Friday, April 20, 2018

Honokaa Jazz Band in Concert


The Honokaa High School Jazz Band is on its 2018 Oahu semester tour . The band is playing at several venues over the next few days. Last night (April 19) they played at Centerstage at the Ala Moana Center. Under band director Gary Washhburn, the band wows crowds with their renditions of popular jazz, pop and rock tunes. The band showcased their virtuosity by covering popular standards such as "Route 66," "Cry Me a River," "Moondance," "The Closer I Get To You," and several others. Washburn has written music for the band. They played two of his upbeat, toe-tapping, instrumental compositions which showcased the talents of various members on keyboards, drums, sax and brass. You can learn more about the Honokaa High School Jazz Band from their Facebook page.

Links

Saturday, April 7, 2018

Can You Name a Song That Mentions The Weather?


This question was posted by News Channel 5 out of Nashville Tennessee to their Facebook page. I reposted it to my Facebook page and these are the songs that my friends replied* with:

1. Rain - The Beatles (myself)
2. Sunny - Bobby Hebb (Lani)
3. Stormy Weather - Billie Holiday (Laura)
4. Over the Rainbow - Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwo'ole (Sandra C.)
5. Stormy Weather - Ella Fitzgerald (Jolette)
6. Have You Ever Seen The Rain - Creedence Clearwater Revival (Daniel)
7. Rain - The Cult (Daniel)
8. Storm - Lifehouse (Daniel)
9. Singin' in the Rain - Gene Kelly (Sandra A.)
10. Rhythm of the Rain - The Cascades (Sandra C.)
11. Rhythm of the Rain - Ka'au Crater Boys (Sandra A.)
12. Riders on the Storm - The Doors (Darrin / DC on B93 B97 FM)
13. Stormy Weather [ditto] - (Cherylle)
14. Ain't No Sunshine - Bill Withers (Cherylle)
15. Before The Rain - Lee Oskar (Nate)
16. Rain - José Feliciano (Nate)
17. Rainy Day People - Gordon Lightfoot (Nate)
18. How Can You Mend a Broken Heart - Bee Gees (Jolette)
19. Rainy Days & Mondays - The Carpenters (Paul)
20. Like The Weather - 10,000 Maniacs (myself)
21. Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head - BJ Thomas (Nate)

It would seem rain is the most predominant topic among weather related songs most people have chosen from my small sample. Several songs have rain in their title and some with rain in their lyrics but not in the title. Is rain the topic of the most weather related songs?

Three people chose "Stormy Weather". The jazz classic must be a good one to cuddle up to for the hopeless romantics. And again... we probably have rain here.

* In the original Facebook thread I chose and provided the video links to songs that mentioned no artist.

Here is the YouTube compilation of all the songs listed:

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

Mel's Current Top 20 - 2018



Mel's Current Top 20 has been updated. It is a revision of the old Mel's Weekly Top 20 page. The Current Top 20 chart will be occasionally updated and reflected on this site through posts such as this one. For more detail on Mel's Current Top 20 visit this link:

http://macpro.freeshell.org/music/WTop20.html