Roger’s year in music, 2021

    Music Roger Baylor -
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    Music does something to me, and I’ve never been able to explain exactly why. It just happens. Sometimes when I walk into a supermarket,...

    “Funeral,” by Tigercub

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    This might seem an odd admission, but I pay too little attention to song lyrics or song titles, until I finally do, which often...

    Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington, et al (Part Two)

    Music Roger Baylor -
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    You'll notice I reversed their names in the title for the second installment. This 2007 film by Robert Levi helps provide context to the...

    Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, et al (Part One)

    Music Roger Baylor -
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     A Duke Named Ellington was a two-part "American Masters" film on PBS in 1988. Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (1899-1974) was a musician and orchestra leader...

    Van Morrison, “the only gazillionaire rock star to be a pandemic-denier besides Eric Clapton”

    Music Roger Baylor -
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    The pandemic seems to have deprived Van Morrison of his karma. Or maybe he already was running low. Musically, the new album isn't unpleasant at...

    My year in music, at least so far

    Music Roger Baylor -
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    I remain wedded to the CD format, but these days I stream music first, then purchase the physical discs of those new releases that...

    On the late James Levine

    Music Roger Baylor -
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    The conductor and pianist James Levine died earlier this month, and yesterday's obituary in the The New York Times is here. Levine was renowned,...

    A pint of bitter, please, because it’s The Dubliners at the The Wheeltappers and...

    Music Roger Baylor -
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    In which three fascinating Anglo-Irish topics collide amid my frequent references to the adjective "elegiac." It's the mid-1970s lineup of the Irish folk band The...

    Big bands: A book about Bunny Berigan, his life and times

    Music Roger Baylor -
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    Originally this was an "ON THE AVENUES" column from July 25, 2017. It has been lightly updated.  I was born in 1960, and grew up...

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    Diary: Nature teaches beasts to know their friends

    Diary Roger Baylor -
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    Title credit courtesy of Shakespeare (Coriolanus). During The Edge’s and Bono’s recent Tiny Desk Concert at NPR, Bono introduced the U2 song "Stuck in a...

    40 Years in Beer, Part Twenty-Two: A placid traditional Danish lunch in Copenhagen, 1989

    Beer Roger Baylor -
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    Previously: 40 Years in Beer, Part Twenty-One: Those legendary working beers with the FDJ in the GDR. There was a faint glow, and an aura...

    Green with entropy?

    Beer Roger Baylor -
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    Regardless of who invented it, the first people to make green beer probably made it the same, slightly unintuitive way it's made today: a...
    "This is a city made for exiles. Many exiles, of course, are given no choice, but I imagine most of us sometimes tire of living in the open, where everything is plain to see and we ourselves are obvious, and for anyone with this sporadic impulse to withdraw into somewhere less transparent, Trieste offers a compelling destination--surreptitious itself, and ambiguous. It has offered a new home to many expatriates, voluntary or compulsory, but in the event, many have spent half their time here wistfully wishing they were somewhere else. For this is an ironic gift of the place--to attract and to sadden, both at the same time."
    Jan Morris (1926-2020)
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