A while back, someone posted about Drumming!! And I meant to respond with a great clip from Joey Baron (Must like Masada to enjoy it – but it’s just about the most amazing drum solo I’ve ever heard - and his version on Bar Kokhba is even longer):
[youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWYWEaDpUNc[/youtube]
Other than that, I’ve been all over the map lately. For the Mexican contingent, there’s the classic
Vicente Fernandez, the more recent
Pepe Aguilar, and the surprising little time capsule of the
Edyie Gorme Y Los Panchos albums.
Linda Ronstadt tried to replicate that same style years later with her album ‘Canciones de Mi Padre’ which is also worth a listen.
For rap, with the recent quotation from MF Doom and tribute album by Mad Lib, I decided to go back to the original
J-Dilla masterpiece album. Just can’t get enough of that. Also kicking it with old-school
Method Man (who has one of the most perfect voices for rap in my opinion). Also I recently got turned onto this old album by
Camp-Lo which arguably refines the sonic use of words over their semantic value.
On the international side, I picked up a CD by
Omar Souleyman on the sublime frequency label (
http://www.sublimefrequencies.com/) a while ago and had been meaning to share it. I love that label because it takes pride in finding not-just-novel-but-really amazing performers in some pretty offbeat areas (Iraqi film music, Cambodian Pop, North Korean ‘Commie Funk and Agit Prop’, you get the idea…). In addition to that I picked up this great
Kronos Quartet CD featuring classic Bollywood singer
Asha Bhosle. An elephant makes a cameo - how cool is that?
In the Classical space, I’ve been trying to do a comprehensive survey of contemporary organ music (don’t be impressed by this – there isn’t much of it). One of the best discs musically that I’ve found in this search is
Tintinnabulum: Organ Works by Arvo Part which pairs the living Estonian composer with 16th & 17th Century composers in the similar sparse ‘ringing’ style (plus its got cool packaging, too).
Also –
Jimmy Smith, bad ass jazz organist,
Aloof Proof – chill minimalism and
OHM: the early gurus of electronic music – an amazing cd+dvd collection.
