Sunday 31 August 2008

Tina Turner readies tour companion album

With her massive comeback tour set to unfold in October, Tina Turner [ ] has announced a passing date for an approaching greatest hits album and "digital fellow traveler" to the trek.

Due in stores Sept. 30, the day before Turner's world tour launches in Kansas City, MO, the 18-track "Tina!" features songs the legendary isaac M. Singer plans to perform during her forthcoming concerts, including hits from throughout her career and two new and undivided tracks, "It Would Be a Crime" and "I'm Ready."

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The picnic is set to hit 23 North American cities through December, jumping to Europe for another play of shows early future year. US and Canadian dates are below, while Turner's oversea dates crapper be set up at her website.

The 68-year-old performer proclaimed her retirement from touring eight days ago, only after telling "Proud Mary" with Beyonce at February's Grammy Awards, she threw her fans a curveball, announcing inside information of the planned comeback trek on the May 12 episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show."

Turner's most recent studio album, "Twenty Four Seven," surfaced in 1999. Last fall, the eight-time Grammy winner released "Celebrate: The Best of Tina Turner," a 95-minute DVD interpreted from a 1999 concert that celebrated her sixtieth birthday.

The legendary singer has sold 170 million records during her career, according to her bio, and is one of the most successful female rock and roll artists of all time.


[Note: The following tour dates have been provided by artist and/or tour sources, who verify its truth as of the publication time of this story. Changes may occur earlier go on sale. Check with official artist websites, ticketing sources and venues for late updates.]

October 20081 - Kansas City, MO - Sprint Center3, 4 - Chicago, IL - United Center6 - Rosemont, IL - Allstate Arena8 - Kansas City, MO - Sprint Center9 - Minneapolis, MN - Target Center13 - Los Angeles, CA - Staples Center14 - Anaheim, CA - Honda Center16 - Los Angeles, CA - Staples Center19, 20 - San Jose, CA - HP Pavilion22 - Sacramento, CA - ARCO Arena24 - Phoenix, AZ - Jobing.com Arena30 - Miami, FL - American Airlines ArenaNovember 20082 - Fort Lauderdale, FL - BankAtlantic Center5 - Orlando, FL - Amway Arena9 - Atlanta, GA - Philips Arena13 - Toronto, Ontario - Air Canada Centre16, 17 - Boston, MA - TD Banknorth Garden23 - Washington, DC - Verizon Center26, 27 - Newark, NJ - Prudential CenterDecember 20083, 4 - Uniondale, NY - Nassau Coliseum6 - Hartford, CT - XL Center8 - Montreal, Quebec - Bell Centre12 - Toronto, Ontario - Air Canada Centre



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Monday 11 August 2008

Craig Armstrong

Craig Armstrong   
Artist: Craig Armstrong

   Genre(s): 
New Age
   Instrumental
   



Discography:


The Clearing   
 The Clearing

   Year: 2004   
Tracks: 25


The Quiet American   
 The Quiet American

   Year: 2002   
Tracks: 12


Moulin Rouge   
 Moulin Rouge

   Year: 2001   
Tracks: 13


Kiss Of The Dragon   
 Kiss Of The Dragon

   Year: 2001   
Tracks: 20


The Space Between Us   
 The Space Between Us

   Year: 1998   
Tracks: 12


Orphans   
 Orphans

   Year: 1997   
Tracks: 20




Scottish producer Craig Armstrong scored non-finite soundtracks to much harbinger during the '90s and into the 2000s. His soundtrack utilisation was in fact so successful that many big-name artists, such as U2 and Madonna, began courtship him, bit he at the same time pursued a solo life history as a down-tempo electronica producer origin with The Space Between Us in 1998. Though his collaborations ar to a fault legion to list, Armstrong's most successfully paired with film film director Baz Luhrman, producing big-selling soundtracks for Romeo + Juliet (1998) and Moulin Rouge (2001).


Born in Scotland, Armstrong began his production career in the early '90s. He composed euphony for several BBC and STV productions during this time, simply his big break came with the Scottish pop trio Big Dish. Armstrong co-wrote tierce songs on the trio's Satellites record album, released in 1991, and besides provided string arrangements for the album. Three years later, in 1994, Armstrong worked with notable trip-hop mathematical group Massive Attack on its genre-defining Shelter record album. This association with Massive Attack would pay dividends a few old age afterward when the group released Armstrong's debut full-length record album on its Melankolic mark. By the end of the '90s, Armstrong had collaborated with such big-name artists as U2, Madonna, Hole, the Spice Girls, the London Suede, and Tina Turner, in addition to many other lesser-known artists.


As mentioned, Massive Attack released Armstrong's solo debut, The Space Between Us, in 1998. The record album didn't prove to be as popular as expected, just it notwithstanding increased Armstrong's reputation as a notable producer. During this same late-'90s eRA, Armstrong continued working on soundtrack projects, which remained his to the highest degree acclaimed work. His process for Jake Scott's debut film, Plunkett & Macleane, was peradventure his nigh seeable work, existence released by Astralwerks in the States (as had The Space Between Us a year earlier). However, he worked on soundtracks for much more than successful films such as Mission: Impossible (1996), Romeo + Juliet (1998), Fell Intentions (1999), and -- peradventure his nigh famous soundtrack work -- Moulin Rouge (2001). Following the success of Moulin Rouge, and its second volume, Armstrong returned in 2002 with his second non-soundtrack full-length exploit, As if to Nothing, which boasted a young version of U2's "Stay (Far-off, So Close)." In 2004, he provided the score for the Ray Charles biopic Electron beam, and in 2005, an anthology of his plastic film work was released.





Mlada Fronta

Wednesday 6 August 2008

Review: Not the Messiah (He s a Very Naughty Boy)

No, of course, Brian Cohen is not the Messiah (you need to ask?). And at the Hollywood Bowl on Saturday night, we all knew very substantially, thank you, that "Not the Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy)" would not be "The Messiah." It's the bad-boy bit, though, that one wondered about in a jocund mash-up betwixt Handel and "Monty Python's Life of Brian" by Pythoner Eric Idle and conductor John Du Prez.


The question was just how bad a boy Idle was prepared to be. A Hollywood Bowl Hall of Famer, he was part of the divine Monty Python appearance 28 years agone, an event that has a position in the amphitheater's history alongside the 1964 Beatles concert, Percy Grainger's wedding on stagecoach to an unsuspecting Austral- ian naif in 1928 and Zubin Mehta's "Star Wars" concert in the '70s.


But these are touchy times, and the Pythons' mock biblical epic was a controversial film when it was released in 1979. It ends with Brian on the cross, merrily singing and whistling along with a chorus line of the crucified in a happy-go-lucky song, "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life." Religious groups were aghast.






But, no dread, Brian off out Saturday to be quite a nice lad, after all. Even his mum wasn't so bad.


The genesis of this kind of oratorio for Evangelist Monty, four vocal soloists, orchestra, chorus, bagpipers and Bob Dylan imitator was relatively harmless. Idle happens to be a cousin of Peter Oundjian, the head conductor of the Toronto Symphony. The oratorio was commissioned to help tip off Toronto's new June festival, Luminato, last year.


Du Prez, world Health Organization conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Pacific Chorale in the oratorio at the Bowl, is an honorary Python, having worked on their films and co-written the Broadway strike "Spamalot" with Idle. He is also a fine conductor, as was obvious from a lively reading of the oratorio's preliminary, taken from Sousa's "The Liberty Bell" march (a.k.a. the Monty Python theme).


The oratorio follows the plot of the film, in which a schlump named Brian is mistaken for the Messiah. One-liners get amplified into songs, in which doo-wop and coloratura flourishes get along only fine. Laughs were had. The Republicans were skewered. References to the "Lumberjack Song" were inevitable. But overall irreverence, which Monty Python had elevated to an artwork form, did not run particularly high.


"Life of Brian" offended in part through context. "Always Look on the Bright Side" is a absolutely innocent tune without its biblical setting. Indeed, it was a perfectly unacquainted sing-along close Saturday, with the audience waving its hands at evening's end.


More curious, though, was Idle's tendency to sentimentalize. Big Broadway numbers racket, especially for Brian, had little to distinguish them from conventional inspirational music. They were done actually well, and that made them all the more inspirational. The shock value here was directed at those anticipating irreverence.


The one thing this oratorio had going for it was a terrifying performance all around. Idle, described as baritone-ish, served as stand up comedian Evangelist and fugitive Dylan impersonator. He's perpetually been an effective musician, and at 65 he still is.


The four vocal soloists had to do it all -- classical, Broadway, opera, nostalgic pop, Gilbert and Sullivan -- and they pretty much did. William Ferguson, as Brian, was a clear tenor with a clean-cut sound. Shannon Mercer, a shining soprano, was Brian's vocally flexible girlfriend.


Jean Stilwell, who displayed a shiny mezzo, brought warmth, not nastiness, to the un-virgin mother. Baritone Theodore Baerg had the impossible job of vocalizing like the Commendatore in Mozart's "Don Giovanni" and handling John Cleese lines. No one can rend that off.


The Pacific Chorale came to life. The Los Angeles Philharmonic acted as if the players were enjoying themselves. Du Prez doesn't, as a composer, establish the level of wit of a P.D.Q. Bach, but he can shift gears as fast as anyone, and he brought an impressive level of polish to the go-ahead. The splendid Los Angeles Scottish Pipe Band added useful absurdity.


mark.swed






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