Music & More

  Photo Courtesy of Artist On Happy Christmas , Chrissi Poland delivers a five track EP that she calls "stripped down and chill." She is totally talking my language there, especially when it comes to Christmas music. These piano-based covers could not have been more well chosen if I had selected them myself. In my Christmas articles in recent years, I invariably get to the part where I bitch about songs that are not really Christmas songs (songs like Joni Mitchell's "River" and Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah"). That said, I usually find some solace in the fact that two deserving songs are being covered more and more and are becoming modern standards. Poland opens the EP with those two songs.  Track one is "This Christmas," a song that Donny Hathaway wrote, recorded, and released in 1970. December 9, 2020 represents the fiftieth anniversary of the original release. Hathaway is an artist whose life was tragically cut short in 1979. To say that...

T he  Dave   Brubeck  Quartet, courtesy of the  Brubeck  family. Time Out by the Dave Brubeck Quartet, one of the most beloved jazz albums ever made and also one of the most important, is the subject of the inaugural release of a new label called Brubeck Editions. In honor of the centennial celebration of Dave Brubeck's birth, Brubeck Editions will release something very exciting on December 4, 2020. Having recently discovered master tapes from the recording sessions that produced the Time Out LP, the new album Time OutTakes mirrors the original album yet it offers a different take on each song. Listening to these different versions of such familiar and iconic fare is positively revelatory. It's almost like a concert in which they play the album in track order, but each song is played a little differently. Many thanks to the Brubeck family for making this recording possible.  I was fortunate enough to see Brubeck in live performance several times. He...

Photo courtesy of Arlo Guthrie  Arlo Guthrie has been a fixture on the music scene for well over 50 years. The 1967 release of his debut album  Alice's Restaurant  with its sidelong title track , seemingly overnight put him on the map (irrespective of his famous father), and also made him a hero of the counterculture.  It was good to see him perform in the Woodstock movie. He also sounded great on his cover of " City of New Orleans " (Steve Goodman).  I am glad that I had the opportunity to see him in concert at the Keswick in Glenside in the fall of 2010. The white hair shouldn't have been a shock, and I'll tell you that his easy rapport with the audience was matched by one terrific evening of good music.  It is sad, in a way, to come to gripes with getting older, but Arlo has made an indelible mark upon music and culture. What follows is the complete text of Arlo's post from earlier today. Gone Fishing It’s been a great 50+ years of being a working entert...

Photo via laut.de Released near the end of 1970, Tea for the Tillerman by Cat Stevens was wildly popular during 1971, not the least because the single "Wild World" reached #11 on the Pop Chart. The key to the album's success were the compositions, all by British singer-songwriter Stevens, all offering a large dollop of sweet melody along with a unique voice and songs that mixed sense, sensuality, and spirituality. On both the strength of the single, as well as the rest of the album, it went on to sell in excess of 3,000,000 copies, just in the States.  By the time I got to college in '71,  Tea for the Tillerman  had become a standard fixture in many dorm rooms along with Sweet Baby James by James Taylor, Tapestry by Carole King, and Tumbleweed Connection by Elton John, just to name a few. Although he had appeal in certain quarters due to his good looks stemming from his Greek father, Swedish mother, and that British accent, I think that the music on Tillerman tran...

Photo courtesy of themeparkreview on Twitter As a former card carrying member of American Coaster Enthusiasts (ACE), I have spent a great deal of time considering the quality of roller coaster rides. I won't claim to having ridden them all, or even making a dent in the list of American coasters. That said, I've ridden quite a few.  As a youth, I cut my teeth on the coasters at Willow Grove Park (WGP), just north of Philadelphia. Where now stands a mall of the same name, there was once an amusement park, one that was built in 1896 by a trolley company to give people a reason to ride to the end of the line. In its early days, it was known for band concerts led by John Philip Sousa. Over time, iconic amusement rides were added such as a ferris wheel, the tunnel of love, a fun house, a classic carousel and the like, and ultimately four roller coasters. One was The Wild Mouse, a factory made early metal coaster that was duplicated in many parks. The other three were classic wood...

Bowfinger is an excellent movie that seems to fly under the radar when it comes to film comedy, perhaps because the name is not easy to remember. Bowfinger features the comic actors Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy leading a cast that are all perfectly chosen for their roles, what's more, Murphy plays two different characters as he is wont to do. In addition to starring in the movie, Martin also wrote the script. Frank Oz directed; you might know him as Yoda, Grover, Miss Piggy or many of the other Muppet characters that he helped Jim Henson develop on the way to becoming a film director. Steven Martin plays Bobby Bowfinger, a down on his luck movie director in Hollywood. In a wonderful opening sequence, Martin's performance synchronizes with the song "There Is Always One More Time" by Johnny Adams (see below). The actor and the song combine to lay out the premise for the movie. Bowfinger is pinning his hopes on his next movie, which he has little money to make. S...