by Michael Barrett | Jan 11, 2017 | Song of the Day
This week we’ve been talking about and hearing from women composers. Women composers are achieving mixed success in entering the male dominated world of classical composition. I think that the quality of one’s work tends to carry the day, and help...
by Michael Barrett | Jan 10, 2017 | Song of the Day
Following yesterday’s post about Gabriela Frank and Anne Ronell, I started thinking about Clarice Assad. She is a wonderful pianist, composer and vocalist. If you hear her in concert, you will probably be swept away by her virtuosic Brazilian scat singing. But...
by Michael Barrett | Jul 28, 2016 | Song of the Day
And now we come to Manhattan Transfer, or what we later came to refer to as just “the Transfer”. What an amazing run they had—35 years of great tight harmony, jazz, standards and brilliant singing and smart, urbane musicianship. Just four singers,...
by Michael Barrett | Jul 27, 2016 | Song of the Day
Continuing this week’s survey of iconic singing groups, I’m drawing again from my youth. The Bobs invented themselves in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1970’s. They wrote most of their own material. I was in school at UC Berkeley and one of...
by Michael Barrett | Jul 26, 2016 | Song of the Day
It’s Tuesday. It’s really hot this July. Tempers are flaring, folks are getting violent (though I’ve read that crime is down 50% over the past 20 years). Politics looks like some wierd version of “Survivor”. What we need is something cool...
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