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Monster Mash-up

Posted in Biographical, Music with tags , , , on October 31, 2012 by telescoper

It’s Hallowe’en again, and although I feel I should concoct something appropriate, I really don’t have time. I’ve decided therefore to recycle a couple of items I’ve previously posted on this lamentable occasion.

We never had Halloween when I was a kid. I mean it existed. People mentioned it. There were programmes on the telly. But we never celebrated it. At least not in my house, when I was a kid. It just wasn’t thought of as a big occasion. Or, worse, it was “American” (meaning that it was tacky, synthetic and commercialised).  Cue this seasonable clip from Fry & Laurie

So there were no Halloween parties, no costumes, no horror masks, no pumpkins and definitely no trick-or-treat when I was a lad.

Having never done trick-or-treat myself as a child, I never really had any clue what it was about until relatively recently. I’d always assumed “Trick or Treat?” was a rhetorical question or merely a greeting like “How do you do?”.

In fact my first direct experience of this perculiar custom  didn’t happen until I was in my mid-thirties and had moved to a suburban house in Beeston, just outside Nottingham. I was sitting at home one October 31st, watching the TV and – probably, though I can’t remember for sure – drinking a glass of wine, when the front door bell rang. I didn’t really want to, but I got up and answered it.

When I opened the door, I saw in front of me two small girls in witches’ costumes. Behind them, near my front gate, was an adult guardian, presumably a parent, keeping a watchful eye on them.

“Trick or Treat?” the two girls shouted. Trying my best to get into the spirit but not knowing what I was actually supposed to do, I answered “Great! I’d like a treat please”.

They stared at me as if I was mad, turned round and retreated towards their minder who was clearly making a mental note to avoid this house in future. Off they went and I, embarrassed at being exposed as a social inadequate, retired to my house in shame.

Ever since then I’ve tried to ensure that I never again have to endure such Halloween horrors. Every October 31st, when nightfall comes, I switch off the TV, radio and lights and sit soundlessly in the dark so the trick-or-treaters think there’s nobody home.

That way I can be sure I won’t be made to feel uncomfortable.

Anyway, despite my own  reservations about Hallowe’en, I’ve decided to resurrect the following little video which seems to be appropriate for the occasion. It’s made of bits of old horror B-movies but the music – by Bobby “Boris” Pickett and the Crypt-kickers is actually the second single I ever bought, way back in 1973. I wonder if you can guess what the first one was?

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Out of the Cool

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , on October 28, 2012 by telescoper

I’ve been taking it easy today, attempting to recover from a bout of sickness by loafing about and listening to old records. I don’t know why I haven’t listened to Out of the Cool by the Gil Evans Orchestra for a while, but at least that meant I came back to it relatively fresh.

Gil Evans was one of the few composer/arrangers in Jazz to have successfully blended his own orchestral textures with solo improvisations in such a way that both complement each other; the scored passages he devised are complex and beautiful, but never so rigid that they inhibit the soloist’s imagination. He directed a number of albums that incorporated Jazz solos in classically-inspired orchestral settings, including Sketches of Spain and Porgy and Bess (with Miles Davis). This one is less famous than those, but in my opinion at least as good.

Trumpeter Johnny Coles (no relation) is particularly inspired by the imaginative surroundings constructed by Gil Evans on this album, and he responds by inventing beautiful solo lines on several tracks on this album. But the tonal spectrum he encompasses, his use of dynamics, and his distinctive play with inflection are best illustrated by his feature piece, Sunken Treasure, a mysterious, almost evanescent creation which he fashions out of Evans’ floating harmonies. I think this is the best track off a great album.

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In a Sentimental Mood

Posted in Biographical, Jazz with tags , , on October 24, 2012 by telescoper

A late post this evening, as I’m just back from a short visit to Brighton. I travelled down there yesterday evening and stayed with an old friend in a house I lived in for a time about 25 years ago. I spent most of today meeting some of my future colleagues at the University of Sussex, who made me feel very welcome, and also catching up on some important things to be dealt with when I take over there in the new year. It’s all part of a gradual process of acclimatisation which I’ll need to do so I don’t take ages getting up to speed when I officially start. I didn’t get much time to wander about the town, but many Brighton memories have flooded back over the last couple of days. Cue an old favourite track that I listened to this evening on the train on the way home. It’s from a lovely album recorded by the unlikely combination of John Coltrane and Duke Ellington. They were men of different musical generations, but they admired each other enormously. It’s clear from the relaxed nature of this collaboration that neither felt he had any points to prove; each adapts his style to suit the other, with gorgeous results.

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One Hundred Years of Pierrot Lunaire

Posted in Music with tags , , , , , on October 22, 2012 by telescoper

I’m a bit annoyed with myself for having forgotten to mark the centenary of the first performance of Arnold Schönberg’s extraordinary work Pierrot Lunaire, which took place on October 16th 1912, in Berlin. Here’s a hasty reworking of an old post to make up for my lapse.

It’s hard to know exactly what to call Pierrot Lunaire. It’s basically a musical setting of a series of poems (by Albert Giraud, but translated into German) so you might be tempted to call it a song cycle. However, it’s not quite that because the words are not exactly sung, but performed in a half-singing half-spoken style called Sprechstimme. Moreover, they’re not really performed in the usual kind of recital, but in a semi-staged setting rather like a cabaret. It’s not really an opera, either, because there’s only one character and it doesn’t really have the element of music drama.

The whole thing only lasts about 40 minutes so the 21 individual pirces are quite short, and they’re arranged as three groups of seven with the narrator Pierrot dealing with different themes in each group. The work was written in 1912 and is his Opus 21, so it’s a relatively early example of  Schönberg’s atonal music but before he turned towards full-blown serialism. Atonalism isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but it can (and does in this case) allow a hugely varied musical landscape to be constructed by a small group of instruments.

I’ve heard this work before, on the radio, and found it very intriguing but then I saw a youtube clip of the film version made in 1997 with Christine Schäfer as Pierrot. This is not a film of a concert or a recital, but an extraordinary visual response to the remarkable music and words. The director, Oliver Hermann, creates a grotesque dreamlike urban setting through which Pierrot wanders like a ghost, with emotions alternating between desperate alienation and amused reflection. I think music and film together create a wonderful work of art, which has gone right to the top of my list of favourite music DVDs.

Atonal music is very good for communicating a sense of disorientation and loneliness, course. The lack of tonal centre (or key) means that the listener is denied the usual points of harmonic reference. Hum doh-ray-me-fah-soh-la-ti and you’re drawn very powerfully back to the tonic doh. Deny this framework and the listener feels discomforted, but also, at least in my case, gripped.

Miles Davis’ classic album Kind of Blue – arguably the greatest jazz record of all time – was the first record I heard in which jazz musicians experimented with atonalism, and it has the same effect on most listeners: a spreading sense of melancholia and introspection. Perhaps not great for party music, but, in its own way, extremely beautiful.

Here’s the clip I saw on youtube that started me off on this. It’s the eighth item of Pierrot Lunaire (or, more accurately, the first of the second group of seven; Schönberg was quite obsessed with the number 7, apparently). It’s quite short, so hopefully won’t upset those who can’t stand atonal music for more than a few seconds, but it nicely exemplifies the extraordinary surreal imagery conjured up by the director as a response to the equally extraordinary music. Fantastic.

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The Academy of St Martin in the Fields

Posted in Music with tags , , , , , , , on October 18, 2012 by telescoper

Just a very quick post this morning about a concert I went to last night at St David’s Hall.

It was a last-minute decision to go and hear The Academy of St Martin in the Fields as I’ve been too busy these days to do much forward planning of non-work activities. However, when I saw that Beethoven’s First Symphony was on the menu I decided to go for it and even persuaded a couple of friends, Ed and Haley, to come along.

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1  was the work that opened the concert, in fact, with music director  Joshua Bell conducting from a seated position and playing violin at the same time; at times the expansive gestures he made with his bow threatened to put someone’s eye out.

Perhaps the orchestra hadn’t really warmed up but I found the performance of Beethoven’s First Symphony rather flat. It’s a piece I really love – especially the last movement, which has all the ebullience of a young man making his way in a world that’s rich in possibilities, as well as paying affectionate homage to his predecessors (especially in this case Haydn and Mozart). In last night’s concert, however, I thought the wind instruments (especially the horns) lacked bite and focus and a great deal of the exuberant energy of the last movement was lost.

Next piece up was new to me, the Scottish Fantasy by Max Bruch. For this, Joshua Bell stood centre stage while he played the violin role (beautifully, in fact). Based on a series of Scottish folk songs, this work is pretty (in a slightly mushy way). Not really my cup of tea but I did enjoy Joshua Bell’s poised and expressive violin playing. The orchestra, with a beefed up brass section,  played this one better too.

After the interval we had Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3 (“Scottish”), with Joshua Bell back in eye-threatening mode, in place among the first violins. I’ve always had a soft spot for Mendelssohn because his music always seems so beautifully crafted. Some find him a bit twee and cosy, but the Scottish Symphony is a fine work that takes the listener on a long and dramatic journey through a varied musical landscape. I thought last night’s performance was very fine indeed. When I leave Cardiff I’ll certainly miss having so many opportunities to hear world-class music live!

When we emerged from St David’s Hall, it was bucketing down so we made for a local restaurant for a late supper, a glass or two of wine, and a large amount of departmental gossip. By the time we’d finished chatting and drinking, the rain had gone and I had a pleasant walk home without getting drenched. I’ll miss the Cardiff rain too. Sort of.

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All Blues at School

Posted in Biographical, Jazz with tags , , , , , on October 14, 2012 by telescoper

I discovered by accident the other day that the classic Miles Davis composition All Blues has found its way onto the GCSE Music syllabus. I think that’s wonderful. In fact here’s a recording of the track,  produced and distributed as “set work” for that purpose:

I never took any qualifications in music at School – although I did get music lessons, I didn’t find them at all inspiring and it took me years to develop a taste for anything other than Jazz, which I knew about mainly from home, because my father was a (part-time) Jazz drummer. There wasn’t much mention of Jazz at School from teachers, and none of my friends were into it, so it became a very private passion, although I’m glad to say it never faded.

Anyway, what little I know about music I picked up by studying on my own, and trying to figure out what was going on by listening to records. All Blues is a really interesting composition to unpick in this way, as it tells you a lot about how Jazz was evolving in the late 1950s (it was released in 1959). Musicians like Miles Davis were experimenting with ways of breaking away from the standard approach to Jazz improvisation based on chord progressions, and one of the routes that developed was modal Jazz. All Blues is particularly interesting because it teeters on the edge between the old approach and the new; it’s clearly based on the traditional 12-bar blues progression but diverges from it in several respects.

A standard blues progression in G might go  like this (although there are many variations):

|G|G|G|G|
|C|C|G|G|
|D|C|G|G|

It’s based on just three chords: the tonic (in this case G): the sub-dominant IV (C) and the dominant V (D); the V-IV-I progression in the last four bars is usually called the turnaround.

The progression for All Blues is this:

|G7| G7| G7| G7|
|Gm7| Gm7| G7| G7|
|D7| E♭7 D7| F G|F G6|

While the addition of a major 7th note to the basic triad G isn’t unusual, the two G minor 7th chords are more interesting, because they involve adding a blue note (a flattened third) to the basic chord . But it’s in the last four bars that the harmonies move dramatically away from the standard turnaround. Chromatic chords are included and the usual resolution back to G is subtly changed by the addition of a 6th note (E) to the basic G chord (GBD) at the end; that trick became a bit of a trademark for Jazz of this period.

However, it’s the two F chords that represent the strongest connection with modal harmony. The scale of G major involves F-sharp, so the F is a flattened note (a flattened VIIth).  In fact, all the Fs in the piece are natural rather than sharp.  For this reason you could argue that this is a piece not played in the key of G major but in the corresponding Mixolydian mode (the white notes on the piano from G to G).

So it’s a blues that’s not quite a blues, but is (appropriately enough) Kind of Blue. There’s so much going on harmonically that the fact that it’s played in 6/8 rhythm (rather than the more usual 4/4 for the Blues) seems almost irrelevant.

Those are just the bare bones, but the improvisations of Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderley and John Coltrane et al.  breath life into them and create a living Jazz masterpiece. Although it seems like a complicated tune, apparently what happened at the recording session was that Miles Davis talked the band through the piece, they played it once to get a feel for it, and then recorded the entire track that was released on the album, in one go.

I must have listened to All Blues a thousand times, and I’ve never tired of it. The thing is, though, I could say the same thing about all the other tracks on the album Kind of Blue, about which Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote

Kind of Blue isn’t merely an artistic highlight for Miles Davis, it’s an album that towers above its peers, a record generally considered as the definitive jazz album, a universally acknowledged standard of excellence. Why does Kind of Blue posses such a mystique? Perhaps because this music never flaunts its genius… It’s the pinnacle of modal jazz — tonality and solos build from the overall key, not chord changes, giving the music a subtly shifting quality… It may be a stretch to say that if you don’t like Kind of Blue, you don’t like jazz — but it’s hard to imagine it as anything other than a cornerstone of any jazz collection.

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Jephtha

Posted in Opera with tags , , , , , on October 5, 2012 by telescoper

I took time out from a busy week yesterday evening for a performance by Welsh National Opera of Jephtha by George Frideric Handel. Based on a biblical story (from the Book of Judges), Jephtha was written late in Handel’s life (indeed it was the last major work Handel wrote) as an oratorio rather than an opera, and was first performed as such in 1752.

Last night’s production brought movement, scenery and costumes to Handel’s lovely music in an attempt to turn it into an opera. It was only partially successful in doing that. Owing to the nature of the piece, it appeared as a series of rather static tableaux rather than a compelling music drama. It did however, feature excellent music and singing, and very imaginative use of a rather simple set, an interior of faded and battered opulence, complete with broken plaster and bullet holes, and costumes that evoke the period leading up to World War II.

You can get a good idea of the look of the performance in the following WNO trailer:

The story revolves around the character Jephtha who is called upon to lead the people of Gilead in battle against Ammon. He takes up the challenge, and when he proves victorious he rashly (and cruelly) vows to make a sacrifice of the first human being to greet him when he returns home. That turns out to be his daughter, Iphis. Will he carry out his pledge and turn Iphis into a burnt offering? Will an Angel of the Lord intervene and spare her? I won’t spoil the plot, except that that the operatorio does not end in the same way as the bible story seems to…

As for the singers, I thought Fflur Wyn (Iphis) was the pick – her voice beautifully conveyed the innocence and fragility of the young daughter. Robin Blaze as Hamor (Iphis’ betrothed) was also excellent in the counter-tenor role. I wasn’t so keen on Robert Murray as Jephtha, whose voice was rather thin and undistinguished especially early on in the performance. But it was really Handel’s music that took centre stage. Although the performance contained much to savour, I’m not convinced that staging Jephtha as an opera was really worth it. I would probably have enjoyed it just as much if it had been performed as an oratorio, like Messiah.

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Lover Man

Posted in Jazz, Literature with tags , , , on October 3, 2012 by telescoper

I huddled in the cold, rainy wind and watched everything across the sad vineyards of October in the valley. My mind was filled with that great song “Lover Man” as Billie Holiday sings it; I had my own concert in the bushes. “Someday we’ll meet, and you’ll dry all my tears, and whisper sweet, little things in my ear, hugging and a-kissing, oh what we’ve been missing, Lover Man, oh where can you be …” It’s not the words so much as their great harmonic tune and the way Billie sings it, like a woman stroking her man’s hair in soft lamplight.

Jack Kerouac, On the Road.

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Travelblog

Posted in Biographical, Jazz with tags , , , , on September 14, 2012 by telescoper

I’m up bright and early this morning – well, early, at least – after my long trip yesterday. I was slightly nervous about my itinerary, especially the (for me) uncharted territory at the end. As it happens, the train from Cardiff to Heathrow, direct flight from Heathrow to Phoenix and shuttle bus from Phoenix to Flagstaff, Arizona, all went to plan. I arrived just after nine yesterday evening, tired but intact.

One thing worth mentioning is that this is the first time I’ve set foot on American soil for many years. My lamentable experience with the US Embassy in London in 2005 succeeding in putting me off visiting the States almost entirely. However, I’m told that travelling is meant to be good for me, so I decided to accept the invitation to attend and speak at the conference I posted about a while ago. One of the relics of the 2005 episode is an unused J-1 visa in my passport, and when we arrived in Phoenix I was consequently a little apprehensive about whether questions might be asked about it. That added to the usual anxiety about length of queues at Immigration. As it turned out, the staff were courteous and efficient and the uniformed officer I spoke to at the desk and who took my fingerprints etc was an enthusiastic amateur astronomer who seemed more interested in my work than in the formalities at hand. Anyway, my virgin visa attracted no comment at all.

Despite landing a bit late, I actually got through the airport in good time to catch the shuttle to Flagstaff. Phoenix, by the way, was a scorching 37 Celsius, even at 5.30 in the pip emma. I dread to think how hot it must have been at mid-day. Flagstaff is, I’m told, a bit cooler being up in the mountains although it was dark when I arrived and I didn’t really see much of the place before getting to the hotel, having a quick blog, and then crashing out.

Incidentally, the route from Phoenix to Flagstaff is north on the I-17 until it hits Route 66, subject of the famous song in which Flagstaff gets a mention:

My hotel is actually situated on Route 66, but so far there’s no sign of anything that could truthfully be described as “kicks”.

Anyway, I have to speak later today so I should probably start writing my talk.  As they don’t say around these parts, Toodle-pip!

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Faces and Places

Posted in Jazz with tags , , on September 12, 2012 by telescoper

Listening to this track from Ornette Coleman on my iPod on the way home today reminded me that I haven’t posted anywhere enough by the great man, so I decided to post this as a soon as I got home. Faces and Places was recorded live at the Golden Circle club in Stockholm  in 1965, and is part of a famous album that was proclaimed “Record of the Year” the following summer in Downbeat magazine. By the mid-60s Ornette Coleman had already established his reputation as leading light of avant-garde saxophonists and, in his own way, was as great an influence on jazz as Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane had been earlier.

It features a trio of Coleman on alto sax, David Izenzon on bass, and Charles Moffit on bass. It goes like the clappers right from the start, with some terrific work on the drums by Moffit, skittering along on the cymbals with interludes of powerful rapid-fire accents on the skins. Fantastic stuff.

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