Antonio Breschi – Jig in the Castle

An evening pause: An Irish jig morphs into some wild and spectacular improv.

Antonio Breschi on the piano, Mairtin O’Connor, accordion, Johnny MacCarthy, flute, Jane Cassidy, bazouki, and Steve Cooney, bass. Recorded in Belfast around 1990.

Breschi by the way is probably one of the world’s best improvisational pianists.

Richard Rogers – Edelweiss

An evening pause: From The Sound of Music (1965). The context: The Nazis have taken over Austria, and plan to arrest Captain Georg Ludwig von Trapp and his family at the end of this concert. This lovely song, Edelweiss, is initially sung by von Trapp as a farewell to his nation. As the song unfolds, however, it becomes instead a song of defiance against the Nazis, by the von Trapps and the audience.

Always, always, we must stand for freedom.

The Monkees reunion – Daydream Believer

An evening pause: R.I.P. Davy Jones. This reunion performance, which included Davy Jones, Mickey Dolenz, and Peter Tork of the Monkees, occurred on June 16, 2011 at the Beacon Theater, New York City. Less than a year later, Davy Jones had passed away.

Though the audio isn’t great, the joy of the song and those singing it comes through loud and clear. Go here to hear the song as performed in 1967.

The Piano Guys – Cello Wars

An evening pause: In honor of the 35th anniversary today of the premiere of Star Wars in 1977, a beautiful and silly rendition by the Piano Guys.

For those who were not alive in the 1960s and 1970s, it is hard to explain the impact of Star Wars. For more than twenty years, science fiction fans had dreamed of seeing a really good space opera science fiction film on the big screen. Sadly, we saw disappointment after disappointment instead. Except for Forbidden Planet (1956) and television’s Star Trek in the 1960s, practically every science fiction film about space exploration told childish stories that made no sense.

And then came Star Wars.

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