Friday 1 October 2021

Chilean Melissa Aldana's Visions For Frida Kahlo

 







I was pretty shocked when one of my contacts sent me this composition, clearly written out as a symphonic work, for the old NTSU big band we know and love so well from past posts. Hopefully this search function works though it brings up a lot of other stuff.  Many thanks to him for ripping this off youtube, which is the only place you can find the full work.  You can hear it here, and it's worth watching through to the end without too much fast forward action though some of that will prove necessary for those like me who are bored by the overlong and overdemocratic solos.

Here is the version which is called Visions on one of her albums, which is rather pared down and doesn't have all the movements of the bb version:



It was very eye-opening to realize the progressive big band tradition (from the 60s and 70s) is still alive out there, in small pockets presumably mostly university-related, and I'm sure it would be news to the rest of earth too.


4 comments:

  1. https://www.sendspace.com/file/9yrdqi

    the youtube track of Visions of Frida Kahlo:

    https://www77.zippyshare.com/v/jIhpRIee/file.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. alternate link
    https://we.tl/t-7fnKFBVfiU

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Dear Julian,

    An amazing psych-folk band (Seventh Dawn) from Virgina that recorded in 1976 an album called "Sunrise" that is included in the Record Collection Dream - Volume 4 (Value 5 - Baby, You're a Rich Man): https://lossonidosdemimente.blogspot.com/search/label/.Seventh%20Dawn

    Yours sincerely,

    Flávio

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  4. Many thanks!! Very nice material. I believe the big band tradition is still very much alive. Marsalis is doing quite a good job at the Lincoln Centre, McBride issued a record a couple of years ago, etc. It's just that is not very much "mainstream" ... well jazz in general isn't, is it? Thanks for sharing all these gems, keep it up! Greetings from Argentina!

    ReplyDelete