The good old downtown Lancaster is where I grew up and The George Washington University is where I am currently at.

You have to be a Miles’s freak to get through The Complete On The Corner Sessions. The six-disc set, which clocks in almost seven hours, details the experimentation of electric Miles. The music goes nowhere (no chord progression and no harmonic variation) as if the group just played until they wanted to stop. From the funk grooves to rock riffs to alien noises, the tracks still sound as fresh as when they were recorded more than thirty years ago. Miles obviously was ahead of his time.

NPR discusses jazz standard:

One essential quality of a standard is timelessness. Good tunes often evoke the era in which they were written, and then resonate for years to come. Many were widely popular right from the start, touching millions of listeners across all demographics.

Listen to the program here.

Thelonious Monk. The first word comes to mind is originality. Even when he played a ballad, he made it his own. In Monk’s Dream, he reinvented the soothing “Body & Soul” with his unique, fractured chord changes. The second word comes to mind is witty. His improvisation on “Bolivar Blues” sounded like a child hitting one key at a time, yet the sequence is brilliant. He was indeed a genius with a sense of humor. Monk’s Dream also displays the fantastic collaboration between Charlie Rouse’s fluidity and Monk’s angularity.

What is there left for musician’s musician Tuan Ngoc to prove? He has a profound influence on the new generation of singers. Like Jay-Z, he is married to one of the hottest chicks in the game. Most important of all, he gets the utter respect from both musicians and listeners from in and out of Viet Nam. As a result, it is not a surprise that he turned toward nostalgia in his liveshow Rieng Mot Goc Troi.

Backed up by a full-size orchestra, Tuan Ngoc performed songs of Trinh Cong Son, Ngo Thuy Mien, Tu Cong Phung, Pham Duy, Doan Chuan and Tu Linh like taking a trip down to memory lane. In “Ngam Ngui,” his voice was gentle but filled with emotion and he knew how to make the lyrics into a personal statement. “Khuc Thuy Du” and “Phoi Pha” were both remorseful and doomed as if he had been through it all in life, and he had the damnedest way of breaking down the lyrics. On the light-swing “Ghen” and sensual-bossa nova “Ao Lua Ha Dong,” he gave a Sinatra-liked, offbeat, cool flavor. Mad props to Hoai Sa, a sufficient jazz pianist, for some savory, delightful touches on the right hand.

His signature “Rieng Mot Goc Troi” remained unmatchable. Despite how many times he had sung it, he still cut to the emotional core of the tune in a way that makes you believe he meant everyone word he delivered. The closeout “Moi Ngay Toi Chon Mot Niem Vui” was a wise choice that left the audience something to take away with.

Tu Ngan Ka writes in Thanh Nien:

In 2006, Donny set up a [slideshow] where people can enjoy beautiful images of Vietnam and a lovely song called “Bonjour Vietnam” written by French songwriter Marc Lavoine and performed by Pham Quynh Anh, a Vietnamese Belgian.

Donny completed a course in digital arts and multimedia design in 2001 at La Salle University in Philadelphia in the US. He is now working at Vassar College in New York.

Designing websites allows him to work and improve his creativity.

Passionate about designing websites and fond of folk songs about Vietnamese villages, he set up visualgui.com in the hope of sharing his knowledge of website design as well as reviews of Vietnamese songs written in Vietnam and abroad.

“Bonjour Vietnam” is just one of the slideshows that Donny has compiled.

He’s amazed how popular his sites are amongst young people.

“Perhaps, we have a shared idea and deep love for Vietnam,” he said. “It is a process of sharing.”

“The Words” NPR profiles jazz lyricists:

Songs can have an effect like no other art form. Great lyricists put in the heart and soul, and master interpreters add the flesh and blood, forging the combination of words and music that makes up the magic of songcraft.

A tribute to “The Singing Instrumentalists“:

Many jazz horn players cite vocalists as their main influence in developing a personal sound. In turn, many vocalists are as inspired by instrumentalists as they are by other singers.

Both “The Words” and “The Singing Instrumentalists” are highly recommended for aspiring jazz singers.

The new site for GWSB’s Graduate Programs has launched. It looks clean and simple, but has a few functional issues since the site was designed by a design agency, not a web shop. You can tell by the pop-up menus, the top-right navigation looking like a breadcrumb trail and, most importantly, the codes.

Mission:

At Earthly Affair, we strive to give you the most original and unique wedding invitations created in the most earth friendly way possible.

Very nice, elegant web site and wedding invitations. Wonder if they have Vietnamese font.

MacBook Air: The world’s thinnest notebook.