In this installment I take you back a long ways to a dark little bedroom, with the glow of my transistor radio on a cold Winter Sunday night and then pull you forward to recently, you’ll understand when you listen to my 12th installment for #octaver25
Category: Music
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Octaver25 Day 4 My Nth favourite genre of music
For this 4th installment, yes on the fifth day 🙂 for #Octaver25, I answer the question what is my second favourite type of music, as you’ll see, the answer is shrouded in ambiguity and mystery.
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#Octaver25 Day 3 My favourite genre of music
I had no trouble at all answering Paul O’Mahony’s question as to what is my favourite genre of music. In this episode I’m still in the same, rather noisy, recording environment and explaining my love for a certain type of music and plugging a few websites, WHICH I GOT WRONG! Ha Ha!
The radio station I was eluding to is Jazz 91FM, don’t ask me where the decimal number came from :), and can be found at https://jazz.fm/
SOMA FM can be found at https://somafm.com/
Finally Jazz24.org is found at…oh will you look at that! https://www.jazz24.org/
Check them out and give them some love if you like what you hear.
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#Octaver25 – Day 1The first music I remember hearing
Hello and welcome to my first entry for #Octaver25, OK, so what the heck is an Octaver you might ask. Well it’s a portmanteau of the words Octave and October and was originally coined back in 2012 by yours truly for a musical festival that took place on an audio-based social network called Audioboo. During Octaver people were given a set of prompts about music, and they would create audio messages of themselves talking about music, and in some instances even playing small excerpts, those among us who were more talented, I don’t include myself in that group 🙂 would also play musical instruments and/or sing.
In any case, Audioboo was purchased many many years ago and re-baptized Audioboom and they changed their approach to social audio and started charging more. Unfortunately the social network slowly caved in and we all went our separate ways and Octaver faded into the distance, like the end of a great song. During my years on Audioboo I met a wonderful group of people, many with whom I still keep in touch with today. In fact, two of those great folks ask me to participate in a revival of the hashtag some 13 years later, has it really been that long?
Back then in the 2010’s I would put quite a bit of production time in these Octaver episodes, I’m not so sure I’ll be able to give it that much devotion this time around, but I did want to at least contribute and participate in some way. So here it goes, below is my first entry for this new month and the launch of my #Octaver25
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If Silk Had a Voice…
OH MY GOD! That’s all I could keep saying to myself as my ears stumbled over my mouse, tripped over the keyboard and into Lucy Thomas’ Youtube channel. It all started with a conversation that my wife and I were having about a rendition of Eric Carmen’s “All by Myself”, a song made famous by Celine Dion, even though I COULD NOT STAND her version, my apologies to all the Dionists out there, but I just found her rendition screechy to the Nth degree. The rendition my wife was listening to had the same effect on me and I told her so. In fact, I told her that I had never heard a version of the song that didn’t have me cringing as that fateful crescendo makes it appearance and the singer has to reach into their upper registers and often end up screeching yelling those final notes; up until this evening that is. In fact, as I type this and think about the rendition I just listened to by Lucy Thomas, the hair on my arms is still standing on end, that’s the extent to which her voice reached deep down inside of me. You must realize, I have not had a singer do this to me in a very long time and here tonight, on an unassuming Saturday evening, unbeknownst to me, I found a singer who has single-handedly restored my fate in that song, and I left a comment on her Youtube channel to that effect. Here is the cover of “All by Myself” by Lucy Thomas for your enjoyment. Please stop whatever you’re doing and just sit and listen to this song and tell me shivers don’t go up your spine.
Incredible rendition of “All by Myself” by Lucy Thomas Wasn’t that something? When was the last time you heard such a wonderful, breathy, controlled and silky rendition of that song. I just loved how she used the entire range of her voice to add such wonderful depth and emotion. Even in the higher registers she shows such self-control and vocal delivery, truly masterful. There is a such a limpidity in her voice, such a smoothness whether she’s going down into the lower registers or reaching those crescendos, it’s truly so easy on the ears, like liquid, auditory silk, if such a thing could exist. I may have to reconsider buying better speakers for the old Hi-Fi system in the corner of my office. I think that’s one of the hallmarks of a truly beautiful voice is if you can listen to it effortlessly and so far I’ve listened to dozen’s of her videos and her voice is so delicate, yet powerful at the same time that it just naturally sits in the mix of the song, but is also able to capture the listener’s ears, again flowing with ease.
Even the piano solo in the middle had me waiting in anticipation for her voice to return, this ladies and gentlemen hasn’t happened in a long long time.
I certainly hope the world discovers Ms. Thomas and as her voice and singing technique further matures in the years to come she may very well become a household name and could end up with the great female singers in history, bravo Lucy bravo!
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A Magical Evening to Celebrate Going Back Out to Concerts
Last night was pure magic for me, let me explain. I had not seen a live music concert since November of 2019 and last night, three years minus a few weeks, I attended my first concert and what a concert.
For many years now I’ve have been a regular listener to Saturday Night Jazz on the CBC music radio channel here in Canada. I knew the host, Liali Biali, was a Jazz singer/songwriter and had seen many of her Youtube videos and listened to some of her music on Spotify and the like. One day in early August I was going over the offerings at a local music venue, which is a 15 minute walk from my house. Lo and behold don’t I see that Laila Biali would be playing in my little town, just down the street, obviously I couldn’t resist. I bought the ticket, sitting me at a table right up near the stage, I didn’t realize at the time that I would literally be about less than 3 meter from Laila herself sitting at her piano. But I’m getting ahead of myself, so I printed out the ticket and clipped it on my bulletin board in my office and waited for the faithful evening.
Well, yesterday was it, I got spiffed-up, well as much as one can get spiffed up with the post Pandemic wardrobe that I have left in my closet, and made my way to the venue. I got there early and waited with all the other audience members until we were let in. I was kindly escorted to my chair by a nice usher and sat down to the view below:
Laila, her husband Ben Wittman and Alex Bellegarde on upright bass took the stage and almost instantly the magic began. First of all, I had only ever really heard Laila on the radio and, as mentioned, on Youtube, etc… but to see her sing, smile with that twinkle in her eyes, was such a treat and she plays a really mean piano. I’ve been a big fan of Diana Krall for years and always loved her piano playing abilities, but what I saw that evening with Laila’s hand flying across those 88 keys just astounded me and took my breathe away, I kept straining to see her fingers on the keyboard.
She played a variety of songs from her new album, some Jazz standards such as Autumn Leaves, which was very apropos since I had walked over crunchin’ some Autumn leaves of my own, some covers of the Canadian songbook from the likes of Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell, and a fantastic energetic cover of Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” that had me practically up and dancing, but not quite, guess I was a tad bit shy. In fact as I tried to casually glance around with my peripheral vision it felt to me like I was the only audience member boppin’ in the joint. I’m sure I wasn’t, but to me it felt like it was just me and those three amazing musicians up on stage.
At the end Laila mentioned that she’d be having a meet and greet in the lobby and signing CDs and I was thrilled as I wanted to let her know how much her radio show has meant to me over the years and how much I was looking forward to hearing her play. We shared a nice short chat as there were others who wished to meet her as well and we said our mutual good-byes and how nice it was to meet each other. I then grabbed my coat at the coat-check and made my way back home with two of her CDs in tow and a definite bounce in my step. Since it was Saturday night at just after 10 PM when I got home I was able to listen to the last two hours of her radio show and it felt even more welcoming as I heard her dulcet toned voice and thought how it was a night of live music that I will surely remember for a very long time topped by the thrill of meeting Laila Biali.