The 10th
Welcome,
I'm Stefan, and this is the tenth edition of Looking For The Good Stuff, conceived and written at my HQ in Berlin, Germany. Just like Oscar Wilde, I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.
Make someone happy
Broadway is probably not the first that comes to mind when thinking about Aretha Franklin’s musical legacy. Nevertheless, she recorded quite a few of the classics from the 1920’s and onwards.
In the latest episode of Broadway to Main Street, Larry Maslon presents more than 50 minutes of Aretha singing selections from the Broadway songbook. The show starts with “It ain’t necessarily so” (from “Porgy and Bess”) and ends with “Somewhere” (from “West Side Story”).
A walk in the Black Forest and a trip to Bavaria
MPS (Musik Produktion Schwarzwald), created by Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer in 1968, is one of the best-known and most respected German and European jazz record labels. In the latest edition of his newsletter From Astaire to Sun Ra, Tyler King gives an introduction to the pre-history and the early years of MPS.
He also writes about Manfred Eicher and some of his work at Calig before he started ECM (Edition of Contemporary Music) together with Manfred Scheffner and Karl Egger in in 1969. The next issue will take a dip into the beginnings of ECM and the records that were produced in the early ‘70s.
An oldie but still a goodie
Radiooooo is a musical time machine that give access to marvelous music from current and previous countries in the world, from the early 1900’s until today. It is also a good place to discover new favourites! It is a curated collection of music that is open for contributions. And it is perfectly legal.
Gustav Winckler’s cover of Dean Martin’s “Everybody loves somebody sometimes”, “Ciocănitoarea” by Aura Urziceanu, Kiều Oanh’s “Đêm Cuối Cùng”, included in volume one of the compilation Saigon Supersound and “West al ghabat” by Al Massrieen are but a few of my recent findings!
That's all for today. The next issue will leave the nest tomorrow.
All the best,
Stefan