Billy Joel – Travelin’ Prayer
An evening pause: Stick with it, as they finish slightly early and need to improvise a bit at the end to fill time.
Hat tip Kyle Kooy.
An evening pause: Stick with it, as they finish slightly early and need to improvise a bit at the end to fill time.
Hat tip Kyle Kooy.
An evening pause: From the 1983 film, Cotton Club.
Hat tip to Phil Berardelli, author of Phil’s Favorite 500: Loves of a Moviegoing Lifetime.
An evening pause: Performed live on “The Glenn Reeves Show” on February 23rd, 1963.
Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.
An evening pause: Hat tip Kyle Kooy. I don’t think the Chinese military realized that they were marching to this music, but gosh darn it, they sure appear to. As Kyle noted to me, “Somebody took a Chinese military parade and set the music to the American song “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk. … [It] creates a very mesmerizing video that is both upbeat and somewhat eerie at the same time.”
An evening pause: What could be better? Glowworms, a cave, and beautiful music by Dexter Britain called Light Bridges.
Hat tip Danae.
An evening pause: Not only is the flying amazing, including some stunts under structures (which is usually forbidden in most cities), the music, a piece called Celestial by Audio Network, is great too!
Hat tip from both Edward Thelen’s, father and son.
An evening pause: I can think of nothing more appropriate to begin the new year with than this performance. Nothing.
Hat tip hondo.
By the way, with the New Year I am in desperate need of more Evening Pause suggestions. If you’ve sent me suggestions in the past, you know the email address. If not, post a comment here saying that you have a suggestion (without mentioning what it is) and I will email you for it.
An evening pause: From a 2001 live performance. A fitting song, and presentation, to end our year.
Hat tip Danae.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
An evening pause: A lovely pleasant piece of music, arranged by her from a piece written by Lukas Graham.
An evening pause: From the film The Snowman (1982), music by Howard Blake. Hat tip Danae for suggesting the song.
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.
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.
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.
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.