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Despite its gargantuan size and frequent inefficiency, the BBC really is quite awesome – through the wonders of modern technology, Jay-Z’s headlining gig on Saturday night on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury was webcast live in hi-res video to the whole of the UK, as well as on BBC3 TV and BBC Radio One.

The crowd on-site would’ve been close to 50-60,000, and there were millions watching and listening nationwide. Disregarding the hype surrounding this gig, (and Zane Lowe‘s frothing-at-the-mouth introduction on TV), Jay-Z’s set felt like pop history in the making.

He opened with a cover of Oasis’ Wonderwall, a sly dis to Noel Gallagher who had earlier said that a hip-hop artist couldn’t headline Glastonbury. It was a moment of pure theatre, even if Jay-Z can’t sing (hey, he’s a rapper).

The Glastonbury coverage on the BBC and on the Guardian site has been great, and has permitted some other musical discoveries/reconsiderations. On the downside, it appears that MGMT as a live act may not live up to the awesomeness of their album. More positively, Vampire Weekend is well worth some further time listening…

Despite our many differences, it is good to know that three things that unite all English-speaking nations:

1. Liberal democracy (Threatened by idiocy)

2. Binge drinking (Cause of idiocy)

3. The hokey cokey (Permissible idiocy – it’s the macarena that never dies)

Ulu – Super Mario Brothers
From Live at the Wetlands-Preserve, 11.19.99 : [emusic] [buy]

This track is particularly cool… the main theme from Super Mario, followed by the “Castle” and the “Underground” theme. It’s performed by New York band Ulu, who deliver a mean line in jazz funk. However they don’t seem to have updated their site recently so it’s not clear if they’re still gigging.

For more of Ulu’s music, there’s a heap of live albums available via emusic, or check out their album Nerve on Harmonized Records.

Eustache Du Caurroy – Sanctus

Eustache Du Caurroy – Benedicamus Domino

From the Missa Pro Defunctis by Eustache Du Caurroy
Performed by the Choir of New College, Oxford
From Eustache du Caurroy: Requiem Mass & Motets [emusic] [amazon]

Listen to this music. The writing below does no justice to what you hear. Listen to the music. Ignore the rather pretentious words that follow, words that grasp towards a sincere expression of wonder, surprise and gratitude, but fall far short. Instead, listen.

If you lived in New York, you might write more about jazz or hip-hop. In Dakar you might’ve written about mbalax. As it’s turned out, living in Oxford has offered the gift of (re)discovering choral music. In particular, the New College Choir has featured numerous times previously on this blog.

Last Sunday night was the end Trinity Term and the last sung evensong at New College before I leave Oxford, (yes, I’m leaving – perhaps a subject for a separate post sometime). I don’t depart for another couple of months, but I already know that of all the magic of this strange city, I will miss most of all the evenings spent in New College’s mediaeval chapel.

Photo by Lawrence OP

When they sing at their best, this choir makes the planet stop turning. Their music sounds like falling backwards forever through a stained glass universe, Lux æterna.

When Eustache du Caurroy wrote the Missa pro defunctis for the funeral of Henry IV of France in 1610, the Choir of New College had already been singing in Oxford for more than 200 years.

It’s been a mysterious and wonderful privilege to participate, if ever so peripherally, in a continuing tradition of music and worship that stretches back so far into our past. Thank you, Dr Higginbottom and the boys and clerks of the choir. May others continue to find inspiration in your work and singing. Floreat Collegium Novum.

Esbjörn Svensson Trio – Tide of Trepidation (streamed from last.fm)

Swedish pianist Esbjörn Svensson died on Saturday in a diving accident, aged 44. Up until his death he led one of the greatest European jazz bands of the Internet Age, E.S.T., the Esbjörn Svensson Trio.

E.S.T. combined an ECM-style nordic aesthetic with electronics and a knack for grooving, deeply musical performances that helped make albums like Seven Years of Falling among of the most beautiful and popular jazz records of the last ten years.

Ethan Ivanson from The Bad Plus (in many ways stateside fellow-travellers of E.S.T.) offers a personal tribute. Siggidóri took a few photos at the band’s Reykjavik gig in 2007, and there are a few free mp3 tracks available at last.fm.

Olivier Messiaen – Apparition de l’Eglise Eternelle (excerpt)
Performed by Dame Gillian Weir
From Olivier Messiaen:The Organ Works – Volume 1: Priory [Buy]

The best gag in Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs happens in the opening scene of the film – a ridulously long, long, long slow tracking shot of a spaceship passing through the cosmos.  The spaceship seems to go on forever. The soundtrack quotes Jaws. It was my favourite scene when I was 9 years old, and I still think it’s pretty funny.

Of course, the music of Olivier Messiaen probably shouldn’t be compared to a Mel Brooks gag – in fact, a more inapposite twinning of “sublime” and “ridiculous” would be difficult to find.

But the opening minutes of Messiaen’s 1932 composition Apparition de l’Eglise Eternelle might cause a similar reaction in an audience to the spaceship scene from Spaceballs – long, long chords, slowly twisting and mutating through time, layering tone upon tone – the sound is so full-on, you might even laugh.

George Tames/NYT

Messiaen has been getting some more airplay in 2008, the centenary of his birth. Here in Oxford, his organ works have been turning up in the music lists of various colleges and chapels. To say the least, it makes a change from Bach, Wesley and Charles Stanford.

Messiaen’s sacred music is challenging, and draws heavily on a Roman Catholic cosmology that sometimes leaves me bewildered. But it is uncompromisingly modern, and rewards attentive listening.

Often devoid of the usual anchors of tempo and key, Messiaen compositions are ‘total music’ – sound that refers only to itself. The overall effect is alien and yet majestic – perhaps conveying the sense of mystery that Messiaen held at the centre of his faith.

Messiaen’s Organ, Eglise de la Sainte Trinité, Paris

American filmmaker Paul Festa has just released a film called Apparition of the Eternal Church, which is making its way around the festival circuit at the moment. It records the reactions of 31 people listening to the 10-minute Messiaen work. I haven’t seen the film, but it looks interesting!

Whether one subscribes to Messiaen’s religious views or not, his music is worth seeking out. I’m slowly working my way the 5-CD Complete Organ Works series performed by Dame Gillian Weir. It’s exhausting listening at times, but never once do you doubt that Olivier Messiaen was a genius with a most extraordinary musical gift.

This is possibly the coolest thing anyone has ever done with a guitar and a loop pedal. Perhaps not the most complex thing. But possibly the coolest.

Nice beard, too.

Hat tip to Tash, who posted it first.

This performance is taken from the BBC’s Later with Jools Holland. Liam’s also done the same thing on Letterman.

Liam Finn official website

Liam Finn on murdochspace

This is a question I’ve been asking recently, since I haven’t seen any gigs advertised around the UK (and I’d really like to hear Kenny Wheeler live, one day). Also, KW is 78 years old, and so we like to keep an eye on his health and wellbeing.

Kenny Wheeler in 2007. Photo by Andy Newcombe

The good news is that Kenny Wheeler has a new album out, called Other People, which you can get through emusic, Amazon or the other usual outlets.

Other People is an outing with a string quartet, and the first time KW has written for or recorded with strings. Despite the new sonic context, all the expected navigational marks in the “univers wheelerien” remain in place – inventive use of minor keys, a sense of melancholy and Wheeler’s plaintive and distinct trumpet voice. With less improvisation than most jazz dates, the emphasis is on composition and it’s all very, very good.

There’s not much Kenny Wheeler on Youtube, but the track below, “Aye Aye That’s Your Lot” is outstanding. Recorded in Taunton, England in 1991, KW’s playing alongside some great musicians including Tony Oxley (d), Stan Sulzmann (ts) and Gordon Beck (pn).

Some photos taken while in NZ.

Wyuna Bay, Coromandel Peninsula

Colville, northern Coromandel Peninsula

Near Kawakawa Bay

Tawhitokino beach