Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Glenn Miller- Hot Time In the Town of Berlin

















Victory at last.

At the intermission of a recent show by The Count Basie Orchestra, a woman regaled me with a tale of how she'd hired Glenn Miller to play a dance in Ohio. He was her favorite artist and she still seemed astounded that the performance only cost her $500. I was astounded once I tallied the years- Miller was killed when his plane went down in Europe in 1944. "Hot Time" is a fascinating bit of musical propaganda was recorded for a domestic radio broadcast on April 22, 1944, eight months before Miller's plane disappeared. This CD contains an hour of such recordings.

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Camera Obscura sure are grumpy. The Scottish band seemed miserable as they played to a capacity crowd in Kansas City last night. An occasional smile wouldn't have hurt; neither would stage patter other than complaints about the lights and sound. I was impressed, though, by their ability to replicate the lush sound of their recordings. The four girls in opening act Pony Up looked like high school kids, so much so that they reminded me of Smoosh, the fun children's band from Oregon. Pony Up is capable of playing a thrilling twenty-minute set, but their 45 minutes set exposed their weaknesses.

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Kansas City Clicks: I've seen The Wild Women of Kansas City perform in churches, parks and bars. The church gigs are best, perhaps because the incomparable Myra Taylor's bawdy antics seem so out of place in houses of worship. They're back in church tonight at Unity Temple On the Plaza.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love, love Country. It's been in my player for weeks. Glad to hear they're capable of getting that gorgeous sound outside the studio, too.

Nice Glenn Miller tune!

Happy In Bag said...

An amusing review of the show was written by my pal Jason. I don't disagree with his assessment.