HERE ARE SOME LINKS TO PEOPLE/SITES I ADMIRE!
Mike Batt
This link takes you to the official homepage of one of my absolute musical heroes, the brilliant composer of the Wombles music, & some of my alltime favourite albums, including 6 Days in Berlin, Schizophonia, Songs Of Love & War, The Hunting Of The Snark, Tarot Suite, etc etc...One of the truly great composers of our times...
Hot Club Records
Pioneering label devoted to Django-style playing...
Ari Davidow's Klezmer Shack
The Ultimate Site for info on Klezmer Bands etc
Kip Hanrahan interview.
Uncategorizable, inspiring - amazingly consistent musical-visionary. Highly recommended: "Coup De Tate", "Tenderness", and absolutely anything/everything else on his extraordinary American Clave label...
Astor Piazzolla
An overview of the great Bandoneon player's career. Has some more Piazzolla links...
Django's Castle
Great site that has bios & contact details for some of the greatest Gypsy guitarists of all time.
Eastside Radio 89.7FM
Coming soon - live-transmissions of "The Hot Club" on the net!
Tom Waits
This is a good site to start searching for all-things Tom Waits...features great Tom Waits links (including mail-group), a vast array of interviews, etc etc
Randy Newman Home page (hey, why not subcribe to the R.N. Mailing List??)
"Newman is one of the most sardonic, iconoclastic, musically adept & stylistically diverse singer/songwriters in the music industry... he is at once a gifted composer & a mordant social satirist..."
Fourplay - Electric String quartet
Great Sydney-based band. I love their arrangements (and their original compositions), & Lara has a beautiful voice...
Elvis Costello Information Service
Lots of links, plus lyrics/chords, concert-reviews, articles, & mailing lists...
Corky Siegal's Chamber Blues
Full of wit & warmth....one of my Top 10! "...an irresistible exotic new music form that classical & non-classical critics are raving about..a bridge between classical music & the blues..."
Claude Bolling
Gifted pianist & composer - created a wonderful & unique series of themed classical-jazz 'crossover' albums...
Gorman Bechard interview
Still only read 1 of his books, but its an absolute favourite! You MUST buy, borrow or steal a copy of "The Second Greatest Story Ever Told" Then lend it to all your friends!
Unofficial Leonard Cohen Home-Page>
Excellent site! You may also wish to visit The Official Leonard Cohen Site. Recommended listening: "Recent Songs" & "New Skin For Old Ceremony"...
"Shellshocked" - The Michelle Shocked Homepage>
"Captain Swing" is another perfect album!
Carla Bley's "I Hate To Sing"
"Because she takes her music - if not herself - seriously, composer
Carla
Bley's albums are often unpretentious masterpieces & I Hate To
Sing is
no exception. The live tunes are exercises in avant-garde
vaudeville. The
leader, who plays organ and does some singing a la Marlene
Dietrich-meets-Goldie Hawn, manages to continually reinvent the
music with
some of the most basic elements of European folk and vernacular
American
traditions....and making a march, a polka or a shuffle seem new is
truly
avant-garde...." Also recommended:
"Duets" & "Go Together" - 2 beautiful piano/bass duo albums recorded with Steve Swallow.