Three of the greatest figures of early jazz:
a) Louis Amrmstrong
b) Duke Ellington
c) Django Rheinhardt
What's the best fellow - of the 3 above - to accompany these cues?
1. Born and raised in Washington, DC?
2. Great pianist as well as band leader and composer?
3. Loved smoking reefer?
4. Cut some great records in Chicago?
5. The tune "Take the A Train"?
6. The tune "Basin St Blues"?
7. Played his instrument with 2 fingers?
8. Married 4 times?
9. Born and raised in Belgium?
10. Wrote 2 biographies?
1. Duke
2. Duke
3. Satchmo
4.Satchmo
5. Duke
6. Satchmo
7. Django - the guitarist's hands were damaged in a fire.
8. Satchmo.
9. Django
10. Satchmo - he traveled with a typewriter because he loved writing letters. Armstrong wrote 2 autobiographies. The one that survives is My Life in New Orleans (avail in paperback).
Plus ca change, plas ca meme chose? French for " The more things change, the more they remain the same."
Friday, November 21, 2008
Monday, November 17, 2008
The Outsiders from the inside: review by Andrew Wood
What happens when you hear gunshots, see twenty guys fighting at once, and witness a burning building? Why, you must have been to see The Outsiders at Magnet High. The play ran last Wednesday through Friday to glorious review from the student body and staff.
The conflict of the play arises after Ponyboy and Johnny, Greasers, kill a young Social in self defense. The Socs are the richer "jet set."
The cast included some veterans of the Magnet stage as well as some very talented new-comers. Tyler Krieg played Ponyboy. This was his third Magnet show along with several other community theatre shows. The play also featured familiar faces such as Andrew Wood, Will Bowers, and Maddie Menefee. Some new faces included Freshman Adrian Gallegos and JZ Zavalydriga.
The shows strong leading cast was its greatest asset. However, there were some problems, mainly technical, that kept the show from being perfect. These included the voice-overs which seemed to keep the audience from making a conection with the main character. I also felt that more use could have been made of music to fill in the gaps caused by scene changes.
All in all, this show was top notch and is a good example of what we have come to expect from Magnet drama. Let's sit tight until the spring show, "A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum." Surely, it will be equally as good as the last shows. Keep it coming, Thespians!
- Utopia staff writer Andrew Wood
The conflict of the play arises after Ponyboy and Johnny, Greasers, kill a young Social in self defense. The Socs are the richer "jet set."
The cast included some veterans of the Magnet stage as well as some very talented new-comers. Tyler Krieg played Ponyboy. This was his third Magnet show along with several other community theatre shows. The play also featured familiar faces such as Andrew Wood, Will Bowers, and Maddie Menefee. Some new faces included Freshman Adrian Gallegos and JZ Zavalydriga.
The shows strong leading cast was its greatest asset. However, there were some problems, mainly technical, that kept the show from being perfect. These included the voice-overs which seemed to keep the audience from making a conection with the main character. I also felt that more use could have been made of music to fill in the gaps caused by scene changes.
All in all, this show was top notch and is a good example of what we have come to expect from Magnet drama. Let's sit tight until the spring show, "A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum." Surely, it will be equally as good as the last shows. Keep it coming, Thespians!
- Utopia staff writer Andrew Wood
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Quantum of Solace vocab from the NY Times review
Know your NY Times / James Bond vocab for the next quiz:
solace
quantum
sociocultural
hermeneutic
enigmatic
abysmal
cacophony
squalling
disharmonious
dramatic foil
pouty
semi-coherent
brooding
mopey
ciphers
flouting
libido
rakish
facade
somber
demeanor
suave
cynical
cold war
totalitarian humorlessness
paladin
pseudoserious
cosmopolitan
solace
quantum
sociocultural
hermeneutic
enigmatic
abysmal
cacophony
squalling
disharmonious
dramatic foil
pouty
semi-coherent
brooding
mopey
ciphers
flouting
libido
rakish
facade
somber
demeanor
suave
cynical
cold war
totalitarian humorlessness
paladin
pseudoserious
cosmopolitan
Thursday, November 13, 2008
The Entirely Visual Quiz 1
When you're sitting around watching a movie, tv show, webcast, etc., you will let your friends know that you've been to a good school, become a well-read person, by your ability to say "Picasso," or "Ramses II" at the appropriate visual cue.
Here's our first Visual Image Quiz.
Here's our first Visual Image Quiz.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Test on Thurs will address only visual items
Instead of the usual verbal questions designed to review the material we've consumed in fine arts class, let's try visuals.
Most of the material I've put on the class web site is classic. It is significant and timeless in terms of western society. Let's review it in an artful way.
Most of the material I've put on the class web site is classic. It is significant and timeless in terms of western society. Let's review it in an artful way.
Trompe l'oeil: a good idea for a blank wall (or canvas)
Jazz and modern art quiz
1. First city of jazz: __ __.
2. Second city of Jazz (and of the US in general): __ .
3. Third city to which the fathers of jazz - such as Joe Oliver and Louis Armstrong - relocated: __ __ .
4. Movement of impoverished black Americans from the farms of the Deep South to urban centers of Upper Midwest and Northeast: __ .
5. Approximate date for the birth of jazz: __ .
6. Name given to the place in New Orleans where slaves gathered on Sundays: __ __ .
7. Louisiana term for people of mixed ethnic background, esp. a mixture of French, Spanish, native American and Afro-Caribbean: __ .
8. Gens de couleur libre was a special ethnic category in NO. It indicated a person who was __ yet not a slave.
9. Another name for the French Quarter is Vieux Carre; it means: __ __ .
10. Parade dance practiced by New Orleanians at funerals: __ __ .
11. The founder of a drum manufacturing company (the Beatles used these) is credited with developing the trap drum set. The company? __ .
12. The key mechanical item in a drum set, or trap drum kit, is a foot pedal that enables the percussionist to sock the heck out of the __ __ .
13. The advent of the drum kit at the turn of the century enabled musical groups to reduce the percussion personnel from __ players to one.
14. The banjo originates with the ethnic group known as __ __.
15. Typically the 5-string banjo is used in playing __ music.
16. The 4-string banjo is commonly used in __ music.
17. A radical bend in the direction of his trumpet’s __ became part of the visual signature of Dizzie Gillespie.
18. Dizzie Gillespie was intimately associated with an intellectual type of jazz that emphasized cascades of notes played pell mell. This early modern jazz was called __.
19. "Break it down," "chops," "crib," "daddy-o," "dig" and similar words were jazz __, words that could indicate that you were an insider. Eventually these words went mainstream, such as the recent phrase “wanna give a shout-out to my man, Roscoe.”
20. A plectrum as in plectrum banjo, is a musical device better known as . . . a) mute b) capo c) resonator d) pick.
21. Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald and other jazzers offered vocal improvisation with random vocables and syllables or without words at all. This is called __ singing.
22. The Vietnam War Memorial Wall mimics a wound in that it cuts into the turf - the viewer of the wall walks down a sidewalk which goes progressively deeper into the soil of the national mall. The design is based on a chevron, or shape of the letter _ .
23. The Vietnam War Memorial Wall was designed by a female and, in fact, an Asian-American. Her name is Maya __ .
24. Rushing water and island-like concrete blocks in the midst of the torrent are part of the design of the water gardens downtown in the city of __ __.
25. Freud's work with free association, dream analysis and the hidden unconscious was of the utmost importance to the artists known as __ in developing methods to liberate imagination.
26. Trompe l'oeil: A style of painting that presents an illusion of __ __ .
27. The French phrase trompe l'œil means to decieve the __ .
1. First city of jazz: __ __.
2. Second city of Jazz (and of the US in general): __ .
3. Third city to which the fathers of jazz - such as Joe Oliver and Louis Armstrong - relocated: __ __ .
4. Movement of impoverished black Americans from the farms of the Deep South to urban centers of Upper Midwest and Northeast: __ .
5. Approximate date for the birth of jazz: __ .
6. Name given to the place in New Orleans where slaves gathered on Sundays: __ __ .
7. Louisiana term for people of mixed ethnic background, esp. a mixture of French, Spanish, native American and Afro-Caribbean: __ .
8. Gens de couleur libre was a special ethnic category in NO. It indicated a person who was __ yet not a slave.
9. Another name for the French Quarter is Vieux Carre; it means: __ __ .
10. Parade dance practiced by New Orleanians at funerals: __ __ .
11. The founder of a drum manufacturing company (the Beatles used these) is credited with developing the trap drum set. The company? __ .
12. The key mechanical item in a drum set, or trap drum kit, is a foot pedal that enables the percussionist to sock the heck out of the __ __ .
13. The advent of the drum kit at the turn of the century enabled musical groups to reduce the percussion personnel from __ players to one.
14. The banjo originates with the ethnic group known as __ __.
15. Typically the 5-string banjo is used in playing __ music.
16. The 4-string banjo is commonly used in __ music.
17. A radical bend in the direction of his trumpet’s __ became part of the visual signature of Dizzie Gillespie.
18. Dizzie Gillespie was intimately associated with an intellectual type of jazz that emphasized cascades of notes played pell mell. This early modern jazz was called __.
19. "Break it down," "chops," "crib," "daddy-o," "dig" and similar words were jazz __, words that could indicate that you were an insider. Eventually these words went mainstream, such as the recent phrase “wanna give a shout-out to my man, Roscoe.”
20. A plectrum as in plectrum banjo, is a musical device better known as . . . a) mute b) capo c) resonator d) pick.
21. Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald and other jazzers offered vocal improvisation with random vocables and syllables or without words at all. This is called __ singing.
22. The Vietnam War Memorial Wall mimics a wound in that it cuts into the turf - the viewer of the wall walks down a sidewalk which goes progressively deeper into the soil of the national mall. The design is based on a chevron, or shape of the letter _ .
23. The Vietnam War Memorial Wall was designed by a female and, in fact, an Asian-American. Her name is Maya __ .
24. Rushing water and island-like concrete blocks in the midst of the torrent are part of the design of the water gardens downtown in the city of __ __.
25. Freud's work with free association, dream analysis and the hidden unconscious was of the utmost importance to the artists known as __ in developing methods to liberate imagination.
26. Trompe l'oeil: A style of painting that presents an illusion of __ __ .
27. The French phrase trompe l'œil means to decieve the __ .
Ella Fitzgerald: scat singing, a magical type of jazz vocalizing
Ella Fitzgerald is generally considered one of the greatest scat singers in jazz history.[1]
In vocal jazz, scat singing is vocal improvisation with random vocables and syllables or without words at all. Scat singing gives singers the ability to sing improvised melodies and rhythms, to create the equivalent of an instrumental solo using their voice.
In vocal jazz, scat singing is vocal improvisation with random vocables and syllables or without words at all. Scat singing gives singers the ability to sing improvised melodies and rhythms, to create the equivalent of an instrumental solo using their voice.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
