Music updates (February 2023)
Some personal music updates: last November, our jazz group played one of the hottest venues in the city, Hunter's rooftop. This was an amazing event: a view of the city, food and drinks around the fire, music, and at one point, swing dancing.
jazz is beautiful/lovely/wonderful pic.twitter.com/GTKEJc048o
— Kevin Chen (@kev_chn) November 20, 2022
One highlight: Patrick briefly fumbled his drumstick off the roof! Luckily, it landed on a nearby ledge where it was retrievable, instead of bonking an innocent passerby. In between sets, Gloria informed us that our group had been renamed to San Francisco Castaways, just in time for us to play the Backyardigans song.
Earlier in 2022, we had talked about how cool it would be to get a paid gig.
We proceeded to do basically nothing about it, so things weren't looking very promising in the remaining month of 2022.
But then at Hunter's place, with no prompting, Kevin asked us to play a corporate happy hour!
So we stumbled into success manufactured a lucky break, and that gig went well too.
Thanks so much to Hunter and Kevin for the events, and to all of our friends who came to listen and hang out.
I had my wisdom teeth removed recently so I haven't played since then, lest I blow away my fresh-grown mouth tissues. Hopefully I still can!
Here's some music recommendations from the last few months as well.
Stacey Ryan - Fall In Love Alone
In this song about the tension of a near-romance, the verses first bounce around with a nervous energy. But the chorus pulls a stronger form: her words takes on the pauses of importance as she addresses her would-be partner directly, and the melody swells in rising lines. Then the bridge brings the song to another level; I had to look up the name for this descending scale, which this List of musical modes tells me is called the Superlocrian, among other names. I'm super a fan of it.
When I first heard this song I had to dig into my memory to remember why Stacey Ryan was a familiar name - Yee Aun and I had actually seen her months before, opening for Lawrence in Pittsburgh. At the time she was best known for Don't Text Me When You're Drunk, via TikTok. But I'm pretty sure she's made it with Fall In Love Alone - I've heard it several times playing on the plane announcements system, after landing.
John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman - My One And Only Love
The entire album is actually the most laid-back Coltrane I've heard - he and the rhythm section are a strong supporting cast for Johnny Hartman's singing. It's also the rare song where the sax plays the head before the vocalist sings it. We played this song for Castaways, so I listened to this a couple dozen times to pick up the chord changes. I love it. And at some point, I'm going to try and get a recording with Daniel singing as well, which is its own treat.
Math Class - 暮想家 (Night Thinker)
This album really grew on me after the initial listen: I skimmed through this when I first saw the release, but it didn't stick at the time. On a closer re-listen, it's a gem.
The rhythms and layering really get going in a way that reminds me of the band Plini at times. The high energy that I saw in Sleepless back in 2021 is still there, and even amplified. Electronic distortion is kicked up a notch in a stylistic touch, and the shifting time is interesting yet still head-bobbable without needing to count on your fingers. I'd be really interested in seeing the different layers through something like Splitter.fm.
The caliber of the music is amazing, and if I didn't see their Instagram I would've thought they were much more experienced. Recently they announced some members were leaving due to "differences in professional directions"; understandable since they're so young and might be considering other options besides going pro. The band is auditioning new members now, and I look forward to seeing what they do with the next iteration.
This post changes the title of the series from "Music I'm listening to", to simply "Music updates". Why?
Mainly, it's because I managed to totally blow past my planned date for this post, which was end of December. I considered scaling back the frequency of these or posting them only when I feel like it, but I decided I shouldn't. This triggered some self reflection as well: why am I writing this, anyways?
I'm trying to capture a snapshot in time of music I've recently liked. For me, music is indelibly connected to the memories and environment of the moment, so capturing the soundtrack is a way to get a pointer back to that era. To this day, listening to T-Square's Harmony Live concert sends me back to a trip to China, while the Hamilton soundtrack places me firmly at Carnegie Mellon, studying for finals during my freshman fall semester.
I also like keeping updates of my own musical activities. My memory is honestly, atrocious, and it's easy for me to blur together months or years if I don't have an anchoring calendar event, timestamped photo, or something else to keep me anchored. Sometimes it's easy to forget that two years ago, I hadn't even met Viraj and Patrick, never mind the events we've played together since then.
So, the title is updated to reflect my updated understanding. I'll continue to aim to post it quarterly, so the next one of these should be in May.
Past recommendations here. Tell me what you're listening to, if you want to come listen to me and the Castaways, or if you want to play together sometime!