Ever since getting an iPod I’ve spent a significant portion of “commute time” (e.g. to rehearsal on BART) listening to music. I pop in the headphones and (modulo the train rumbling) shut out the world around me. Last night I bought the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (Solti) recording of Verdi’s Requiem (1977 Grammy winner) and popped it in the CD player at home. We’re singing it in June so I figured I would just read along with the score. What struck me immediately was the non-immersiveness of the listening experience. I was acutely aware of the creaking of my chair, the people next door calling their children in from the backyard, and innumerable other distractions.

The iPod made me lazy, I decided. While you do hear all of the music with the earbuds, it’s like it’s being spoon-fed to you and it’s easy to not pay attention to it. When I took the composition seminar from John Harbison, he complained about a similar phenomenon with regards to any headphone-listening experience. He said that ears become more closed when the music is that you don’t really hear the fine details. At the time I kind of lumped that comment with the audiophiles who like the “warmness of tube amplifiers,” but now I’m starting to think he was onto something.

And therefore I resolve to listen to more music without headphones. Too bad I have to work in an office with 20 other people all day.

I’m listening to Don Byron’s album Ivey-Divey, which I picked up from the SF Public Library earlier this week. I’m a bit of a Byron enthusiast, so I tend to view everything the man touches as gold. Part of this is from seeing him at Yoshi’s back when they had student tickets and let people stay from the 8pm set to the 10pm set if the latter hadn’t sold out (Yoshi’s has since become lame and student-unfriendly). Byron’s approach to albums is often that of a curator — works like Bug Music and The Music of Mickey Katz are examinations of eras or genres of music. The former is early Ellington, Raymond Scott, and John Kirby, and is a real delight. The latter is a jazzy klezmer variety act. Other albums take genres and deconstruct them a bit, like This is #6 or (arguably) Nu Blaxploitation. The album Romance With The Unseen is a little more straightahead but features a jaw droppingly beautiful version of the Beatles’ I’ll Follow The Sun with Bill Frisell on guitar.

Ivey-Divey takes a look at a recording session with Lester Young, Nat King Cole, and Buddy Rich. The bass-less combo has a charm and sound all its own (I’ve only heard the original once, but now it looks like I’ll have to buy it). Byron isn’t “doing Lester Young” on this album, however. He places those tunes next to some originals and classic Miles Davis. He has a killer combo — Jack DeJohnette on drums and the monstrously talented (and young) Jason Moran. Better players you couldn’t ask for, and when the chemistry is on and the soloists are quoting each other’s licks you know something’s happening.

It’s easy to complain that the album is stylistically disjointed. You have to remember that Byron is not only the best clarinet player alive, he’s one of those great curators who juxtaposes with intent. So you get a funky tune like “Leopold, Leopold” (you have to know your Bugs Bunny) followed by a Freddy Freeloader that starts out with just the clarinet, singing to itself before being joined by a Monk-like plunkety-plunk and light high-hat taps and slowly working itself into a lumber like Leopold and then flying off somewhere else with Moran’s hypnotic solo.

I can’t believe I didn’t listen to this album until know. What else have I missed out on?

Via the Greenleaf Music blog, a link to a video of Steve Reich‘s piece, Clapping Music (go to Multimedia/video). It’s one of my favorite minimalist pieces, mainly because of its (kind-of) accessibility. It’s music and rhythm stripped bare, a piece you can perform anywhere as long as you have two people and functional hands (and perhaps a lack of pain receptors in those hands). It’s also great walking music.

I just signed up to sing a concert with Paul Flight (venue TBA):

Mozart – Misericordias Domini
Haydn – Salve Regina
Haydn – Six Partsongs
Beethoven – Elegy
Gasparini – Adoramus Te

With the Babi Yar rehearsal coming up on Monday and more Mahler than I can shake a stick at, I’m certainly going to be kept busy!

Apparently I need to go back to the classics. Maybe the iPod is the hipster ouija board…

1. Cotton Tail (Duke Ellington)
2. Think (Aretha Franklin)
3. Circular Flexing (Squarepusher)
4. Black Bottom Stomp (Jelly Roll Morton)
5. Plenty More (Squirrel Nut Zippers)
6. You’ll see… when it comes (Samrat Chakrabarti/Soundtrack to Harvest)
7. Autumn in New York (Frank Sinatra)
8. Ich will meine Seele tauchen (Schumann/Wunderlich)
9. Dear Old Southland (Sidney Bechet)
10. Kanonen-Song [instrumental version] (Kurt Weill)
11. Légende (Wieniawski/Perlman)
12. Beatbox (Roni Size)
13. Temptation (Tom Waits)
14. Mon Cadavre est doux comme un gant (Poulenc/Stützmann)
15. Once In A Lifetime (Talking Heads)

A paper a day will return after I finish my MS thesis and catch up on my combinatorics.