On Demand Alert: Passing Strange The Movie

In spring 2008, Ann and I caught the Broadway production of "Passing Strange," an "autobiographical fiction" musical starring Stew (that's all, just "Stew") and co-authored by Heidi Rosenwald. Stew's story -- of a young African-American searching for meaning in Europe during the Seventies, and living off of checks from his middle-class mother from the Compton neighborhood in Los Angeles -- was interesting to someone who was a somewhat less privileged contemporary of his (me)... but the telling -- with Stew fronting a terrific rock band that held center-stage through the entire performance -- was something special. The original Broadway production only lasted for 165 performances, but fortunately filmmaker Spike Lee was so taken with it that he captured the work on film. "Passing Strange The Movie" debuted at the IFC Center theater in New York on August 21st, and on Wednesday August 26 it will be available on-demand on cable systems across America. Someone described "Passing Strange" as "The Rock Musical for Rock Musical Haters" -- if you're one of those, tune in. It's great music, it's organic to the play, and the production is captivating. Based on the clips on the movie's website, Spike Lee has very effectively captured what we so thoroughly enjoyed in the theater.

Sachal Vasandani: New Voice in Jazz

Young jazz vocalist Sachal Vasandani made the first stop on the pre-release tour for his second CD, We Move, at Chris' Jazz Cafe in Philadelphia on Friday. A helpful Arts Boston article tells me that he graduated from the University of Michigan in 1999 and worked as an investment banker before going full-time in the jazz biz. ArtsBoston nicely describes his voice as "deep-brewed" (but so did the Detroit JazzStage website, so credit to whomever came up with it first). I hear stylistic traces of Harry Connick, Jr. and Jamie Cullum, and some reaching back to Chet Baker and Jon Hendricks. He does some fine cover versions (a particularly swinging effort on Thelonious Monk's "Man, That Was A Dream") but emphasizes his original compositions, which are uneven. Among the better of his self-penned numbers is the title tune of his new CD, but even his lesser compositions were strengthened by his terrific backing trio: Jeb Patton on piano, Josh Ginsberg on bass, and Quincy Davis on drums. (Detroit transplant Dean Moore offered up a great alto sax solo on the Monk composition.)

Vasandani's opening set list at Chris' included: That Old Black Magic, There's A Small Hotel (Latin funk), Please Mr. Ogilvy, Medley: Royal Eyes, There Are Such Things, My Dear, Man That Was A Dream, We Move, No More.

Vasandani has a nice stage presence and a gentle but persistent sell (making sure to hawk his CD and collect e-mail addresses which he promises to treat with respect). He clearly loves his work and I think he'll continue to grow.

Warming Up for The Leeds: Pianist Shih-Wei Huang

Last Thursday night, Ann and I hosted a recital by the young Taiwanese pianist Shih-Wei Huang at our home for about 30 friends. Shih-Wei is a May 2009 graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she studied under two of the Institute's most esteemed faculty, Claude Frank and Eleanor Sokoloff. She will be a graduate student at the Yale School of Music beginning in September.

Shih-Wei is on her way to compete in the 16th Leeds International Pianoforte Competition ("the Leeds"), a triennial showdown that begins in the Yorkshire town next week. In this recital, she performed several pieces that she intends to play as she advances to later rounds against 68 other competitors from around the globe, including Beethoven's "Pathetique" Sonata, Chopin's Sonata Op. 58, and a truly exciting piano transcription of Stravinsky's ballet Petrushka adapted by the composer at the request of Artur Rubenstein. While Rubenstein performed the work live, he never recorded it (though one version of the story I heard at our reception was that he in fact recorded it several times but never released it because he was not satisfied with his performances). On piano, Petrushka is a very demanding work that Shih-Wei performed with power and grace.

I know that everyone who joined us wishes Shih-Wei all success at the Leeds. Several rounds of the competition can be heard on the BBC, and I will try to listen in on the Web.

What's This "(Le) Poisson Rouge" Thing?

For those who want to know more about (Le) Poisson Rouge, the fascinating music venue in Greenwich Village that recently celebrated its first anniversary (and where Ann and I saw a great contemporary big band last week), here's a nice piece by Anthony Tommasini in The New York Times. Music - Feeding Those Young and Curious Listeners - NYTimes.com. When you're in New York, add it to your list of to-do's. It deserves your support.

Musical Notes: Darcy James Argue, Lidia Kaminska

Darcy James Argue's Secret Society: Last Wednesday, Ann and I trekked to (Le) Poisson Rouge, a much-lauded, artist-owned, eclectic performance venue in Greenwich Village (on the site of the old and revered Village Gate), to see and hear Darcy James Argue's Secret Society, an 18-piece big band that performs the intricate compositions of its 33-year-old, Vancouver-born namesake. His pieces are inspired by history, literature and current events, and his introductions (and, on this night, dedications) of each piece set the stage, and sometimes prefigured the story arc, for each of the 7-to-12 minute works that followed. The orchestrations are densely layered and sonically rich, without many gimmicks but with some interesting innovations (including effective use of electric guitar and bass clarinet). You'll hear influences of Mingus, Miles and Frank Zappa, among others, but this really is new-generation big band -- a genre that Argue has dubbed "steampunk." Try to pick up on his complicated time signatures, and recognize how heroic his rhythm section really is. All About Jazz did this nice article and interview, and the New York Observer offers this appreciation. More about the band and its leader -- along with free downloads and the chance to buy their CD -- at the Secret Society's website. The recordings are good, but this is a band that must be seen, not just heard, as the complex interplay of the musicians as they wrestle with the complex charts is part of the fun. (This video shot from the back of the house in the same venue during a 2008 appearance will give you a small taste of that.) Seek them out live. And thanks to The Wall Street Journal for the tip.

Lidia Kaminska: The public radio program Performance Today included Lidia's performance of Scarlatti’s Sonata in D minor, K. 141, from her December 7 concert at the Trinity Center for Urban Life in its July 2 broadcast. The accordionist's concert was presented by Astral Artistic Services, and Ann and I were co-sponsors of the event. It may be too late to hear the rebroadcast of this episode on your local public radio station (check the Performance Today website), but you may still find it archived online by your favorite local station.

Adventures in Archeophony - The Prequel

My very first post on TLRM in July 2008 stemmed from a brunch conversation that I had with my friend Dave Giovannoni in Toronto. As I reported in the post, Dave is an archeophonist, but he didn't know it at the time. Dave and his colleagues at FirstSounds.org had made archeophonic history last year by discovering the earliest known recorded sounds, predating Edison by some 20 years. Their sleuthing has continued -- and in the last 12 months, they have moved the history of recorded sound back even further, having identified earlier recordings long lost in French archives. These recordings are now reproduced at their site.

Dave and his colleague Patrick Feaster provided a detailed and entertaining look into their process of discovery at the 43rd annual conference of the Association for Recorded Sound Collections (a specialists' event if ever there was one) in Washington, DC in late May. Their quest featured some truly extraordinary challenges in dealing with French bureaucracy (yes, there's probably no news there, but it's always a bit sad -- and I say this as a Francophile -- to hear when the bureaucrats live up to their stereotypes).

The story of the first sound recordist, Leon Scott, is fascinating and sad. Leon Scott was desperate to preserve his legacy and protect his name, and he was crestfallen when, despite his personal pleas to Edison, the American would not even acknowledge Leon Scott's contributions to sound recording during his visits to France. Happily, Leon Scott's great grandson, Laurent Scott de Martinville, surfaced during the news coverage of Dave's sound discoveries last year. Asked by the BBC whether the history of recorded sound would now have to be rewritten, Laurent said, with diplomatic understatement, "No, only a few sentences... but key ones."

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Please Note My New Title... The author of this website has bestowed a new job title on me -- see the sixth line of this post from Thailand's Telecom & Hi-Tech Online News.

Bruce McCall Makes Me Laugh Out Loud... but that's been happening since he started with the National Lampoon a few decades back (guilty - I read it in high school and college). Every time he does a New Yorker cover or cartoon or article, I stop and savor it. I love the way he finds absurdity in architecture and farce in forms. I was delighted to see that the folks at TED appreciate McCall as much as I do -- here's a McCall video where he presents his concepts of "retrofuturism" and "techno-archaeology."

Let's Celebrate "Record Store Day" While We Still Can... They're a vanishing breed. Fortunately, for the second year running, over 700 of them coast-to-coast will be celebrating the joys of CDs and, yes, vinyl. I'll drop in on Hideaway Records in my Chestnut Hill neighborhood on April 18 -- visit the website to find the last of the independent disk sellers in your area.

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E-Readers: It'll be a little while before I enter chapter 2 of my Kindle Kronicles, but this article from Wired.com offers a nice pro/con on all of the e-readers currently on the market. E-Book Reader Roundup: Samsung's Papyrus Joins the Crowd | Gadget Lab from Wired.com.

Editors Wanted: Here's an excerpt from a review in today's Wall Street Journal of a history of Gray's Anatomy (the book, not the TV series). What error jumps out at you (but apparently not at the editor)?

"With this world as a backdrop, Henry Gray (1827-61) began climbing the professional ladder at St. George's Hospital in London at age 15. He didn't attend a university before starting his studies at the famed medical school attached to the hospital, and even then he focused on surgery instead of becoming a general practitioner, or apothecary-surgeon, as those doctors were then known. .. If Gray skipped a university education by choice, Henry Vandyke Carter (1831-97) initially went without one from necessity. His family was too poor to send him to college, so in the late 1840s Carter enrolled at St. George's -- Gray, 10 years his senior, was already teaching and working at the hospital -- and studied to become an apothecary-surgeon..."

My Day Job: I'm often asked, "But what you do every day at work, really?" My answer is us, "I usually don't know until I get there." This blog is not about my work, but now I will be blogging at work. Check out Comcast's brand-new blog, where you can see a couple of my postings.

Hot List: I subscribe to a few email services - from Amazon, Fodor, and others - that direct me to neat stuff on the Web or in the physical world. I often get a charge out of Very Short List, which lands in my inbox a couple of times a week. Among the things they've flagged for me recently: rare video of a '70s appearance by George Harrison on Eric Idle's "Rutland TV" comedy series where Harrison plays a pirate; the live performance archives of KEXP Seattle, a station that appears to be right up there with WXPN Philadelphia and KCRW Santa Monica as a live-acts showcase for modern music; "The End," a terrific collection of "end cards" from movies and TV shows -- no clues, you have to guess where they originally appeared; "The Big Picture," a photoblog by Alan Taylor of the Boston Globe, with huge, crystalline digital photos of news events great and small. Fun, and the price (free) is right. (BTW, Comcast Interactive Media owns a similar service, Daily Candy, that focuses on stuff of interest to women.)

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The Suspicious Cheese Lords: Thanks to Don Laub for reminding me about this D.C.-based male a capella group (numbering 13-15 voices) who have released three world premiere recordings of sacred music of the Renaissance - by Carpentras in 2002, Ludwig Senfl in 2005, and Jean Mouton in 2007 (all of them available from CD Baby, a terrific distribution house for independent musicians). The first two were recorded in the acoustically glorious Franciscan Monastery in northeast D.C. The self-released CDs are beautifully produced and packaged, with musicologists' liner notes that are illuminating. Transporting.

Pat Metheny & Anna Maria Jopek, Upojenie: In the early Seventies, on a study tour and "roots" visit to Krakow, I was first exposed to the vibrant world of Polish jazz. Although the Iron Curtain was firmly in place, every young person seemed to tune in to DJ Willis Conover's Jazz Hour on the Voice of America. Young Poles' main connection with Western musical culture was through Conover's playlist, artists like Coltrane and Miles and Wes Montgomery. On a subsequent trip in 1977, I got to know some Polish jazz journalists, and starting writing for a Warsaw-based magazine, Jazz Forum, that was published in three languages. That was about the time that Pat Metheny was capturing attention for his first two ECM albums, and I had the pleasure of doing the first (so far as I know) internationally published interview with Pat for Jazz Forum. (He was a terrific, and enthusiastic, interview.) That's why it was a special treat to see Metheny team up with vocalist Jopek and other contemporary Polish jazz artists on this CD of originals, reworked Polish folk songs, and Metheny tunes of the Nineties retrofitted with Polish lyrics. Recorded in 2002 but just released in the States last year, this is a worthy addition to Metheny's extensive discography.

Jason Vieaux, Images of Metheny: And speaking of Metheny, his work is reimagined by the terrific classical guitarist Jason Vieaux on this 2005 tribute album. Metheny's distinctive sound limits the number of artists who try to "cover" him, but Vieaux brings wonderful dimension to these solo acoustic interpretations, particularly the sensitive opener "Every Day (I Thank You)" and a gorgeous take on "The Bat" (By the way, we met Jason at a recent house concert, and he told us that Metheny is still delightful and accessible, and that he had invited Jason to his New York apartment to compare notes when Jason was working on this CD.)

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Whenever possible, I like to find time for music in my day. On occasion, I'll write a few lines about some of the music that's engaging me. No negative reviews -- I'm only going to write about "music I'm enjoying now."

Very Best of Naxos Early Music: A free download from Amazon! A dozen ethereal tracks by Hildegard von Bingen, Orlande De Lassus, and others, performed by Naxos artists. Naxos seems to be one of a very few classical record labels that have figured out how to sustain a strong business in a weakening recorded music economy. They deserve your support.

The Construction of Boston: Ann gave me this new live recording of Scott Wheeler's first one-act opera dating from 1989 as part of my Christmas CD extravaganza. It's on Naxos. I was delighted to discover that Wheeler has been an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where our son Jack is a senior, and music director for dozens of Emerson Stage productions. His work bring to mind Adam Goettel (Floyd Collins, Light in the Piazza, Myths and Hymns).

Ayombe!: The Heart of Colombia's Música Vallenata
!Ayombe! The Heart of Colombia's Musica Vallenata: A Smithsonian music sampler that you can dance to. Think of this as the Colombian version of the Buena Vista Social Club -- but even better because the centerpiece is... accordions! :-) Several styles including paseo, merengue and son, with distinctive percussion. A couple at tracks are at incredibly fast tempos -- but most of the 15 songs are bright and jovial.

North Texas Jazz: Ann took her undergraduate degree at North Texas State College, now the University of North Texas, in Denton. While Austin is the place that usually comes to mind when you say "music" and "Texas," the University of North Texas in Denton has trained dozens of renowned jazz performers, including Lyle Mays (piano, The Pat Metheny Group), Lou Marini (sax, The Blues Brothers), Adolfo Acosta (Tower of Power), Marc Johnson (ECM bassist), Herb Ellis (Verve guitarist), and dozens of others. For a great sampler, try North Texas Jazz: Fifty Years, a four-CD compilation mostly featuring performances by the One O'Clock Lab Band (so named because it features the most accomplished big band players whose class meets at 1 p.m. - less accomplished or up-and-coming performers are in the Two O'Clock and later bands).

DVR Alert: Flight of the Conchords Returns on HBO

What a great day it would be to stay home and watch HBO (but instead we're boarding Amtrak to the Inaugural). At 2:30 ET, the "We Are One" concert will feature Bono, Beyonce, and the Boss - along with Stevie Wonder, Will.I.Am, Herbie Hancock, James Taylor, Shakira and many more. Most every cable operator in the country will be carrying HBO "in the clear" so everyone with cable can enjoy this concert, whether they subscribe to HBO or not.

Now here's one of the (IMHO, many) reasons to subscribe to HBO: Flight of the Conchords, the spectacularly silly musical-comedy sitcom, returns tonight at 10:00 ET.

"Flight of the Conchords" is the name of the "band" consisting of these two New Zealand comedians (Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie, who his fellow New Zealanders on the show always call "Britt"). We first saw them do their funny folk-rock schtick at the late, lamented U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen about four years ago, where festival sponsor HBO showcased them. (So I guess we can say we "discovered" them in Aspen, much as we "discovered" Barack Obama along with 40,000 other conventioneers when he addressed the Democratic convention in Boston in 2004).

In the series, the Conchords have moved to New York to pursue stardom. The plots? Well, if Seinfeld was about "nothing," Conchords is about absolute zero. Deadpan and clueless, Jemaine and Bret try to cope with agents, groupies (well, one groupie, which is all they can seem to attract), a mistaken case of anti-Australianism, and other plot contrivances that can usually be summarized in four or five words (as I just did). Every episode includes at least one song that may or may not advance the storyline, but it's almost guaranteed to be charming, melodic and amusing in its wordplay. Great supporting cast, too, including (in season one) several appearances by one of my favorite Broadway musical comediennes, Sutton Foster.

I caught the first episode of season two on Fancast (shameless plug for employer). Sample it now.

December 7 Will Be A Day of Music

One last reminder that Lidia Kaminska (accordion), Jennifer Curtis (violin) and Michael Mizrahi (piano) will be performing works of J.S. Bach, Scarlatti, Piazzola, and several contemporary Russian composers on December 7, 3:00 p.m., at the Trinity Center, 22nd and Spruce Streets, near Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia. Tickets are available here. You can find more details and links below on my July 16 and 23 posts.

Earlier that day, Settlement Music School will be celebrating its 100th anniversary with a live broadcast from the Park Hyatt in Philadelphia. Details from the School's website follow:

Settlement 100 Sunday Brunch and Live Broadcast, 11am-2pm, Grand Ballroom, Park Hyatt at the Bellevue, Broad and Walnut Streets

Featuring performances by alumni, faculty and students, and interviews with distinguished guests. Broadcast live on WRTI-FM, the Sunday Brunch celebrates the Settlement 100 – a roster of 100 interesting, diverse and unexpected individuals whose Settlement experience helped shape their lives.

Featuring performances by:
Settlement 100 Honoree Joseph Anderer, French horn
Settlement 100 Honoree John E. Blake Jr., violin
Beth Levin, piano
Teresa McCann, piano
Leah Mellman, piano
Settlement 100 Honoree Diane Monroe, violin
Reginald Pindell, baritone
Jeffrey Uhlig, piano
Myer Schwartz Advanced Study Piano Trio
Rosalie Magen Weinstein & Matthew B. Weinstein Advanced Study Woodwind Quartet
Gail W. Snitzer Advanced Study String Quartet

Tickets: click here or call 215-320-2686. Tickets will be mailed ahead of time.

An All-Star Jazz Jam Benefiting Settlement Music School

This year marks the centennial of Settlement Music School, the nation's oldest and largest community school of the arts, providing musical instruction to over 15,000 people of all ages at six branches in the Philadelphia area. Since 2005, I've had the honor of chairing Settlement's board. We're celebrating our first century of service to the community -- and revving up for our second century -- with a series of public events, a major fundraising campaign to secure the School's future, and an all-out effort to reconnect with former students and connect with music lovers who should know about the School.

The next terrific event in our centennial year is a concert by the Settlement Music School Jazz All-Stars, under bandleader Joe Sudler. All of the artists either taught or were taught at Settlement Music, and we're so grateful they're coming back to help us to celebrate. Featured artists include:

George Allen, Jr, trombone
John Blake, violin
Tony DiSantis, trumpet
Duane Eubanks, trumpet
Matt Gallagher, trumpet
David Gibson, drums
Bob Howell, tenor sax
Leonard Nelson Hubbard, bass
Randy Kapralick, trombone
Kevin MacConnell, bass
Craig McIver, drums
Dave Posmontier, piano
Wallace Roney, trumpet
Jaleel Shaw, alto sax
John Simon, tenor sax
Wayne Smith, trombone
Louis Taylor, alto sax
Sumi Tonooka, piano
Jose Vidal, trombone

These great performers will come together on Sunday, November 16, at 3:00 p.m. at the Independence Seaport Museum, Penn's Landing, in Philadelphia, and a reception with the artists will follow. Tickets are $20. Call (215) 320-2686 or order online.

Settlement has given the world some terrific artists in every genre of music, from jazz guitarist Kevin Eubanks of The Tonight Show to pop star Chubby Checker, from soprano (and star of the great suspense film Diva) Wilhelmenia Fernandez to the above-mentioned Leonard Nelson Hubbard of hip-hop pioneers The Roots. And the School has at least one alumnus on every major symphony orchestra in the United States. I'll have more to say about Settlement and how important it is to the future of the arts in Philadelphia in a later post.
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No Dogs, No Guns, No Ice Cream

In the waning days of our visit to the Aegean and the Adriatic, time flew too quickly, and I couldn't find a few minutes to post. Let me share a few observations about the Balkans, and later in the week I'll come back to what we learned about Venice in three nights (and about 50,000 steps).

*We popped into a few fragments of Tito's Yugoslavia -- Kotor, a beautiful seaport town on the coast of Montenegro (the 192nd member of the United Nations, admitted two years ago), followed by Split and Rovinj ("ro-VEEN," or in Italian, Rovigno) in Croatia.

*You'll hear a lot about Croatia and Montenegro being "the new and undiscovered Riviera." Listen to those people. These areas feature some lovely coastlines (some of which has, unfortunately, already given way to Costa do Sol-style overdevelopment), stunning mountains (Kotor is a fortified town tucked in against a mountain that soars 2000 feet almost straight up from the sea), and fascinating history (most of Split's old town is built within the substantial remnants of the palace of the fourth-century Roman emperor Diocletian -- the only Roman emperor ever to retire, and thus to die reasonably happy)... oh, and some very good cheese (fresh farmer's cheeses seem to be a mainstay here) and seafood (if you find yourself in Kotor, grab a table at Galion just outside the city's walls on the fjord and enjoy the best grilled calamari you'll ever taste).

*Croatians are a tall people. I am accustomed to walking through ancient European tourist zones and ducking the low clearances. In Croatia, I had plenty of company -- both men and women. (I followed one rail-thin blonde for a block to try to figure out whether she was taller than me, but her gait was so fast that I'm just about certain she was -- or that she thought she was being followed.) Now I understand why the NBA has so much Croatian talent.

*One of my favorite parts of any trip abroad usually has something to do with music, and this trip was no exception. As I walked through the emperor's gate in Diocletian's palace in Split, I saw five young men in denims assembling themselves in a niche in an open-roofed, egg-shaped hall. One of them sounded a chord on a harmonium, and the men launched into the sonorous harmonies of Croatian folk songs. Some of their chords and phrasing reminded me of emotional Eastern hymns, but there were a few moments where they sounded like an American doo-wop group. I bought their CD (though I've got the feeling it may have been their older brothers, as it was recorded at the Radio Split studios in 1999), which I've added to my small collection of great street music of the world.

*My favorite signs in Croatia: three symbolic decals on the windows of a hotel with the universal red circle and slash that signified "no dogs, no guns, no ice cream."

*We were struck by the fact that as we sat at cafes by the ports in these towns, we always saw at least one middle-aged or older fellow walk by in a nicely-cut suit, with a fedora, a pocket square, and the look of someone who is ready to talk his way into someone's heart or wallet. "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," Ann joked. (Which was actually the Cote d'Azur, but point taken).

*The Balkans are (rightly and sadly) synonymous with political instability, and things are no different in the 21st century. A couple of days after we left Croatia, there were bombings in the capital of Zagreb that killed some journalists. And just a few days before we arrived in Montenegro, there were demonstrations in the capital of Podgorica opposing Montenegro's recognition of the breakaway nation of Kosovo (which wants to say goodbye to Serbia). While in Kotor, I picked up a copy of The Montenegro Times, a weekly English-language newspaper (with a couple of pages in Russian), and flipped through it to get some sense of what was on the minds of Montenegrins. I came across a story in which the metropolitan (equivalent to bishop) of the Serbian Orthodox Church warned Montenegro against recognizing Kosovo, despite the fact that the EU is inclined to do so. If you don't appreciate how deeply the passions run about religious, ethnic and political matters in the Balkans, take a deep breath and read the following paragraph (quoted in the Times) from the metropolitan's letter to the leaders of Montenegro:

"You have the historic responsibility to decide whether, following the path of St. Petar Cetinjski and King Nikola, you will save honor and preserve the dignity of Montenegro, its righteousness and freedom, which our country rests upon, or, God forbid, you will set a mark of disgrace on its face, and adorn it with such shame and humiliation that has never been seen in the centuries-long history of chivalry and strong character."

Makes our rhetorical brawls back home look pretty tame.

Creating the (Almost) Perfect Internet Music System

The secret to a perfect world is having the right music playing at the right time. Thanks to the Internet, perfection is within reach.

Earlier this year, I purchased a device called a Squeezebox (which, of course, immediately appealed to me because of the play on words with the musical instrument with which I've shared five decades of my life). It's made by Logitech, best known for their mice and keyboards. You can purchase one of these devices through Amazon:



Squeezebox accesses Internet radio either directly through an Internet connection or by wireless connection to your PC or Mac. You can easily program your Squeezebox by using the Squeeze Network website. It gives you ready access to hundreds of over-the-air and Internet radio stations around the globe, as well as subscription online services like Last.fm, Rhapsody, and my particular favorite, Pandora.

Pandora is available for free (with ads) or by subscription (for $36 a year, ad-free). The service allows you to create an endless number of "radio channels" based on your preferences for particular artists and songs. Based on elaborate automated analysis of musical artists, songs and styles (they call it the Music Genome Project), and your own thumbs-up/thumbs-down ratings as you hear songs, Pandora learns your preferences (much as Amazon or TiVo) do and populates your channels with songs and artists that meet your preferences.

If your musical tastes are pretty straightforward (alt-rock, pop, jazz, hip-hop, punk, etc.), you can find a large number of pre-assembled stations or to quickly put together several of your own. If your tastes run a broader gamut, it can be more of a challenge. I had great success assembling a Leo Kottke Radio channel that brings together many of my favorite folk-oriented guitarists (Kottke, John Fahey, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Jorma Kaukonen, Doc Watson, Norman Blake, and on and on). Pulling together an Africa Radio station was tougher, as only about a third of the artists I searched for are currently available on Pandora. And certain classes of artists (e.g., the ruminative jazz from ECM Records) are thin because of limits on Pandora's ability to license music. In total, I've got nearly 100 radio channels on Pandora, from "Alternative One Radio" (Iron and Wine, Sufjan Stevens, Of Montreal) to "Jazz Ruminations Radio" (Keith Jarrett, Charlie Haden, Bill Evans, Brad Mehldau), from "Jazz Vocal Solos Radio" (Chet Baker, Jamie Cullum, Frank Sinatra, Bob Dorough) to "Sigur Ros Radio" (Sigur Ros, Slaraffenland, Efterklang).

But taken together, the Squeezebox plus Pandora is something close to sonic heaven.

Since I'm a Mac user, I do have one gripe -- while Squeezebox lets me access all the MP3 music in my iTunes directory (whether from discs or downloads), the Apple folks won't let Squeezebox users access their iTunes music downloads... another good reason not to buy from the iTunes Store.

Squeezebox is one a handful of good Internet radio alternatives on the market -- the Sonos system is particularly impressive - but if you already have a good whole-house audio system, or your coverage needs are simpler, the Squeezebox brings the world of Internet radio anywhere in your home at a great price.

Concert Event: Lidia Kaminska and Friends, December 7

In my July 16 post, I promised that Lidia Kaminska will change the way you think about the accordion as a classical instrument.

If her interview with Hugh Sung convinced you, I hope you'll join Ann and me at an Astral Artists concert event that Ann and I are co-sponsoring: December 7, 3:00 p.m., at the Trinity Center, 22nd and Spruce Streets, in the beautiful Rittenhouse Square neighborhood of Philadelphia .

She'll be joined by two other talented young Astral Artists, Jennifer Curtis on violin and Michael Mizrahi on piano.

Here's a sneak preview of the planned program: Lidia's transcription of the J.S. Bach Prelude and Fugue in A minor; Scarlatti's Sonata in D minor; De Profundis (for bayan) by Sofia Gubaidulina; Sonata for Bayan by Alexander Pushkarenko; and, following intermission, A Bird's Eye View for Violin and Accordion by Chiel Meijering; Jasmin for Bayan and Piano by Tatiana Sergeyeva; and Lidia's arrangement of Piazzolla's Muerte del Angel, Milonga del Angel and Michelangelo 70, featuring Lidia on bandoneon with the trio.

For tickets, visit the Astral Artists site. And while you're there, please take a few minutes to learn more about the great work that Astral Artists does in grooming superb young classical artists for professional careers.

Lidia Kaminska Will Change the Way You Think About the Accordion

If you grew up in central Connecticut in the Fifties with Polish and/or Italian parents (I had both), the odds were unusually good that you would wind up playing the accordion. I've been an amateur (in the good sense, I think) for nearly 50 years, playing just for fun mostly in neighborhood jam sessions and the occasional social function. I've also made an occasional hobby of tracing the historical and ethnographic journey of the instrument. I became especially interested in this after reading Accordion Crimes by R. Annie Proulx (best known for her book The Shipping News) back in the mid-Nineties, a rich and well-researched novel (and a movie waiting to happen).

As I've sought out who's making great music with the accordion, I have met a handful of true professionals, most notably New York-area jazz MIDI accordionist Eddie Monteiro who accompanies himself on vocalise. And I've encountered (and collected) music by such terrific artists as jazzman Richard Galliano from France and new-music pioneer Maria Kalaniemi from Finland, and by other jazz, folk and new-music accordionists in dozens of countries on several continents.

Last year, here in Philadelphia, I met a young accordionist whom I believe will change the way Americans think about the accordion as a classical instrument.

Her name is Lidia Kaminska, and she is the first person to have earned a doctorate in accordion performance from an American university. I've seen her perform on both bayan (a complex, all-button Russian instrument) and bandoneon (Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla's signature instrument). She's received well-earned attention in the press and on public radio.

If you take a few minutes to watch Lidia's performance and conversation with Hugh Sung, a faculty member at Philadelphia's incomparable Curtis Institute of Music, I think you will see what I mean. In the next few days, I'm going to post ticket information about a December 7 Astral Artists concert in Philadelphia featuring Lidia and two other terrific young musicians that Ann and I will co-sponsor. If you're open to new musical explorations, you'll want to join us there.

Archeophonist

My friend Dave is an archeophonist. He did not know that until this morning.

We were in Toronto - six of us, including Dave, Dale and our spouses - enjoying several consecutive sunny 80-degree days in this very walkable and pleasant international city.

Over Sunday brunch at a place on Church Street, we discussed an important contribution that Dave had made to the history of recorded sound. Earlier this year, he discovered the earliest known sound recording, dating from 1860. It earned a front-page exclusive in The New York Times, and he formally unveiled the recording to a roomful of experts and press at Stanford.

Finding Edouard Leon-Scott de Martinville's paper-based recordings, and figuring out how to coax sound from them, was an impressive feat of sleuthing, connecting the dots of history and science. (My wife played a tiny coincidental role in Dave's discovery -- it improbably involves the book River of Doubt, which tells the story of Teddy Roosevelt's post-presidential Amazonian expedition, but it would take a while to explain here.)

With this discovery, every text on the history of sound was immediately rendered incorrect. As Dave described the research that went into this discovery, I commented that there was something of Indiana Jones about it.

As we finished our coffee this morning, I said to Dave, "So, if someone asked you to describe in a phrase what exactly you do, what would you tell them?"

We kicked around a few thoughts. Then I picked up the CD of historic jazz recordings that Dave had given me when we sat down. It includes some rare recordings from his personal collection.

I noticed that the CD was on the Archeophone label. It is a specialty label, two of whose historical releases have been nominated for Grammys in the last two years, with a win for best historical recording in 2007. (Dave was a major contributor to these CDs.)

"Dave," I said, "I'm struck by the name of this record label. Obviously it has it roots in 'archeo,' meaning someone who digs into history and human culture, and 'phone,' meaning sound or hearing.

"So why don't you call yourself an 'archeophonist'?"

Dave loved the word. Having coined it, I'll take the liberty of putting forward the proper pronunciation: ar'-kee-OFF'-uh-nist.

So for my inaugural blog entry, as I recognize my friend's achievements in the history of recorded sounds, I'm pleased to have the word "archeophonist" appear on the World Wide Web for the first time.