The increasingly indispensable ffolks at trrill drew my attention to this riveting Dutch page about the extreme highs and lows of the human voice. Viktor Wichniakov singing a double low G is one of the hair-raisingest things I've ever heard. The noises that Mariah Carey makes don't strike me as being actual notes, but Jonathan emphatically disagrees.
I meant to link promptly to Ben Ratliff's Times interview with jazz composer Wayne Shorter just before Christmas, but I tarried, and the story now seems to have disappeared into the abyss of the paper's pay-per-view archive. If you missed it, take my word that it was fascinating; Ratliff asked Shorter to listen and comment on a favorite CD, which, semi-surprisingly, turned out to be the complete Vaughan Williams symphonies. Puts me in mind of the fact that the ghostly jazz-like sections of Vaughan Williams' Sixth Symphony — his greatest, one of the great works of the century — was inspired by the death of an entire jazz band at the Café de Paris during the London Blitz.
Like Marion Rosenberg, I enjoy a good orgy. From 5 PM Wednesday to 7 PM Friday, you can listen, via the miracle of internet radio, to the complete works of Bartok, with an Ol' Dirty Bastard retrospective in the middle.
Addendum: Felix Salmon has ventured into the greyest murk of the Timesian abyss and uncovered a permanent link to the Wayne Shorter interview. Obrigado! Happy new year!
