Silver Moons

Wisdom of rock

Playing rock ‘n’ roll “will test your head, your mind, and your brain, too.”

~ Dewey Finn

2 October 2013

A fresh voice from decades past

A friend just turned me on to Don Shirley (1927–2013), a piano prodigy who was born, according to Shirley’s website, in Jamaica, raised in the United States, and educated in Russia and the U.S. He played with major U.S. orchestras in the ’50s and ’60s, studied composition, and composed extensively, producing symphonies, concertos, string quartets, and even a one-act opera. He also recorded, primarily in a jazz vein, arranging pop songs, spirituals, standards, and of course pieces of his own for piano, bass, and cello.

“My music has always been hard to place,” he wrote in 2000, “because it does not adhere to any particular style or school. It reflects, however, the discipline of musical structure distilled from the ages imposed on my own emotions….” One listen to “Gershwin Medley” from 1971’s The Don Shirley Point of View (Atlantic) gives evidence of both of these ideas, interweaving classical and jazz idioms—as George Gershwin also did—while maintaining emotional immediacy through 16 minutes of twists and turns and tempo shifts.

Here’s a typically quiet yet lively cut that originally appeared on 1965’s Water Boy.

26 September 2013

Half-speed power pop

Wales’s alt-rock mavens Manic Street Preachers have a new record out this week, Rewind the Film. The title cut features a gorgeous vocal from the songwriter and former Pulp guitarist Richard Hawley.

25 September 2013