Corby's Orbit

Corby's Orbit
Listening in All the High Places illustration by John Kricfalusi

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Gemology of Canadian Music Week and the fascinating facets of Quincy Jones

Canadian Music Week: Burning both ends not an option this year. I struggled to find time to end up having no regrets, and I believe I did really well on quality this year, but circumstances prevented the net being spread wide enough to take it all in.

Okay, here are The Gems.



Brody Dalle. Everyone said so. It`s true. Body slamming, shreiking and moaning, genome altering drummer, sunburn noise. Perfect eye makeup, too.


Saidah Baba Talibah. Fuel injected hot sauce with an Idle No More agenda, crystallized band of ferocious bedrock outcroppings, loud proud crowd control and contortionist choreography.


Full Circle. True Toronto hiphop, spreading lyrics like salt on an icy driveway, thunderous beats and instantaneous air passes with zero dribbling.


Neko Case. Giantess of country soul, crazed comedienne, along with deadpan partner Kelly Hogan, sparkplug firecracker superhero and how can one woman have so much flaming hair? Brought The Dodos too.


Quincy Jones: Bestie of Ray Charles, Sinatra, Brando and Smelly Thriller. Listen Up.
"Street is the button.", "Be-bop, Do-wop and Hip-hop. There's a reason for that.", "Producers are important, sequencing is half the secret, songs are the key, but one person brings the event to the hearts of the audience and that is the engineer or the director of photography.", ``You got to go to know``, `Michael fired me because he said I`d lost touch , because I didn`t know that rap was dead; this was in 1987.`` and ``Coincidence is God`s way of remaining anonymous`.


Kurt Elling: No, he wasn`t on the program, but he brought iceberg cool and lucid jazz dreaming, poetry and concrete to Koerner Hall Saturday, whirling nanobeats and panoramic cityscapes into the shifting timbres of his sterling voice and manner, wearing a blue suit that was absolute.

Regrets, I`ve had a few, but CMW was awesomely nice, my way, too.



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