A couple of my favourite music videos

As Christmas Day enters its final minutes (in my time zone anyway) I've been watching some You Tube music videos.

Here are links a couple of my favourites: a vintage 1930s film of the Quintet of the Hot Club of France featuring the master Django Reinhardt with the pretty good Stephane Grappelly, and a more recent one (despite the b&w retro look) of the Japanese group Sweet Hollywaiians playing "Milenberg Joys" (watch the guy on the steel guitar).

Update early Boxing Day: the Django Reinhardt video was originally posted here together with some succinct background notes.

Guitar Festival

Over the weekend I went to two outdoor concerts of the inaugural Adelaide Guitar Festival.

On Friday night Slideshow: masters of the slide guitar featured Vishwa Mohan Bhatt , the irrepressible Bob Brozman , Kerryn Tolhurst, Jeff Lang , Lucky Oceans (a great pedal steel guitar player though perhpas better known in these parts as presenter of ABC RN's The Daily Planet ), Charlie Owen and, a late replacement for some no-shows, Dave Hole.

On Saturday Culture of Kings explored the roots , development and some current trends in blues music. The program featured five top notch performers: Mamadou Diabate, Alvin Youngblood Hart,Jeff Lang (again), Fiona Boyes, and the veteran John Hammond.

Two great evenings. I'd only intended to go on Friday but it didn't take much to lure me back on Saturday, when it was warmer than Friday, a fact noted by John Schaefer , the NYC guitar aficionado and DJ who MCed on each night.

The artists IMO varied from enjoyable to excellent, with most being at or well towards the excellent end of the spectrum. The organisers did a good job, too. The two big screens and nifty camerawork made it possible to watch the performers in close up, and thus to appreciate them even more.

For reviews of the two concerts see InDaily ,The Independent Weekly's email newsletter . The Australian also ran a curmudgeonly but thankfully brief survey of the whole Festival.

The organisers of Womadelaide, whose 2008 program was launched this week, should take a leaf out of the Guitar Festival's book and invest in some big screens. If they don't the audiences for Mamadou Diabate will be shortchanged robbed by not being able to watch his magnificent finger (and thumb) work on the kora except through binoculars. And I'm sure that he won't be the only performer to whom this comment applies.

Farewell Luciano Pavarotti

Although he visited Australia several times, I never saw Luciano in person, though I have heard his magnificent voice on CD. My favourite is his portrayal of the Duke in the 1971 Rigoletto with Joan Sutherland conducted by Richard Bonynge. If you get a chance to listen to it (my version is Decca 414 269 - 2) do so. If you're not accustomed to listening to whole operas, try "Questa o quella..." (CD1 track 3). If you don't agree that operatic singing doesn't (cannot?) get much better than this I'd like to know. Oh, and Ms Sutherland is very good, too.

There are many tributes and obituaries online, for example this from The Times, which has links to some recordings and videos.