While Y Lan is still hot in here, let’s throw in “Em Dep Nhat Dem Nay,” a French ballad that fits so well with her whimsical personality. Although Thanh Lan is known for this tune, Y Lan has made it her own. What makes her rendition works me is the way she effortlessly rides the up-tempo arrangement.
A simple web design studio specializes mainly on comps. What a beautiful one-page design and good idea (designing the visual only).
Lost Tribe’s “Manticore,” a nice, funked-up fusion.
Damn, what a beautiful hook!
More comps to come…
NPR profiles Johnny Hartman, a jazz singer with such a deep, gorgeous baritone:
Hartman was a master of emotional expression, putting a wealth of subtle nuance into every word he sang. With any other vocalist, performing love songs with that kind of intensity could easily come across as being over the top or gushing, but Hartman’s rich, baritone voice never wavered in its sincerity.
Make sure you listen to the 54-minute program.
Tim was holding down the house yesterday. Twitter got free promotion too 🙂
Y Lan’s flashy dress in her performance of Lam Phuong’s “Kiep Ngheo” on Paris By Night 88 has sparked an interesting discussion right here on Visualgui.com. In her well-articulated comment defending Y Lan’s presentation, Ms. Stephanie argues:
When we listen to good music and great singers, we should listen to the total performance with our hearts. If we let our biases (personal, visual or otherwise) get in the way, we miss the opportunity to enjoy creative artistry. Piaf, Sinatra, Bennett or Bocelli do not have to make costume changes between songs to effectively communicate their music.
Ms. Stephanie’s statement reminds me of a very intriguing philosophy Ornette Coleman made regarding to the way he designs and dresses himself. The following conversation between Ornette Coleman and Greg Tate is taken from Tate’s Flyboy in the Buttermilk:
“For me, clothes have always been a way of designing a setting so that by the time a person observes how you look, all of their attention is on what you’re playing. Most people that play music, whether it’s pop, rock, or classical, have a certain kind of uniform so that they don’t have to tell you what you’re listening at. I always thought that if that was the case, why wouldn’t I try to design from the standpoint of the opposite of that? Have the person see what you have on and have no idea what you were going to play. I’m not playing to represent what I’m wearing, and I am not dressing to represent what I play. In Western society most successful public images have to do with how people want to see them. A rich person goes around in jeans because he knows he’s wealthy. Well, I don’t dress to represent wealth, race, music, or nothing. It’s more like religion, really. I would rather play in a setting that’s going to allow the person that’s listening to get into himself by distracting him from how I look in relationship to what he’s hearing on stage. I don’t want to go on a bandstand and have people try to imitate what I have on to get them closer to me. Like I don’t try to see what kind of music they like to get them closer to me. I try not to think about either of those things. Yet for some reason it has made people more interested in me. They say, ‘Wow, those are some funny looking clothes, how did you come up by those?’ But I think that, in a world where I’m seeking to have an identity related to the universal person, my clothes have a universal appeal.
“I think the music is healing on many levels, whereas the clothes make the performer feel stronger before he even gets to the stage. The clothes enlighten the person to feel good. And with the playing and the music they both have this good positive effect on people.
“I heard that silk has something to do with making you less evil. I think it has something to do with light. I think from the time people began reading about human behavior in the Bible that someone had to invent fabric to cover all this evil up. But there is a light that is not related to electricity. If the sun didn’t exist or if you took all the stars out of the sky that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t have light. It says in the Bible that in the beginning God created light, it doesn’t say God created the sun, right? Maybe human beings are the real true light. Silk could be symbolic of that. There is something that flows in human beings that is close to what people call the truth, like when people say, ‘See the truth in the light.’ For some reason, in the Western world, though, silk has been related to pimps and preachers, people of high social imagery who manipulate people.
Scholar Michael Eric Dyson drops his academic knowledge to defense hip-hop, in which he believes “is one of the most authentic expressions of the black experience.” Dyson has a new book titled Know What I Mean? Reflections on Hip Hop coming out with an introduction written by Jay-Z:
At this point it might seem hollow to repeat what has been widely said about Michael Eric Dyson: this gifted man is the “hip hop intellectual,” a world-class scholar, and the most brilliant interpreter of hip hop culture we have. But plain and simple that is what he is. He has shown those doubters and critics that hip hop is a vital arts movement created by young working-class men and women of color. Yes, our rhymes can contain violence and hatred. Yes, our songs can detail the drug business and our choruses can bounce with lustful intent. However, those things did not spring from inferior imaginations or deficient morals; these things came from our lives. They came from America.
While watching Paris By Night 88, I noticed the background photo in Hoang Oanh’s performance of “Chieu Tan” to be familiar because someone had sent it to me to be included in “Bonjour Viet Nam.” It turns out that Thuy Nga not only didn’t ask for permission to use it, but also manipulated it. How ironic is it that Thuy Nga executives have always been preaching about copying issue for years, yet they don’t practice it themselves? (Via Andy)