Sick and tired of hearing me? Well, I am, so here are some of the Vietnamese blogs I recommend:

Vietnamese young generation should take note from MsNguyen’s reflection of Tet:

I love Tết to the point that my heart aches when knowing other Vietnamese discard it, throw it away from the window like it has no significance to their existences and identities at all. It hurts when other Vietnamese would pick up Christmas and Thanksgiving as deemed important and cultural “superior” than Tết, as if it’s a “cool” and “culturally assimilated” trend.

TTBlue on Le Minh Son:

Le Minh Son recently release a new album that he composed/sang/produced at the same time labled “Gieng Lang.” I’ve yet to decide whether to subject myself to another round of torture of call it off altogether. After so many disappointments, it’s hard to give it a go.

HmL’s hooked on Ngoc Ha:

In this compilation of Pre-War music (Nhạc Tiền Chiến), Ngọc Hạ seems to be in her natural elements, where she is allowed to “paint” with her voice. These are not necessarily popular songs, some arguably considered semi-classical (“bán cồ điển;” more on this in a bit!) They however are songs by which serious singers are judged (against the likes of Thái Thanh and Thanh Thúy). Ngọc Hạ make them all seem effortless!

Does it take an American to do Vietnamese music justice? Good question. Although I am flattered that a foreign musician such as Lorn Leber would take Vietnamese well-known ballads and jazzed them up, he didn’t push Falling Autumn far enough for the aficionados. On the opening “Winter Night,” the smooth saxophone plays the exact written melody. It takes the guitar half way into the tune to play some departed improvisation. “Rain in Sai Gon, Rain in Ha Noi” is the only number that Leber reconstructs the original and makes it his own. While the bluesiness in “The Stranger in Me” saved the track from being a hot-tub jazz—thanks to the hypnotic bass lines and gorgeous keyboard licks—the rest have fallen into that category. Placing Leber’s rendition of “My Funny Valentine” and “Autumn Leaves” against Miles Davis’s, the difference is between the sky and the abyss.

Le Minh Son is no doubt a multi-talented musician. With solid albums like Tung Duong’s Chay Tron, Ngoc Khue’s Ben Bo Ao Nha Minh, and Thanh Lam’s Nang Len, he proved to be a skillful songwriter, imaginative producer, and inventive guitarist in his own right. Now he wants to demonstrate he could sing—not quite. With the exception of Thanh Lam’s contribution on “Sau Bao,” he uses his own grumpy old voice to express himself in Gieng Lang, his latest album. After listening to Le Minh Son, I wonder where Thanh Lam got her overemotional style. When he reaches the high octave, the bottle-breaking screech in his voice is “À Í [Ẹ]” (and I thought Trong Tan’s rendition was bad). Le Minh Son should have just done his part behind the scene, and let Tung Duong helps him get his message across, even the most personal “Ga Trong Nuoi Con,” more effectively.

Nowadays young singers love to cover old tunes, yet they do more damage than good to the beloved ballads. To my surprise, Thy Dung who was unknown to me is not one of them. Her album, Xua, featured a dozen of refreshing reinterpretations including Nguyen Trung Cang’s “Da Khuc,” Le Uyen Phuong’s “Tinh Khuc Cho Em” (a delicious duet with Hien Thuc), Viet Anh’s “Khong Con Mua Thu,” and Trinh Cong Son’s “O Tro.” Switching between up-tempo jams and soul-soothing grooves, Thy Dung exhales a new plume of smoke into the standards with her weed-puffing timbre and slight-intoxicating flow. On the medley “Toi Yeu Cuoc Doi,” she comes out swinging and enjoying every single moment as if life only lasts sixty years. Life sure is short, but she seems to make the most out of it on this album.

Thuy Duong is apparently very sleepy and lazy according to most listeners, and the latest criticisms of her returning to Asia’s Bon Mua is no exception. While most singers drown their soul into their performances, Thuy Duong sounds and seems like she’s rather doing anything else but singing and pleasing the audience. Like many listeners, I had snored on her albums a couple of times. Yet, it is the power of ease, which I have learned to fall in love with, that gives her a style of her own.

Thuy Duong is beyond relaxed. She has not yet sung an up-tempo tune. She never pushes her voice. She never uses vibrato, nor does she wants to. What she has accomplished, however, no one dares to come near. She is capable of creating an opposite attraction instantaneously between her voice and her flow. While her languorous delivery appears soothing, her sharp, needling timbre cuts deep into the emotional core. In other words, she can put her cold hand on your heart and still shock you like water touches electricity.

If I have to pick one song to describe her, Truc Ho’s “Trai Tim Mua Dong” would be it. Although Don Ho had swept our hearts with his warm, soulful rendition, it was his gentleness and kindness that won our pity. Thuy Duong’s version, which had been overlooked, has nothing to do with sympathy. She sings in such a cold-hearted condition that people couldn’t find their way into the sentimental state underneath. In the opening line, “Ta gap nhau trong muon mang,” Don Ho might refer to a woman who’s leaving him to walk down the isle with another man, but the woman in Thuy Duong’s version is about to leave this world. In the closing line, “Nen danh om tron mot moi tinh cam,” he might holds that painful part forever in his heart, but she holds it forever in her dead.

Thuy Duong’s style is so cold that you have to be damn near frozen to get in. If you want to be broken in, seclude yourself to her Khuc Thuy Du released by Asia Entertainment. The title track alone would give you a startling chill. When she sings, “Hay noi ve cuoc doi / Khi toi khong con nua / Se lay duoc nhung gi / Ve ben kia the gioi / Ngoai trong vang ma thoi,” the frostiness in her voice suggests that dying is as painless as breathing.

Thuy Duong’s technical skill is quite interesting. To the average ears, she displays none because she hardly takes on high notes. When she does, she would stop abruptly at a certain level and let the air fills up the meter instead of letting her voice vanishes into a diminuendo. Most of the time, she stays in the middle register and leaves plenty of empty space in between the bars. In a way, her voice reminds me of Miles Davis’s Harmon mute. They trimmed away the unnecessary details and developed a stack, hesitant style. Their gruff and chilling sounds are best suiting for an intimate setting. Just imagine her voice accompanied by his closed trumpet in a small café with the weather plunged below zero outside.

Both Frontmedia and Cinnamon Interactive are organized, clean and surprisingly simple. While Frontmedia is fluid and slick in Flash, Cinnamon Interactive is hot and spicy in css.

College Years

Reading this post reminded me of my good old college days. The phrase “1 hour in class equivalent to 3 hours of study time” is way exaggerated. I hardly spent any time reading during college. In fact, after my freshman year, I stopped buying textbooks. They were a waste of money and I never read them. So how did I get through college? Of course I didn’t get straight As but some As and Bs were not bad for not reading textbooks either. First of, I never missed class time. Yes, it was very important not to missed class because my C grades turned into B with perfect attendants. Secondly, I listened carefully to the lectures and wrote down all the notes. At night, I would revised my notes to make it clearer and readable. The night before exam, I would spent three to four hours studied my notes. Yes, it worked every time. Well, except for one History class. I had a 12:30 class and my professor put me to sleep everyday with his monotone. The class started out with 19 students. Two weeks later, there was 11 left. After I bombed the first 2 exams in a row, I knew it was time for me to withdraw. I received a W on my report card but it didn’t effect my gpa. I had to take an extra class the following semester to make up for it. I still remember it till this day. Other than that, I was doing good.

InspirAsian
Asian designers that inspired me: Yugo Nakamura, Gicheol Lee, Chris Dang and Hien Nguyen. I know there’s a lot more fantastic asian designers out there; however, these guys just came to my mind for the moment.

Rồi em cất bước ra đi
Tim anh giá băng hồn anh chết lặng
Em đã ra đi không nói năng chi
Anh nhớ mãi dáng em thiên thần

Thanks for leaving a deep, gorgeous voice in our hearts. Now that your spirit is truly free, fly high my dear, but please keep singing for the rest of us who are still here trapped.

Many musicians had recorded “Body and Soul,” but Coleman Hawkin’s version remains one of the most renowned saxophone solos in jazz. The tone is simply gorgeous. Hawkins assumed that listeners were aware of the familiar tune; therefore, he set the melody aside and just dropped his soulful improvisation over the 32-bar rhythm section.

Based on the harmonies of George Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm,” Duke Ellington composed his colorful “Cotton Tail” in a 32-bar form. Within six brief choruses, Duke and his Orchestra pumps out tremendous energy from Ben Webster’s vigorous solos on the tenor, to imaginative sax soli, to the call-and-response patterns between the brass and reeds section. What grabs my attention, though, is Ellington’s little stride solo (at 1:57) in the fourth chorus. Duke’s the man.

I am “In the Mood” for a sweet, light swing from Glenn Miller and his Orchestra. What I am feeling is the simple yet effective use of shifting dynamic levels. Even though the tone is not bluesy, the structure is a straightforward 12-bar blues. Dig the typical call-and-response effects between reeds and brass sections and the rising chromatic phrases of the trumpet at the tag ending.