Sweet and soulful

I must admit to being charmed by Corinne Bailey Mae. The soft jazz around which she twines her clear, delicate voice is hardly a favorite genre of mine, but she performs with such grace and style that it's irresistible. She also has the second-sweetest smile in the music industry (first prize has to go to Eddie Van Halen).

Open Letter to Van Dyke Parks

Dear Mr. Parks:

Why did you write such a messy arrangement of "It's Only a Paper Moon"? Why so many keys, so many meters, so many styles?

I mean, I get it: "a honky tonk parade, ... a melody played in a penny arcade..." But isn't illustrating that with the orchestra an insult to the song's subtlety?

Watch out, I think Harold Arlen might swat you with that rolled up sheet music.

With love,

A concerned music blogger

Back to Blackout

Herculean drug abuser Amy Winehouse showed up at the MTV European Music Awards last week with her veins pumped full of various substances besides her blood. She attempted to sing "Back to Black," but could barely stand, let alone pronounce consonants.

Event emcee Snoop Dogg went to welcome her in her dressing room, and even that king of the hip-hop lifestyle was alarmed by Winehouse and the overturned furniture strewn with her dinner and some broken plates. Reports are that he "didn't want to hang out with her after that."

Come on, Amy. You have a matchless gift. Get your butt to rehab and stay there!

Simon Sez

Bravo to Sir Simon Rattle and the BBC for their documentary series Leaving Home, on orchestral music of the Twentieth Century. The episodes are defined by topos or compositional philosophy, rather than by chronology, making for a clear overview of the knotty mass of changes that took place in music after the Romantic era.

Let's Put 'Em All Together

Queenzone reports that Mika will sing a duet with either Brian May or Rufus Wainwright at the 2008 Brit awards in February.

And I'm collecting donations for a quick trip to London...

No Tricks, No Crutches

Delighted to see Howard Jones performing an acoustic set with guitarist Robin Boult [sorry, no photo of R.B.] in the far-off village of Bay Shore, Long Island, yesterday. HoJo was in good voice and offering his usual hot ivory chops, and Boult lent a strong, musical hand with a jazz twist.

They've recast some of the old songs as mash-ups, as the kids call them, or quodlibets, as Bach called them. The best was the old HoJo classic, "Don't Always Look at the Rain," intertwined with material from Miles Davis' "So What." Not many pop musicians could manage such a thing without any digital sampling, but Jones 'n' Boult did it all live. That's why we love them!

ROY G. BIV vs iTunes

Looking forward to seeing what comes of Radiohead's radical take on selling their new album, In Rainbows. They are offering it first as download only, and the buyer can choose what to pay for it!! (you have to pay something, though).

Don't know what fans are paying, but they're sure buying: on the first day the album was available, fans shut down Radiohead.com in their mad rush to download it.

This has been hailed as a way to shake up the iTunes pricing structure, but I don't see how one band can do that. Nor could this approach help musicians who are not already millionaires, and thus able to stand the loss of revenue caused by underpricing.