Mary Cliff moves to WAMU

One last post of the evening…

WAMU is picking up Traditions with Mary Cliff!

WAMU 88.5 picks up Traditions with Mary Cliff

Longtime host will bring show to 11 p.m., Saturday evenings
On Saturday, Feb. 3, WAMU 88.5 will begin airing Traditions with Mary Cliff from 11 p.m., Saturdays, until 1 a.m., Sundays. Since 1970, Cliff has hosted the acoustic music show, keeping fans up to date on the local music scene.

YAY!!!!!!!

Read WAMU’s press release here.

Go get ‘em Mary. Sorry you can’t have one free Saturday. But that’s radio.

Input vs. output

I haven’t been in much of a writing mood lately, although I’ve had several topics I’d like to discuss. Information just keeps coming. I think I’m starting to shake the inertia now, as I have several projects coming due this month and next.

I’ve been gathering content for a Live365 station. I had been leaning either towards an all-Celtic (with local emphasis on the DC area) or all-Canadian oriented show. I have settled on the latter, and I look forward to having it up in the next few months. Live365 seems to be the way to go, since for the fee you pay, they pay all the royalties for music played.

I’m investing in some technology to set up the operations, plus increasing my CD collection to deliver an interesting mix. It’s going to be mostly folk, but spiced with jazz, blues, bluegrass, country, popular, spoken word, and classical selections to give a big picture of our neighbor to the North. Listening to CBC Two has also given me a lot of ideas. I hope I won’t duplicate them too much, it’s meant for as a Canadian music for residents of the United States. (Mustn’t call ourselves Americans.)

If anyone has a favorite Canadian artist or song, please send your ideas. I’ll be happy to incorporate them. What’s your favorite province? I’ll be getting another blog started for the show too, and I’ll keep all Audio Artifacts readers up-to-date on how the stream progresses.

On Mary Cliff’s Traditions

One of the casualties of WETA’s format change was the dismissal of Mary Cliff and cancelation of her long-running folk show Traditions. Last night was Mary’s final show on WETA after over 34 years. I worked with Mary for a short time, but I really feel she taught me a lot about what I know about the musics we call “folk.” What impresses me is her deep appreciation of all music, and how open the boundaries really are between the genres and formats. Like jazz and rock, classical came to be because of traditional musical forms. Without traditional dance forms and entertainments, court musicians wouldn’t have started writing operas, symphonies, and string quartets for royalty, and later the public. I’m babbling…I hope Mary’s show will continue on another local station. The strength of her show is in building the local folk music communities into one.

Traditions was a place where singer-songwriters, bluegrass musicians, blues guitarists, sitar players, gospel groups, and sacred harp singers (among others) could find equal representation in one 5-hour show every week. It was a show directly aimed at the greater Washington DC area (broadly defined as far as I can tell as the mid-Atlantic region between Richmond, Philadelphia, the Eastern Shore, and West Virginia).

I don’t know of another forum that could do that and provide access to everyone in the community in the same way–NOT EVERYONE IS ON THE INTERNET. (Okay, no more shouting). Mary, enjoy your week. You deserve a rest. Hope to hear you on the air soon.

Tonight’s Canuckian playlist

Some songs/albums/performers I’ve been enjoying via radio and recordings:

1) Artist: The Polyjesters
Album: Ka-Chunk

2) Artist: Sarah Harmer
Album: I’m a Mountain

3) Artist: Stuart MacLean
Album: History of Canada/I Remember Wayne

4) Artist: Stan Rogers
Album: Northwest Passage

5) Artist: Wailin’ Jennys
Album: Firecracker

6) Artist: Be Good Tanyas
Album: Hello Love

7) Artist: Tragically Hip
Album: Fully Completely

Artist: Northern Pikes
Album: Hits & Assorted Secrets: 1984-1993

9) Artist: Joe Trio
Album: Set ‘Em Up Joe

10) Various artists
Album: Due South soundtrack, vol. 1

More Canadian albums to come…

New tunes from the Kitchen Party

I’ve been collecting audio artifacts again. Fans of my radio show, The Kitchen Party should appreciate of some of these:

1) Cornbread Nation
Tim O’Brien
Sugar Hill Records 2005 (SUG-CD-4005)
Favorite songs: Hold On, Moses, Cornbread Nation, Foggy, Foggy Dew, House of the
Rising Sun. Offbeat arrangements of folk songs which lsoose none of the energy
of the originals. Can’t wait to get his twin album of 2005, Fiddler’s Green.

2) 3-D
Casey Driessen
Sugar Hill Records, 2006 (SUG-CD-4016)
Favorite songs: None yet, but I like the album’s energy. He’s a good fiddler, but
doesn’t have that big of a sound live. This is an expertly produced album. I
don’t mean that to be a slight to Driessen’s artistry, just a comparison to what
I heard on the album to the time I heard him at the Birchmere.

4) Alberta: Wild Roses, Northern Lights
Various artists from Alberta: Corb Lund Band, k.d. lang, Ian Tyson, etc.
Smithsonian Folkways, 2006 (SFW CD 40538)
Favorite songs: None yet, but I like the whole album. There’s some real dyed-
in-the-wool cowboys singing on this one. But who doesn’t love Ian Tyson! I’m
finally catching up on the Smithsonian festival which I missed.

5) Due South: The Original Television Soundtrack
Various Canadian artists including Jay Semko, Spirit of the West, Sarah
McLachlan, Figgy Duff, Blue Rodeo, and the Holly Cole Trio.
Unforscene Music, 1996 (40004)
Favorite songs: Possession (McLachlan), Horses (w/ Ashley MacIsaac), Henry
Martin (Figgy Duff), and Victoria’s Secret (Semko). If you’ve watched the show,
you probably have heard some very haunting music. Well, I couldn’t resist; and
as a portrait of Canadian pop, it’s a good representation of the best from the
mid 1990s.

6) Barenaked for the Holidays
Barenaked Ladies
Desperation Records, 2004 (2-40015)
Favorite songs: Deck the Stills, Hanukkah Blessings, I Have a Little Dreidel.
An album which I was prompted to pick up after listening to a number of tracks
at the Erie B&N. I love BNL and it’s nice to hear some alternative holiday (both
Christmas and Hanukkah) songs.

That’s all for this edition. Stay tuned for more Audio Artifacts.

Is music listening for enjoyment or discovery?

Yes it’s been awhile…

With my busy schedule and preoccupation with folk music this last year, I have been somewhat ignoring my classical music listening. Now by that I don’t mean that I haven’t been listening to radio stations (over the air or online), but I really haven’t been actively seeking out new recordings or keeping up with the latest recordings. (Which was a lot easier when I worked at a classical radio station and had to catalog all of the latest). Well, a chance purchase of Gramophone has sort of revitalized my interest. I have been going through a debate in my mind over how I am going to consume music, in addition to making it actively. Either by recordings or radio. I have been satisfied by the latter, esp. in ther performance aspect; but very few stations give the variety I seek. Sometimes I want plain folk music, sometimes Celtic, sometimes orchestral, sometimes choral, sometimes barbershop, band, etc…you get the picture.

There is also my classical CD collection which has been largely ignored, since I’ve been working again. It is a good reference source, but there are some major holes which I don’t really have the time to plug in. As good as it is, it’s not a source for discovery for new or unheard compositions. So, I bit the bullet yesterday and subscribed to Naxos. I could have gone for Web Radio, with all of its many channels, but I went for the on-demand service for $19.95/yr. Do I get downloads? No, but I get streaming on-demand for any of their recordings (and their subsidiary labels).
That should suffice for work. Plus I think it’ll help at work, when I need to identify works which I think I have an idea what it is, but I don’t have easy access to a recording. On the broadband connection at work, it sounds really good.

Which brings up the issue of compression. Yes, it uses it. iTunes uses it. Everyone does–some better than others. In my everyday life, it doesn’t bother me (except when I notice). But I can live with it. I don’t regularly strive for aural perfection, because it’s a moving target. But I don’t like walking around with personal music devices. I don’t think one should be in public and walk around with them. I like to engage (or ignore) at will, and earbuds are a barrier. I’m also addicted to high quality, comfortable headphones which cushion the ear, rather than buds which stick right into the ear (not comfortable to me). So, I have many issues with Eyedevices of all ilk. But I want access to music when I’m doing other things. If I’m at home that can be my stereo system, but again I’m not home that much these days and it’s a pain to schlep CDs to multiple computers. So now, if I want to listen to Brahms’ 3rd violin sonata, I can punch it up on Naxos, and listen to it whenever and wherever I want (if a web connection is available). For other times, I can download a copy on iTunes or track down a cheap CD copy. In the car, radio and CDs work best, and I don’t tend to listen to classical music CDs in the car. That’s what works best for me right now. Okay, enough random thoughts for the day…time for other tasks.

Here’s an article from the Christian Science Monitor on whether compressed music is good enough, for further thought:

“Thousands of songs in your pocket: An audiophile’s nightmare?
Will consumers who demand portable music always have to compromise on sound quality?”

And this shall be for music

I have more to write this week about singing, but let’s start with this quote by Abraham Joshua Henschel from his 1973 work A Passion for Truth. This weekend’s highlights included participating in an all-day singing convention of Sacred Harp singers in Great Falls, and attending the Washington Concert Opera’s production of Tancredi.

Answers to the ultimate perplexity can not be expressed in words. Response is facilitated by song. Singing is not the mere repetition of notes or even the expression of joy or sorrow. Singing means uplifting all of existence to the level of perfection. Singing means raising oneself above all words and all ideas to the realm of pure thought. One cannot truly sing by repeating an old melody. God loves novelty…one must sing a new song each time.

n.b.: The title of today’s post comes from a short choral work by American composer Ron Nelson which I sang in high school.