Shakira and Alejandro Sanz Performing La Tortura

This video clip features Shakira and Alejandro Sanz live on stage together in a concert in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which was organized in an event for fund raising in favour of some part of the population with a social disadvantage.
When we present such a kind of songs in this blog, we usually point out the lack of artistry and focus on saleability of these products made by an uniformly dominated international entertainment industry. Since this concert was organized for a ‘good reason’ we will be more indulgent. However, we still think that this entertainment industry is making tons of money which comes from the pockets of the fans and we are convinced that the enterprises and benefitting stars should put this money from their own pockets instead of using a cover of pretended social commitment with the sole interest of making more publicity for their signed ‘artists’ and to distort the image of a personal profit oriented business by making it appear a socially commited enterprise. Something similar happens when the record labels ask youtube to withdraw certain video clips from the world’s most important moving pictures archieve, claiming copyrights and bringing up arguments like they have to protect the interests of their signed artists when in fact these artists usually like to gain more popularity and don’t receive significant royalties.

Gamma Ray Performed by German Rock Band Birth Control

Watch this video with german rock band Birth Control performing the tune Gamma Ray, one of their most successfull songs. This is a concert from the 1970s and belongs to what people outside of Germany called Krautrock, referring to Kraut which is typical german food.
The band played in the progressive rock tradition and in this video clip is performing a concert for the german television channel WDR which organized yearly rock concerts for live transmission throughout the late seventies and early eighties. This version of the song shows only the first part of the song, usually there would begin a drum solo when this clip ends …

The Elvin Jones Trio Performing A Night in Tunesia – Jazz Standard by Dizzy Gillespie

Elvin Jones is one of the most significant jazz drummers of all times. He became famous while playing with the John Coltrane Quartet and in some occasions he has played duets with John Coltrane, for example on the album Interstellar Space which is an entire album dedicated to this saxophone-drums duet.
In the video clip featured here, Elvin Jones is playing with a guitar player and a hammond organ player: Bireli Lagrene and Joey Defrancesco. This is a relatively unusual combination of musical instruments.
The song they perform is the well known jazz standard tune A Night in Tunesia which was originally recorded by Dizzy Gillespie and his orchestra.
This recording of the song lasts about nine minutes and of course there is enough space for soloing on all instruments. Watch how Elvin Jones beats the drums, there are very few drummers out there who play with this energy and feeling.

Australian Aboriginal Music Performed on the Didgeridoo

This video clip shows an aborgin from Australia playing the typical instrument of this region of the planet: the didgeridoo. The didgeridoo produces an unique sound while the instrument itself remembers some horns played by people from other countries.
The players produce very long droning tones on this horn which is achieved by a technique called circular breathing. Circular breathing is used by musicians from different musical environments, for example by jazz trumpet and saxophone players.
The australian population counts with different tribes and each tribe has its own religious rules regarding the playing of this sacred instrument. While some tribes allow all members to play the didgeridoo, others don’t let their women play it and still others don’t allow children to play it.
The didgeridoo has made its way to the modern music environment and there are many recordings of didgeridoo sounds belonging to world music, trance, techno and other modern music styles.

Trumpet Player Dizzy Gillespie Performing A Night in Tunesia in a Show from 1958

This is a video clip showing the great jazz trumpet player Dizzy Gillespie performing the song A Night in Tunesia. The drummer on this recording is Kenny Clarke.
The song earned this title after Earl Hines suggested it to Dizzy because the melody sounded exotic and because of World War II battles, Tunisia was a well-known city in the news at the time.
Dizzy Gillespie plays a trumpet with a special form which was custom-made for him because he liked the sound he perceived when playing it. There are many legends and stories about the rare form of Dizzy’s trumpet among which the story that relates it to an accidental footstep of a guy on a birthday party seems to be one of the most believeable ones.
However, the form of Dizzy’s trumpet is not the most important thing when the conversation goes about jazz musicians and trumpet players. Nobody can have doubts about the excellent skills Dizzy shows on the trumpet. I think he is the world’s best trumpet player ever, even though I know that it is difficult to ‘proove’ this but after all it’s just a matter of taste. Some people might like Miles Davis better and still others mention Arturo Sandoval or Rafael Méndez. I would say that all of these guys are fabulous trumpet players but I like Dizzy Gillespie the best. Listen to his improvisation! You decide for yourself.

Milt Jackson Quartet Performing The Rev Live in Japan

Watch this video with the legendary vibraphone player Milt Jackson performing his composition The Rev live on stage in Japan. In this concert from 1990 he is being accompanied by Mickey Roker, Mike LeDonne and Ira Coleman.
Milt Jackson gained world popularity when playing with The Modern Jazz Quartet and is one of the best vibraphone player of the planet. The quartet here sounds great and the combination of piano, bass, drums and vibraphone results in a smooth jazz sound. The music played here shows some cool swing and is easy to enjoy, even for people who usually don’t listen to jazz music. However, there still is a great deal of improvisation in this performance.
The vibraphone is an instrument usually played with mallets. Notice that Milt Jackson is using his own mallets for playing the instrument.

Ivry Gitlis Performing the Violin Solo Sonata by Bela Bartok

This video shows Ivry Gitlis, a phenomenal violin player, performing Bela Bartok’s sonata for solo violin. Many people can’t afford this piece (and some more of the compositions written by Bela Bartok) and even think that the violin player is playing out of tune. This happens because this sonata for violin includes microtonalities which means that the composer’s material is not limited to the well known twelve tones of the tempered piano tuning but also include more tones in between the standard twelve notes. Here the space between one note and the following one on the piano is subdivided into more subtle intervals. Naturally this kind of tune cannot be played on an accoustic piano while some synthesizers and keyboards do have a ‘bend wheel’ which would allow to play this piece.
Bela Bartok can be regarded as the most important hungarian composer and has an extensive oevre with compositions for many kinds of symphonic and chamber orchestras as well as for solo instruments. He also put special emphasis on the percussion instruments. His works for piano Microcosmos and Macrocosmos are mandatory repertoire for the beginning and advanced classical piano performer. In these and other compositions Bela Bartok recovers many hungarian, romanian and other folk tunes, treating and integrating them into the concert music repertoire.

Ionisation by Edgar Varese Performed by the Ensemble InterContemporain

Watch this video with Pierre Boulez conducting the Ensembe InterContemporain for a performance of Edgar Varese’s (1883 – 1965) composition Ionisation. The music involves many percussion instruments and some rare music instruments like the siren and the lion’s roar which you can listen to as a solo instrument at 1:15 of the video clip and as part of the orchestra at 3:08. This particular version of the instrument is suspended and the performer pulls down from beneath on a string attached to the middle of the drum head.
Not only did Varese experiment with new instruments but also integrated electronic resources into his compositions, for example on the 1958 World Fair when he wrote his Poème électronique as part of the pavilion Philips had commissioned to Le Corbusier. The piece was presented over 400 speakers located in a series of rooms, with the effect that the visitors could listen to the changing sound as they moved through the rooms. This and other experiments with electronic resources gained him the nickname “Father of Electronic Music” (which is a little bit exaggerated considering composers like Karlheiz Stockhausen and many others who actually used electronically produced and synthesized sounds in their compositions) while Henry Miller described him as “The stratospheric Colossus of Sound”. However, ther can’t be no doubt about the quality of the compositions of Edgar Varese.
Some people say that this particular recording is performed much to fast, but as far as the composer is concerned he wrote no number for beats per minute, instead he left the space empty on the sheet music.
Edgar Varese was also one of the most important influences for modern music composer and rock guitar player Frank Zappa, check out the music by this legendary musician and you will clearly hear the influence of the french composer in Frank’s music.

Black Sabbath Performing their Superhit Paranoid

This video shows the famous british hard rock and heavy metal band Black Sabbath performing their greatest hit called Paranoid. This band appeared on the music scene in 1968 under the name of Polka Tulk Blues Band, and rapidly became very popular, landing several hits in the top ten charts of the time. The band’s original line up counted with Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler , Tony Iommi and Bill Ward. Black Sabbath has been an influence to bands like Pantera, Megadeth, Motorhead, Judas Priest, Soundgarden, Slayer or Metallica have continued the dark style of Black Sabbath.
The band forced Ozzy Osbourne to leave in 1979 due to problems related to drug addiction. Black Sabbath however did continue to play concerts with different musicians as group members, until the year of 1997 when the band had its comeback with the original members. This group played from 1997 to 2006.
An interesting detail is that the guitar player of the group suffered an accident while working in a factory. This incident cost him two fingers but he used some plastic from old bottles as prothesis. In order to play the guitar he had to lower the tension of the strings, changing the standard tuning to one that allowed him to continue with his musical career. Since the bass player of the group adopted the same tuning, the specific dark sound of Black Sabbath was born.

Kongar-ol Ondar Performing Throat Singing together with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones

This video clip shows an amazing singer from Mongolia called Kongar-ol Ondar who is performing some incredible vocal music: in some parts of the tune he sings three notes together. And there are no overdubs or playback! He is performing together with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, but on this particular song he is singing a capella (which means vocal music or singing without accompaniment). Kongar-ol Ondar doesn’t need any accompaniment because he acompanies himself with his other voices. lol.
This technique is called throat singing and originally comes from the russian republic of Tuva, the technique is also practised by the people from Mongolia. It seems to be difficult to learn it, teachers say that it takes about 10 minutes to explain it and lots of hours of practice.
Bela Fleck and the Flecktones have been playing for over 14 years now, performing shows in genres like bluegrass, jazz and fusion. Bela Fleck himself plays the electric banjo and the group likes to be creative. They never play the same show twice in a row and like to bring in new elements like they do here with the throat singing of Kongar-ol Ondar.
If you like to listen to more throat singing and vocal music videos, feel free to visit this page with more examples.