Ah, 2020. What a year. I was gainfully employed for much of it and housebound, which meant I comfort purchased CDs at an astounding clip. My musical balance post from May indicates covered nine months and included 18 albums and three MP3 singles. Before I start tabulating the results in real time here as I write the post, I’m going to have to take the “over” bet.
Well, tuck it, I don’t know if any of you are interested in these posts, so I will once again abuse the below-the-fold feature.
Since I ordered The Birth of the Cool on May 25, I have gotten:
- A Woman Like Me by Lindsay Webster; I heard her (and still do) on heavy rotation on WSIE which is my default Internet streaming background music.
- For All We Know by Gloria Reuben with some dude. I think Charles posted something from her back in the day, which prompted me to buy her first album back then.
- Alive by Hiromi, a jazz pianist whom WSIE played once or twice.
- Spectrum by Hiromi. Why buy one when I can buy two? She actually has a number of albums in her catalog; I probably got the two least expensive.
- Battle Beast by Battle Beast.
- Steel by Battle Beast.
- Berserker by Beast in Black.
- From Hell With Love by Beast in Black. You might find it easy to confuse these two. Beast in Black was cofounded by a former guitarist from Battle Beast which explains the similarity in names perhaps. Battle Beast has a female lead vocalist; Beast in Black has a male with a relatively high voice. That should help you keep them straight.
- Echo by Keiko Matsui. An artist I heard on WSIE; I am trying to grow my collection of her albums, but her back catalog is prolific and goes back to the 1980s, so it will be a while.
- Human :II: Nature by Nightwish.
- The Deviant Hearts by Phantasma. I think I found this band whilst letting YouTube run. The lead singer was in another band I heard, but I forget which one; when I look into it, I think, “Oh, yeah!” and then I forget again.
- The Little Things by Cindy Bradley, who might be the second prettiest American trumpet player in the world.
- Bliss by Cindy Bradley.
- Bloom by Cindy Bradley. I have now completed my Cindy Bradley set, which means I own all of her albums unless she releases one soon while I am pretending to be fiscally responsible.
- Soul Quest by Keiko Matsui.
- Colors by Catie Waters, a young jazz singer in very heavy rotation on WSIE.
- Wildflower by Keiko Matsui.
- Dream Walk by Keiko Matsui. With this much of her work (but not a majority of her work), I am starting to detect similarities and motifs across her catalog which might slow my accumulation down a bit.
- The Piano by Keiko Matsui.
- East/Providence by Hiroshima. A two CD set which I’ll count as two. Like Keiko Matsui, Hiroshima’s back catalog goes back to the 1980s and looks fairly expensive. Which is a shame because I like them. But I should now have as many CDs from Hiroshima as I have LPs.
- Revolution by Damascus, a project from a guy I went to school with. A digital download.
- “Yes, I Have Ghosts” by David Gilmour. It would be nice to get another album from him; the last was On an Island which came out when I lived in Old Trees.
- Violent Allies by 10 Years. Signed because I ordered it from the artist’s Web site.
- All Wandering Hearts by Nicole Zuraitis.
- Here and Now by Erin Bode on vinyl so I could listen to it upstairs if only the damned cheap shelf-top record player had not died after six months AGAIN.
- Listen to This by Lisa Addeo who appears on WSIE from time to time. Digital download.
- A Kind of Daydream by Lisa Addeo. A digital download in a Zip file whose filenames were ultimately too long for Windows, so I had to do some surgery on them before I could extract the music.
- Thirsty Ghost by Sara Gazarek, her new CD.
- Hot Sauce by Jessy J, the saxophonist, not the pop tart.
- My One and Only One by Jessy J.
- California Christmas by Jessy J.
I’ve been ordering from the artists’ Web sites wherever possible as you can often get signed CDs or thank you notes from the artists, and I assume that the artist gets a bigger cut of it than if I order from Amazon. But I might be naive in that regard.
So how’s the balance? Of 30 albums (I am glad I took the over), we have 8 metal and 22 jazz songbirds or instrumentalists. Clearly, I was more in the mood to be mellowed and soothed than to amp up. We also have a single single (David Gilmour); that will likely change as I have some Amazon credit. Maybe I will use the credits to pick up a discounted or free digital copy of the new Amaranthe album or the newest Semblant album.
However, I am in a belt-tightened mode where I’m laying off of the impulse purchases of CDs for the nonce, so the next posting in this series might be far in the future, or it might be in a couple of months if I land some fuller time work and feel flush again. I know, poor little unfortunate me, but if I don’t purchase an artist that I discover and that I like right away, I forget about that artist (what a blessing to have so many good artists presented to me!).
For example, I recently heard on WSIE a jazz flutist from Kansas City who cited Herbie Mann as an influence. You see, I hear the song, I search the Web, I read the Web site, I impulse order or not, and then I move on. In this case, the artist has an album forthcoming but not out yet, so I didn’t order (also, I am being pseudofrugal). And then I forgot the artist’s name. I was telling my beautiful wife about her, but all I could remember was that she had a middle nickname that was something like McFlutealicious or something.
It’s only because I remembered those keywords jazz flute kansas city that I was able to find her: Amber "Flutienastiness" Underwood.
Uh, Bing?
This is not Amber Flutienastiness:
This is Amber Flutienastiness:
I know, I know; it’s my own typo (flutenastiness versus flutienastiness) that spurred the images of some other Amber (I assume). But I thought it would be a humorous throwback to the wrong Naz post.
Properly spelling it in the search reveals that she made her new album
Join us next time for these riveting tales of my conspicuous consumerism to find out how soon it will be before I buy it.
