January 29, 2014:<\/p>\n
J.S. Bach, “Four Concertos for Harpsichord and Orchestra,” Chamber Orchestra of the Saar (though it’s misspelled as “Sarre” here; I know it’s actually the Saar because I have other albums where it’s spelled correctly and has the same conductor).<\/p>\n
Very nice stuff. There’s a track or two with some minor surface noise, as if there was a bit of fluff in the way for a few seconds, but I don’t think it’s worth re-recording. It’s very minor.<\/p>\n
January 29, 2014:<\/p>\n
“Two- and Three-Part Inventions,” all thirty of them, performed by George Malcolm.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the Bachiest of all Bach. Lots of fun. Very clean copy. Audacity did crash once during the editing, but recovered just fine.<\/p>\n
January 30, 2014:<\/p>\n
George Carlin’s “Class Clown” is now added to my collection. Most of it holds up beautifully; a few bits, mostly about Vietnam, haven’t aged well.<\/p>\n
I don’t know where I got this album, but I don’t think I bought it new. I played it a few times, but not for decades. It’s in beautiful condition, though, and the copy’s just about flawless.<\/p>\n
Firesign Theatre’s “Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers,” on the other hand, has a bad scratch on Side 2 that renders it unplayable. Oh, most of it’s fine, but there’s this one stretch, maybe twenty seconds, that sticks and skips and… well, I’ll be buying this one on CD. (Fortunately, it’s available and not expensive.)<\/p>\n
January 31, 2014:<\/p>\n
Hey, I forgot to list one! “Music and Songs from HAIR, the Tribal Love Rock Musical,” by Dave Wintour and Pat Whitmore.<\/p>\n
What a piece of crap.<\/p>\n
This was a bunch of guys simply recording nine of the songs from “Hair” and selling it as an album. No one involved had any connection with the show.<\/p>\n
They didn’t do a great job — as in, they didn’t even get all the lyrics right.<\/p>\n
I picked this up at a yard sale, under the mistaken impression from a very quick glance that it was the London cast album. Got it home, realized my mistake, never played it until now.<\/p>\n
It was an easy transfer, and it’s short, or I might not have bothered. Did it about a week ago.<\/p>\n
And next will be today’s addition.<\/p>\n
January 31, 2014:<\/p>\n
Next, specifically, is the dreaded “Jazz Guitar Bach,” by Andre Benichou and His Well-Tempered Three.<\/p>\n
This was one of the rare misfires from Nonesuch. I have no idea who Andre Benichou was, but I can tell you something he wasn’t<\/i>, and that’s a good guitarist. Oh, he hits all the right notes and stays on the beat, but it’s utterly drab, colorless playing, with all the emotional content of an accountant’s resume.<\/p>\n
It also isn’t all Bach; two pieces are of dubious attribution, and another is definitely not by J.S. Bach, but was found in his daughter’s notebook, which was apparently enough to get it included.<\/p>\n
I know some people think of Bach’s music as mathematical and emotionless, but they’re wrong, as lots of musicians, Walter\/Wendy Carlos among them, have demonstrated. Hell, this guy’s own back-up band gets some feeling into the music, only to have the lead guitar squelch it.<\/p>\n
About the only excuse I can make for M’sieu Benichou is that it was 1965, and Messrs. Hendrix and Clapton had not yet demonstrated to the world what can be done with an electric guitar. Hell, there’s one piece on here that Jethro Tull performed on “Living in the Past,” where Ian Anderson got far more feeling into it with his flute than M.
\nBenichou does with his “jazz” ensemble.<\/p>\n
It’s a short album, just under half an hour in all, and I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad one, but at least it’s done now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
January 29, 2014: J.S. Bach, “Four Concertos for Harpsichord and Orchestra,” Chamber Orchestra of the Saar (though it’s misspelled as “Sarre” here; I know it’s actually the Saar because I have other albums where it’s spelled correctly and has the same conductor). Very nice stuff. There’s a track or two with some minor surface noise,… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-generalities-rants","category-strange-days"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":884,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions\/884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}