Occidental's fabulous coffee house the Green Bean is showcasing student musicians this Thursday December 2nd! Head on down between 8 and 10 pm to drink something warm and hear something chill :)
Cozy - Blud from Nelson A. Melgar on Vimeo.
This coming Friday night, very important concert at the ElSuper Music Collective, titled:The Hot Box. Come at ninePM for the kick it, stay past ten for the jams. Sets from Feed Me, Xei the Ghost, Cozy, Ded Pimpin, and Supa Ape will cascade in immediate succesion. Everyone will have fun exploring different elements of contemporary L.A. music. all are welcome, 906 N. Ave 56 90042 in Highland Park
above is a video by the collective
Hello All!
With registration upon us, I thought I'd share some interesting classes the music department is offering next semester. These are not all the classes available (there are all the additional applied music lessons and other classes for serious musicians), but rather a small snippet of what I picked out. Check out the catalog for more details, and course counts to see who's teaching them/times/etc.
104. MUSIC OF AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST
This course surveys the musical styles and genres of the African continent and the Middle Eastern world. Within an ethno-historical framework established at the beginning of the course, emphasis is placed on 1) the region's important musical genres, their social function and musical characteristics, and 2) the instruments used in performing these musical genres. While knowledge of music theory and performance skills are not necessary, it is essential that students be prepared for intensive music listening in and out of class.
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST • FINE ARTS
Guy Fawkes (13 April 1570 – 31 January 1606), also known as Guido Fawkes, the name he adopted while fighting for the Spanish in the Low Countries, belonged to a group of provincial English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605.
Fawkes was born and educated in York. His father died when Fawkes was eight years old, after which his mother married arecusant Catholic. Fawkes later converted to Catholicism and left for the continent, where he fought in the Eighty Years' War on the side of Catholic Spain against Protestant Dutch reformators. He travelled to Spain to seek support for a Catholic rebellion in England but was unsuccessful. He later met Thomas Wintour, with whom he returned to England.
Wintour introduced Fawkes to Robert Catesby, who planned to assassinate King James I and restore a Catholic monarch to the throne. The plotters secured the lease to an undercroft beneath the House of Lords, and Fawkes was placed in charge of the gunpowder they stockpiled there. Prompted by the receipt of an anonymous letter, the authorities searched Westminster Palace during the early hours of 5 November, and found Fawkes guarding the explosives. Over the next few days, he was questioned and tortured, and eventually he broke. Immediately before his execution on 31 January, Fawkes jumped from the scaffold where he was to be hanged and broke his neck, thus avoiding the agony of the drawing and quartering that followed.
Fawkes became synonymous with the Gunpowder Plot, which has been commemorated in England since 5 November 1605. His effigy is burned on a bonfire, often accompanied by a firework
display.
Junko Ueno Garrett
"I Got an Attitude"
History repeats itself, sort of. In the summer of 1961, the Beach Boys released their first single, "Surfin'," on Candix Records. The deal was brokered in part through a convincing pitch by the young Dennis Wilson that the band would get in on the surfing craze booming in California at the time.
In fact, many bands mined that aesthetic: the Bel-Airs, the Surfaris, the Pyramids, the Marketts, the Honeys, the Challengers and others. It was the Beach Boys, however, who popularized the trend into something national and then global.
All the while, leader Brian Wilson had never touched a surfboard save for promotional use.
It makes sense that Los Angeles would be a place to market an aesthetic of optimism: beaches, good weather, pretty girls, fast cars. And now, once again, the stereotypes of Southland culture have become a global trend. Nowadays not only on the Pacific Coast, but to some degree on the Atlantic as well, we see another rise of a beach craze — not as a real pastime or object, but in the form of "just being coastal."
With the lack of regionalism in the U.S. due to the capacity of the Internet to turn the nation into one big blob — to give kids the idea that their locality is closer to a Facebook wall than any particular town — this concept of "being from someplace" seems particularly novel to the new generation.
Google's logo today honored legendary jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, who wouldbe 93 years old today.Google has used their latest Doodle to commemorate the birth of jazz icon Dizzy Gillespie. 93 years ago, a man by the name of John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie was born. The youngest of nine children, Dizzy was born to James and Lottie Gillespie in South Carolina. His dad, James, was the leader of a band, which gave Dizzy access to all types of musical instruments. By age 12, Dizzy was able to play both the trombone and the trumpet.
Dizzy is considered a pioneer in bebop and jazz music. He’s credited with influencing such greats as Miles Davis and Fats Navarro. Besides being a musical legend, Dizzy is known by two characteristics: his cheeks and his horn. Google has captured both of these in their Doodle, making his cheeks bright yellow and circular and giving his horn an upward bend. FromWikipedia:
According to Gillespie’s autobiography, this was originally the result of accidental damage caused by someone sitting on it during a job on January 6, 1953, but the constriction caused by the bending altered the tone of the instrument, and Gillespie liked the effect. Gillespie’s biographer Alyn Shipton writes that Gillespie likely got the idea when he saw a similar instrument in 1937 in Manchester, England while on tour with the Teddy Hill Orchestra. An English trumpeter was using such an instrument because his vision was poor and the horn made reading music easier. According to this account (from British journalist Pat Brand) Gillespie was able to try out the horn and the experience led him, much later, to commission a similar horn for himself.
Happy Birthday Dizzy!!!
