Friday Miscellanea

Posting was hit with a double-whammy this week: I was under the weather and had other responsibilities to take care of. But I will always get out the Friday Miscellanea! First up, the latest from Ted Gioia who tells us about The Worst Day in Jazz History:

when I started digging into the early history of jazz, learning about the masterworks of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday and other revered artists, more often than not I found their best work on the Columbia label.

How did a label with such an extraordinary reputation and lineage fall so low? Usually these kinds of shifts take place gradually, and it’s hard to pinpoint the tipping point when a successful leader loses the way. But in the case of Columbia, the legend tells of the collapse happening on a single day. If you run into jazz old-timers, you might even hear them talk about the “Great Columbia Jazz Purge”—that ominous moment when the most powerful record label in jazz decided that it didn’t really like jazz all that much.

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Secret Room Holds 'Lost' Michelangelo Artwork:

While searching for a new way for tourists to exit, Dal Poggetto and his colleagues discovered a trapdoor hidden beneath a wardrobe near the New Sacristy, a chamber designed to house the ornate tombs of Medici rulers. Below the trapdoor, stone steps led to an oblong room filled with coal that at first appeared to be little more than storage space.

But on the walls, Dal Poggetto and his colleagues found what they believe are charcoal and chalk drawings from the hand of famed artist Michelangelo.

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 And on the occasion of her 80th birthday this month, The Guardian proposes: Martha Argerich review – our greatest living pianist? It’s hard to disagree.

Hard to believe, but on 5 June Martha Argerich turned 80. Her birthday has been celebrated by several of the labels for which she has recorded over seven decades, with lavish reissues of her classic discs, many of them dazzling performances that rank among the greatest of the piano repertoire ever recorded. Even though it’s well over 30 years since she was lured into a studio to make a solo recording, and almost as long since she gave a solo recital in public, saying that she feels “lonely” on stage without a recital partner or an orchestra, she is still generally regarded as the greatest pianist alive today.

Interesting. Grigory Sokolov doesn't do studio recordings, nor concerto performances, but instead an annual feast of solo recitals.

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From Slipped Disc:

Royal Holloway University of London has just specified that it intends to reduce staff numbers in its music department, ‘where student numbers no longer support the staffing levels.’

Here’s the statement:

Following detailed discussions with Heads of School and Heads of Department, a paper will go to Academic Board on Tuesday 29 June, which sets out a proposal to make a small reduction in the number of academic posts in six disciplines where student numbers no longer support the staffing levels, in order to enable increases in academic posts in disciplines where there are currently high levels of student interest.

Or they could check and see if they might improve their offerings, just in case that is the problem.

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It always gets me hot under the collar when I read about how poorly musicians are often treated by immigration and customs agents, let alone airlines! Opera singer says Paris police detained, strip searched her:

South African opera star Pretty Yende said she was detained by French authorities, strip searched and held in a dark room at Paris’ main airport after arriving this week for a starring role at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees.

“Police brutality is real for someone who looks like me,” Yende, who is Black, said in a social media post Tuesday, a day after the encounter at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport.

Yende, an acclaimed soprano, is starring in “La Sonnambula” at the Paris theatre and flew into the city on Monday where she said she was subjected to “ill-treatment and outrageous racial discrimination and psychological torture and very offensive racial comments.”

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One of the admirable things about Quebec, the French-speaking province of Canada, is that they have a strong culture and one that both the government and the populace support. Hence, Whether on hold or stuck in an elevator, you'll be hearing more Quebec crooners from now on.

On Sunday, the provincial Culture Ministry announced that elevator and telephone hold music used by government services, including at liquor stores and casinos, will have to feature 100 per cent Quebec artists.

"The time for royalty-free elevator music is over," said Culture Minister Nathalie Roy at a news conference on Sunday.

"I was waiting on hold with the Culture Ministry and I was stunned to hear an American singing me a little song in English," said Roy.

I haven't checked, but I suspect that most Canadian provinces don't even have a Culture Ministry.

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And for our quirky item of the day: Scientists name frog found in Ecuadorian Andes after Led Zeppelin

Researchers in the misty mountains of the Ecuadorian Andes have discovered a new species of terrestrial frog and named it after the pioneering British rock band Led Zeppelin.

Pristimantis ledzeppelin, known in English as Led Zeppelin’s Rain Frog, was found by the scientists David Brito-Zapata and Carolina Reyes-Puig in the Cordillera del Cóndor, which straddles south-east Ecuador and north-east Peru.

The small frog, which has coppery-red eyes and a mottled, yellow, brown, black and orange skin, is a member of the huge and rapidly expanding Pristimantis genus. The genus comprises 569 species – 28 of which have been described in Ecuador in the past two years alone.

Wow, Ecuador sure has a lot of frogs. Should we expect more new species to be named after other golden age rock groups like the BeeGees or the Eurhythmics?

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 The self-esteem movement has likely resulted in the devaluing of the educational method based on severe criticism. So it is refreshing to read about this musician/teacher: Ferenc Rados: And Now for Something Completely Different…

One thing that struck me early on, as it strikes—with some force—everybody who listens to a Rados lesson, is that laughter is, as a rule, not a good sign. Whoever came up with the famous maxim, “Laughter is always a form of criticism,” must have had Rados in mind. His laughter is ordered in shades of madness, ranging from an only mildly manic chuckle to a positively lunatic guffaw, depending on the degree of perceived flaw in the student’s playing. A friend of mine once went to a Rados lesson to play with a violist who had decided to swap around the order of the last two of Schumann’s “Märchenbilder,” in order to end with the fast movement, a “more effective ending.” My friend—who already knew Rados well—said that he’d never seen or heard a laugh like that in his life!

Rados is not one to pay idle compliments. He himself told me that he has three degrees of criticism. The first, very bad: “Zis I do not understand.” Second, a little better: “I understand, but I don’t believe.” This, veering perilously close to praise: “I believe—but I don’t like it!”

Or, as a seasoned Czech violist once told me: "there is talent--and there is anti-talent!"

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Our envoi for today is a couple of clips by singer Pretty Yende. First some tricky vocal gymnastics from Mozart:

Next an aria by Puccini: 

I'll bet you really hate those French immigration officers now...