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Parlando - Where Music and Words Meet

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. Hear the sound and sense convey other people's stories here at Parlando - Where Music and Words Meet 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, Jack Kerouac (and many other “beat poets”), Frank Zappa, Carl Sandburg, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart), William Blake, Alan Moore, 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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Parlando - Where Music and Words Meet
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All Episodes
Archives
Now displaying: Page 4
Feb 26, 2023

Here's an outwardly simple yet mysterious poem by Langston Hughes, published among other young Afro-American poets in the 1926 issue of Fire!! For more about this and more than 650 other examples of various words (mostly poetry, combined with original music, see our archives at frankhudson.org

Feb 24, 2023

Another Waring Cuney lyric used on the Josh White record of the state of the Black American nation in 1941. I recently performed it with my own music as part of our February observance of US Black History Month.

For more about this and over 650 other combinations of various words with original music check out our archives at frankhudson.org

Feb 20, 2023

Waring Cuney was one of the lesser-known young contributors to the 1926 Fire!! magazine. Later he contributed lyrics to an anti-Jim Crow Josh White recording. I used one of them again with my own musical setting today. 

For more than 650 other examples of various words (mostly poetry) combined with original music, visit our archives at frankhudson.org

Feb 18, 2023

Resuming our encounter with the 1926 Harlem Renaissance publication Fire!!  I present my performance of Waring Cuney's poem "The Death Bed."  This musical setting uses a sample from the poem's contemporary, Blues/Gospel guitarist Willie Johnson.

Feb 16, 2023

Here's another performance of my poem about old love. For more than 650 other combinations of various words (mostly poetry) with original music visit our archives at frankhudson.org

Feb 12, 2023

A rambunctious country-blues ditty celebrating geezer-age love and desire. If you can't laugh on Valentine's Day, you aren't in love. 

For more about this and more than 650 other combinations of various words (mostly poetry) with original music try our archives at frankhudson.org

Feb 6, 2023

Harlem Renaissance figure Helene Johnson wrote this cold pastoral more than a decade before the more famous song lyric "Strange Fruit." I've set it to music and performed Johnson's poem for today's piece.

Feb 2, 2023

This sonnet by Countee Cullen begins our observance of Black History Month this year. Within my folk music setting I tried to sing this poem air of mournful hope.

Jan 23, 2023

Emily Dickinson's questioning meditation on living in a body performed in a new musical setting.

For more than 650 other combinations of various words (mostly poetry) combined with original music, visit our archives at frankhudson.org

 

Jan 17, 2023

A beguiling song from Yeats' verse play The Land of Heart's Desire performed with acoustic guitar and voice. 

For more about this and over 650 other combinations of various words with original music, visit our archives at frankhudson.org

Jan 14, 2023

This mythological folk song for Martin Luther King Day weaves a tale of a monumental iron statue of Vulcan (the Greek god Hephaestus) erected in Birmingham Alabama, some elements from King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail," and the infamous terror bombing of a church in that city.

Dec 31, 2022

Think of elegies as slow, somber tunes? Here's poet Dave Moore's rollicking but heart-felt elegy for poet-colleague Kevin FitzPatrick to bring down the end of our 2022. 

Dec 25, 2022

Thomas Hardy's poem of wistful Christmas memories performed in this new song setting. For more about this and more than 650 other combinations of various words with original music, visit our archives at frankhudson.org

Dec 20, 2022

Thomas Campion's Winter Solstice song performed. For more this and over 650 other combinations of various words (mostly poetry) combined with original music visit our archives at frankhudson.org

Dec 10, 2022

For Emily Dickinson's Birthday, I'll sing a poem of hers that seems resonate to me now. That's kind of what the Parlando Project does. You can find over 650 other examples of us combining various words (mostly poetry) with original music in different styles in our archives at frankhudson.org

Dec 1, 2022

This Emily Dickinson poem is a hymn to farm work. I've set it to music and performed it. 

For more about this and over 650 other examples of various words (mostly poetry) combined with original music, visit our blog and archives at frankhudson.org

Nov 26, 2022

Jean Toomer's nocturne, one with bees in it, is oddly beautiful. Thinking about it, it seems to be about alienation from the worth of one's labor, but one doesn't have to think all the time while hearing it either. 

For more than 650 other combinations of various words, mostly poetry, with original music, visit our blog and archives at frankhudson.org

Nov 24, 2022

Here's a story about looking at a photo taken in St. Paul Minnesota on Thanksgiving Eve 1949. I'll post the picture it talks about at our website frankhudson.org later tonight. The same location has 650 other combinations of various words (mostly poetry) combined with original music.

Nov 20, 2022

A musical performance of a poem telling my theory of what ghosts are. For more about this and over 600 other combinations of various words (mostly poetry) with original music visit our archives at frankhudson.org

Nov 10, 2022

American Poet Robert Frost wrote this poem in 1916 about what we'd likely call Seasonal Affective Disorder (S.A.D.)

In his poem Frost engaged in a conversation with his SAD-ness and interestingly gives it credit for knowledge and appreciation for a spare beauty. I've turned Frost's poem into a song with acoustic guitar accompaniment. This is what the Parlando Project does: combines various words (mostly poetry) with original music (various kinds). We have almost 650 of such things available at our archive at frankhudson.org

Oct 29, 2022

Here's a grisly folk-rock ballad with words by Robert E Howard and music freshly created this week for our Halloween series. 

For more about this and over 600 other combinations of various words (mostly poetry) with original music, visit frankhudson.org

Oct 28, 2022

Our Halloween series continues with a song performed by the LYL Band about dreams as ghosts set amid neolithic English standing stones 

Oct 27, 2022

Our Halloween series continues with this song of ghosts lured by music using the words of English poet Walter de la Mare. 

For more than 600 other examples of various words (mostly poetry) combined with original music, go to our archives at frankhudson.org

 

Oct 25, 2022

This Dave Moore written and sung piece performed by the LYL Band continues our Halloween series. A fall gardener confronts some ghosts in this one.

For more about this and over 600 other Parlando Project pieces check out blog and audio archives at frankhudson.org

 

Oct 23, 2022

As our Halloween series continues, a contrast from our last piece. Ghosts outside the window this time, and while the questions on either side of the glass in it are difficult to answer, the eerie mood of "All Souls' Night, 1917" has helped it outlast any other by its author Hortrense King Flexner. 

For more about this, and over 600 other combinations of various words (mostly poetry) and original music, go to frankhudson.org

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