New music

In New York, I got three new CDs, all of which have a strong connection to the city, which I discovered only now. And none of them is classical.

The first truly is a desert island disc: Sarah Vaughan. She has an immensely rich, variable voice which never fails to capture me. Her timbre is just out of this world. I'd say she is the Maria Callas of Jazz. You'll have to hear to believe - which is why I put a piece in the sidebar. The connection to NY is that it has been recorded there exactly 50 years ago.

The second one is also a jazz classic: John Coltrane's Blue Train.. I cannot say a lot about it yet because iTunes refuses to disengage the repeat on Sarah Vaughan ... the connection to NY is similar: it's been recorded there in September 1957.

The third CD is different in that it is not a jazz classic (yet?) and the booklet doesn't say where it has been recorded. But at least, the world première of Steve Reich's Music For 18 Musicians was in New York in 1976. A strangely hypnotic kind of music, best listened to with your eyes shut and mildly inebriated (my airplane condition).

I just realised I haven'd deployed a Bushism in a while! Can't have that, here you go: "I think anybody who doesn't think I'm smart enough to handle the job is underestimating." - U.S. News & World Report, April 3, 2000