Deepanjan Nag's Magnum Opus

I heard Dexter Gordon’s Tanya for the first time 23 years ago. I was hooked. I’m hearing it again as I write this post, but this time on my just-arrived Monoprice headphones. Tanya never sounded this good. I wish there were audio enthusiasts around me with whom I could share my enthusiasm. Dad?

I never had the patience to endure Beethoven's 9th Symphony. It changed yesterday. It was probably one of the most beautiful things I ever heard in my life. I've heard of meditation doing great things to the mind. Well, it can't be any better than drowning to Beethoven's music.

Listening to Beethoven’s 9th.

Felt nice that a request was finally fulfilled. I asked for Make the World Go Away by Jim Reeves . Country Crossroads didn’t have the Jim Reeves version but had another country singer’s rendition. Thanks!

I have lost the priceless music archive I had taken 3 years to build. I don't have the heart to rebuild it, the effort would be too strenuous and  overwhelming. Depressed. I had taken great pains to build it to my exact taste. So many years of diligence wasted. Can't stop feeling sorry for myself.

Most of the jazz greats known to me were introduced to me by dad. In return, I managed to do the same for him with some discoveries of my own. Stanley Turrentine was one of them. I'm listening to Turrentine as I type this post.

I’m listening to some Rabindra Sangeet sung by Shreya Guhathakurta, a brilliant singer from Kolkata who globe trots most of the time. She happens to be my senior from Fergusson College, Pune, and a family friend of a paternal relative of mine who stays in UK. When I first chatted with her, I didn’t know she was a celebrity. She dropped no hint either, such was her humility. I am surprised at my appetite for Rabindra Sangeet, which has been growing since the past few years, ever since I left India. I guess I’m missing my own culture real bad. The language of my heart finally speaks loud and clear and I am no longer deaf to it.

Pandit Ravi Shankar is no more.

Dave Brubeck passed away today. Another legend disappears.

The first tune Arihant heard after birth: Willis Conover’s unique alteration of Duke Ellington’s Take The ‘A’ Train . This is the tune I must have heard most often as a baby myself, thanks to Dad’s taste in jazz. At home, Arihant listens to classical - the usual Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky mix. We’ll incorporate some jazz soon.

An article on Willis Conover.

" the master of us all... the greatest composer that ever lived. I would uncover my head and kneel before his tomb ". What a great privilege it was for me to kneel before his tomb!

A Nightingale Sang in Barkeley Square This is a beautiful rendition by one of my favorite country singers: Mindy Smith.

My radio is almost always tuned to ClassicFM. I decided to switch to BBC Radio 3 tonight and was pleasantly surprised by what lied in store for me- a radio adaption of a play set in Calcutta of the late 1950’s. Though I was in the mood for music, I did follow the play for half its duration. The one aural flaw I managed to detect in the adaptation was the faintly and oft playing Flamenco Sketches . I remember the track vividly since it’s my all-time favorite jazz composition by Miles Davis. The album Kind of Blue was released in August, 1959. Now, if the drama is set in the late 1950’s, it’s highly unlikely that the track should be playing anywhere within the premises of the hotel where it is set. But I don’t need to be too critical to enjoy a good play. I enjoyed Chowringhee for 45mins and then ran out of patience before it could finish. Asha is preparing dosa and I feel famished.

India was never really a jazz land. Still, it’s heartening to know that there were enthusiasts around.

Why do people keep saying that Spotify Radio is just like Pandora? It’s nothing like Pandora. That most people are indifferent to the nuances of music is understandable. But I am appalled at how journalists in a hurry don’t even bother to check the facts before publishing their reviews. The web has given rise to a new crop of scribes who couldn’t care less about factual details.

This just blew me away. Thanks, Anonymous, for unearthing this asset!

My favorite jazz musician. The definitive star.