The Age of Voltaire by Will Durant

 

The Age of Voltaire is volume 9 of Will Durant's Story of Civilization series. So far I've read four of Will and Ariel Durant's Story of Civilization series of books: The Italian Renaissance, The Life of Greece, The Age of Reason Begins, and now finally I've read The Age of Voltaire. 

Closing this book, I felt that this was an extensive and comprehensive history of the age right up to and leading into the French Revolution, the Age of Enlightenment in France, roughly 1680s-1780. Voltaire was born in 1694, ensconced in education through the Jesuits. The Jesuits were the main educators in this period and had a lot of influence over schooling of children [boys and girls] and even sometimes in government and various occupations. They were known for being very educated and lenient towards their people, although they themselves were also quite dogmatic about Christianity and its spread throughout other parts of the world like in Latin America and even China. Despite this early great education from the Jesuits, Voltaire grew to increasing dislike the Church as he gained more fame and influence. He spent a lot of time running around to different homes and even the home of Frederick the Great because of his critiques of the church and nobility.  

However, there was a lot more going on in the Church other than Jesuits. There was the growing disputes between church, the peasantry, the aristocrats, the nobles, and the church's feuds with protestants [Jansenists], Catholics, and atheists from the philosophes, the intellectuals [writers, philosophers, scientists, artists, mathematicians, playwrights] like Voltaire, Diderot, Rosseau, Montesquieu, and d'Alembert. These named in particular would have the greatest influence on France and in the world. 

It should be named that being a philosopher in 18th century France isn't the same thing as being a philosopher in the 21st century. These intellectuals delved and wrote in a variety of fields and styles in order to reach their audience in the best ways they could. Voltaire didn't think much of giant books like the Encyclopédie [famous 18th century book from France by the philosophes], rather he thought that small books easily concealed would serve him better. So he ended up writing a lot of small works that contributed to his vast body of works. So Candide ended up becoming his most famous book.

But not every intellectual was an expert in a particular field. Rather a philosophe, was someone who was expected to know a little bit about every subject, even if they themselves weren't a master in each field. In order to write the Encyclopédie, the writers utilized and employed different philosophes for different phrases and words that they didn't feel adequate enough to cover themselves.

What caused the French Revolution? This book doesn't entirely aim to answer this question, rather it focuses more on historical detail. But after reading The Age of Voltaire, you can figure it out.

France was deep in debt from wars and the debt fell upon the peasants more and more, as the nobility became more and more corrupt. Tensions increased between the nobles and the church, and eventually even the Jesuits who had educated all the best minds of the time, were expelled from France. On top of that, the educated people were being more and more exposed to the works of the intellectuals of the time, the philosophes, and now, more than ever, people were more willing to become atheists, little by little, influenced by these great men with big ideas, ideas that changed the world, would eventually lead to the world we live in now. A world of more religious toleration, human rights, democracy, and equality.

Although the Age of Voltaire was published in 1965, it seems to somehow resonate in the scatter-brain afterimages of 21st century 2023. There's something there in this book that has an everlasting effect on the time it is describing, the time it was written in, and the time I live in now as I write this. It seems that now, more than ever, we're living in a world increasingly fraught with the same problems, plus a bunch of new additional ones, that weren't quite resolved from the French Revolution and perhaps never will be solved.

It has occurred to me after reading four volumes of Will Durant's Story of Civilization series, that the problems of any age seem to follow and recur in many others. There's always an endless cycle; renewal, back to the classic ages, onto a newer more advanced, more intellectual more philosophical more scientific less God, then an eventual regression back into a simpler mode of civilization, except we never really find out or perhaps we never can find out, that the civilization itself has already and always collapsed, only to be rebuilt by other people anew.

It is said that on his deathbed, Voltaire, when asked to return to the faith of his fathers and renounce the devil, responded with, “This is no time to be making new enemies.”

Music in the Classic Period

Very clear and concise. The book focuses on Haydn y Mozart. Recommended to all classical music fans, and those interested in the historical aspects of Europe's arts, culture, history, and music in the 18th century.

One of the most important things that I almost overlooked was the cultural differences between the classical styles, most notably opera. Operas were best heard and most liked in Italian, but eventually, the Germans started to form their own operatic styles based on folk music and legends. Mozart tried to write French operas but they just didn't ring as well from the established grand operas in Italian. It appears that Italian was the best language for opera.

Also noteworthy was the fact that many of the composers' notes during this time period for their music were written in Italian. So even if you were an amateur musician playing from scores, you would've known a little Italian to play your parts. 

Lastly, it should also be noted that composers, travelers, and merchants were expected to speak multiple languages like French, Italian, and German, it was the norm for composers like Mozart. 

The development from this 'classic period,' from the baroque to sonata form-rondo, to concertos, to symphonies, to chamber music and string quartets, to opera, to sacred music, and finally into the Romantic era of Beethoven is an amazing development in the history of music, culture, and art. The past has greatly influenced the moderns in terms of classical music and beyond, ad infinitum.

The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha

"The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha (Modern Spanish: El ingenioso hidalgo (in Part 2, caballero) Don Quijote de la Mancha, is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes. It was published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615. A founding work of Western literature, it is often labeled "the first modern novel" and many authors consider it to be the best literary work ever written." [wiki]

 The book is about an old noble named Alonso Quixano, who reads so many books of knighthood and chivalry that he goes mad out of his mind, decides he's a knight, and goes out on adventures; helping fair maidens, righting wrongs, dreaming the impossible dream. Once he reinvents himself as Don Quixote de la Mancha, he recruits a simple farmer named Sancho Panza as his squire. Although Sancho is a simple farmer, he speaks eloquently at times throughout the novel, and he's a master of endless proverbs, much to Quixote's chagrin. 

To put it simply, Don Quixote doesn't want to or simply doesn't understand or take the world for what it is [1600s Spain] and instead decides to live in a fantasy where he's a knight. The book takes place in the 1600s, in Spain, so at that point the people of his world think he's a lunatic, for knighthood and chivalry were seen as things of the past, medieval. People had already moved past that at this point, in the novel, and in the real time period in which Cervantes wrote the book. 

"The book was a bestseller and had a strong impact on the literary community, influencing works like Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers (1844) and Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). The 19th-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer cited Don Quixote as one of the four greatest novels ever written." [wiki]

I consider Don Quixote as the all time best example of the first modern novel. It bridges the gap between medieval classical literature and modern literature. Why is this the case? Well, for starters, the old medieval literature that comes before this period puts God above all else. As above, so below. The ancient literature might not be about the Christian God, rather it revolves around other deities, like the Greek or Roman gods, or others. Literature back then was meant solely for the glorification of God or gods, sometimes employing heroes to carry out their bidding.

Here comes Don Quixote in 1605. Although it isn't the "first" example of what I would consider modern literature, it's surely the best and does it the best. This differs from ancient and medieval literature because its one of the first and best examples of the transition from ancient/medieval literature to modern literature. Why? Because you can clearly see that the transition from glorification to God goes to being about the individual, becoming less religious, but still examining central themes that every novel has; looking at virtue, the mind, the body, and the soul. Just as important is the fact that this is the first example in literature where we have a linear story-line, stellar story telling, narrative development, and a beginning, middle, and end. Mostly all other works of fiction prior wasn't like this although you can find little snippets and elements throughout various time periods and other countries' works of fiction. For these reasons, Don Quixote is in my opinion, one of the best books of all time, maybe the best novel ever written. 

Don Quixote is considered both a comedy and a tragedy. For its time it was considered comic. You can say its central idea is that individual can be right while society is wrong. It was considered social commentary, satire, if you will. 

What does it mean? This is a hard question to tackle, because the work is open to many different interpretations. For myself, I saw the work like a comedy or satire movie. I watched a man bewitched with his silly knight-errantry. I laughed throughout most of his silly adventures but there was always certain moments when I would stop laughing and think this is quite sad, this gentlemen being so far out of wack that he doesn't even know when he's being taken advantage of. The beauty of the work is that even if you find it tragic, or even if you find it too funny, you're never laughing or crying too long, because Cervantes throws so much at you; more plot development, more characters, more actions, more dialogue, more of everything, more is more. Because of this you don't [or at least I didn't] get bogged down by my emotions. 

The one truly emotional part, for me at least, was at the halfway mark through the book, where Don Quixote gets into too much trouble, gets really hurt, almost dies, and goes back to his house to get rest and heal from his wounds. This is where he might denounce knighthood and end it all forever, and just relax at home. When he gets home, his niece and his maid are worried sick for him, and are so afraid he might die from his wounds, that they are tearing their hair out and cursing knighthood and chivalry. That was when I realized how powerful this book truly is and was.

What the book means to me is quite simple. Even if you are mad, your reality is only substantiated by society so much. In a way, you are your reality. I think, therefore I am. Don Quixote thinks he's a knight-errant, so he is a knight-errant. It's very simple but very deep in a philosophical way and individualistic way. 

Lastly, it must be mentioned that this novel made me see the development and history of the novel in good form. The progression of beginning, middle, and end, development of story, narration, dialogue, action, plot, climax, are all great elements within the novel. Although I was aware of all of these important literary devices, it was only while reading Don Quixote that I came to understand, see, and analyze these devices in other works of literature, news articles, and even in spoken dialogue between friends and family. There's a form and there's substance, you can see it when it's there, and you can see it when it's missing. This was such a big revelation to me as a reader and a people's person, who gets so much out of spoken dialogue with friends, family, acquaintances, and customers. 

There's a way to tell a story and Cervantes was a master of doing so. I'll definitely check it out again at some point and take a look at some other translations. I switched between reading the late 1800s Ormsby translation and the modern Edith Grossman translation. I like the older translation better for a more literal older style and I liked Edith Grossman's translation for its simplicity. This is one of the best novels, you must read this if you like books, especially classics of the western canon. Even if you can't read all 800 pages, just being familiar with the work will make an impression upon you.  

"Bewitched with his silly knight-errantry."

Pirate Utopia

Pirate Utopia is an alternate history satire written by Bruce Sterling. It was published in 2016 but somehow I completely missed it as I was sidetracked by that shit show of an Presidential election. As my readers would know, I've written quite a few reviews of books written by Bruce Sterling. I would go so far as to say that Sterling and William Gibson are my favorite science fiction writers. They created the cyberpunk genre, helped develop steampunk, and were the cream of the crop of science fiction writers during the entire 1980s. 

However, here Sterling chose not to write science fiction, but rather an alternate history satire, something he calls dieselpunk which turns out is a lot like steampunk and cyberpunk. Sterling considers this as a subgenre of science fiction. It's related to science fiction but its also rooted in history and makes use somewhat of real facts. He's using history, elements of science fiction and satire to create something that would appeal to more popular culture. In this case, catering to the European general public more so than the American science fiction crowd.

Sterling quotes this line from the manifesto of Despero and Giacomo in 1915:
We will find abstract equivalents for all the forms and elements of the universe, and then we will combine them with the caprice of our imagination. This just about sums up the motives of the characters in this novel.


The book is about a group of pirates around 1920, WWI era. They've taken control of this village called Fiume, now present-day Rijeka. They believe in the Futurist Manifesto. They steal everything they can including a communist controlled armored vechicle in the beginning of the novel. Their enemies are the communists, the rich, and the fascists, whom they are not entirely unsympathetic towards. They engage in Freemasonry, free love, equal pay and rights for women, they love jazz music, ceremonial rituals, etc. Kids today would say they are "extra". As you can see this gets pulpy very fast. 

Our main cast is comprised of the Ace of Hearts, a military leader of the secret police and the Pirate Engineer [lots of nicknames in this book] Secondari, a guy with a chip on his shoulder who lost an ear in the war but because he's an amazing weapons engineer he's given complete control to take over the means of production concerning weapons. There's even a Prophet, a warrior poet who runs a harem and the principle leader behind their ideology but deep down hates himself and his life. 

Secondari becomes "Minister of Vengeance Weapons" [what a great title!] He revitalizes a weapons factory and starts developing torpedoes and even a death ray [very cyberpunk and reminiscent of Nazi technology conspiracies]. Soon other governments become interested and Spymaster Colonel House from President Wilson's government sends Houdini and his assistant H.P. Lovecraft under the guise of a magic show to work out a secret deal. Along the way, Hitler gets killed by jumping into a bullet to save his friend and Mussolini gets shot to death in the dick by some girls that wandered into his office. That's where the book ends. 

This is all very fun and funny material but where's the meat and potatoes to it? The thing is that this book has a lot of exposition but everything else is mostly left up to the imagination of the reader. The characters themselves are only interesting to a point. Secondari is a mediocre villain. He lives only to serve his ideology, for the cause of the Pirate Futurist Utopia. But when Frau Pfeiffer [an industrial factory owner] throws herself at him he denies her. He only loves her daughter, because Frau Pfeiffer was the one woman that nursed him back him to health when he was at his worst. Even his own family didn't to do that for him. So he loved Frau Pfeiffer's daughter and made sure that she would never be harmed. However, this actually made him a worse person as a result. He vowed to kill anyone who ever harmed her. At all costs.

The Prophet seemed like a cool cat. I mean he runs a harem and he's a warrior poet. Sounds like a real hippie awesome free love guy. But when Secondari sees him for the first time he realizes that this man, the Prophet is broken, lifeless. Because Secondari doesn't hear very well [one of his ears was blown off in the war] he has this intimate ability to see into a person's soul. He looked at the Prophet and somehow knew right away that he was completely wasted, drained of life. So I guess having a ton of girls to fuck all the time can be a drag sometimes. It's an interesting observation.

On a side note, there's the Art Witch, one of the Prophet's women. I actually liked her a lot because she reminds me of the typical bohemian girl, of any race, although of course here she's Italian. She's into the occult, does spiritual seances, wears weird kinky outfits with probably no underwear, she's a fixture of the art scene, and of course she's rich because that way she has the time to do all this goofy stuff. She's one to remember. Actually, if you hang around the music and art scenes for a while you'll find girls like this. I've run into plenty in the music crowds I've chilled with at parties and such. It can get weird but its always fun.

The characters themselves are quite eloquent. But they aren't the focus of the story. A lot of it is actually exposition. The first thirty pages are exposition but the fact that the novel is so short [only 170 pages] it makes the beginning very slow. After a while, the writing seems to get into a flow that is very easy to continuously read and enjoy. That's the magic of this book. The writing style is very breezy, satirical, and entertaining. I wasn't reading so much as to find out the plot but more so out of the sheer fun and joy of just turning the pages and being amused by it all. 

There are some funny moments. Before the book officially starts there's a real H.P. Lovecraft quote that I love. "I fear my enthusiasm flags when real work is demanded of me." Well, that's just terrific. Not only is it true but the fact that Lovecraft said it makes it hilarious because he's known more for his horror than anything else. 

There's a lot of funny moments. Adolf Hitler dies by jumping into a bullet to save his friend. He's actually a great guy it turns out. Mussolini is in charge of a newspaper and gets killed by some girls who wandered into his office with a gun. How did they kill him? They shot him in the dick. The fact that our main villain here gets Hitler and Mussolini out of the way without realizing it makes it a true cosmic comedy. 

Then there's the Prophet who runs a harem but is completely devoid of life. It's sort of funny. Maybe too much sex could be bad for you? Houdini's magic trick at the end was definitely quite comical as well. For his last trick, he ends up sticking needles into his face and then eating them after he pulls them out. Sounds horrifying but at the same time realistically I'd probably be laughing my ass off if I saw someone do that. This is, after all, a satire not unlike something the gentlemen of the old days would write. Think Voltaire and Dante, but 80's cyberpunk version. 

At the back of the book, there's a great appendix and interview with Sterling. Why did he write this book? Because he felt that he had to tell the young people in Europe about what really happened back then because they don't know much about those times. In particular he wanted to remind people about how fascism got imported from Europe [Italy and Germany] to Britain and America where its still alive and well today. When he said that I thought to myself, "yeah, I get it." It's a joke, a complete joke but you have to understand history and its long-lasting impact on society to get it. It was a great Aha! moment. 

At the same time, I would also say that Sterling is at the end of his ropes regarding science fiction. He mentioned in the interview that he had a different writing persona, a European one, with a European name [Bruno of all names], even writing in a different voice. When I read that part I thought to myself, "oh god, don't do it." So yes that was very cringing for one of my favorite writers who helped duo-create the cyberpunk genre with William Gibson but hey what can you do? There was once a time where Gibson and Sterling were the best science fiction writers [the 80's] but now I see that the genre has moved away from them. They realized that and they have tried to become mainstream. Gibson has been writing graphic novels as of late [Arcangel] and now Sterling is writing stuff like Pirate Utopia. It's fun but it will never be the grand, serious, science fiction space operas that they wrote in the beginning of their careers. It's a shame because I believe if they went back to writing that sort of stuff the science fiction community would take notice. However, once you write something as great as The Difference Engine or Schismatrix Plus there's too much pressure on you keep putting out masterpieces for the rest of your life. I'll settle for Pirate Utopia because I'm a true fan and reader of Sterling but for other people, they might say,"this doesn't cut it."  For one thing, the plot isn't revaled until the very end and it ends on a cliffhanger. A lot of people would hate that. But I'm such a Sterling initiate I say let him get away with it. Not a super important novel but relevant in today's political and historical climate. The most fun I've had reading a book in a long time. Because it's short and easy reading I would recommend it. A taste of pop culture from the cyberpunk legend himself. 

On a side note, it should also be mentioned that there's terrific artwork in this book in between chapters. The cover was initially what spurred me on to pick it up and when I saw it was Sterling I checked it out from the library right then and there. The cover is great because it uses communist visual imagery to promote this Futurist ideology. The conceit is that they used communist propaganda visuals even though the characters in this book hate communists with a passion. It got me thinking more about futurist art and art movements in general like cubism. [I know nothing about art but I wish to learn more now]

Check out my other Bruce Sterling novel reviews
https://ofigueroamusic.blogspot.com/2018/12/holy-fire.html
https://ofigueroamusic.blogspot.com/2019/01/zeitgeist.html
https://ofigueroamusic.blogspot.com/2019/01/schismatrix-plus.
https://ofigueroamusic.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-difference-engine.html  
https://ofigueroamusic.blogspot.com/search?q=artificial+kid 

Eden

Eden is an early science fiction novel written by Polish writer Stanislaw Lem, in 1959. However, it wasn't translated into English until 1989-way, way later.

The characters here don't have names, rather the crew are called the Doctor, the Chemist, the Captain, etc. The story starts with a crew landing on an alien planet called Eden. The ship gets damaged, but its repairable. So the crew works on fixing the ship as well as exploring the planet. 

What they see sort of reads like a horror story. They find spider-like plants, mass graves of dead aliens with amorphous shapes and faces all over the place, a bio-factory of aliens, flying, spinning discs, etc. All of which makes the whole experience look like an alien concentration camp. The crew keeps trying to make sense out of everything but at the end of all the debate they realize that nothing makes sense no matter how much they keep learning. 

Most of the book is the crew repairing the ship, exploring, and explanations of what they see, in their jeep with their giant robot. At one point they get attacked by aliens [whom they call doublers], and they retaliate using an atomic weapon! 

Nothing is really known the longer the novel goes on until the last chapters. In fact, there's no character development nor is there any clear plot or story line. At the end the crew finds an alien [a doubler] that's wearing clothes [a rag-like thing]. They find out through the doubler's star maps that he is a man of learning and science. They figure out a way to get the ship's computer to translate the doubler's gurgling cough language. 

From here we learn that the alien civilization here is highly stratified. There used to be a tyrannical government in place in the beginning. Then there were leaders who led anonymously. There's jails set in place where the aliens serve voluntarily, sent there for punishments from the higher ups of the planet, perhaps for doing wrong, perhaps not, we don't know as the computer is iffy with the doubler's translation. The higher ups also control who gets to distribute information, an Orwellian influence. Basically a concentration camp without any guards, designed so that prisoners stay inside on their own free will. I still don't quite get it, but I'm not sure if I'm suppose to nor do I think its that important. Its an interesting concept nonetheless. 

We also learn that although the doublers have no sense of nuclear power, they did once conduct a mass experiment to enhance the species. The experiment failed, which resulted in deformed doublers, who are ostracized from the main society. The doubler tells them that because information gets you killed here, that when he found out that a ship with aliens crash landed, he took this as the chance of a life time, which the humans empathized with.

The crew realizes that they've been exploring something of a prison planet, that sort of thing. The two doublers that the crew found during their stay decided to stay behind the ship's exhaust and die, rather than go back to their oppressive society.  

Before the crew leaves the planet the Captain and the Doctor have a debate. Should they intervene? This is the book's philosophical angle. In the end the Captain decides they shouldn't interfere with these aliens and their society, which makes sense especially because this book was written under Soviet-style regime. However, it also makes the case against having an influence upon another society, another civilization. Sometimes its best to leave things be, which they decide to do. 

Although the prose here isn't anything grand, this book kept my attention. I finished the novel in three days because I was so curious about what was happening on the planet. The book was sort of terrifying in a way, what with the whole prison concentration camp vibe. However, I think that horror element keeps the story exciting, as the prose is sort of dry. 

When the crew is flying off they look back at Eden and see that its a beautiful violet sphere. They realize that it was because of its beauty that they accidentally flew too close and entered its atmosphere. Because of this beauty, that's the reason its called Eden.

I would definitely read more Stanislaw Lem, he's one of the only modern European science fiction writers I've read. I've seen the movie version of his book Solaris, a terrific 1970s sci-fi flick. I would be interested in reading that. 

Songs with a producer

Here's two tunes I worked on with this producer from Poland, check it out! 

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/teenage-tears
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=krvWoJdqOo0

I like what he did with my guitar parts. On Teenage Tears its a total rock type of thing at the end w/ my guitar sounding like a buzzsaw. The other tune (youtube video one) is more of an ambient backwards guitar parts sort of thing. Both are pretty cool. Enjoy!

The Classics

So after going through a lot of new music, avant-garde classical music I found myself listening to the "classics", the warhorses of classical music. I am of course speaking about composers like Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Mahler, and Stravinsky, who I could lump in as a classical composer and a new music composer. He's someone who's influenced many and is important in the development of new music as well as being apart of the "old guard" of classical music.

The interesting thing about all of this is that I've listened to all this music a lot when I was about eighteen years old. In fact, I would turn on the classical music station at all times in my dorm room in college and I always had Wagner's Ring Cycle on various CD's as well as Mahler's symphonies, both of which at the time I thought of as being very heavy and dark music, like heavy metal which I was also interested in at the time.

Coming back to the music now at twenty-eight is a lot more engrossing. I'm a lot smarter, I can hear more of the harmonies and rhythms, and my musical experience has increased so I can understand the music more. That's not to say that I understand how Bach used counterpoint. I have a long way to go to understand that sort of stuff. But the aural ear training is much more on point now than its ever been.

After going through so much new music and going back to the classics I find myself more appreciative of the past, European art, history, and music. I can see why the Romantic, Baroque, Classical, and Renaissance eras were important in the development of twentieth century music. Sure, the teachers in predominantly white schools (and some black educational facilities) will tell you its high art but if you don't understand why its high art then you can't truly understand the music.

There is a lot of references to classical music in other art mediums, namely film and television. But for me the work must be found from the source and studied, otherwise its just a tune you hear and probably forget about. Miles Davis would say, "So what."

-Stravinsky pictured above

European Free Jazz, New Music

I met a musician from Poland at work who I've been talking to on and off about jazz. He's given me a list of all these great European free jazz artists. After listening to a couple of them I'm very impressed. Europeans take jazz (and music in general, like metal) very seriously and it shows in their musical prowess and spirit. A lot of this stuff reminds me of late period John Coltrane, its insanely good. A lot of these cats come from classical backgrounds and it shows in their style and sound but they can also improvise too. I would say a lot of this stuff sounds like Jack Dejohnette, Art Ensemble, modern New York free jazz cats (William Parker), and AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, formed in Chicago in the 1960s) stuff. Seems like that style crossed the ocean and made its way to Europe somehow. Truly eye opening and terrific music. 

These are the guys he mentioned:

Anders Jormin
Jaga Jazzist
Leszek Mozdzer
Tomasz Stanko
Adam Pieronczyk
Esbjorn Svensson
Zbigniew Seifert
Jan Garbarek
Terje Rypdal
Krzysztof Komeda
Zbigniew Seifert 

Looks like I have an infinite amount of new music to listen to, learn from, and absorb for a long time. Lately, I've been digging a lot of metal but that can't satiate my instrumental musical needs and also sometimes you gotta give your ears a rest from all the power chords and coarse vocals. If you want to hear some truly great interesting jazz check out the artists listed above.

 Jazz is life, jazz is love. :D

That's Zbigniew Seifert on violin in the picture, very good jazz violinist that sounds way different from Jean Luc Ponty and the dude from Mahavishnu Orchestra, he also played sax

Music I've been listening to lately 11/10/16

Lately, I've been listening to a ton of music. A lot of metal, black metal. It all started when I got really into the band Ghost. I've heard all their songs a couple times over now and I'm a little tired of them but I still think they're a great band. I can't wait to see what kind of material they put out for their next album.

Since Ghost I've picked up the newest Opeth album, Sorceress. It's a really great progressive rock album with a very heavy feel. It's so heavy in a progressive way but it sounds metal in some aspects. Interesting how they do that without it sounding death metal like their old records.

I've been getting back into actual albums. Usually I'm a big live rock concert guy. I know rock bands aren't the best when it comes to live performances but I prefer to experience the music live as opposed to studio albums. I like to hear mistakes live. In the studio everything can be touched up with computers and nowadays music can sound very fake and processed. But sometimes you gotta listen to both studio and live performances to really understand the bands. And that's what I've been doing.

A great album I heard today was Judas Priest's Sad Wings of Tragedy. Freaking fantastic metal record. Probably in the top ten best metal records of all time. Recorded in 1976, it gives you a feel of the proto-metal sound and what was to come during the 80s. It's cool to think about all this stuff now and look back in time not only as a listener and fan but also as a seasoned musician with plenty of chops.

I've also been getting really into this band my co-worker told me about. They're also from Sweden, just like Ghost and Opeth. Have you noticed all my favorite metal bands are from Sweden? Something about Sweden is just dark, heavy, and slightly satanic. Probably the fact that they spend most of their winters in darkness.

Anyways, Tribulation is from Sweden too. They have a strong black metal vibe but I also get a very punk feeling from them as well. They have no guitar solos and no intricate or progressive parts (similar to Ghost in that aspect) but their music still intrigues me. They have this metal hooks that are so catchy that its almost like pop music, except in a black metal way. Almost like Ghost but totally not like Ghost at the same time. They're similar in the sense that they're both catchy bands with a black metal influence. The vocals are a little harsh but not like those extreme black metal bands. I can still understand what they're singing. I also like how one of their guitar players uses a semi-hollow body guitar. In a black metal band it sounds really heavy and distorted. Bad ass! Really good band.

Then there's all the classical music. I've been listening to a lot of Lizst, Chopin, Vivaldi, and Bach. That music connects to me in a different way than the rock stuff does. In some ways I can compare metal with classical music in the sense that they both convey a lot of emotions through sound. Classical music has given me a different form of musical entertainment than my usual jazz stuff does.

I can't remember the last time I listened to any new or interesting free jazz stuff. A friend from Poland (all these Europeans!) told me about all these great European free jazz musicians but I haven't gone through and listened yet, mostly due to a lack of time and the fact that I'm going through a big black metal phase. Most of the famous black metal bands I actually don't like because the vocals are too harsh, like they've smoked ten packs of cigarettes and recorded their vocals right after.

It's pretty inspiring stuff. I don't take the lyrics seriously and I don't think these bands believe in the lyrics they sing. It's just a gimmick like how Slayer's been singing about satan since the 80s. A lot of this stuff is European and I gotta say that they do a great job with music there. They take music very seriously. Even their pop music is great.

My dad's told me that a lot of Taylor Swift's most popular tunes are written by two European guys. They take metal, jazz, and classical music seriously. It would be cool to become a big musician and play there one day. Or even play with these bands I like.

One can dream right? 

That's a band picture of Tribulation, the guy with the stash seems to be the funniest