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.
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.
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.
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.
An evening pause: He calls himself “The Loop-Ninja”. Watch. It is amazing what one person can do with today’s technology to produce music.
Hat tip tdub.
An evening pause: The melody is the same as Loch Lomond, which illustrates how much in common there is between the Scots and the Irish, no matter what they tell you. (And I would include the English too!)
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
An evening pause: They usually give Martin first billing, but Brickell is really the star here. Martin is good on banjo, but it is her song. Though it is amazing to see how Steve Martin has reinvented himself again.
An evening pause: Good music, but this video reveals a great deal about the future in how it portrays an adolescent view of the present. Even more important, the view is very typical of modern culture.
An evening pause: Who says the world doesn’t love American culture? Watch a Swedish band and an English guitarist play classic rock.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
At a press conference Sarah Brightman yesterday revealed that she is working with Andrew Lloyd Webber to create a new song to sing when she visits the International Space Station later this year.
She also said that she will sing it from the station near the end of her visit. While the reason she gave for this schedule was because she needed time to adjust to weightlessness, I also see this as good marketing, allowing time for a pr build-up to get the largest audience possible.
An evening pause: This pause is going to be a challenge. I am curious who can most quickly identify the film that this suite comes from, performed here live in 2013. I am sure that anyone that knows anything about movies will figure it out by around 2:30, but can you do it sooner? One hint: this is one of the greatest and most popular films ever made.
Hat tip to Phil Berardelli, author of Phil’s Favorite 500: Loves of a Moviegoing Lifetime.
An evening pause: While the version of this song for the movie Deliverance (1972) was quite good, I really dislike how that film made all country folk look like they were mentally and physically crippled. The portrayal seemed quite bigoted.
This performance, however, just shows us some great banjo playing, the way it should be done.
An evening pause:
Moon river, wider than a mile
I’m crossing you in style some day
Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker
Wherever you’re going, I’m going your way
Two drifters, off to see the world
There’s such a lot of world to see
We’re after the same rainbow’s end, waiting, round the bend
My Huckleberry Friend, Moon River, and me
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
An evening pause: I posted this group previously as an evening pause, but the hypnotic and original nature of their dance choreography calls for a revist.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
An evening pause: To quote the youtube webpage, “The Louisville Leopard Percussionists began in 1993. They are a performing ensemble of approximately 55 student musicians, ages 7-12, living in and around Louisville, Kentucky. Each student learns and acquires proficiency on several instruments, such as marimbas, xylophone, vibraphone, drum set, timbales, congas, bongos and piano.”
Hat tip Diane Zimmerman
An evening pause: I love songs that tell great stories. This is a classic.
Note: As always, I am always looking for evening pauses and am very open to suggestions. If you want to suggest something, comment here, though please don’t post the actual suggestion. I will email you direct so you can forward it to me.
An evening pause: As I have done before, on Lincoln’s birthday it behooves us to remember him.
We should also remind ourselves, especially in this time of increasing anger, bigotry, and violence, of these words from his second inaugural address, spoken in the final days of a violent war that had pitted brother against brother in order to set other men free:
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
