Jazz for aficionados

Ah, The Lobotomy Award lives! Well, knowing how you feel about Nina Simone, that would appear to be the obvious answer; but, I don't think so. Simone's version is great, interesting and definitely sets a mood, but not the kind of mood that I think one can be "swept away" by. The fact that there are two operatic versions is, I think, a decoy ;-) If I had to choose which one of the two sweeps ME away, it is easily the Maria Callas. Both versions are good and both use the exact same, and original, Gershwin orchestration. The Price is ordinary with bland orchestral playing and uneven singing (the intonation on "fish": ouch!). On the Callas, the clarinet solo at the end of the introduction tells us right away that this will be the better "caviar" with beautiful phrasing and expression compared to the one on the Price which is very straight with zero rubato. Callas is wonderful. That leaves the Janis Joplin: I love Joplin, but not the kind of thing that comes to mind (at first) as your kind of thing. But, as Duke said..... This one is raw, but is pure emotion; that's the one that I think "swept O-10 away".

As usual, The Frogman missed the boat.

The easy ones first:

Joplin, she is a fraud and so is her music. Just a horrible rendition of an American classic. There ought to be a law.

Simone, Tried to be TOO profound, or TOO cute, TOO soulful or TOO something. She could have nailed this song. It was in fact boring. Just sing the song!!

Callas, great voice and opera singer. BUT, I did not understand a word she said. I could follow her only because I knew the words and the tune. I guess she thought she was singing Mozart.

Price, another great Opera singer. She nailed it! Not in spite of 'fish', but because of 'fish'. This is from an opera about poor blacks in South Carolina. It ain't European Opera. Price sang the song as if she understood that. And for those of us that know that area of South Carolina, she was spot on in her intonation.

Price should be the winner. And besides, she is my home Girl!

The idea performance would be from the singer performing the Opera itself! If the answer is not Price, then O-10 deserves to be 'swept away'. I have a Texas-Sized broom!

Cheers

Rok, there comes a time when one has to simply stop pulling punches in the interest of civility and good will and just say what one is feeling. This sparring and chest thumping is really getting old; I, for one, am done with it. Why you feel the need to make some of these idiotic statements is beyond me:

****As usual, The Frogman missed the boat.****

Do you really think that is true? Really?

It obviously eluded you, but the challenge from O-10 was not to name what was my or your favorite "Summertime", but which "swept HIM away" while providing the hint that it would be unlikely to guess which it was. So, by way of sleuthing I made my conclusion. We may disagree about Price vs Callas, and I could expound on why you are simply mistaken, but like I said, it's really getting tiresome; and frankly, I don't think it would matter what I said, you are so entrenched in your views and rigid ideas.

After reading your posts for quite some time now certain patterns have become obvious: you are too quick to react, you have difficulty dealing with middle ground (gray areas) as opposed to black or white, you fail to see how you contradict you own forceful proclamations, and you are (or choose to be) completely oblivious to your own biases re music and artists and the reasons that you deem them meritorious or not. I could go much deeper into that last one, but it is way too sensitive and inflammatory a subject for me to go any further. Let's just say that you have been quite transparent about this, and as my last submission for The Lobotomy Award contest :-), i will say that obvious hints are in the first sentence of this paragraph.

It is unfortunate when positive and stimulating endeavors come to a point such as this. As I have always said, I admire your passion for the music and always (apparently I was mistaken) felt that you were a great candidate for possibly expanding your horizons about music by hearing a different viewpoint. Unlike every other time that we have had disagreements and things have gotten a bit heated, there will be no olive branch.

Rok, I guess you'll have to use that Texas sized broom. Frogman, I think you missed your calling, maybe you should be a psychiatrist. Since you got it right, I'm holding this post until after other responses; but Janis Joplin just swept me away. There was even more involved than her raw pure emotion, her time was my time; that was when I was living my life just as Janis was living her's, not a moment to waste, each second of life had to be savored, and Janis conveyed this in her music. A decade went by and all I can remember was good times, me and Janis had a lot in common.

That was the "Age of Aquarius", and Janis was one of the leading proponents of our life style.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjxSCAalsBE

Janis Joplin captured the spirit you see in this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9oq_IskRIg

What's so amazing, is the fact that you got the others right as well, I find this hard to believe.

Enjoy the music.

O-10, I want to thank you for a most wonderful thread. I hope my contributions have been enjoyable; I know yours and those of the other contributors have been for me. The marriage of great music with good sound is a wondrous thing and your thread has done a great deal towards uplifting the one-sided pursuit of good sound without enough consideration for the quality of the music that is so prevalent among audiophiles. Without meaning to be indulgent about this, I find it too frustrating to engage in the sparring that I find myself in on a regular basis (wether initiated by me or not), so I will be taking a breather from the thread for the foreseeable future. Knowing how meaningful this music and this thread are to you, I felt I owed you an explanation for my absence.

I think this was my first contribution to the thread. There was a reason why it was, and it still is. Best wishes.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=plpp&v=I777BcgQL9o&p=PL202DD92307605864