Music

Let us now praise formerly famous, nowforgotten men (and women).  Our praise is cold comfort to them, especially when itʼs posthumous or follows decades of impoverished frustration.  Rediscovery is rarely a gift to the rediscovered: Itʼs to those of us drawn to hidden human gems, their luster brightened by tales tragic or at least bittersweet. Author John Wirt tells such …

Spying the Grim Reaper in the rear view mirror evokes a range of responses.  `Getting religion’ or reaching for the gin are common ones.  Dave Alvin’s reaction to his brother Phil’s near-death and the passing of old friends was novel: instead of seeking salvation or oblivion, he joined forces with his brother to record an album of Big Bill Broonzy …

Tales of rediscovered art treasures tend toward Nazi loot stashed in Austrian attics.  Less dramatic sagas can still be compelling.  Consider one concerning radio transcriptions by an artist dubbed `the hillbilly Shakespeare,’ rescued from a small town florist shop in Oklahoma.  At first, the collector who found them couldn’t listen, since radio transcriptions require a special turntable and the one …

World music, anyone?  Didn’t think so.  A lonely legion of public radio DJs flog what sounds like one stripe or another of American pop, edged by exotic embellishments and sung in a foreign tongue.  For textbook examples, listen to Marco Werman’s music picks on PRI’s The World.  You’ve got your `world’ hip hop, your `world’ techno-dance music.  Plenty of slushy …

Serendipity in Rosarito is the bonus for residing here, often in the form of a three-ring circus of sensations.  Strolling downtown on a Sunday afternoon past Pueblo Plaza, I was attracted by a wild cumbia rendition of El Orangutan. Meandering inside the alley, I discovered just outside Susanna’s restaurant the arresting spectacle of a 4-piece combo.  Ordering a glass of …

Who was the last piano roll salesman?  Surely someone who entered the trade with Gilded Age optimism as sales boomed, only to see `talking machines’ turn the 19th century marvel of player pianos into objects of quaint obsolescence.  The last piano roll salesman fell victim to technology’s restless relationship to music, and the fortunes made and lost thereby.  The story …

February brought a plethora of concerts in Ensenada, classical music at its best.  I’ll take you to three of these concerts. The Opera Dido and Eneas, by Henri Purcell, was performed again, this time in Cearte three nights in a row and to a full house each time.  The cost of these concerts is usually $100.00 pesos ($7.60 at the …