Dean's World

From one of the greatest pop/soul albums ever produced.

You know, I knew her music before I ever knew who she was. I was stunned to find out she was a white chick from England.

Being a music lover/junkie/wackjob, I find myself in many a heated argument about "today's" music and "yesterday's" music with the younger folk. Now mind you, I'm only 32 years old so I'm not extra seasoned, but when I talk to a 17-year old, I might as well be a septuagenarian.

On this particular occasion, my 17-year old cousin was telling me that that pop/R&B artist Mariah Carey is the "greatest singer ever" since she can sing "so high and beautiful" (referring the Mariah Carey's five-octave vocal range). She stated this "fact" while seeing Ms. Carey sing the classic ballad "Loving You" originally performed by the legendary and short lived Minnie Riperton back in 1975. I proceeded to inform her, nicely of course, that the song "Loving You" was performed by Minnie Riperton back in 1975 and that Ms. Riperton, in my opinion, performed the song better since she was more soulful. Talk about getting a rise out of my cousin. She proceeded to tell me the following (edited for clarity due to much ebonical flavor):

Minnie who? Minnie what?!? Whatever cousin. First of all, that's Mariah's song period. Mariah wrote it fool. I know that for a fact dummy. And Mariah is the best singer period! Minnie?? That's an old folk name and no damn oldy can sing like Mariah.

Bless the ignorant for they know not what they say. Instead of breaking her little rant down to the very last compound, I just showed her the following YouTube video:

She watched it in stone silence noticing the VH1 Classic logo in the upper right hand corner with the year 1975 next to it. After watching the video, what she said next in all seriousness left me speechless:

Oh my god! A black chick sung that song first?!?! And she don't look like a oldy. Minnie still an oldy name. White girls always tryin' to take our style. I knew Mariah was a liar. She always lying. Anyways, the song sucks. We ordering that pizza?

I made sure the pizza was loaded with everything and that I had an extra mug of beer after hearing that.

Update: More Minnie Riperton here.--Dean

More Dusty Springfield here.

More here.

More here.

Part 1 for you Dean!

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Part 2 for you Dean! Your move, pal.

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Oh yeah Tyrone? Take this!

I claim a special bonus for two songs, plus ancient commercials! ;-) Also, yes--Les Paul really plays multiple guitar parts simultaneously, it's one of his trademarks. That really is all his guitar. More here.

From this I hereby conclude that black people can't play guitar. Jimi doesn't count. ;-)

(Tyrone and I are throwing down old-school today, in case you were wondering.)

Oh I'm not going to touch the legendary Les Paul with another guitarist. Les Paul was simply too unique. So I'm going to even up the score with another unique legend: Jimmy Smith - "The King of the B3 Organ".

Bonus points to me for having one the coolest jazz emcees in the world, Oscar Brown Jr. (a poet and vocalist also) introduce Jimmy Smith with a Miles Davis quote.

(More Jimmy Smith here.)

I don't know what's up with the director who kept focusing on the frowing girl, but otherwise I say: Oh, Tyrone wishes he was so cool.

More here.

(By the way, remember this tune? Same guy. From this movie.)

The always delightful Louis Prima is great Dean. I absolutely love a performer that is always having fun on the stage. But my dear man, sometimes you have to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, know when to run...

I present: Cab Calloway and The Palmer Brothers!

Take that Wonder Bread! I now proceed to post about more serious issues like a Vatican vs. Mecca table tennis tournament! Winner gets a lifetime supply of my caramel apple pecan pie.

(More Cab Calloway and the Palmer Brothers here.)

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Ahh, it does feel somewhat better...

More here. 'An the rest of ye needs to gets a sense 'o humour.

Tomorrow we return back to normal. Arrh!

I can't imagine anything more beautiful than this.

Such a beautiful voice. More here.

More right here.

You know, I keep hearing that young people just don't want to watch old stuff shot in black and white. How sad for them...

This was just before the era of jazz where I started to lose interest. By 1970 or so most jazz starts to leave me cold. I like some later jazz, don't get me wrong, especially some of John McLaughlin's stuff. But I prefer the earlier, warmer jazz sounds like this.

More Wes Montgomery here.

More here.

Bird and The Diz! Together! Two of the greatest/legendary musicians in Jazz, period. Smoke 'em if you got 'em...

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And to throw a curveball at you Dean, how about lovely coolness of Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66! Don't dare call this lounge music. Sergio Mendes is a master of fusing jazz, samba, and pop. You think that's easy? Besides, I've been to Brasil. I had to dragged back home, musically speaking. I hear you calling Sao Paulo...

(More here.)

In case y'all hadn't noticed, Tyrone Steels and I have recently been having a totally-for-fun "competition." This "competition" is no more serious than on the classic TV show Whose Line Is It Anyway? Yeah, yeah, someone may be keeping score and tallying points, but who cares? The real point is to have fun. Besides, I think everbody recognizes that people like Tyrone (you know, those darkies) got no rhythm. So I wouldn't want to embarrass him.

Seriously, one thing we both share is a deep love for music. And by "music," we mean almost any form of music. We both grew up listening to all kinds of great music. We both love new music too, but I think we both recognize that the best new music is stuff that remembers, learns from, and updates the old stuff. If you don't remember your roots then you're cutting off your lifeblood. Our rough, not-set-in-stone idea for our "competition" is music from between about 1930 and 1970. Plus or minus ten years I think. Point is, if this artist was known within that window, then they are fair game to highlight.

You, it's kind of perverse to think of music that's only from the 1930s to the 1970s is "old." Neither of us is nostalgia buffs. We just love music. And I think we both wish younger music fans would learn about the older music--because some of that older music is simply magnificent. Plus it often contains the inspiration for a lot of what young people think is "new" and "cutting edge."

I don't think that anyone modern can, for example, top Sarah Vaughan or Frank Sinatra. What they did was so perfect, so exquisite, so beautiful, that you cannot top it. Even if the recording quality and the video quality wasn't always up to modern standards, the music was extraordinary.

And yeah, it's mostly "popular music" that we're looking at. So I guess you classical music fans might not respect it. How sad for you. No, none of it is Beethoven's 9th Symphony or Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusic. But neither were they "Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire" or "Voodoo Chile."

I am reminded of an occasion nearly 100 years ago, when George Gerswhwin asked Maurice Ravel if he could study under him. Ravel's response: "Why should you be a second-rate Ravel when you can be a first-rate Gershwin?"

Anyway, Tyrone recently threw me a curveball, and pitched some Sergio Mendez at me. I must admit I was sort of anticipating this: I have been thinking for weeks that we needed to get into some great Latin music. I am woefully undereducated in this area. But I've also noticed that YouTube seems woefully insufficient too. For example, I cannot find a single Desi Arnaz track in all of YouTube, which is stunning. Desi (although most people forget this) was one of the greatest Cuban bandleaders of all time. He wasn't just Lucille Ball's straight man, he was a very accomplished musician with multiple hits to his name. Yet YouTube is silent on him.

Who else am I missing? You tell me. The best response I have is this 1970s era Tito Puente track. Then again, it's an amazing track:

I'm guessing this was shot sometime in the 1970s but I'm not sure. Either way, doesn't it rock the house? More Tito Puente right here.

Here's two of my favorite guitarists. And I suppose most of my fans who liked the old music I've linked may think I've gone astray. Yet to date I have not linked anything less than about 30 years old. But here are two of my very favorite tracks of all time:

More right here.

More right here.

I find both tracks wonderful.

More here.

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This is probably my favorite of all the big band era composers:

You have to kind of ignore the annoying late 1930s narration (this is from 1939) and of course the compressed sound, but you just can't beat Artie Shaw.

By the way, anyone recognize the kid on drums?

Shaw, by the way, is credited as a seminal force in what became known as Third Stream music, a bridge between jazz and classical, which is why I find he is often a great place to start introducing classical music fans to jazz music.

More Artie Shaw right here.