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Author Archive | Matthew Lasar

Hybrid Highbrow

On W.C. Fields and Cowboy Bebop

Second Inversion radio has an interesting interview with pianist Nadia Shpachenko. She has a new album that includes a composition by Peter Yates called “Epitaphs and Youngsters.” The piece requires output from a “singing pianist,” who, among other tasks, meditates on W.C. Fields’ famous comment that “On the whole, I’d rather be in Philadelphia.”  Apparently Fields hoped […]

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Hybrid Highbrow

National Underwear Day unites all musical forms

Today is National Underwear Day, and radio station WWOZ-FM of New Orleans notes the occasion with a terrific video of the city’s Nat’l Underwear Day celebration from 2016: The New Orleans National Underwear Day Parade rolls again Sunday at 7p, starting and ending at 3610 Toulouse pic.twitter.com/7VoQW2tqk9 — WWOZ 90.7 FM (@wwoz_neworleans) August 5, 2018 […]

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Hybrid Highbrow

New music for Paddle to the Sea + nobody told me that smooth jazz died

I recommend a visit to Second Inversion radio for their wonderful video of the Third Coast Percussion ensemble’s new soundtrack to the 1966 Canadian short feature titled Paddle to the Sea. It is quite something. The musicians deploy skittering wood blocks and water-filled wine glasses to create a beautiful nature-filled sound environment. Paddle to the Sea was […]

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Hybrid Highbrow

Somebody stop killing jazz radio please

Oh for goodness sake would you people stop killing jazz radio already? You know who you are. And we know who you are, too. In North Carolina there’s Fayetteville State College’s Board of Trustees, who sold WFSS-FM back in 2015. Of late somebody wrote into the Fayetteville Observer and asked: “The Fayetteville State University public radio […]

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hangovercello

Minnesota’s classical safe harbor hour; cellos and weddings (sacred and profane)

On Wednesday, into my classical/radio newsfeed fell this notification about Minnesota Classical Radio (MPR)’s playlist for May 23, 2018. Through the day you get the usual stuff: Schubert, Elgar, Vivaldi. Then the 10 PM hour arrives, and  . . . KABOING: Refuge Baljinder Sekhon Robert McCormick McCormick Percussion Group Gumboots David Bruce Carducci Quartet Julian […]

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