SOUNDTRACK: TEDDY ABRAMS-Tiny Desk Concert #491 (November 30, 2015).
Teddy Abrams is a young piano player (he was 28 in 2015) and he was recently made conductor of the Louisville Orchestra. Here’s some fun details from the Tiny Desk blurb:
For his first week on the job in Louisville, Abrams played jazz piano in the streets and took his orchestra players into nightclubs and African-American churches. PBS made a web series on his first season. Earlier this year, he put two first symphonies on the same program — Brahms’ First and a debut symphony by Sebastian Chang, a composer still in his 20s — just to gauge audience reaction. Abrams filled the hall by giving out free tickets to first-time symphonygoers. He was happy to hear that many of them liked the new piece best, saying they appreciated hearing the composer introduce it onstage.
Abrams plays three pieces. Two originals and one from Beethoven. The first, “Big Band,” [from the blurb: swirls with jazz history. Hints of Thelonious Monk fly by, along with tips of the hat to the stride style from the early 20th century] is a fun and fast piece with Abrams playing fun and bouncy rhythms and very fast solo runs. It’s infectious.
Abrams decided to begin the opening movement of Beethoven: Sonata No. 30 in E, Op. 109, I. Vivace, ma non troppo with a short improvisation, noting that the great composer was known for riffing at the piano for hours on end and was often getting into improvisation battles. At he end, he says that we shouldn’t have been able to tell where the improv ended and the song properly began (although fans of the song could probably tell). By the end of his life Beethoven was experimenting and some of his later stuff is pretty out there and modern. That may be true if you know classical music, but it just sounded pretty to me.
He ends the set with a bluesy number, “The Long Goodbye,” [from the blurb: describing it as a slow ballad halfway between “My Funny Valentine” and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”]. It is indeed a wonderful conglomeration of jazzy melodies. A lovely and fun piece that is familiar but new at the same time.
[READ: July 26, 2016] The Complete Peanuts 1983-1984
As 1983 opens, Schroeder finally goes on the attack against Lucy “I have resolved not to be so serious..I’m going to try to laugh more” and then he pulls the piano out from under her and laughs like crazy.
For the past few books there have been a lot of jokes with Schroeder’s musical staves like Snoopy crawling through them. Most have invoked Woodstock interacting with them. As Schulz tends to do he will go on tears were he makes similar jokes every day for a week and then drops the joke for a while. There’s also been some strips with Woodstock singing . In one of my favorite, he is singing and the rain comes and actually washes the notes away from the stave. Even funnier is in Nov 1984 whee the rain comes and makes the notes droop really low.
For Valentine’s Day this year, Linus did not send Sally a card and she is very upset. Charlie says he should punch Linus in the nose. But he says instead that Linus should just walk into his fist. Charlie holds out his fist but Lucy walks into it instead. That’s pretty funny.
More abuse for Lucy comes from Linus. he gets a small bit of revenge by using Snoopy as a strange catapult and launching a snowball at her.
In the summer of 1983 while Snoopy is on a hike with the troops, the birds Bill and Harriet run off and get married and they stay in Point Lobos. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 