Category: The Evening Pause
A nightly pause from the news to give the reader/viewer a bit of classic entertainment.
Boston – More Than A Feeling
An evening pause: Performed live, Giants Stadium, June 17, 1979. The song is good, of course, but the improvisations are much better.
Hat tip Danae.
Lori Lieberman – Killing Me Softly with His Song
An evening pause: The song was written for Lieberman after she saw Don McLean perform in concert, but was made a big hit by Roberta Flack in 1973. Here, Lieberman shows us how its done.
Hat tip Danae.
Johnny Carson Show – Egg trick
Claude Bolling – Sentimentale, Suite No. 1 for Flute and Jazz Piano
An evening pause: Bolling, on the piano, and Jean-Pierre Rampal, on the flute, let it all hang out.
Hat tip Danae.
Faith Hill – This Kiss
Cosmic Guinea Pig
An evening pause: Time for more silliness, with a bit of gentle humor making fun of those among us who are most philosophical.
Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.
Musica Universalis – Blackbird
An evening pause: A remarkable performance, using juggling to play music. Stay with it, it only gets better.
Hat tip Danae.
“Let’s all be manly!”
An evening pause: One of the many classic scenes from the classic Hollywood masterpiece, Adam’s Rib (1949).
Another hat tip to Phil Berardelli, author of Phil’s Favorite 500: Loves of a Moviegoing Lifetime.
The Band – The Weight
An evening pause: This is truly a great performance, worth watching and listening to. I just wish it wasn’t so darkly lit.
Hat tip Danae.
Ravel – Pavane pour une infante défunte
Gilda Radner – Miss Emily Litella
Paul Simon, David Crosby and Graham Nash – Here Comes the Sun
An evening pause: A fitting song as we move into the heart of spring. Performed live as a tribute to George Harrison at the 2009 25th Anniversary Rock & Roll Hall Fame Concert at Madison Square Garden.
Hat tip Danae.
For the birds
Massenet – Meditation from Thais
An evening pause: The violin player, Daniil Bulayev, is especially impressive, being only 8 years old.
Hat tip Danae.
“If life were only like this.”
An evening pause: A classic comedy scene from Woody Allen’s Annie Hall (1977). What especially makes the scene work is how realistic he portrays what it was like to stand in a movie line in New York in the 1970s.
Another hat tip to Phil Berardelli, author of Phil’s Favorite 500: Loves of a Moviegoing Lifetime.
Human tower competition in Tarragona, Spain
An evening pause: I worry at how badly the people at the bottom might be hurt when the tower fails. Nonetheless, this competition is a testament to the wild and crazy things humans will do for fun.
Hat tip Danae.
Patty Loveless & Vince Gill – My Kind Of Woman/My Kind Of Man
Donna Summer – McArthur Park
An evening pause: I especially like the energy of the song and performance. Everyone is moving, all the time. Can you imagine this happening during a symphonic performance of one of Beethoven’s symphonies in Europe in the early 1800s?
Hat tip Danae.
Fleet Foxes – The Shrine / An Argument
An evening pause: It has been a few years since I last posted a Fleet Foxes animation. Time to revisit their surreal vision.
J.S. Bach – Air on a G string
Brandi Carlile – The Story
An evening pause: Nicely place, with beautiful lyrics. Like Danae has noted in a previous evening pause, however, I would prefer if she wouldn’t do the modern slurring of the words.
Nonetheless, ’tis a great song. Hat tip to Tony R.
Abbott & Costello – 7×13 =28
An evening pause: Lou Costello probably works for the federal government these days.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain – Smells like Teen Spirit
Sierra Hull – River Of Jordan
An evening pause: On this Good Friday evening, which is also the beginning of Passover when Jews worldwide sit down to retell the story of their exodus from slavery and the giving of the law, I think this lovely American bluegrass gospel song captures that same sentiment, from another time and place.
If you can’t watch the embedded video below, go here instead.
Ben-Hur – John Wilson Orchestra
An evening pause: From the 1959 classic movie Ben-Hur, written by Miklós Rózsa. Watch the musicians as they aggressively play this very driving piece of music. Shows that classical orchestra music is far from staid and boring.
Hat tip to Phil Berardelli, author of Phil’s Favorite 500: Loves of a Moviegoing Lifetime.
Gnome Management in the Garden
Les Paul – Sleepwalk
An evening pause: Performed live by Les Paul & the Les Paul Trio at the Iridium Jazz Club in New York City on Paul’s 90th birthday, June 9, 2005.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
Yo-Yo Ma and Chris Botti – Cinema Paradiso
An evening pause: It has been a few years since I posted a performance of this magnificent music by Ennio Morricone from the magnificent 1988 film Cinema Paradiso. The time has come to do it again.
Hat tip Danae.