Robbie Williams & Frank Sinatra- It Was A Very Good Year
An evening pause: From a 2001 live performance. A fitting song, and presentation, to end our year.
Hat tip Danae.
Tag: music
Seth MacFarlane – What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?
An evening pause: Hat tip Danae.
Uptown Funk – Mark Ronson
An evening pause: Just watch! Hat tip Phil Berardelli.
Andre Rieu – 2013 Brazil Skater’s Waltz
An evening pause: Something for the party week between Christmas and New Years. Stay with it, because this orchestra really does know how to enjoy itself.
Hat tip Danae.
Pagagnini – Pachelbel’s Canon in D
An evening pause: Funny, and they demonstrate that it is possible to play the Canon in D as a tango, bluegrass, gypsy, and practically any musical style you can imagine.
Hat tip Phill Oltmann.
Jose Feliciano – Feliz Navidad
An evening pause: From this secular Jew to my Christian fans, please accept my sincerest wish that you have a glorious and merry Christmas.
Hat tip Tom Biggar. (I like this particular performance because it is so raw. Feliciano is blind, and the video shows it clearly. Yet he has the incredible courage to get up and perform to millions.)
Ditto Orchestra – Christmas Medley
An evening pause: I like this because, as Danae says, the orchestra is “somewhat obscure and youthful, but apparently Korean and affiliated with a concert hall named ‘Club Balcony.’ The director’s nickname seems to be ‘Izzy.'” They come at this music, which to western ears has become so familiar you almost don’t hear it anymore, with fresh ears. And I especially like their hats.
Hat tip Danae.
Roy Clark – 12th Street Rag
An evening pause: Hat tip Edward Thelen.
Daniela Andrade – Christmas Time Is Here
An evening pause: Performed with whom she calls the “cutest dog in the world.”
Hat tip Danae.
William Zeitler – Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy
An evening pause: Performed on a glass armonica.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
Michael Jackson – Smooth Criminal
An evening pause: Played on an instrument which the website calls L’orgue de barbarie. To me it resembles a glorified organ grinder, except that it plays a wide range of midi-type sounds. Very clever. And it succeeds in making a Michael Jackson song sound interesting to me, for the first time!
Hat tip Rocco E.
Olivia Newton-John & Bob Hope – Silver Bells
An evening pause: As we move into the heart of the Christmas season, this piece from the 1974 Bob Hope Christmas Special will allow us to remember a time when the idea was to express some good cheer and good will, not whine about oppression because someone said something we didn’t like or agree with. Note that a few of Hope’s jokes at the beginning are very time sensitive, as this was aired just after the 1974 elections where the Republicans got badly beaten. Hope, who was Republican, still had no problem cracking jokes at his own party’s expense.
Hat tip Danae.
The King’s Singers – Greensleeves
An evening pause: Hat tip Tom Biggar.
Gabriella Quevedo – 7 Years
An evening pause: A lovely pleasant piece of music, arranged by her from a piece written by Lukas Graham.
Kurt Nilsen – Walking In The Air
An evening pause: From the film The Snowman (1982), music by Howard Blake. Hat tip Danae for suggesting the song.
National Youth Orchestra of the USA – Simple Gifts
An evening pause: From Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring and performed during a seven city tour in China in 2015. The orchestra is privately funded and is part of a program by Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute for training young musicians ages 16–19.
Hat tip Danae. Stay till the end for a nice and clever surprise.
Richard Galliano Tangaria Quarter – Autumn Leaves
An evening pause: Listening to this I almost feel I am a child again at a wedding or bar mitzvah, with my parents’ generation on a crowded dance floor dancing to this kind of soft music. A fitting way to begin the Christmas season.
Hat tip to Danae.
U.S. Navy Midshipmen – Naptown Funk
An evening pause: It ain’t Anchors Aweigh, but the passion is the same. Wholly produced and performed by Navy midshipmen on the streets of Annapolis, with a zero budget.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
Loggins & Messina – Watching the River Run, House at Pooh Corner, Danny’s Boy
An evening pause: I am usually terrible at remembering the names of songs and the pop singers who sing them, so there are many pop songs that I know and really like that I have no idea what they are named or who performed them. Thus, though I have been very familiar with the name of Loggins & Messina, I never knew these were their songs until I saw this very nice clip of a live concert they put on in 2005. And what impressed me most about this particular performance was their focus on creating good music.
Hat tip Danae.
Hope and Cagney dancing
An evening pause: From the 1955 Bob Hope film, The Seven Little Foys, with James Cagney playing George M. Cohan. Neither man is remembered for their dancing, but from this scene you wouldn’t know it.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.