One of the subscriptions I try to read regularly is The Atlanic's culture feed, on which I found this this morning. I had not heard of John Vanderslice previous to today and I have full intentions of making Pixel Revolt my next iTunes purchase. It did get me to thinking, though...how much music do I miss by being SO focused on jazz all of the time. I understand the current trend of jazz musicians taking current material as their source material, but most of my listening remains focused on the perfecters of the art, i.e. Joe Henderson, Trane, Wayne, and Sonny. Additionally, most of the "modern" folks I listen to are steeped in that language as well. The modern guy I'm listening to most these days is Rich Perry.
But, the purpose of this post is not to debate the artistic merit of old vs. new or jazz vs. everything else. My discovery of John Vanderslice today was a joyful one to be sure. It reminded me of how much other music is out there that I love. For instance, REM and U2. I have some stuff from these folks on my workout playlists and every time they come up I remember how much I love that music. The Decemberists are another example.
How about it: what music other than your "favorite" inspires you?
I should read the stuff in my RSS reader more often...
3 comments:
Funny you would write this today, I was just saying this to a friend of mine last week. I was buying CD's and I picked up "Intimate Ella" and I thought, "really, Kim, another Ella...more jazz...same kind of listen" (yes, and by the way, it is a fabulous listen IF you like the simple clarity of piano and voice. Sorry, no horns on this one).
I started looking around for other musicians to "buy blind" just to sample something new, but I ended up with nothing.
Your post will help me reach out, now I'll go look up vanderslice....we'll see.
Kim
So xbox360 has a lastfm channel and lately we've been making our own stations and enjoying what ever comes up. Benjamin likes the game music channel (which is an actual genre now). That is a good way to hear some new music. You can enter an artist and the program chooses similar artists to play. Or I think you can enter in a type or genre and find some stuff that way.
K - That sounds a lot like Pandora, a resource that I should use more often.
Kim - Are you hip to Kate McGarry? I have been digging her quite a bit lately...http://www.katemcgarry.com/
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