new metheny

He's still at it. Pat Metheny's latest album, recorded live before the pandemic: Pat Metheny - Side-Eye NYC (V1.IV).

A couple of reviews:

Pat Metheny: Side-Eye NYC (V1.IV) review – new talent and wily reinventions

Pat Metheny: Side-Eye NYC (V1.IV) (Modern) - A review of the guitarist's live album showcasing two gifted rising stars: James Francies and Marcus Gilmore

trying out some new (to me) software

A couple of apps I'm testing in Linux appear to be winners. Time will tell.

DeaDBeeF, which I mentioned in a post last month, seems to have quickly replaced Audacious as my favorite music player for Linux -- although it's a close call. DeaDBeeF might be the best fit for me, but I'm keeping Audacious installed, as it's definitely worth keeping as well.

I prefer a lightweight audio player over a media player (I don't normally bother with video, etc.). I've gone with Audacious for the past few years, and I think it's generally considered to be the better of the two music players. 

Today I'm taking my first look at the Brave web browser (https://brave.com/). Although I've used a few different web browsers in Linux, most of my time's been spent with Firefox. I can't see myself giving up Firefox anytime soon. But Brave brings an interesting approach, and it seems fine here so far. I added it in Debian Buster, using these commands found at https://brave.com/linux/:

sudo apt install apt-transport-https curl

sudo curl -fsSLo /usr/share/keyrings/brave-browser-archive-keyring.gpg https://brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com/brave-browser-archive-keyring.gpg

echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/brave-browser-archive-keyring.gpg arch=amd64] https://brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com/ stable main"|sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/brave-browser-release.list

sudo apt update

sudo apt install brave-browser

This adds the file /etc/apt/sources.list.d/brave-browser-release.list and installs the browser.

Brave does seem to be faster than Firefox, but scrolling web pages is slow and clunky. I found something that helped somewhat: I brought up the Flags menu by typing brave://flags/ in the search bar, and then enabled "Smooth Scrolling". Better, but still not quite as quick and smooth as scrolling in Firefox.

I haven't had any issues yet with Brave doing what I think of as "normal" stuff. Happy with it so far.

another simple audio player

I'm taking a look at the DeaDBeeF audio player. I've installed it in Arch, where it's available from the repos, and also in Debian. DeaDBeeF is not available in the Debian repos (same with Ubuntu), but simple instructions for installing it in Debian (and in Ubuntu) can be found at https://deadbeef.sourceforge.io/.

 

 

great jazz

Volunteer Andre Lacerda hosts "The House That Jazz Built" every Sunday from 11 pm to 1 am on KUNM radio here in New Mexico. As KUNM's website (https://www.kunm.org/) describes it:

The House That Jazz Built brings you Avant Garde, Contemporary and Experimental Jazz from the last 50 years with a focus on recent releases.  Includes interviews with local artists, recordings of live shows and current events.

Lacerda (see: https://www.kunm.org/people/andre-lacerda) also serves as substitute host for some other shows at KUNM, including the "All That Jazz" segment, which airs here Monday thru Friday from noon to 1:30 pm. He's been a regular this year on the Monday slot. For "All That Jazz", Lacerda steps back from the "experimental" stuff he plays on Sunday nights, and the result is an hour and a half of some of the finest jazz you'll hear anywhere.

kunm.org has the great "Two Week Archive" feature (I take advantage of it all the time!), for those who can't catch on-air broadcasts (or who want to replay them).

 

they're sho nuff playin ruff

My song for the day: "So Ruff, So Tuff" by Roger - https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=s90dqNfPDR0&list=RDAMVMs90dqNfPDR0

 

we are one

My song for the day:

 

We Are One 

by Frankie Beverly and Maze

 

Can't understand
Why we treat each other in this way
Taking up time
With the silly silly games we play
We've got our love
And no matter how it's said or done

We are one no matter what we do
We are one love will see us through
We are one and that's the way it is

Sometimes I feel
That we try and make each other sad
The things we do
How we make each other feel so bad
We've got so much
We could all be having so much fun

We are one from the very start
We are one deep down in your heart
We are one
And that's the way it is

I can't understand
Why we treat each other in this way
Taking up time
With the silly silly games we play
We've got our love
And no matter how it's said or done

We are one no matter what we do
We are one love will see us through
We are one and that's the way it is

 

enlightenment

Listening to the Enlightenment album by McCoy Tyner, recorded in 1973 at the Montreaux Jazz Festival. Alphonse Mouzon on drums (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonse_Mouzon). More about the album here.

sweet music

Listening to Iron Starlet, a very nice album by young jazz pianist Connie Han. Here's a link to it at YouTube Music: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=Vywx6n3Qzo4&list=OLAK5uy_njjp_GoWQ7v0iRuvuhDeR57KcwYPSu4aE

More info: https://modernjazztoday.com/album/iron-starlet-connie-han/

 

asunder

Testing out the Asunder CD ripper and encoder. Project homepage: http://littlesvr.ca/asunder/

I installed Asunder in Debian Buster GNOME:

$ sudo apt install asunder

Optional dependencies include the lame and vorbis-tools packages, the latter of which was already installed here. I decided not to add lame.

I inserted a CD and started up Asunder. Asunder showed the found CDDB info.

For now, I left everything at the defaults. Asunder was set to encode to OGG Vorbis, which was exactly what I wanted.

I ripped the files and then opened them in the Audacious music player. Track information was picked up as expected, and the songs played perfectly.

I was planning to look at some other options for ripping CDs in GNOME. I took a quick look at ripperX, but then I tried Asunder and it seemed to give me what I wanted out-of-the-box. Good software, does what it's supposed to do. Sold.

 

the jazzy one

I used to love listening to WJZZ in the Detroit area, on 105.9 FM. Old-timers might remember this, from the late 70s or early 80s: "The jazzy one -- oh five, point nine."

Check out my Father's Day gift from M.A.L.:

Sweet!

happy music

Lively, upbeat sounds coming from KUNM radio tonight. Listening to the "Salsa Sabrosa" show.

in times like these

In times of difficulty and uncertainty, back to the music. That's how I cope. Here's a link to the Illuminations album by McCoy Tyner, at YouTube.

Personnel

McCoy Tyner – piano
Terence Blanchard – trumpet
Gary Bartz – alto saxophone
Christian McBride – bass
Lewis Nash – drums

I don't have Illuminations on CD or on cassette, but I was playing one of my old minidiscs and found the complete album saved. So I checked the computer and it's saved to the hard drive, too. I'm thinking I must have borrowed the CD from the library and copied it. This album won the Grammy Award for 'Best Instrumental Jazz Album, Individual or Group' in 2005.

funky up in here

"James Brown - Hot Pants (Part 1, 2 & 3) [Single Version]" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgfIKiVrSRA

 

"James Brown - Make It Funky Part 1 Thru 4 (Super Rare)" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2D2oUNTbjU

ripping with dolphin

While most KDE users will turn to k3b for ripping music files from audio CDs, KDE Plasma's Dolphin provides a fairly easy way to do it, as well. For info, check out "Encode and copy audio CD tracks" at the KDE UserBase Wiki, down near the end of the "Dolphin/File Management" section: https://userbase.kde.org/Dolphin/File_Management#Encode_and_copy_audio_CD_tracks

I've ripped quite a few CDs using this method, with KDE Plasma 5.16.5 in Kubuntu 19.10. After inserting a CD, a "Device Notifier" popup appears on the desktop. I select "Open with File Manager". There's something about the kioclient examining the CD, then Dolphin opens the files.

Also, with a CD in the drive, one can simply open Dolphin and click on "Audio CD".

Then, the user can copy the music files from one location to another -- drag, drop, copy. Dolphin presents the files in .wav format, but also puts corresponding .ogg and .mp3 files within the "Ogg Vorbis" and "MP3" directories, respectively. I prefer to go with the .ogg format.

Very cool. This is one of many reasons people say that Dolphin is the best Linux file manager. (I use Double Commander for most file management, though!)

1960

A couple of recordings from almost sixty years ago -- both from March, 1960, I think. Miles Davis with John Coltrane.

Konserthuset, Stockholm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_z221y8TOs

Olympia Theatre, Paris: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VE_dP90V84

branford

Listening to music by Branford Marsalis today. My home collection:

Random Abstract (1987), cassette tape.
Bloomington (1993), manufactured CD.
Requiem (1999), home CD recording.
Footsteps of Our Fathers (2002), home CD recording.

Branford Marsalis discography at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branford_Marsalis#Discography

piano

Here's one that I have on CD, playing it right now:  Ahmad Jamal, Chicago Revisited - Live at Joe Segal's Jazz Showcase.

Recorded in 1992. I was kinda surprised to see it at YouTube -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v783UhX8Zho&list=OLAK5uy_nKuonnPkVPKB6jGfV__GZuXsFqbU3Szis

I was introduced to The Ahmad Jamal Trio way back in the early 70s by my mom, who played (and still plays!) piano.

listening to right now...

"Kashmir" by Led Zeppelin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W6mDUmPZ0Y

classic

Herbie Hancock - Takin' Off



Personnel:

Herbie Hancock - piano
Freddie Hubbard - trumpet
Dexter Gordon - tenor saxophone
Butch Warren - double bass
Billy Higgins - drums




 This was Herbie Hancock's debut album, released in 1962. The first cut, "Watermelon Man", went on to become a jazz standard, but the entire album is a classic.

still playing beautiful music

A little over 10 years ago, in my "Sony Minidisc" post, I wrote: "However, I still find myself going back to my old Sony MZ-S1 Minidisc players."

The Sony MiniDisc already seemed "obsolete" by 2009. I think Sony finally shipped the last MiniDisc Walkman a couple of years later. But here in 2019, I'm still, every now and then, playing music from these MiniDisc players!

I don't have Windows around anymore, so I can't make any changes on the discs, and I can't add music to them. And I don't really use headphones/earbuds much anymore; I hook up one of the MiniDisc players to a pair of computer speakers, and to a power outlet, set the player to "Shuffle-Repeat", then kick back and enjoy for a few hours.

The music still sounds great; the devices still work flawlessly. I'm just gonna keep on using these MiniDisc players until they finally wear out. Unless they outlast me!

Now playing: "The Offbeat of Avenues" by The Manhattan Transfer, off the 1991 album of the same name. Beautiful!