Month: October 2017

“Yankee Doodle” and the Liberty Tree

Old “Yankee Doodle” song sheet, courtesy Library of Congress

I was able to go see the Boston Camerata’s performance of “Liberty Tree” yesterday. The music and performances were stunning, evocative of an extraordinarily fertile time in the nation’s creative genius. The program mixed marches and political songs, Shaker songs, spirituals, shape note music and early American compositions from the likes of Billings and Jeremiah Ingalls, to great effect.

I especially liked the reminder, in this time when even taking a different gesture of respect for the National Anthem is met with howls of outrage (when the protesters are black), that our national symbols were not always so staid. Here’s the text of the, um, atypical but historical “Yankee Doodle” verses that opened (and closed!) the show:

Sheep’s head and vinegar,
Buttermilk and tansy,
Boston is a Yankee town––
Sing Hey Doodle Dandy.

Heigh ho for our Cape Cod,
Heigh ho Nantasket,
Do not let the Boston wags
Feed your oyster basket.

Two and two may go to bed,
Two and two together;
And if there is not room enough,
Lie one atop the other.

Exfiltration Radio

We just finished another Veracode Hackathon, and this one was rock and roll themed. One of our brilliant hackers put together an Internet radio station where you could sign up for a one-hour time slot and post a playlist. Naturally, this was catnip. I spent a few hours putting together two playlists, which I’ve embedded below—one all genres and one focusing on (mostly) 21st century jazz.

Production notes: I did some processing of individual audio files through Amadeus Pro and assembled everything in GarageBand. I’m very much still learning how to crawl with the latter tool, so I hope it doesn’t stink too much.

The playlists are below. Enjoy!

  1. Orbits (Live) – Wayne Shorter (Without a Net (Live))
  2. Tangled – Idris Rahman, Leon Brichard, Emre Ramazanoglu, Yahael Camara-Onono (Ill Considered)
  3. Love What Is Mortal – Donny McCaslin (Fast Future)
  4. Be There – Leon Gardner (Spiritual Jazz)
  5. Everybody Wants to Rule the World – The Bad Plus (Prog)
  6. El Swing – Hudson (Hudson (feat. Jack DeJohnette, Larry Grenadier, John Medeski & John Scofield))
  7. I Came to See You / You Were Not There – Ahmad Jamal (Marseille)
  8. From One Island to Another – Branford Marsalis Quartet & Kurt Elling (Upward Spiral)
  9. Lathe of Heaven – Mark Turner Quartet (Lathe of Heaven)
  10. Look at Me – Cécile McLorin Salvant (For One to Love)
  11. For Amiri Baraka – Vijay Iyer Sextet (Far from Over)
  1. Sivad – Miles Davis (The Columbia Years 1955-1985)
  2. Uncloudy Day – Mavis Staples & The Staple Singers (Gospel Brunch)
  3. Where the Sun Never Goes Down – David Byrne (Music From the Knee Plays)
  4. Rotating Head (raga version) – English Beat
  5. It’s All Too Much – The Beatles (Yellow Submarine [2009 Stereo Remaster])
  6. Damaged Goods – Gang Of Four (Entertainment!)
  7. Winter ’68 – The Black Angels (The Black Angels)
  8. Ascension Day – Talk Talk (Laughing Stock)
  9. Rebecca Sylvester – Gastr Del Sol (Upgrade & Afterlife)
  10. Hey Vegas – Bows (Cassidy)
  11. Circle – Miles Davis Quintet (Miles Smiles)
  12. &&& . . . && . &&& . . – The User (Symphony #2 For Dot Matrix Printers)
  13. Farnham – Daniel Bachman (River)
  14. Life On Mars? (2003 Ken Scott Mix) – David Bowie (Nothing Has Changed (Deluxe Edition))

iOS 11: high-bitrate audio is finally here

I updated my iPhone to iOS 11 over the weekend, having first replaced or exported data from two old apps that haven’t been updated for 64 bit (I’ll miss you, Cocktails app!). And then I synced music from my Mac and noticed that I didn’t get the customary message about tracks that couldn’t be synced.

I checked and found that a whole bunch of Boston Symphony tracks purchased from their store, which I converted from FLAC to Apple Lossless but were apparently still at a too-high bitrate for iOS to handle, appear finally to be supported and were synced to my phone for the first time ever. This appears to be a feature, and may be related to the ability to play back FLAC through some apps (like iCloud Drive).

Looking forward to finally carrying all my music with me!