Paul Hindemith: When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d: A Requiem for Those We Love
Jan De Gaetani/William Stone/Atlanta Symphony Chorus & Orchestra/Robert Shaw
(Telarc)

Memorial Day started spontaneously and independently in several towns and cities in 1866 as a way of honoring soldiers who died in the Civil War by placing flowers on their graves -- thus the holiday’s old name, Decoration Day.

Vaselines: Enter the Vaselines (Sub Pop)

In 1992, in the wake of Kurt Cobain’s frequent boosting of this then-obscure Scottish band’s records, Sub Pop compiled all released material from the group’s 1986-89 existence on the CD compilation The Way of the Vaselines: A Complete History. Well, lucky for us that subtitle turned out to be inaccurate.

. . . Or the “Our 401k’s Tanked Too Tour” (rather unwieldy but a great merch tie-in!), or "Stanford Costs a Lot More Than I Thought Tour." It’s dizzying, the possibilities. So this is it, the end of the line. The five stages of grief took fourteen years to play out, but here we are finally -– acceptance. The Grateful Dead is over, done. Gone but certainly not forgotten. First, a disclaimer – I don’t review concerts or shows or bands for a living or even for a laugh. Second, I have seen the Grateful Dead well over 200 times, seen many (most) of their post-Jerry line-ups, and heard them all from the original Phil Lesh and Friends through The Other Ones, The Dead, RatDog, and even Dark Star Orchestra (whose only affiliation is that they blow all the aforementioned away in terms of recreating a Grateful Dead-like experience – you have to get around the Weir/simulacrum guy however, his stage presence is too dead-on, tics intended).

Of Montreal at The Music Hall of Williamsburg

Returning to NYC after their triumphant performance at Roseland this past October, the dancing apocalypse landed in Brooklyn this time for a three-night run of trying to cram their ten-pound floorshow onto a five-pound stage. The result: Chaos…and not the good kind they’re capable of delivering.

Seeing Of Montreal live must come with a certain understanding that their live show will vary greatly from their studio albums, trading the precision they cut on vinyl for the thrill-driven circus they’re inclined to bring to the stage.

Bob Dylan: Together Through Life (Columbia)

Dylan is now getting by on style, charm, and wit. There’s not a song on this ten-track album that will enter the pantheon, but while it’s playing it’s thoroughly enjoyable. Partly, as always, that’s because the man has a way with words. So does his co-writer (on all but one track) this time out, Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter. Little gems such as “beyond here lies nothin’ but the mountains of the past” peek out wryly from the cracks in the music.

Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir/Estonian National Symphony Orchestra/Tallinn Chamber Orchestra/Tõnu Kaljuste
Arvo Pärt: In Principio
(ECM New Series)

I have been living with this CD for over two months now, so my reaction here is not hasty. Somebody I work with called it boring, and I wanted to make sure it would stand up to repeated listening. It does. Its lack of flash is not a fault, it’s a virtue; this is noble music that unfolds majestically, but now that unfolding has more layers than it used to.

Steve Reich (1936- ), one of the pioneering Minimalist composers, received a Pulitzer Prize on Monday for his 2007 composition Double Sextet. It’s a piece I’ve only read about, as no recording of it has yet been released. But Pulitzers in the arts are as much about honoring careers as specific pieces, and this can obviously apply in the case of Reich, whose career is now in its fifth decade. His work has been a huge influence not only on classical composers but on rock and electronic music as well. Here’s a quick guide to ten albums that, taken as a group, offer a view of his stylistic development while including his most important and most artistically rewarding works.

Bessie Smith, born April 15, 1894 (though census records conflict) in Chattanooga, Tennessee, wasn't the first female blues singer, but she was called the Empress of the Blues for good reason. She rose from poverty (orphaned by the age of nine) by joining Ma Rainey's Rabbit Foot Minstrels in 1912; by the time Bessie made her first recordings, she had developed most of her mature style. Soon after, she was the highest-paid black entertainer in the country. Smith was a big woman with a big, powerful voice to match, not merely loud but truly full. Her phrasing featured slides and scoops that lent expressiveness to her singing and variety to the simple melodies -- and helped her disguise a narrow vocal range.

Les Claypool: Of Fungi and Foe (Prawn Song)

Be it with the band Primus or on his own, singer/bassist/songwriter Les Claypool has always been a weird dude. And we mean that in the best possible way. His off-kilter bass playing and nasal vocals may be distinctive, but it’s how he uses them in conjunction with equally odd guitar tones, strangely satirical story lyrics, and untraditionally timed rhythmic instrumentation that makes Claypool coolly unique in the tradition of Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart.

Time for my Spring Music Selections. I'm fixated on a rash of enchanting femme fatales that would make Nico smile. I've had quite a few opportunities to live with most of this music, having taken a much-needed break with the wife and kids in Vermont. A long drive to and from the mountains afforded me some quality listening time. Loaded up the iPod with a batch of new discs and just kept on chooglin'. These discs should help thaw the last bit of winter blues as we New Yorkers scramble for sunlight and the promise of warmer days. For those of you in more hospitable climates already witnessing early spring, they will be grand companions as well.

Jimmy Stevens: Don't Freak Me Out (RSO)

If some of the books you should read get judged by their covers, then sadly the same applies to certain albums you should hear. Jimmy Stevens released his in 1973, in a sleeve that can only be politely described as utilitarian. The design doesn't make a dynamic impression, and since the record isn't well known, packaging becomes sole reason for the uninitiated to consider it afresh.

I resisted weighing in on the 15-albums note that was recently one of the hottest memes on Facebook. As I remarked to one friend, I didn’t think 150 would suffice. I was being facetious, but guess what? I was right. I needed 155, spread across ten categories. What can I say? Moderation is not one of my character traits. I did show some restraint, however: blues could be two categories, acoustic and electric; R&B could be another two, soul and funk; classical could be vocal and instrumental, as could jazz.

Gerald Watkiss: Purgatory and Paradise (Pye)

Fashion is a cruel mistress, one that treats talent with little respect. It isn't just in couture houses that the effort of yesterday is quickly rendered obsolete. Just as nobody would be seen in last year's flair of inspiration, so too can music be a classic victim of the fickle-hearted and the fashionably fearful. The shame of lending one's ears to sounds that might raise a derisory smile from the lips of those whose opinions appear to matter, albeit briefly, can be perilous to both the listener and the artist who takes one or two steps beyond the current boundaries of accepted taste.

Morrissey: Years of Refusal (Lost Highway)

The much misrepresented man returns with an album in his fiftieth year. Those with conventional expectations who would like to wallow in a dollop of gray and sorrowing songs from the perceived maestro of misery will be bitterly disappointed with the serving of throbbing insistence on their plate. Morrissey is in a spirited mood. One dares to infer that he is happy, because on the evidence here, he most certainly sounds it.

Final Fantasy and Grizzly Bear at Howard Gilman Opera House, 2/28/09

Last Saturday night, Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Howard Gilman Opera House played host to a very special lineup of performers, Final Fantasy and Grizzly Bear accompanied by the Brooklyn Philharmonic. This was not a rock show; it was, in Final Fantasy’s words, an “exercise in trust.”

Final Fantasy is the solo project of Owen Pallett, a multi-instrumentalist who has arranged strings for Arcade Fire, the Last Shadow Puppets, and Grizzly Bear.

U2: No Line on the Horizon (Island)

Oddly, U2 is very predictable in its bad-album output. It’s always the last album of the decade: Rattle and Hum in 1988, Pop in 1997, and now No Line on the Horizon in 2009. I suppose one bad album per decade is forgivable, but when you’re only making three per decade, it hurts more. Based on the past two decades, it seems that Bono only has two albums’ worth of good songs every ten years.

Estonian composer Arvo Pärt (b. 1935) has become one of the most popular composers of our time. For a long time he was an obscure figure to all but the most in-the know mavens of the classical avant-garde. Then, 25 years ago, ECM owner/producer Manfred Eicher found Pärt's music so compelling that he started a classical division, New Series, to put it out (certainly no other labels were rushing to do so at the time). ECM’s marketing savvy and devoted following have provided Pärt more and hipper exposure than pretty much any classical composer who hasn’t written movie soundtracks or operas. Since 1984, a few other record labels have joined the cause, but ECM often makes the first recordings of major new Pärt compositions, the exceptions usually being choral pieces receiving their disc premieres under the direction of longtime Pärt boosters Paul Hillier (whose non-ECM work has been released by Harmonia Mundi) or Tõnu Kaljuste (an ECM stalwart who’s also recorded for Virgin Classics).

The Vern Woodhead Ensemble
Freddy’s Bar & Grill, 2/22/09

The Vern Woodhead Ensemble is currently playing venues such as Freddy’s Bar & Grill in Brooklyn, but it is only a matter of time before this outer-borough gem is smuggled over the East River and into the established concert halls of Manhattan.

Magazine at Manchester Academy One, February 17, 2009

Proust never was one for the rock and roll -- it simply hadn't been invented -- but the most immaculate of consumptives would have sympathized with the strange relationship between performers and their public. The remembrance of former glories related to youth's often unrealistic expectations, and the ever-present grief over things that wither and die, would have rested heavily on his heart. The audience members for tonight's spectacle are returning after a quarter of a century; largely male and middle-aged, their waistlines have widened and their hairlines receded.

Keith Jarrett/Gary Peacock/Jack DeJohnette: Yesterdays (ECM)

Pianist Keith Jarrett, smart enough to recognize a good thing when he hears it, give us his twentieth recording (nineteenth as leader) with what may be the best configuration that he’s played with over the course of his long career: the so-called Standards Trio of himself, double-bassist Gary Peacock, and drummer Jack DeJohnette.

Flame: Queen of the Neighborhood (RCA)

Flame, one of those briefly beguiling bands born out of a punk-garage sensibility but whose roots reached well beyond the limitations suggested by that particular tag, seemed destined for stadium rewards. Flame was fronted by the divinely lipped Marge Graham, who, on account of being a real woman, had the natural attributes that Steve Tyler, Mick Jagger, and a truckload of less gifted pouters and poseurs have been trying to appropriate for as long as rock has rolled.

Though it may seem that the classical music niche is shrinking each year, there is a contrary movement in that there is more classical music being marketed to avoid that tag. While it saddens me a bit to see “classical” come to be seen as a commercial kiss of death, what matters most is that the music find an audience, and tastefully imaginative marketing that achieves that goal can only help the genre survive. So if your initial reaction to things on this list is that they belong elsewhere, think again!

Cheap Trick. Of Rockford, Illinois.

Why? Well, if you really want the answer, stop reading this damn article and put on the entire Cheap Trick at Budokan, reissued by Epic/Sony with outtakes not on the original vinyl, and a DVD. Don’t take it off until you’ve heard the entire thing five times, all the way through. But, on the odd chance that you aren’t going to do that, read on.

The best place to start when considering all the great things Cheap Trick is, is to catalog what they’re not.

Gary Willis: Slaughterhouse 3/Actual Fiction

Mr. Willis has brought the electric bass beyond the now historic Pastorius/Vitous frontier and into new sonic territory. The music world has taken note of this with an Ibanez fretless signature bass, three Hal Leonard Willis-penned books, and a reputation the modest Willis endures graciously. The genius of Willis is in his departure from the known Clarke-to-Wooten parameters.

Eugene Ormandy/The Philadelphia Orchestra: The Original Jacket Collection (SonyBMG Masterworks)

My favorite classical reissue of 2008. Oh, there were rarer items (most, maybe even all, of the performances here had already appeared on CD), and more adventurous repertoire, granted reissue, but none I play more frequently or love so much as this limited edition ten-CD set. And, I admit, it gains points with me for finally placing Columbia’s most prolific conductor up there among the label’s other big names honored in this series (Bernstein, Stravinsky, Horowitz).

Jacob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (February 3, 1809 - November 4, 1847) was probably the greatest child prodigy composer that music has ever seen, even compared to Mozart (an estimation made by famed author Goethe, friend of Mendelssohn's teacher Carl Friedrich Zelter). Felix was born into a well-to-do family, grandson of esteemed philosopher Moses Mendelssohn and son of banker Abraham Mendelssohn. The youngster had every advantage, not least a spectacularly advanced education from an early age. He was almost immediately a superb pianist who entertained the cream of Berlin society at cultural gatherings in the Mendelssohn house, where he sometimes had a small orchestra to test out his compositions.

1. Gétatchèw Mèkurya and the Ex: Gétatchèw Mèkurya and the Ex & Guests (Ethiosonic)

This DVD was by far my favorite release this year. Venerable Dutch post-punk experimentalists teamed up with Ethiopian sax innovator Gétatchèw Mèkurya for a mind-bending, improvisatory take on modal Ethiopian pop from the ‘70s with a bracing dose of buzzsaw guitars and other skronky treats. The same lineup came to NYC this summer and was my personal concert-going highlight of the year.

Steven Grossman: Caravan Tonight (Mercury)

"It ain't what you do but the way that you do it" is a perfect adage for the brief career of Steven Grossman, who didn't do very much except make an album called Caravan Tonight. It didn't shift in unit-crunching amounts, although Stephen Holden of Rolling Stone hailed it as "one of the most auspicious singer-songwriter debuts of the '70s." What makes Grossman unusual was his brave honesty. He was the first openly gay artist signed to a major label, although the more contentious Jobriath was first to release an album.

There always was something terribly disingenuous about Boy George. A trannie for grannies and little girls, he was like a Japanese rag doll, cute and safe, all ribbons and bows. The glorious shock waves that greeted his early '80s debut on Top of the Pops now seems quaintly bizarre. What was that? A boy or a girl? Suddenly a member of London's club land underworld was in the living rooms of Britain. The china rattled, and respectable people expressed a genuine horror.

The level of success that fell his way was enormous. The pressure of fame came quickly. Global and unrelenting, it was all too much, and much too soon.

The music of Obama’s inauguration, mostly from the concert at the Lincoln Memorial two nights earlier, is hardly as important as the event it was decorating, but certain aspects of it fascinated me. I decided to mix up text and video in an overview moving from best to worst.

Pete Seeger, Tao Rodríguez, Bruce Springsteen, choir - “This Land Is Your Land”

The finale of the inaugural concert as introduced by Bruce (who accompanied on acoustic guitar and occasionally added harmony vocals): “The greatest song ever written about our home.” Pete’s voice is not what it used to be – after all, the man is going to turn 90 years old on May 3 – but his grandson Tao Rodríguez’s powerful voice carried the words just fine.