Believe it or not my listening was all over the place this week. I had a school board meeting on Monday night so I was able to spend some time in my downstairs office spinning some vinyl. I picked up the debut album by country group Midland on vinyl off of Amazon a little bit ago, so that was on tap.
My listening in my office at work has been much more subtle. Things that I can lightly play in the background and really not pay too much attention to them. The fact that I know they are there in the background gets me through the day though.
Here is a some of the mellow stuff that I have been checking out.
I've been a fan of Diana Krall for quite a while now. When I was in high school I was really into the big band sound. Beyond that, I didn't really know much about Jazz besides Kenny G because he was popular at the time.
It wasn't until this CD magically showed up in our mailbox one day that I really started getting into Jazz music. It was a free album from AT&T (maybe one of the only good things they ever did) and it was filled with a handful of standards that I soon grew to love.
From there I started to branch out and really dig into some of the more contemporary artists. If you know Jazz, you know it has many facets and I am not really sure how you would categorize this style. It's different from the Coltrane/Brubeck style, but still very much Jazz.
Krall is one of my favorite and fun fact, she is married to Elvis Costello, so that makes her even cooler in my book!
It never fails when I start listening to Diana Krall it always leads me to listening to some Shelby Lynne and vice versa.
She has some relatively famous songs including this one. She has some pretty cool collaborations out there as well if you do a search for her on YouTube. I mean, Willie Nelson, need I say more?
I really like her slow southern style in this song. She has a phenomenal voice and the only think I don't really like about her is the fact that I didn't know about her sooner.
If you like this style of music, Shelby Lynne is a deep deep rabbit hole you could find yourself lost in.
Finally, I would be remiss not to point out that pretty much the entire latter half of my week was spent listening to Buena Vista Social Club. They are just so cool. I have been trying to find some of their stuff on vinyl, but the prices are just insane on eBay. I might have to settle for a cheap Amazon repress if I can find one.
That or maybe I will get lucky in a garage sale or record store some day. The problem with record stores is they usually know when they have something valuable. The same is true with flea markets. The Internet has made it much harder to find those awesome deals because buyers and sellers alike know how to do their research.
This is another group that if you start listening to them it can really lead you down a path of other amazing artist. Spotify even threw in some Gilberto and Getz after all of the BVSC albums were finished playing.
Great stuff!
If you have been listening to something awesome let me know about it in the comments. Better yet, write your own post and use the #weeklyspins tag!
Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports
