Still on holidays. In the meantime, enjoy the music from my mp3 player.
Please, do not be fooled by the sultry and slow rhythm of Ayo's "And It's Supposed To Be Love". The theme is pretty grim as you can see from the clip below. But it's still a beautiful song by a very talented artist.
This song and performance always bring a tear to my eye. "Malagueña" by Lecuona is one of the songs my father used to play regularly when he still lived with my mother and me, (and my cousin, her mum and my granny, sorry, couldn't leave them out). The execution in this video is the closest you'll ever get to perfection, in my humble opinion.
And since we're talking perfection and execution, I just couldn't ignore Van Morrison's "Moondance". One of those tunes that, the minute they come on my mp3, makes me want to get up and dance. Timeless.
Crickets chirping, birds chirruping, overcast skies, downpours, little rivers mapping down their route on my kitchen window. Vivaldi's "Summer" section from his masterpiece "Four Seasons" contains the British weather in a nutshell. At 8:12 on the clip below I can perfectly visualise the scenario of which I was part a few weeks ago when my family and I went to a picnic. The snippets of conversation here and there, mixed with the sound of children playing badminton, people walking their dogs and trekkers gearing themselves up for a walk in the woods. Chaotic, but beautiful.
Next Post: "While My MP3 Gently Plays", to be published on Sunday 21st August at 10am (GMT)
Following on from the other week’s Killer Opening Songs and classical music I bring a Cuban composer to the blog this week. I have already uploaded one of his tracks a few times here and it is probably that I will do it a few more times in the near future because I love it dearly. It has been said on several occasions that Christopher Columbus was Cuba’s first ‘discoverer’ (the fact that we already existed seems to always go over people’s heads). Alexander von Humboldt was the second one after he circumnavigated the Caribbean island a few centuries ago. Fernando Ortiz was our third ‘discoverer’ after he published a series of books and conducted extensive research on the influence of African culture on our social and cultural make-up. So, where does that leave Ernesto Lecuona, one of the most revered Cuban musicians of all time? Lecuona ‘married’ (if it’s possible to use that term) traditional African and Spanish music in a symbiotic and organic liaison. The result was a solid and powerful body of work that encompassed everything from zarzuela to comparsa. He was, so to speak, the Cuban George Gershwin, although the reference should not be taken verbatim as both composers had very different styles. That means that Lecuona was not just a ‘discoverer’, but also an innovator, a risk-taker and an excellent composer as the complexity of both pieces featured below will attest to.
It is with pleasure, then, that Killer Opening Songs plays the same trick as last week and uploads two tracks instead of one. The reason is the same. Lecuona left a wealth of recordings behind but unfortunately they were not collected in a logical and coherent way, as he would have liked them to appear in his albums (methinks). So, I have taken the liberty (as I did with Chopin) of selecting which songs would make good introductory tracks, in short, which melodies would make a couple of good Killer Opening Songs.
Chucho and Bebo Valdéz, Father and Son - La Comparsa (Please, keep your hankies nearby as this clip is an emotional roller-coaster, especially for Cubans who have seen their families split due to the stupid politics of two governments that have carried out an embargo in their own peculiar way against an innocent population. I have seen this clip countless of times and yet my eyes always water at the sight of father and son playing together despite the political differences between the US and Cuba.)
Thomas Tirino - Malagueña (This a superb execution of one of Cuban classical music's better known songs)
This is a typical Afro-Cuban dish that is best served as a light snack or starter. I saw this recipe originally in a bookby Natalia Bolivar Arostegui.
Serves 10-12
Ingredients:
Bread (loaf or buns)
Olive oil
Garlic (a couple of cloves)
Water (or milk)
First, take the bread and pull the dough out. Break it all up into bite size pieces and roll them all up using middlefinger, forefinger and thumb. Dab them in water (milk can also be used) and leave them on the side. Slice the garlic in thin strips (choose a nice, plump bulb) and brown them for about five minutes on the hot olive oil. Add on the dough balls and bring the heat down. Stir them well so they don't stick to the frying pan. After about 5-7 minutes, take them out, drain the remaining oil (I like leaving it on, but you might be on a diet) and serve. If you used milk, you'll realise that they are more compact and crunchier. Hmmm, tasty.
Playlist
Because this is usually served as a starter or a light snack the music that goes with it (usually dinner party background music) is not very long. Recommended listening includes:
Disclaimer: This post is not an endorsement of bad driving and the blogger cannot be held responsible for any actions resulting from reading this post. Also, the following should NOT be attempted under any circumstances whilst doing your driving test. You will fail!
A few months ago I was driving around the leafy suburbs of Muswell Hill and Crouch End where the landscape varies dramatically from one road to the other, especially in the former case. Sometimes it is flat, sometimes it is slopy. On approaching a mini round-about half-way up a hill I looked to my right and noticed that a few cars were coming down the street. As it is customary in these cases, I brought the car to a halt softly, put my handbrake on and the gear into neutral. That did not last long, though, as I revved the car slowly until the needle went up to 2 and brought the clutch back up delicately whilst at the same time releasing the hand-brake. The vehicle remained motionless for a few seconds and as soon as the traffic cleared from my right I was ready to go.
This course of action is not a lesson you are taught when you are learning how to drive by your instructor. He/She would deem it unwise and unsafe. In fact, it was actually my wife who first suggested it as a way to be prepared to continue my journey without delaying the traffic behind or stalling the car. It got me thinking, though. Some songs are like that. A journey through a musical spectrum where suddenly they go uphill and come to a round-about similar to the one I encountered on that occasion and then they stop. Momentarily, however. Just for a few seconds. Far from putting their hand-brake up, though, they dither a bit and let the car gears reach the biting point. It is normally no more than a few seconds, until the green man changes to red, until the last car on their right hand-side has passed. And then the journey continues.
To illustrate this I have gathered a selection of clips from youtube.comas usual. My first offering comes courtesy of one of the most prolific and influential musicians Cuba has ever produced. He has already been featured on this blog in my 'Autumn Songs' selection and at the time the feedback was very warm and effusive. So, I thought it was apposite to bring him back. Ernesto Lecuona, El Maestro. By the way, at 2:46, watch the pianist's right hand as it glides over the piano ready to come down softly on the black and white keys in order to continue the journey after the uphill start. Think of the biting point. Sublime!
One of the most common mistakes people make when they choose not to put their handbrake up whilst doing an uphill start is that their car rolls backwards. This is a very serious error which could cause an accident (read the disclaimer at the beginning of this post). To avoid this, as you go up a slope and are coming closer to either a round-about or a set of traffic lights you should stop slowly and ease back into first gear the same way Caetano Veloso does it in this live rendition of 'Girl from Ipanema', the eponymous composition by Joao Gilberto. At 1:02 look how Caetano joins in without interrupting the musical flow. Brilliant.
He was extravagant and eccentric in the 70s. But what you can never deny is that his musical output was second to none. And in the same way a car manoeuvre like the one I have been referring to so far can seem odd, his choices were sometimes criticised or just derided. But where would pop music be without David Robert Jones aka David Bowie? Classic.
It's Roger on percussion that really does it for me on this track. The way he bangs on those conga drums so ominously, keeping the beat going, weaving bass, guitar and vocal into one thread is a joy to see. But what also kills me (pun unintended) is watching Freddie shortly before his untimely death. His voice singing to the inevitable. That split second before the cars coming on your right pass in front of your eyes and continue their journey is the same split second in which your whole life is shown to you as a slide show before you are gone. Masterful.
Uphill starts are unpredictable and certain bands music is, too. Uphill starts where clutch is slightly raised whilst the right foot is firmly glued to the gas pedal keeping the needle in number 2 and the handbrake stays down have chutzpah. The same goes for some bands. The same goes for this band. They had a carefree joie de vivre, a raw energy that consumed the listener. Recently they staged a comeback at the O2 arena in London and their insouciance was still there for everyone to see. Watch the way guitar and voice enter a playful battlefield where little skirmishes here and there build up the momentum in this famous track. Led Zeppelin never did things half-way and you, too, should be prepared to take your chances when it comes to heading up that hill and braking slowly just before that big road ahead of you. Just enjoy that tiny instant when all the gears in your car are huffing and puffing to provide you with the magic of the 'biting point' moment. Amazing.
Still on holidays. In the meantime, enjoy the music from my mp3 player.
