Steve Reich, the New York-based composer, has finally won the Pulitzer Prize for music with his piece Double Sextet. Nominated 3 separate times in the last decade, the panel of judges finally awarded the richly percussive piece that was entered on his behalf for pieces composed in 2008.
Double Sextet was composed for two identical sets of instruments: piano, vibraphone, clarinet, flute, cello and violin.
According to Reich, “The piece can be played in two ways [...] either with twelve musicians or with six playing against a recording of themselves.” The version that I heard last night (more…)
Quoted From You Tube: Keith alone singing and playing piano performing “Nearness Of You” by Hoagy Carmichael and “Sing Me Back Home” by Merle Haggard. These two recordings come from a Keith bootleg called “A Stone Alone,” which features recordings that Keith did back in 1977 when he couldn’t leave Canada due to being busted for heroin in Toronto. It also features some home recordings he did in 1981. The bootleg shows that Keith has exquisite taste in music as he covers songs by people like George Jones, Merle Haggard, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, Everly Brothers, etc. Keith’s vocals are sweet, delicate, heartfelt and completely soulful — he gets completely inside each song, and makes each one feel like an autobiography of sorts.
I was particularly happy to have found this version, finally, and to know where to get the recording, because this is one of the better songs Julian Schnabel chose for his movie Basquiat. Unfortunately, maybe paying for the rights to the song was cost-prohibitive, as it never made it to the soundtrack. Here it is, and now you know where to find it. Hearing this song again makes me almost as happy as the time I read David Rees refer to Heineken as “The Poor Man’s Pinot Grigio.”
Other Related Keith Richards Nearness of You Videos
Getting into anachronistic culture is fine – I mean, it’s got to have its limits, for sure. The horrid fashion and haircuts that always seem to come back around, where everyone looks like Ron Wood from the time when he was in The Faces with Rod Stewart? Come on, people. Anyway – my point here is not to rant. It’s just to say, if you’re gonna’ go back to the 70s, at least make sure you find all the gems. Brandy is one of them.
A Brief Note on the Origins of the Movie Quote: “I’ll Flip Ya- I’ll Flip Ya Fo’ Real”
A few years ago, a good friend recommended that I watch the Clint Eastwood produced documentary on jazz legend Thelonious Monk. Always a great love of mine, I was eager and a bit embarrassed not to have seen or even known about the documentary. Anyway – it was a real pleasure, full of wonderful performances and lots of inside looks at a man who was brilliant in music and maybe at best, strained in the rest of his relations with the world.
And then there was another gem inside the gem. More than halfway through the movie, we see Monk backstage with a girlfriend of his, in what appears to be the kitchen of a restaurant in a club where he has performed. She gives him a gift, which is a pen. He’s reluctant and we can tell he’s not good with receiving gifts or with being cared for in this manner. He asks a few questions of her about the pen, then tries to write something, but the napkin gives yields too easily to his maniacal scribbling.
Thelonious Monk Video: From Straight No Chaser (1988)
Steve Reich, the New York-based composer, has finally won the Pulitzer Prize for music with his piece Double Sextet. Nominated 3 separate times in the last decade, the panel of judges finally awarded the richly percussive piece that was entered on his behalf for pieces composed in 2008. 
