10.13.09
In Learn with Jason Mraz
Earlier today I was learning Jason Mraz’ uplifting song Make it Mine, now I just saw his cover of the Beatles song In My Life, that I also like to play on guitar. These slower acoustic covers of the song work well for me, I dig Jason’s version. Hopefully his version will bring something new to me playing the song. I just love the lyrics:
Though I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I’ll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more
That’s how I want to live my life. Here’s Jason ending his Gratitude Café tour with this song:
10.03.09
Song of the Week – Sojourn of Arjuna
This week’s song comes from a band composed of four incredibly talented musicians, Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. It’s an instrumental piece called Sojourn of Arjuna, which first appeared on Victor Wooten’s solo album What Did He Say?, then on the band’s fifth studio album Left of Cool, released in 1998.
This melody is well-known by Dave Matthews Band fans. Béla Fleck used to interpolate the melody into DMB’s song #41 while on stage with DMB. These days, as Jeff Coffin plays saxophone in DMB, he usually does it. #41 is a song that could basically go on forever, the longest performance of the song is over half an hour. Traditionally, LeRoi Moore used to take a sax solo right after Dave’s vocals. Now Jeff Coffin does it, sometimes interpolating this melody right away. I’ve heard it a million times on #41, and I still like to hear it.
Here’s the whole song by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones.
10.01.09
New Newton Faulkner
A few days ago I talked about new album releases and the difficulty of spotting all the interesting ones. Well, here’s one that had slipped my radar and was released yesterday: Newton Faulkner’s Rebuilt by Humans. It’s is a follow-up to his debut album Hand Built by Robots. I haven’t been listening to this British singer-songwriter that much, but I’m liking his music more and more. He has a cool overly percussive style to play the guitar (unless he’s just fingerpicking), evident in his live performances. His style bears some resemblance to another young guitarist, Petteri Sariola, who I wrote about last winter.
The new album by Newton Faulkner sounds good, like his last one did, but it’s too early for me to say anything more about it. Here’s a live performance of, If This is It, which is the first single off the album.
