Urban Flamenco, the third album by Stephen Duros, is now available in the LL. Sometime in late November the album will become available from all the usual digital vendors and streaming services, such as iTunes, amazon.com, MOG, Spotify and so on.
Stephen will sell a small edition of 50 signed CDs from his website. These should become available by the middle of November. Check his website for more information.
This Summer we are releasing two versions of the album “Santa Fe”. This album is the completely re-worked music of The Santa Fe Sessions (which has been out-of-print for a couple of years), with a few unreleased versions (2 the Night, Santa Fe, Borrasca), with many new parts and newly mixed and mastered. I think it sounds great.
The tracklist is as follows:
01. Barcelona Nights
02. Isla del Sol
03. 2 the Night
04. Dancing Under the Moon
05. Heart Still/Beating
06. Reaching Out 2 U
07. Santa Fe
08. Borrasca
09. Turkish Night
10. La Rosa Negra
11. Havana Club
12. Snakecharmer
13. Morning Arrival in Goa
The music is identical on both albums. The first image shows the Lifescapes CD that will be available at Target, starting in June.
The second image shows the CD that will be available ONLY at our concerts. We will not sell this CD from our website or in download form. We will have these CDS with us on the Spring tour that starts this weekend. 
Our new album Petals On the Path was released today.
Journal about the process of creating Petals On the Path – with rehearsal recordings and photos
ListeningLounge (our own mp3 download store)
iTunes – Petals On the Path
Amazon – Petals On the Path
You can find the HD FLAC (24/88.2) version of Petals On the Path at HDTracks
Maybe you have heard about Governor Schwarzenegger’s (in)famous veto letter to the California State Assembly? You can google it for more information – “Schwarzenegger Veto Letter” will do.
The letter is claimed to contain a hidden message. It becomes quite obvious when you read the words formed by the first letter in each line of the two main paragraphs… yes?
Well, in a strange way this letter inspired the title for my next album. However, my album will spell something altogether more pleasant, of course. With the help of friends I have been working on creating short poems with three lines, in which the first line begins with a “P”, the second line starts with an “O” and the third line with another “P’. As in POP or Pop-Music.
Here are a few of these poems:
Pale moonlight reflected
on the water.
Poetry of the evening.Peonies
Of my Little Garden
Part of HeavenPausing to listen-
Overture in the moonlight
Perfect symphonyPetals from a red rose
On the ground, at dusk
Path to your housePetals float
On the water in the
Pale moonlight
And my current favorite is one that a friend sent to me, cutting down this poem I wrote:
Petals from a red rose
On the ground, at dusk
Path to your house
to a mere four words:
Petals
On the
Path
The advantage of something that short would be that it could actually serve as the title of the album. Any longer and I would have to abreviate the album title to P-O-P and that might get confusing, albeit interesting. If I use a longer poem, the poem would not feature in the title, and would only be found on the cover.
The album cover could be DM-Vision of the stepping stones of a path, with a few red rose petals strewn on the gray stone.
Maybe something like this, but with a few flower petals:
Here is a photo I took in Amarillo yesterday. (((Amarillo = Yellow in Spanish)))
I used a 99c app called ShakeItPhoto that turns the iPhone into a Fauxlaroid (fake polaroid) camera.
Speaking of iPhones (((on our bus 8 people carry 3 iPhones + 2 iPods))), what if someone created an iPod/iPhone application that contained a new album of music in mp3 form, a few nice video clips and a browser that could connect to a server to view or download the latest photos? I believe the maximum size for an iPhone app is 2GB – plenty of space for an album of high quality 320kbps music plus some video! (((maybe even Apple Lossless files!!)))
I think it is an interesting concept. Files could be locked to the application and yet they could be played anywhere one can attach an iPhone. It seems like an obvious idea – has anyone made such an app? I don’t mean apps that stream music, I mean an actual iPhone music album in app form.
More High Definition download stores are popping up.
Here is trumpet player Jon Hassell’s excellent album Fascinoma in form of a 24/88.2 FLAC file.
The Boston Symphony is selling AIFF files that are 24/88.2
You can find my posts about 24/88.2 here, here, here, and here.
I knew that “Soiled Dove” (((the name of the venue we played in Denver))) was some kind of UK slang. A brief search brought to light that “Soiled Dove” means “Prostitute”, which, you have to admit, is an interesting name for a venue in a city that has always struck me as being quite conservative. :-)
By the way, I heard from three Ottmar-Friends subscribers that went to the shows at the Soiled Dove that they like venue, that the sound was very good (((Alan’s got good ears!))) and that they enjoyed the performance. It’s nice to read comments like this:
I was at the second show. It was superlative.
I was glad the audience gave you a standing ovation. You (collective “you”) deserved it. The show definitely reinforced the idea that no matter how high-def one records a performance, it’s never as high def as the live concert.
There is just nothing as great as a live concert.
Thanks! That comment illustrates once again the need for a plural you in the English language, a problem solved by New Yorkers, who might use Yous! and Southerners, who use Y’all, but what about everyone else? :-) (((I may have had too much coffee today…)))
Alan likes to hear that it sounded great:
I read this quote somewhere recently:
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.
– Bertrand Russell
That’s the contraction of the self… and here is the expansion:
deep blue sky « neo bohemia
What is the true self?
It is brilliantly transparent, like a deep blue sky,
and there is no gap between the true self and all sentient beings.
– Kodo Sawaki
I am going to enjoy my day off in Dallas. Every once in a while we get to stay in a nice hotel, when the price is right. For example, the Teatro hotel in downtown Denver gave us nearly the same rate as the La Quinta in Salt Lake City the day before, and I think it is a very nice hotel – see the photo I took from the roof, right outside my room.
