“Who did not know Rach­mani­noff inti­mate­ly, did not know him at all.”  So begins this record­ed remem­brance of the great Russ­ian com­pos­er by Alexan­der “Sascha” Grein­er, who knew him well.

Gre­nier was the man­ag­er of the con­cert and artist depart­ment at Stein­way & Sons from 1928–about a decade after Sergei Rach­mani­nof­f’s emi­gra­tion to Amer­i­ca in the wake of the Russ­ian Revolution–until 1958. As the com­pa­ny’s main liai­son with the major musi­cians who played its pianos, Gre­nier became friends with many of the great pianists of the era. “His friend­ship with the great Russ­ian artists was per­son­al as well as pro­fes­sion­al,” accord­ing to Peo­ple and Pianos: A Pic­to­r­i­al His­to­ry of Stein­way & Sons. “If Rach­mani­noff had a birth­day par­ty, Grein­er would be there. If Hof­mann need­ed him, there woud be a telegram sent instant­ly to soothe him.”

The record­ing was appar­ent­ly made a few years before Gre­nier’s death in 1958. As he speaks, home movie footage reveals Rach­mani­noff, who died in 1943, as an impos­ing yet socia­ble man. “Behind an aus­tere, per­haps even severe, coun­te­nance,” says Gre­nier, “there was a most warm-heart­ed lov­able man with a won­der­ful sense of humor. Yes, a won­der­ful sense of humor. Rach­mani­noff thor­ough­ly enjoyed a good sto­ry, and no one who has­n’t seen him laugh with the tears run­ning down his cheeks would believe it pos­si­ble.”  Just before the two-minute mark, Rach­mani­nof­f’s own voice can be heard very briefly speak­ing in Russ­ian. He is play­ing the pop­u­lar Russ­ian song “Bublich­ki” on the piano as a group of friends sing along. In the end Rach­mani­noff breaks off play­ing and jokes to his com­pan­ions, “Vy ne znaete slo­va” (вы не знаете слова), which trans­lates as: “You don’t know the words!”

Relat­ed con­tent:

Tchaikovsky’s Voice Cap­tured on an Edi­son Cylin­der (1890)

Rare 1946 Film: Sergei Prokofiev Plays Piano, Dis­cuss­es His Music

In ear­ly 1964 Charles Min­gus put togeth­er one of the great com­bos in jazz his­to­ry. The sex­tet was com­posed of Min­gus on bass, Dan­nie Rich­mond on drums, Jaki Byard on piano, John­ny Coles on trum­pet, Clif­ford Jor­dan on tenor sax­o­phone and the extra­or­di­nary mul­ti-instru­men­tal­ist Eric Dol­phy on alto sax­o­phone, flute and bass clar­inet. Min­gus called his exper­i­men­tal group The Jazz Work­shop.

In April of that year Min­gus and his band embarked on a three-week tour of Europe, much of which is record­ed on film and audio­tape. The tour is remem­bered as one of the high-water marks in Min­gus’s career. As Rob Bow­man writes in the lin­er notes to the Jazz Icons DVD Charles Min­gus Live in ’64:

The tour effec­tive­ly intro­duced two new com­po­si­tions, “Med­i­ta­tions On Inte­gra­tion” and “So Long Eric”, while the band walked a fine line between Min­gus’s usu­al amal­gam of bop, swing and New Orleans jazz and the free-jazz lean­ings of the cat­a­clysmic Dol­phy. The result, of course, was some­thing that could only be called Min­gus Music–a gal­va­niz­ing, high-ener­gy son­ic stew that, while the prod­uct of the kinet­ic inter­play of six musi­cians, could only have been con­jured up with Min­gus as the mas­ter of cer­e­monies.

The per­for­mance above is from Charles Min­gus Live in ’64. It was record­ed by Bel­gian tele­vi­sion on Sun­day, April 19, 1964 at the Palais des Con­grés in Liège, Bel­gium. The band had unex­pect­ed­ly been reduced to a quin­tet two nights ear­li­er, when Coles col­lapsed onstage in Paris and was rushed to the hos­pi­tal with what was lat­er diag­nosed as an ulcer. In the Bel­gian TV broad­cast, pianist Byard makes up for the miss­ing trum­pet parts as the band plays three Min­gus com­po­si­tions:

1. So Long Eric
2. Peg­gy’s Blue Sky­light
3. Med­i­ta­tions on Inte­gra­tion

“So Long Eric” was named in hon­or of Dol­phy, who had announced before the band left Amer­i­ca that he would remain in Europe when the tour was over. Sad­ly, Dol­phy fell into a dia­bet­ic coma in Ger­many and died just two months after fin­ish­ing the tour. Min­gus would lat­er call the song “Pray­ing With Eric.”

Relat­ed con­tent:

Charles Min­gus and His Evic­tion From His New York City Loft, Cap­tured in Mov­ing 1968 Film

How to Pot­ty Train Your Cat: A Handy Man­u­al by Charles Min­gus

When Nir­vana hit it big I was in high school, a punk-rock purist with lit­tle time for their MTV revi­sion­ism or the fact that they inspired teen rebel­lion from peo­ple who’d nev­er heard “Teenage Kicks.” But even though I was trapped in a late-70s time warp, I found myself at home alone when no one else was lis­ten­ing slip­ping in a tape (that’s right, cas­sette) of Nev­er­mind and nod­ding my head. Cause, I had to admit, they were pret­ty damn good. When I got my hands on their debut, Bleach, I dug it even more, espe­cial­ly “About a Girl.” It’s still the tune that comes to mind unbid­den when I drift back to mem­o­ries of the band. And despite the cultish hype sur­round­ing Kurt Cobain’s sad end and his band­mate Dave Grohl’s rise to pop star­dom, I appre­ci­ate them for what they once were—a real­ly excel­lent garage band—talented, unpre­ten­tious, melod­ic, devoid of flash and ego and able to deliv­er the rock in one of the most impres­sive of con­fig­u­ra­tions: the pow­er trio.

Few places are Nirvana’s garage chops more in evi­dence than in home video of their ear­ly days, shot in grimy prac­tice rooms, stages, and the streets of Seat­tle. In the video above from 1988 (record­ed at Krist Novoselic’s moth­er’s house, Aberdeen 1988), the band bangs out a ver­sion of “About a Girl” with mut­ed feroc­i­ty. Strobe lights strobe, some dudes lounge around the door­way, and Cobain shouts the lyrics with his face pressed to the wall. It’s a per­fect lit­tle doc­u­ment of the band, look­ing more or less like they always did, but with­out light­ing banks, TV cam­eras, and scream­ing fans dis­tract­ing from their lo-fi fuzz-rock appeal; all that machin­ery that seemed so ridicu­lous sur­round­ing these guys. But we know that sto­ry.

The setlist of songs per­formed appears below:

0.07 Love Buzz

2:21​ Scoff

3:18​ About A Girl

6:17​ Big Long Now

10:38​ Immi­grant Song

13:17​ Spank Thru

16:19​ Hair­spray Queen

20:07​ School

22:58​ Mr. Mous­tache

Josh Jones is a doc­tor­al can­di­date in Eng­lish at Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty and a co-founder and for­mer man­ag­ing edi­tor of Guer­ni­ca / A Mag­a­zine of Arts and Pol­i­tics.

Let’s rewind the video­tape to 1993. Gonzo jour­nal­ist Hunter S. Thomp­son final­ly gets to inter­view Rolling Stones gui­tarist Kei­th Richards. The con­ver­sa­tion is utter­ly and pre­dictably incom­pre­hen­si­ble. But it’s amus­ing nonethe­less.

Deci­pher­able con­ver­sa­tion top­ics include: if J. Edgar Hoover returned to this world, what form might he take? (A worm? a fart? a weasel?) What was Kei­th doing on Christ­mas Eve in 1962, 1966, and 1969? And what exact­ly went down at the infa­mous Alta­mont con­cert in Decem­ber 1969?

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John­ny Depp Reads Let­ters from Hunter S. Thomp­son

Hunter S. Thomp­son Calls Tech Sup­port, Unleash­es a Tirade Full of Fear and Loathing (NSFW)

Kei­th Richards Inter­viewed at The New York Pub­lic Library

Hunter S. Thomp­son Gets Con­front­ed by The Hell’s Angels