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Archive for the ‘Video’ Category

A Little Kandinsky

Posted in Favorite Things, Quote, Video, tagged , , on February 18, 2017| 2 Comments »

kandinskyLend your ears to music, open your eyes to painting, and… stop thinking! Just ask yourself whether the work has enabled you to ‘walk about’ into a hitherto unknown world. If the answer is yes, what more do you want?

–Wassily Kandinsky

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Just wanted to share a great little film from Alfred Imageworks that features an animation of the elements from some of Kandinsky’s great paintings. Below that is a film from 1926 of Kandinsky creating a drawing with these same elements.

STEREOSCOPIC FOR EXHIBITION – KANDINSKY from Alfred Imageworks on Vimeo.

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A Change Is Gonna Come

Posted in Current Events, Favorite Things, Music, Video, tagged , , , on January 15, 2017| 3 Comments »

civil-rights-marchI have been struggling with the prospect of this coming week for some time.  I thought at one point after the election that I would just sit back and just watch the whole thing unfold, maybe give them a chance to prove that my doubts were unfounded.  For a short period of time –actually, several fleeting instances– he-who-shall-not-be-named-here acted almost conciliatory and I thought I might just keep this wait and see attitude.

But in the two months since, he-who-shall-not-be-named-here has shown with his words and actions just what he is and will continue to be. And that is an absolute reflection of our worst self in every possible way.  There is nothing he has done or said that I would advise a child to emulate. Try as I might, I can not come up with a single quality in his shown character that is admirable in any way.  Every aspect of this person is ugly in spirit.  Even his limited acts of charity are done selfishly, done only because it somehow benefits him and is seen as a cost of doing business.

This is not a person who is taking the weight of this nation upon his shoulders so that all in this nation will benefit. He doesn’t care about you or me.  He doesn’t care about coal miners in Kentucky or farmers in Iowa– they were simply a cost of doing business.  No, he’s putting this country on a butcher block in front of him and is trying to figure how to carve off an even larger and juicier portion for himself and his money buddies.

I agree with John Lewis when he says that he-who-shall-not-be-named-here is not a legitimate president and applaud his courage for saying those words.  But John Lewis is a man of courage and a man who has always worked to lift others.  This is a man who has truly worked to change America for the better and who has consistently stood on the right side of history.

And he is seeing a person coming to power who seeks to weaken the rights and freedoms for which he has bled.  A person who is poised to push us on to the wrong side of history, who is willing to trade away the idealism that has long been our strength and foundation for the benefit and self interests of a precious few.

So, on this weekend marking the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday I thought my Sunday morning musical choice should reflect that.  It’s A Change is Gonna Come from the great Sam Cooke, a song that was written by Cooke at the height of the civil rights struggle in response to his arrest in Louisiana after protesting a Holiday Inn‘s refusal to honor his reservations at that hotel.

It’s a great and powerful song with a message that resonates for both then and now.  I am also including the Otis Redding version just because I absolutely love this performance.  Give a real listen and try to have good day.

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Waitin’ Around to Die

Posted in Music, Video, tagged , , on January 8, 2017| 5 Comments »

GC Myers- On the RiseSick days.  The flu has come to our home and we find ourselves absolutely miserable, just waiting and hoping for it to somehow pass by.  Haven’t been getting a single thing done but I wanted to at least post my Sunday morning music.  First thing this morning, every song I listened to was like shoving an ice pick in my temple.  But I finally settled in a bit and was able to listen to some songs.  They all happened to be sad songs but I guess that’s a side effect from the illness.

I thought I would share one of these sad songs, Waitin’ Around to Die from the late great Townes Van Zandt.  This is from the 1976 documentary Heartworn Highways, a film that captured the beginnings of the alt-country movement of that time.  This film features Townes singing to his girlfriend and his neighbor Uncle Seymour Washington, a retired blacksmith born to ex-slaves.  Great song, kind of capturing how my head feels this morning.

Hope you have a good day.

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A Creature in My New Year’s Bed

Posted in Music, Opinion, Video, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 1, 2017| Leave a Comment »

dr-seuss-new-years-day-cover-1931I thought that the image from this cover painted by Dr. Seuss for Judge magazine for its first issue of 1931 might fit today’s situation here in the USA, at least in the view of many folks.  It shows a New Year’s reveler waking up to find a creature in his bed.  The prior night–the year before– it had looked pretty good.  Lots of fun and lots of promises of all the things it would do for him. But here in the bright light of the New Year he realizes that the party is over now and he is left with a monster on his hands — and little idea of what to do with it.

What comes next with this strange creature we have found in our bed?

I also thought long and hard about what music I wanted to use for this first Sunday Morning Music of 2017.  I wanted it to be as optimistic as possible given the circumstances of having a strange critter in our bed.  I thought that the first version of Singin’ in the Rain might fit the bill just perfectly.

It was from 1929 and was a number one hit for performer Cliff Edwards, better known as Ukelele Ike, who had a number of hits through the 20’s and 30’s.  While the name Ukelele Ike may not seem familiar in any way I have no doubt you have heard his voice at some point.  He was the voice of Jiminy Cricket in Walt Disney’s Pinocchio and is the voice of the song When You Wish Upon a Star.

This version is from one of the first musicals from MGM in the talkie era, The Hollywood Revue of 1929.  You most likely know the song from the later and great musical of the same name ( which featured the recently passed Debbie Reynolds) but this is a great version.  It has a forward looking outlook despite the wet and dreary circumstances of the moment.  Just what people would be needing in the years after 1929.

And 2017.

Remember that it’s an old piece of film and try to look past the somewhat crude production values of the time.  It was cutting edge back then.  And it’s still a great piece of film now.

Oh, I also enclosed another Ukelele Ike number from a 1935 film, Starlit Days at the Lido.  It’s an early Technicolor film so it looks worlds different than the first film.  The song is Hang on to Me which is also a great song for the moment.

Enjoy! Take a look then let’s get to work and get that thing out of our bed!

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Wish I Was the Moon

Posted in Music, Video, tagged , , , on December 18, 2016| 3 Comments »

gc-myers-christmas-2007-small

It’s an incredibly gray morning here, mist hanging over the snow.  Not much color anywhere.  Even the needles of the pines and spruces out the window seem more gray than green.  It’s downright somber and while I sometimes enjoy the bleak feel of these sort of days, today it does nothing for me.  It’s just feels like a slog and I find myself just wanting to sit here and lose myself in looking out the window as the sleety snow mix falls.

I was going to play some holiday music for this Sunday’s musical selection but I thought that the song I chose goes better with the feeling of this morning here. It also matches up pretty well with the painting above from quite a few years back.  I think I used this as Christmas card back in 2007. The song is a favorite of mine from Neko Case,  I Wish I Was the Moon.

So, if you’re so inclined, give a listen and look out your own window.  Hopefully, the sun will be shining for you and that here, this will be no more than a gray start to a great day. But for now, I’m going to sip my tea and look out the window.

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Nature Boys

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Video, tagged , , , , , , , on December 11, 2016| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Signals 2006It’s Sunday morning and I want to play one of my all-time favorite songs, Nature Boy.  It’s an extraordinary song from an unusual character by the name of eden ahbez, who I have written about before here on the blog, who wrote the song specifically for Nat King Cole.  The story of ahbez and how the song came into the hands of Nat King Cole is really interesting but the result was a glorious rendition of the song by Cole that remained locked on the charts at #1 for eight weeks in 1948.

Spare and elegant, it is an absolutely gorgeous song which I think is evidenced by the many, many fine versions of it through the years by a wide range of artists.  I thought for today I would stray from the Nat King Cole performance, as perfect as it is, to focus on versions by two other giants of jazz, Ella Fitzgerald and Miles Davis.  The first video is a wonderful piece of animation from artist Ros Lukman that has the inimitable Ella Fitzgerald accompanied by guitarist Joe Pass.  Just a great version as is Miles Davis’ interpretation  which is immediately below it.

Relax and give a listen. Have a good Sunday…


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Mugs Pugs Thugs

Posted in Current Events, Video, tagged , , , , , on December 10, 2016| 4 Comments »

harvey-korman-as-hedleylamarrI read this week that that Rex Tillerson, the president and CEO of Exxon Mobil who considers himself close to Putin, is at the top of the list as a potential Secretary of State in the Trump Administration.

Given the picks that Trump has made thus far, it makes perfect sense.

It’s not pay-to-play here.  It is actually pay-to-make-policy.

Nobody thought that when Donald Trump said he would not be appointing lobbyists to his cabinet it meant that he was simply cutting out the middle man. Why hire the spokesman when you can get  the real thing– the people who benefit most from the work of their lobbyists?

With each new pick, his chosen group has taken on an almost comic book feel.  Each departmental choice seems designed to pick the person that poses the most peril to the goals and purpose of that department.

It’s absurdity at the highest level.

Every pick makes me think that Trump sees himself as Hedley Lamarr, played by Harvey Korman, in the movie Blazing Saddles.  Below is the scene that brings this to mind.  Like Trump, Hedley is looking for some people to do some work for him. The title of this post is from this clip, in case you were wondering.

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Satie on a Sunday Morning

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Quote, Video, tagged , , , , , , on December 4, 2016| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Possessed in the Light

gnossienne – n. a moment of awareness that someone you’ve known for years still has a private and mysterious inner life, and somewhere in the hallways of their personality is a door locked from the inside, a stairway leading to a wing of the house that you’ve never fully explored—an unfinished attic that will remain maddeningly unknowable to you, because ultimately neither of you has a map, or a master key, or any way of knowing exactly where you stand.

–The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

I don’t have much to say this morning.  I just wanted to share a little music from the French composer Erik Satie, someone whose work has always spoken to me in its elegant spareness.  It was a great influence on some of my earliest works.  In fact, I even titled an early piece or two after the composer but I can’t locate the images at this point.

I thought I’d share his Gnossienne no. 1 as played in this fine video from the contemporary Italian pianist/composer Alessio Nanni.  The word gnossienne was created by Satie.  He sometimes created new terms or appropriated terms from other fields to describe his compositions.  Gnossienne is generally thought to simply denote a new form although I like the definition at the top from the website The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.  It seems to fit the composition very well.

Anyway, give a listen to Satie’s beautiful sounds and have a great Sunday.

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Caravan

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Video, tagged , , , , , on October 30, 2016| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- In the RhythmI can’t really tell you how my show went last night.  I wish I could but my psychic powers have been on the weak side lately.  Actually, I am writing this on Friday because I most likely won’t be back in the studio in time to put up my Sunday morning music and it is such a regular habit for me that it bothers me when I miss a week.

But I will go out on a limb and guess that last night I saw a lot of folks that I haven’t talked to in a while, that everyone at the Kada Gallery treated me great and that it was, all in all, a wonderful night.  Fortunately, with only a rare exception or two, most of my shows have followed that simple script.

I will let you know if there was any deviation from the norm in the next day or two.

Today’s music is a jazz classic, Caravan, composed by the great Duke Ellington in 1936 and performed by a wide spectrum of jazz artists.  There are over 350 recorded versions of this song from Ellington’s band alone.  But the version I chose is from the late jazz pianist Kenny Drew , Jr.  I think it’s a really impressive version.

To accompany it, I chose a painting, In the Rhythm, from the Kada show that I think has a rhythm and feel that matches that of the song.  So give a listen and have a great Sunday.

 

 

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Subterranean Homesick Blues

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Video, tagged , , , on October 16, 2016| 4 Comments »

Archaeology: UnburdenedIn these current strange days, I am not quite sure how I feel about Bob Dylan winning the Nobel Prize for Literature.  I think I’m okay with it.  After all, I’ve always though of him as much a writer/poet as a musician. His lyrics have been winding around the world for fifty some years and it’s hard to find any musician just about anywhere who hasn’t been influenced by his words, his music and his social consciousness.

I was trying to pick a song from Dylan for this Sunday’s musical selection and realized what an impossible task it is.  There is just such a vast and varied body of work, spanning so much time and covering so many phases in his career.  You could just play his old folk stuff from before 1965 and you might think that was a whole career.

So today I thought I would play two of my favorites from two distinct periods of Dylan’s career.  One is the early and fun Subterranean Homesick Blues with its well known video while the other is a mid-1990’s Love Sick.  Just plain good stuff from the now Nobel Prize  winning artist and writer.

Enjoy and have a good Sunday…

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