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Chicago
May 30, 2020 14:16:30 GMT -8
Post by kungfuzu on May 30, 2020 14:16:30 GMT -8
He kept his voice an amazingly long time and officially retired sometime last year, I believe.
I started losing my upper range by my late thirties/early forties and while alcohol and tobacco may not have helped, constant upper and lower respiratory infections and allergies, and no practice, took their toll.
It is sometimes very annoying to me because I had extremely good vocal control and an almost 3 octave range, not including falsetto. It must be similar to having been an extremely beautiful actress in one's youth and seeing oneself in a film after 40 years of pretty hard living. Really annoying. Yet unlike the actress, I had decided not to pursue singing as a profession by the time I was 21 so I did not invest as much in my voice as an actress does in her looks or talent.
In any case, if someone like Meatloaf or Rod Stuart can make it in the music business, there can be no doubt that musical talent is not considered important to succeed.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on May 30, 2020 18:17:53 GMT -8
Lots of baloney lore apparently passed around in the music industry. I hear the Barbra Streisand voted for Trump.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on May 30, 2020 18:20:47 GMT -8
I’m willing to bet you could get 97% of it back with practice. You don’t (so far as I know) smoke. You obviously haven’t been over-working your voice all these years outside of the grind and demands of a music profession. Shoot, if there are any limits, you could be surprised they are imposed by pollen or something like that. I wish Frank would have taken better care of his voice. But that’s old history.
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Chicago X (extended version): Track 12: "Your Love's an Attitude." This is what I call "Good Chicago jazz."
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Chicago
May 30, 2020 18:27:57 GMT -8
Post by Brad Nelson on May 30, 2020 18:27:57 GMT -8
I realize this was all part of Mr. Kung's master plan to Chicago-ize me. So far it seems to be working. My brother is playing a lot of it as well.
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Post by kungfuzu on May 31, 2020 10:28:17 GMT -8
I had never heard that song. Very smooth and relaxing. You will notice there were only guitar, organ, bass, drums and congas on the piece. No horns.
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Chicago
May 31, 2020 10:32:53 GMT -8
Post by kungfuzu on May 31, 2020 10:32:53 GMT -8
Now if you will push this little red button, you will get a hand full of bird seed.
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Brad Nelson
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Chicago
Jun 2, 2020 10:41:01 GMT -8
Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 2, 2020 10:41:01 GMT -8
I know we’ve had this conversation before, Mr. Flu, but just trying to be honest and objective, eating crow where necessary here and there as always. First, I tried again to listen to Chicago XVII (as a friend had suggested) and couldn’t do it. It’s just awful. Where are the god damn horns, for one thing?
I therefore am pretty sure I’ve been indoctrinated successfully into the Robert Lamm “I really wanted to be born a black man” cult-of-Chicago. Okay, I’m appreciating him more now. There, I said it. I listened to Chicago II again and it’s a real gem, at least on balance. But having heard what I would consider “real” Chicago music, there’s no way I can listen to XVII, even as a fairly enthusiastic Cetera fan. So there. Fine. Are you happy now? Thanks for the bird seed, by the way.
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Chicago
Jun 2, 2020 15:29:02 GMT -8
Post by kungfuzu on Jun 2, 2020 15:29:02 GMT -8
I don't find it bad, but of course it is nothing like as good as II. From this era, XVI is better.
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Chicago
Jun 2, 2020 18:37:47 GMT -8
Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 2, 2020 18:37:47 GMT -8
Okay okay. I'll give it another try.
Where's my bird seed?
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Chicago
Jun 2, 2020 18:50:32 GMT -8
Post by kungfuzu on Jun 2, 2020 18:50:32 GMT -8
For the moment, this is the best I can do.
Go about 50 seconds in and you will be rewarded.
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Brad Nelson
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Chicago
Jun 2, 2020 19:05:09 GMT -8
Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 2, 2020 19:05:09 GMT -8
Chicago XVII.
It’s not that Cetera doesn’t do some nice songs. And I see what the stumbling block is now. Two things: This albums so smacks of “adult contemporary” that it seems extremely dated. Even so, I can appreciate a decent ditty such as “Along Comes a Woman” which is probably the highlight of the album.
The real stumbling was wading through the first three songs, which are positively dripping with “adult contemporary,” not Chicago. Okay. Fine. Maybe “Stay the Night” isn’t completely horrible.
But then you come to track 4: “Only You.” That song should be banished to Siberia. It’s absolutely horrible. It makes my ears bleed. And even if I wash to venture on, one comes to track 8, “Please Hold On.” Good god, if my ears weren’t already bleeding they would have fallen off. That may make no sense, but neither does this song. Maybe the syrupy “You're My Inspiration” eases the pain for a second and raises expectations a little. It thus makes stumbling upon “Only You” all the more horrific.
Ironically I expected “Prima Donna” to be a good song just because the title can’t be self-defining or self-referential. But, no. This sounds not like Chicago but the band, Survivor. (“Eye of the Tiger,” etc.)
Let’s move on to “Once in a Lifetime.” Not as bad as most of these. In fact, you can hear a few horns. But those 70’s production values are horrific. If they de-discoed this song it might have worked.
So, sorry to say, I can’t change my opinion on this album. I rate it as having one artful track: “Along Comes a Woman.” There’s a bonus track 11 on the version I’m listing to, It’s Lamm’s “Where We Begin,” which also seems to be titled “Here is Where We Begin.” The song is not horrible. But I hope to hell they fired David Foster as their producer.
But, hell, they sold a lot of albums during his reign so that’s what it’s all about.
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Chicago
Jun 2, 2020 19:13:17 GMT -8
Post by kungfuzu on Jun 2, 2020 19:13:17 GMT -8
I will have to listen to the album all the way through again and revert.
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Brad Nelson
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Chicago
Jun 2, 2020 19:33:56 GMT -8
Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 2, 2020 19:33:56 GMT -8
I'm going back to V for another run-through. I'm enjoying it.
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Chicago
Jun 2, 2020 20:30:32 GMT -8
Post by kungfuzu on Jun 2, 2020 20:30:32 GMT -8
Unless one simply hates a song the first time one hears it, I always believe it a good idea to listen to a song at least three times before deciding whether it is worth keeping on one's "song list."
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 3, 2020 5:57:38 GMT -8
You’re absolutely right Mr. Chu (your Chicago variant). I try to eradicate all prevention and musical groupthink from my reviews. I react to it honestly while understanding thoroughly the wise rule you have stated. It could be translated as such: Maybe the music is better than you. On the other side of the coin is people who like something merely because it is popular. I do believe people become so estranged from their own good sense (assuming they have any) that they can become as aesthetically confused just as we see people from long habit become morally confused. One must be honest and objective while keeping alive the nagging doubt in the back of one’s mind that “Maybe I’m the heathen.” It serves me well because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard vapid praise truly mediocre movies by people who seem to simply be trying to justify the $9.00 they paid for the theatre ticket. This is even accounting for bad taste. If you honest to god sit down and listen to what yutes call music you will know how powerful groupthink is in regards to what people say they like. No one could honestly intrinsically like some of the horrid music I’ve heard my nephew play. If you were trying to compose music to destroy people’s souls and brains, much of popular music would fit that description. So it’s unlikely repeated listenings of “Only You” will change my mind about the song. Still, it is possible. But if that did happen, I would have to question my own sense of good taste. The world would crumble. Chaos would reign. Musical notes would fall from the sky into the abyss. Kittens (with or without a whip) would lose their fur.
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Brad Nelson
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Chicago
Jun 6, 2020 16:30:17 GMT -8
Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 6, 2020 16:30:17 GMT -8
Speaking of music, I ran into this album yesterday by chance. It’s Dave Brubek’s In Their Own Sweet Way. You can download individual songs or the whole album here. Suffice it to say, I would consider this “good jazz” as opposed to the more chaotic, pretentious, crappy kind. No, this isn’t reminiscent of Chicago. But it is complimentary.
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Chicago
Jan 28, 2023 20:26:27 GMT -8
Post by kungfuzu on Jan 28, 2023 20:26:27 GMT -8
Before stumbling off to bed, I leave you with this gem from Chicago. It is part of longer compilation which is excellent. Listen to Danny Seraphine's druming. Not complicated but catchy. Chicago III I consider Terry Kath to be the best musician of the band, followed by Pankow and Seraphine. Then comes Cetera and Lamm. Surprisingly, for a brass-based band, the last in the list are the Saxophonist and trumpet player who was far less proficient than the rest. Blood Sweat and Tears' trumpet players were much better.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jan 30, 2023 14:08:44 GMT -8
Do not stumble gently into that good night . . . unless you want to. I watched a video the other day by a Brit who has a series that explains the origin of words. There is a movement promoting "Anglish," which is using good ol' Anglo-Saxon words and none of those trashy and foreign French or Latin one. Well, "liberty" derives from French. "Freedom" is the proper word for us to use. This is more of an intellectual exercise or curiosity rather than something practical. Still, it has its attributes: I believe "Chicago" may be a Native American word. But we'll give that one a pass. Nice music.
Indeed, bring "frith and stillness to our land" and "hold fast the blessings of freedom."
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Chicago
Jan 30, 2023 18:15:28 GMT -8
Post by kungfuzu on Jan 30, 2023 18:15:28 GMT -8
An excellent reply to my Chicago clip, "I just want to be frei."
The subject of the video is something I have some knowledge about, having looked into it already some 50 years ago. Why you might ask, would I have any interest in such an arcane subject? One, my first love in history was Medieval English history. Two, I studied German in Germany and Austria. Austrian History being my second love in history.
Anglish is an artificial construct. I have no idea who came up with it, but no such thing existed before the mid-20th century. I suspect the guy mentioned in the video may have just popularized it. English, as a language, did not exist until something like AD 1450. It is a fusion of North Germanic languages which were brought to England in the 5th century by those famous Angles, Saxons and Jutes, similar languages which were brought to England by Danish and Norwegian Vikings some 400 hundreds years later, and then Norman French brought by the usurper, William the Bastard.
That said, Greek and Latin, especially Latin had been used in Britain for several hundred years before the Angles, Saxons and Jutes arrived. As in Gaul and elsewhere, over time Latin and Celtic tongues blended to give rise to different cultures. In France, these were pushed to Brittany and in Britain, to Wales and Cornwall.
One should not forget that the Normans were just Vikings who had settled in Normandy 2 or 3 generations before they crossed the Channel. So their language would likely have contained a fair amount of Norsk as well.
The video is a good start, but if one is interested the subject is much larger. For one thing, the presenter is using modern words to represent "Anglish." I assure everyone that the language of 1100 England is far removed from modern "Anglish." One can find and read pieces of "The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles" and see what I am talking about. Even Chaucer, who is called the Father of English literature, and was born in the 1300s, is unreadable to anyone not learned in the area.
I suspect that many pushing "Anglish" are anti-Christian types. In Western Europe, learning was spread by clerics who were the only educated people of the time and they wrote in Latin the language of the Church and universal language of the West. (Charlemagne could neither read nor write.)
So I suspect there are a lot of frustrated anti-Christian types who latch on to this odd-ball movement hoping to get rid of all foreign influence and get back to our pagan Germanic roots. Or maybe they just have too much time on their hands.
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Brad Nelson
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Chicago
Jan 30, 2023 18:27:29 GMT -8
Post by Brad Nelson on Jan 30, 2023 18:27:29 GMT -8
The presenter of that video was just mentioning Anglish as the topic of the day. His main interest is languages and words. But the one guy he had on who talked about it a bit, I think he could be a certain "type" that you mentioned.
Those Yutes are getting everywhere.
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