100 episodes
Parlando - Where Music and Words Meet The Parlando Project
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- Arts
Poetry has been defined as “words that want to break into song.” Musicians who make music seek to “say something”. Parlando will put spoken words (often, but not always, poetry) and music (different kinds, limited only by the abilities of the performing participants) together. The resulting performances will be short, 2 to 10 minutes in length. The podcast will present them un-adorned.
How much variety can we find in this combination? Listen to a few episodes and see.
At least at first, the two readers will be a pair of Minnesota poets and musicians: Frank Hudson and Dave Moore who have performed as The LYL Band since the late 70s.
Influences include: Patti Smith, Frank Zappa, Carl Sandburg, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart), William Blake, Alan Moore, Beat Poets (Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, and others), The Fugs (Ed Sanders, Tuli Kupferberg), Leo Kottke, Ken Nordine (Word Jazz), Bob Dylan, Steve Reich, and most of the Velvet Underground (Lou Reed, John Cale, Nico).
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Gone
Today's musical setting is Carl Sandburg's short ambiguous poem about a strong-dreaming woman. The reader is left to decide, why the poem's Chick Lorimer is gone. Has she left with her flags flying high? Or is the poem's seeming praise of many lovers and her uninhibited nature hiding a more complex relationship with the town? As a singing performer of this poem I had to decide, and went with the more complex interpretation.
The Parlando Project combines various words (usually literary poetry) with original music in different styles. We've done over 750 such combinations and you can find more at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org -
The Little Octoroon
For Juneteenth, a song from the 1860s written by George F. Root, a white songwriter, depicting an enslaved mother sending her child to the Union lines alone for freedom. I revised Root's melody a bit and performed it for today's holiday.
The Parlando Project takes various words (mostly literary poetry) and usually combines them with original music. You can find more than 750 of them at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org -
The Doomed regard the Sunrise
Goth Emily Dickinson again, with a poem about what stirs the sharpness of our attention now turned into a song.
The Parlando Project combines words (usually literary poetry) with original music in various styles. You can find more than 750 of these combinations at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org -
William Carlos Williams' The Birds
Williams melds birdsong, rain, and dawn into one instantaneous thing. I turned his poem into a short musical performance.
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A little Madness in the Spring
American poet Emily Dickinson's enigmatic short Spring poem performed with new music as a Spring song.
For more than 750 other combinations of various words (usually literary poetry) with original music visit our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org -
Sexton!
Your presenter with an acoustic guitar galloping through Emily Dickinson's exhortation of Spring today.