Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Ditch Deep Dive & Iconic The Buzzword Graveyard

Please stop using “deep dive.” It’s not cool anymore. Also, take a moment to consider before bandying the word “iconic.”

For some reason, I was somewhere in the guts of my Facebook account recently, and found a feature that offers recommended changes for greater audience engagement (or, in the parlance of the day, to “blow up my content”). Out of curiosity, I clicked on it. Essentially, it condensed one of my carefully-crafted posts to a surplus of bullet points and exclamation marks and added a few hackneyed buzz-words.

I understand that something like this can be taken in at a glance by even the biggest troglodyte on social media, but I’m sorry, it’s not what I do. And having A.I. suggest the inclusion of “deep dive” is as agonizing as having a parent walk in when you’re hanging out with your friends as a teenager and trying just too hard to be “awesome” and “amazing” (words which, in their laziest applications, also need to be retired).

What a sad, clichéd, tabloid carnival barker world we live in.

Suggested title for this post: “CLASSIC ROSS AMICO SLAMS A.I.!”

IMAGE: A.I.-generated stupid robot stolen from somewhere on the internet (because I refuse to use A.I.)

June 16, 2025
Grainger Plays Grieg Rare Footage Surfaces

This rare footage turned up online within the past week or so of Percy Grainger playing music by his friend, Edvard Grieg. Since it’s Father’s Day and I’ve got to be out the door to meet my stepdad for brunch, and since it also happens to be Grieg’s birthday, I thought it would be an easy post, and a fascinating one, if you should choose to follow the link.

If you are ever in the vicinity of White Plains, NY, I highly recommend a visit to the Percy Grainger Home & Studio, the house in which Grainger lived for 40 years. Be sure to contact them in advance, as the house is open only on certain days and by appointment.

I went into great detail about my own highly enjoyable visit on the last of April. If you missed it, hopefully this link will take you to the May 1 post, in which I share my impressions.

Happy birthday, Edvard Grieg!

IMAGES: (left) detail from screenshot of Grainger playing Grieg’s “To Spring,” from the Lyric Pieces, Op. 43; photo of Grieg inscribed to his friend, one of the many treasures on display at the Percy Grainger house

June 15, 2025
Prodigal Son Ballet Father’s Day on KWAX

Nothing is guaranteed to get Dad out on the dance floor faster than ballet music inspired by the Prodigal Son.

As related in the Gospel of Luke, a young wastrel burns through his family fortune, then returns home to the arms of a forgiving father. The son’s elder, more responsible brother is none too pleased, but the father explains that since the younger son has repented and returned, as if from the dead – in essence, was lost, and is now found – it is cause for celebration.

This week on “The Lost Chord,” it’s an off-center Father’s Day tribute, as we listen to ballet music inspired by the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

We’ll hear a late, folk-inspired score by the Swedish composer Hugo Alfvén, staged in honor of his 85th birthday in 1957, and Sergei Prokofiev’s alternately pungent and transcendentally lyrical opus, written for the Ballets Russes in 1928. The latter was developed simultaneously with Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 4 and shares much of the same thematic material.

Father knows best. Celebrate the Day of the Dad with “Son Dance,” ballet music inspired by the Prodigal Son, this week on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

June 14, 2025
Father’s Day Serenity on Sweetness and Light

This week for “Sweetness and Light,” on the eve of Father’s Day, give Dad what he really wants – some time alone with the radio!

Grant him the peace to enjoy a program of works by composers from classical music dynasties, music performed by composers’ offspring, performer-families making music together, music dedicated by father to son and vice versa, and the odd piece written specifically about fathers and family.

Seriously, how many neckties and cannabis pipes can a guy own? Now make yourself scarce and don’t come back until you’ve got some coffee and pancakes. Dad’s got some listening to do, to “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 PDT, exclusively on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Stream it wherever you are at the link:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

“Shhh… Classic Ross Amico is on.”

June 14, 2025
Spaghetti Western Music for Father’s Day on KWAX

This week on “Picture Perfect,” for Father’s Day, it’s a fistful of spaghetti for Dad.

We’ll be sampling an hour’s worth of distinctive scores from spaghetti westerns – ultra-cool, hyper-stylized entertainments, made by Italians but often shot in Spain, with their multinational casts heavily dubbed in post-production.

Spaghetti westerns frequently turned the conventions of American westerns on their heads. At any rate, the morality of the traditional western was made much murkier, with antiheroes cast as protagonists, usually motivated by greed and revenge. Especially greed.

As with the American film industry, only more so, when the Italians found something that worked, they went into overdrive, churning out literally dozens of knock-offs and imitations a year, until a given genre had run its financially lucrative course.

To this end, over 600 European westerns were produced between 1960 and 1980. The most influential of these were those directed by Sergio Leone, especially those of the so-called “Dollars” Trilogy – “A Fistful of Dollars,” “For a Few Dollars More,” and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.”

These, of course, featured then-rising star Clint Eastwood. His co-star in the second and third films was Lee Van Cleef, who in American westerns such as “High Noon” and “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” had bit parts as one of the villain’s henchmen, but became an international superstar as the spaghetti western’s most reliable – and bankable – heavy.

We’ll sample from music for the “Dollars” Trilogy, composed by Ennio Morricone, and the “Sabata” Trilogy (which also starred Van Cleef), composed by Marcello Giombini.

Tell Dad it’s all-you-can-eat. We’ll be piling the plates high with music from spaghetti westerns, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

June 13, 2025

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