Susan pointed out that my neighborhood was in the news yesterday. The article is from a series about gangsters in LA and this picture is from a gangster killing that happened in 1951 in front of the house just south of ours.
[The photo is by Bill Murphy/Los Angeles and the article appeared in the LA Times on Oct.29, 2008.]
The gangster squad
Detectives and reporters surround the car containing the bodies of the Two Tonys: Tony Trombino, 31, and Tony Brancato, 36, slain on Ogden Drive, half a block from Hollywood Boulevard. Both were shot through the back of the head, August 1951.
The new phone books arrived today, three of them in a plastic bag. I went into the area where I keep phonebooks, took out the old ones and noticed that they had never been used. I tossed the old ones and wondered how long it would take before phonebooks go the way of Sears and Roebuck catalogs.
One of the great songs by the late Philip Koutev, a brilliant composer and choral arranger, is called “Polegnala e Toudora.” David Crosby turned me on to this amazing song in the early 80s. This appears to be a later performance of the song.
“Polegala e Toudora” by Filip Koutev, sung by the Bulgarian Women’s Chorus
I’ll never forget the last time I heard this group. It was at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles in the mid-1980s. We were up in the nose-bleed seats, row XXX. It was half way through the second half. An small ensemble of eight women came out and sang a long plaintive an highly ornate folk arrangement. Suddenly, there was an earthquake. I swear to you, being at the top, I saw a sine wave slowly move across the balcony. People, especially in the balcony, were terrified and got up and ran. The poor octet on ground level seemed oblivious to the quake but looked but later baffled as to why there were so many people in the balcony were suddenly leaving. They looked at each other: “are we singing flat?” “is the microphone off?” They finished the number. We stayed and moved forward into better seats and came home satisfied with a great concert and an amusing LA story.
Brad Wood just gave me a delightful DVD called “Glenn Gould The Alchemist” a must-see for all GG fans. At the top of the documentary, Glenn whisks into the room with a small chair. It turns out that this little tattered chair (”a member of the family”) is and always has been his piano seat/chair/bench. I looked into it and they are now selling replicas of this chair. I wonder if it has the shredded material hanging from it as well? I can’t imagine that would be terribly attractive, but it would be authentic. Take look at the opening of the film.
A fascinating poll on the Norman Lear Center website about the musical tastes of conservatives and liberals. I would be curious to redo this poll when all the baby boomers are senior citizens.
There are many interesting conclusions one can draw from this information and composers would do well to think long and hard about these implications.
Liberals enjoy a broad range of music, while conservatives dislike most music genres.
* Out of 15 musical genres, conservatives were more likely than the rest of the respondents to listen to only two of them: country and gospel. What genre are they least likely to listen to, compared to the rest of the respondents? Not punk or hip-hop, as you might expect, but world music. World music is also the music genre where we see the greatest difference between conservatives and liberals.
* Conservatives are the least likely group to listen to jazz (34% vs. 44% vs. 53%) and reggae (8% vs. 20% vs. 26%).
* Over 90% of conservatives said they never enjoy reggae, electronic music or Latin music. Over 95% said they never enjoy world music and punk music.
* Liberals, on the other hand, are more likely than other respondents to enjoy almost every music genre, including world, punk, Latin, hip-hop and rap, blues, reggae, electronica, R&B and soul, jazz, folk and traditional music. Rock was the most popular genre among liberals (67%).
* Although all political types claimed they enjoy classical music, moderates were the least enamored with it (55.5% listen to it compared to almost 62% of the rest of respondents). Moderates also showed their distaste for folk & traditional music (72.5% said they don’t listen to it, compared to 62.4% of the rest of the respondents), and they joined conservatives in their distaste for world music (90% said they don’t listen to it, compared to 71% of liberals.)
* Moderates’ favorite music is rock (58%). Conservatives’ favorite music is classical (60%) followed by country (56%) and rock (55%).
Say that one more time please: “Conservatives’ favorite music is classical (60%) followed by country (56%) and rock (55%).” Say what??
Thanks to Richard Garrin for bringing this bizarre find to the blog. You might want to line up a few shots of vodka and sing along.
The Leningrad Cowboys is a Finnish rock and roll band famous for its humorous songs and concerts featuring the Soviet Red Army Choir. Currently, the band has eleven Cowboys and two Leningrad Ladies. The songs, all somewhat influenced by polka and progressive rock, and performed in English, have themes such as ‘vodka’, ‘tractors’, ‘rockets’, and ‘Genghis Khan’, as well as folkloric Russian songs, rock and roll ballads and covers from bands as diverse as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Lynyrd Skynyrd, all with lots of humour.
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The Red Army Choir (Choir Aleksandrov) is a performing ensemble that served as the official army choir of the former Soviet Union’s Red Army. The choir consists of a male choir, an orchestra, and a dance ensemble. The songs they perform range from Russian folk tunes to Church hymns, operatic arias and popular music. In 1991, The Red Army Choir participated in Roger Waters’ The Wall concert celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall. They performed an anti-war song “Bring the Boys Back Home”. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Red Army Choir has continued performing, entertaining audiences both inside and outside Russia.
Start blogging Alan, you’ll be a natural. In fact, I’ll volunteer to teach you how.
[Reblogged from LA Observed]
Alan Rich out as Weekly critic
Kevin Roderick
Another local music critic down, not many left to go. Alan Rich, who is at least 83, was let go as classical music critic over lunch with LA Weekly editor Laurie Ochoa, reports Laura Stegman at PRLosAngelesMediaMoves.
After getting the news earlier today, I spoke with Alan late tonight, and he said, “It’s open season on critics. We are an endangered species. I was surprised, but I wasn’t surprised.” He says the decision was made “by the corporate people in Phoenix,” and that when Editor Laurie Ochoa gave him the news over lunch, “she was as sorry as can be.”
The good news is that Alan will be putting up a web site by the time his last review appears in the Weekly two weeks hence. “I don’t know anything else but how to write about music,” he says, “so that’s what I’ll continue to do.”
Here is a brilliant comeback by Larry David for those moments where you are trapped with someone shouting into a bluetooth headset, oblivious that s/he is annoying everyone.
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