Music & More

  Photos courtesy of the artists Having gotten their start in 2014 posting DIY videos that went viral due to their artistic excellence,  Martina DaSilva and Dan “Chimy” Chmielinski performing as ChimyTina, released their debut full length album in 2019. The album, which featured their take on a number of Christmas classics, knocked me out with its groundbreaking arrangements and the sound of their performance, especially the voice of Martina DaSilva. I enjoyed it so much in fact, I sought out DaSilva's earlier work with The Ladybugs. The jazz repertoire of Christmas music has been done so many times in so many ways that to break through you really need to do something different and do it quite well. That they did. For their second album  Constellations,   ChimyTina applies their innovative arrangements to some jazz standards, as well as a pair of new originals penned by DaSilva. The originals are "Twin Flame" (watch the video, below) and "My Universe".  The basi...

Photo: Tom Lynn, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel In February 1964, when The Beatles played on Ed Sullivan, my world changed forever. Even though I was only ten at the time and my mom bought Meet The Beatles for me, somehow it took until 1965 for me to discover record stores and then it was all over ( I've written about these events previously in this blog ). Record stores, for me, started with Gimbels' record department. In those days, most department stores had a record department. Some were even good; I'm thinking not only of Gimbels, but EJ Korvettes and Sears, which had record departments that could compete with record stores. In the 60s, whatever the record store, they all had survey sheets from the local Top 40 stations. In Philadelphia, we had WIBG (990am) with a weekly survey of the Top 99 records of the week. Later, WFIL (560am) joined the fray with their Famous 56 survey. Both of the surveys reflected sales and airplay. Ultimately, data such as this contributed to the...

  Photo Courtesy of the Artist Bonnie Raitt played  The Mann Center for the Performing Arts  on Wednesday night, June 15th armed with her 18th album, Just Like That , her slide guitar, and her crackerjack touring band. One of Raitt's strengths, in addition to her music, is the way that she speaks to the audience. Opening the show, she said that she was very glad to be back on the road following a two year Covid layoff. Raitt thanked the crowd for coming to the show and the thunderous applause that she got throughout sounded more like a sold out large arena or stadium (if you closed your eyes) rather than The Mann, which wasn't quite full.  I was glad too, being that this was my first time back seeing live music since December 2019. Despite several excellent live streams, there is nothing like seeing a live show in the flesh. During the song "Something to Talk About," I kept thinking that this was something to celebrate.  The sound at The Mann that night was outs...

  Photos and Video Courtesy of Touchstone Pictures Gems From the Movie Shelf: One measure of a good movie is how it holds up over time. The first time I saw  Adventures in Babysitting was in 1988 when I rented the VHS tape to play with my kids in a Jersey beach motel. At the time, we knew nothing about the movie except for the premise of its title. We not only thoroughly enjoyed it, but I'm here to say that it is one movie that gets better with repeat viewing, and still looks and sounds great on DVD, now 35 years later. Like many ostensibly similar night in the city mishap movies ( Into the Night ) the premise is simple. Elisabeth Shue plays high school senior Chris Parker who, as the movie opens, is preparing for a big date. When her boyfriend shows up, he cancels the date with the excuse that he has to take care of his sick little sister. Suddenly without plans for the evening,  Chris reluctantly accepts a babysitting job.  At the job, the parents had not been...

Photo courtesy of the artist Previously unreleased in the USA, Brubeck Editions has released  Dave Brubeck Trio: Live From Vienna 1967.  Beyond the excellent sound quality, this concert was a true rarity in that this lineup of personnel usually performed in a quartet. For this show at the Konzerthaus, saxophonist Paul Desmond missed the group's flight from Hamburg to Vienna. In light of the situation, Brubeck decided to go on with the show as a three piece with Joe Morello on drums and Eugene Wright on bass. The recording that night was all set, and it was fortuitous that this show was captured, as this may be the only recording of these musicians performing together as a trio. As much as I love Desmond's composition "Take 5" along with his sax work, the trio makes good use of his space for their solos, improvisations, and such. The music is spectacular as well. The following excerpt from the press release details the performance, track by track. The trio sizzles with...