Gabriel Metsu - Woman Playing the Viola da Gamba

PAINTING OF THE DAY

Gabriel Metsu (1629 Leiden, Olanda - 1667, Amsterdam)

WOMAN PLAYING THE VIOLA DA GAMBA (1663)
(aka "Reverie")
36cm x 44cm

Museum Of Fine Art, San Francisco, USA

São Luís - Brazil

Today's destination

I discovered this alternative destination in Brazil by reading an article on The Guardian: São Luís is not only a charming town part of the Unesco World Heritage, it is also a unique place where you can have fun 24 hours a day. Parties all year, music everywhere and happy people.

This is the schedule of festivals for 2009:

January Pre-carnival rehearsals
February Carnival (21-24 Feb 2009, 13-16 Feb 2010)
March-April Rehearsals for festas Juninas
May Festa do Divino, Espiritu Santo (2 weeks)
June-July Festas Juninas
August Festa de San Benedicto de Alcántara (reggae and afrobeat)
September Festa de San Jose de Ribamar (2 weeks)
October Festa de Açai, Marafolia (alternative, Salvador-style carnival)
November Sleep
December Christmas and Kings festivals

Ok guys, it's time to start planning a trip as soon as possible!

(Photo from Flickr, user tonygalvez License CC-BY-NC-ND)

Massimo Urbani Quartet Live At Supino Jazz Festival 1987

This is an incredible document with Massimo Urbani in a great shape. The very beginning of the record, with the intro-solo of All The Things You Are is something incredible. There are four songs on this record, the only original written by Urbani is I Got Rock. The purpose of Philology Jazz label is to recreate the atmosphere of a concert and at the beginning you can hear the voice of the presenter. The songs are in the same order as they have been performed on stage and Massimo Urbani is quite shy when he introduces the band (Luca Flores - Piano / Pino Sallusti - Bass / Giampaolo Ascolese - Drums).

For more information about the great Italian saxophonist Massimo Urbani (1957-1993) check these links in English:
HERE and HERE.

Exhibition: Art and Love in Renaissance Italy - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Lorenzo Lotto (Venice, ca. 1480 d. Loreto, 1556) - Venus and Cupid, late 1520s

This exhibition explores the various exceptional objects created to celebrate love and marriage in the Italian Renaissance. The approximately 150 objects, which date from about 1400 to the mid-16th century, range from exquisite examples of maiolica and jewelry given as gifts to the couple, to marriage portraits and paintings that extol sensual love and fecundity, such as the Metropolitan’s Venus and Cupid by the great Venetian artist Lorenzo Lotto. The exhibition also includes some of the rarest and most significant pieces of Renaissance glassware, cassone panels, birth trays, and drawings and prints of amorous subjects.

Exhibition: Art and Love in Renaissance Italy

Where: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

When: Until February 16th, 2009

New Year, New Blog and New Podcast Too

Hi all, I haven't written a post in English in a long time. That's too bad. It's the new year and it's time to make plans! So I hope to make this blog at least as succesful as my blog in Italian. I want to write about all things that make life better: music first, but also art, books and many things.
The Jazz Podcast is still alive, but a little agonizing, I hope to be able to record more episodes during 2009!
As I have announced in my last podcast episode, I want to start a new video podcast too. So far I have been making experiments with various video editing software, soon I'll publish the first episode. Here's how it will be:
In each episode I will show a Italian town. There will be my voice to comment scenes (but I don't think you'll see me in person) and good background music taken from Jamendo.
So, stay tuned!