Archive for the Music Category
To the dark, and the endless skies….
Posted in Music with tags Roberta Flack, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face on June 14, 2012 by telescoperPort of Call
Posted in Jazz with tags Buell Neidlinger, Cecil Taylor, Dennis Charles, Port of Call, The World of Cecil Taylor on June 9, 2012 by telescoperThis morning I was listening to a classic jazz album recorded in 1960 (in New York City) and called The World of Cecil Taylor. I’ve had for a very long time, but haven’t listened to it for ages. I don’t know why that is, because it’s brilliant. I haven’t posted much about Cecil Taylor on here so I thought I’d do a quick post about it with a sample in the form of my favourite track, Port of Call.
The 1960s saw a number of crucial innovations in the development of jazz, e.g. removing the bar stucture, making improvisations no longer dependent upon recurrent chordal patterns, and getting rid of fixed tempos. Looking back of the evolutionary history of this music, it’s clear that this album should be placed right at the spot where the old coalesced with the new. Throughout, Cecil Taylor’s solos are built by mixing paraphrases of thematic elements with very free improvisation but on Port of Call you can see more obviously signs of the transition between past and future. On the whole, this track conforms more closely to past keyboard transitions than the others: Taylor’s solo divides cleanly into 8-bar segments, with his left hand accentuating the harmonic shifts while his right supplies the melody. But there are also dazzling parallel runs which still sound strikingly modern and which few pianists could pull off so effortlessly at such a fast tempo. His total command of the instrument allows his imagination to find expression through it. Idea after idea comes flooding out as his solo progresses, quicksilver clusters of notes falling like heavy rain on crystal. Awesome.
P.S. The other members of the trio are Buell Neidlinger on bass and Dennis Charles on drums.
Follow @telescoperThe Rain Falls Down
Posted in Music with tags Last Year's Man, Leonard Cohen on June 3, 2012 by telescoperThe rain falls down on last year’s man,
that’s a jew’s harp on the table,
that’s a crayon in his hand.
And the corners of the blueprint are ruined since they rolled
far past the stems of thumbtacks
that still throw shadows on the wood.
And the skylight is like skin for a drum I’ll never mend
and all the rain falls down amen
on the works of last year’s man.
I met a lady, she was playing with her soldiers in the dark
oh one by one she had to tell them
that her name was Joan of Arc.
I was in that army, yes I stayed a little while;
I want to thank you, Joan of Arc,
for treating me so well.
And though I wear a uniform I was not born to fight;
all these wounded boys you lie beside,
goodnight, my friends, goodnight.
I came upon a wedding that old families had contrived;
Bethlehem the bridegroom,
Babylon the bride.
Great Babylon was naked, oh she stood there trembling for me,
and Bethlehem inflamed us both
like the shy one at some orgy.
And when we fell together all our flesh was like a veil
that I had to draw aside to see
the serpent eat its tail.
Some women wait for Jesus, and some women wait for Cain
so I hang upon my altar
and I hoist my axe again.
And I take the one who finds me back to where it all began
when Jesus was the honeymoon
and Cain was just the man.
And we read from pleasant Bibles that are bound in blood and skin
that the wilderness is gathering
all its children back again.
The rain falls down on last year’s man,
an hour has gone by
and he has not moved his hand.
But everything will happen if he only gives the word;
the lovers will rise up
and the mountains touch the ground.
But the skylight is like skin for a drum I’ll never mend
and all the rain falls down amen
on the works of last year’s man.
The Boy in the Boat
Posted in Jazz with tags Charlie Johnson, Jimmy Harrison, Paradise Orchestra on June 3, 2012 by telescoperI’ve written over a hundred posts about Jazz since this blog started, during which time I hope I’ve demonstrated that my ears are open to all its forms, from the traditional Jazz of New Orleans through the bebop era and on to the avant garde. In fact I enjoy writing about the music almost as much as listening to it. I guess it’s a form of evangelism. Or something.
I’m not at all sure who the typical reader of this blog is, but on the occasions when I’ve met people who say they follow my ramblings I’m quite surprised how many say that they enjoy the jazzy bits. Perhaps they’re just being polite. Some people say they like the traditional stuff and can’t bear “all that modern rubbish”; others say that I’m too conservative and should post some more challenging material. I guess that means I’ve accidentally got it about right. In any case I’ll continue posting whatever takes my fancy, and if anyone else out there likes it too then so much the better.
All of which unnecessary preliminaries bring me to a rare old record that I heard years ago on Humphrey Lyttelton’s radio show The Best of Jazz. It’s by Charlie Johnson’s Paradise Orchestra which played at the Paradise Club in Harlem, New York City, in the late 1920s. It’s simplifying the history of jazz a bit too much to put its evolution in one-to-one correspondence with geographical locations, but the “New York” style of that period does represent the third phase of the music’s evolution; “New Orleans” and “Chicago” preceded it. The New York of the 1920s was home to a phenomenal concentration of great bands led by great bandleaders: Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, Don Redman, Luis Russell; the list is almost endless. I suppose given the competition it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that in this environment some very good bands didn’t become as famous as they deserved. This is definitely the case with Charlie Johnson’s Band (or Orchestra, I should say; everything was an “Orchestra” in those days).
In some ways this was a pretty rough old band, but it had a very distinctive voice all of its own and some superb soloists. Indeed in the track below – heard scratchily on an old gramophone – you can hear one of the very best solos from one of the very best soloists of that period, the brilliant trombonist Jimmy Harrison, whose name is not famous for the simple reason that he died young, in 1931. Unusually for a trombone player, Harrison was inspired and influenced by trumpeter Louis Armstrong, to the extent that he often used Satchmo’s favourite entry into a solo as demonstrated on this track, announcing his arrival (about 1.04) with a three-note BA-DA-DAA. His solo is beautifully poised, rhythmically assured, and over the insistent syncopated clarinet riffs, he builds up a wonderful sense of forward momentum. You can always tell the very best jazz musicians, as they can produce that sense of propulsion even when the tempo is not particularly fast.
Anyway, I think this track, The Boy in the Boat, is a forgotten masterpiece that belongs in the same class of atmospheric classics as Luis Russell’s Call of the Freaks, Don Redman’s Chant of the Weed and Duke Ellington’s The Mooche.
P.S. As far as I’m aware, this tune doesn’t have any connection with the rude song of the same name upon which Fats Waller based his tune Squeeze Me.
Follow @telescoperLong Long Summer
Posted in Jazz with tags Dizzy Gillespie, Lalo Schifrin, Long Long Summer on May 28, 2012 by telescoperI know it’s tempting fate to post something with a title like Long Long Summer, but we’ve had such lovely warm weather for the last week or so I couldn’t resist putting this up while the sun’s still shining. I particularly wanted to share this track (a) because it matches the weather perfectly and (b) because it’s by the great Dizzy Gillespie Quintet of 1962 with Lalo Schifrin on piano, man best known as a prolific composer of film and TV scores. The band also featured Leo Wright, a very under-rated saxophonist and flautist. They all play terrifically on this original composition by Lalo Schifrin. There’s also a chance to see an interesting collection of photographs of Dizzy Gillespie, and his amazing cheeks!
Follow @telescoperDracula
Posted in Film, Music with tags Bela Lugosi, Dracula, Kronos Quartet, Philip Glass, Wales Millennium Centre on May 28, 2012 by telescoperLast night I went with some friends to the Wales Millennium Centre in sunny Cardiff Bay; not, this time, for an Opera but to see a movie. Well, not just to see a movie but to listen to the soundtrack performed live at the same time. It turned out to be a fascinating and memorable evening, enjoyed by a very large audience.
The film was the classic 1931 version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, starring the great Bela Lugosi as the Count. This version – the first of many variations on the theme – was based very closely on the 1927 Broadway play in which Lugosi also played the title role. The music we heard was specially composed to accompany Dracula by Philip Glass, and the man himself was there to perform it. Philip Glass, I mean, not Count Dracula. The musicians numbered six in total, actually, as Philip Glass was joined by the Kronos Quartet and together they were directed by Michael Riesman, who sat with his back to the audience watching the film on the big screen.
Although the musicians started a bit ropily, they soon pulled themselves together and it became obvious that the music was going to bring a significant new dimension to this pioneering old horror movie. In fact, as a very early “talkie” the original film had no musical score at all and very few sound effects of any kind. The music composed by Philip Glass brings extra dramatic intensity to some of the movie’s iconic sequences, such as the battle of wills when Dracula tries to mesmerise Professor van Helsing. The insistent repetition which is characteristic of Glass’ minimalist approach adds urgency where needed, but there are also contrasting passages of relaxed beauty. The score is also beautifully understated where it needs to be, simple enough not to distract attention away from the screen.
The passing years have not been particularly kind to the film. The effects are often unconvincing (to say the least), especially the bats-on-strings, some of the acting very hammy, and the audio quality was so poor that the dialogue was often so muffled as to be barely audible (and not helped by bad mixing with the music).
Once you look past these superficial aspects, however, it’s not difficult to understand why this film is regarded as such a classic, because it is a highly original piece of work. It’s a far cry from a modern gore-fest, of course. The horror is implied rather than made explicit; all the actual blood-sucking happens out of shot. But the unsettlingly disjointed narrative, full of unexpected changes of scene and unexplained goings-on, gives it a dream-like feel and conjures up a unique sense of atmosphere. Although it it is now extremely dated, it doesn’t take that much imagination to understand why it created a sensation way back in 1931, with people apparently fainting in shock in the cinema. It also made a huge amount of money at the box office.
Vampire movies are replete with their own set of clichés – the crucifixes, the absent reflections, the bats, etc etc – but this is the daddy of them all. The one thing that surprised me was the lack of garlic; the favoured protection against this particular member of the Undead is Wolfsbane (a member of the Aconite family of attractive yet lethally poisonous flowering plants; I used to grow a variety called Monk’s-Hood in my garden when I lived in Nottingham).
In the end, however, Dracula owes it all to the mesmerising screen presence of Bela Lugosi. This film made his name, and he was to spend most of the rest of his career typecast as a horror villain. His later years represented a downward spiral. Trouble with sciatica led doctors to prescribe him with opiates, on which he became hooked. His drug addiction made him notoriously unreliable and work dried up. His career dwindled away into obscure bit parts in poor quality B-movies.
Although Bela Lugosi had his limitations as an actor, he didn’t deserve his fate. I’ve said before on here that I think people should be judged by their best work rather than by their worst, and so it is with Bela Lugosi. He was, and remains, the Count Dracula.
The Cat
Posted in Music with tags Big Roll Band, Jimmy Smith, The Cat, Zoot Money on May 27, 2012 by telescoperI can’t believe I haven’t posted anything yet by the legendary Zoot Money so here he is with the Big Roll Band doing a cover version of Jimmy Smith’s The Cat. This is one for the Oldies, I guess, since it’s from way back in 1966.
I suppose that posting this will reveal that I’m more of a Mod than a Rocker, although if truth be told I’m not really that much of either. Now, where’s my Lambretta?
Follow @telescoperShostakovich and Debussy
Posted in Music with tags BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC Radio 3, Debussy, Francois-Xavier Roth, Images, Shostakovich, St David's Hall, Violin Concerto on May 26, 2012 by telescoperWith Cardiff likely to be in the grip of Olympic Torch fever I decided yesterday to avoid the crowds as much as possible and take in a bit of culture in the form of a concert at St David’s Hall. My usual route into work being blocked by the closure of Bute Park to the public I walked into the city centre, paid in a few very welcome royalty cheques at the bank, and went to St David’s in person to book a ticket. I had no problem getting a good seat, but the staff issued dire warnings about getting here in good time for the 7.30 start as the Olympic Torch would be passing right in front of the venue just before the concert.
Despite the crowds I reckoned I had time for a quick pint (or two) in the Poet’s Corner before kick-off. Walking there from my office I saw a few people on Newport Road waiting for the Torch and its entourage, but not all that many. While I drank and chatted with a couple of PC regulars, the noise of a helicopter circling announced the arrival of the flame in our vicinity. I was almost tempted to pop outside for a look, but although the Olympic Torch was outside, the beer was inside and a man must have priorities in life.
So about 6.45 I headed off towards St David’s Hall. There were people out and about, but no more than you’d expect on a sunny Friday evening. Traffic had already re-started and disruption seemed fairly minimal. I don’t know where the Torch had got to by then but I arrived at the Hall at 7.00 to find a crowd watching it on the Big Screen in the Hayes. I went straight in and had a nice glass of wine.
When I got into the auditorium for the evening’s concert I was a bit taken aback, not only by the huge size of the orchestra (particularly the brass section) but also by its unusual arrangement: the strings were divided in two, arranged more-or-less symmetrically with cellos and basses to far left and far right. I was also initially perturbed that my favourite handsome violinist was not in his usual place, but I soon located him and all was well with the world.
The concert, featuring the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by associate guest conductor Francois-Xavier Roth, was broadcast live last night on BBC Radio 3, incidentally, and you can listen to a recording here.
The unusual orchestral arrangement was needed for the first piece of the concert, called Sound and Fury, by contemporary French composer Philippe Manoury. This is a work that’s full of contrasting moods, set against an overall concept relating to the battle between order and chaos. Passages in which stable melodic lines can be identified evolve into savage cacophony and back again; there are also sequences where the two halves of the orchestra act as two independent forces, challenging and responding to each other across the stage. Not exactly easy listening, but fascinating nonetheless.
After the interval we had the two “main pieces” of the evening, played by a more conventional orchestral line-up. First was the First Violin Concerto by Dmitry Shostakovich with soloist Daniel Hope (dressed, I have to say, in a horrible shiny suit). The open movement, entitled Nocturne, is striking for its lightness, and the apparent simplicity of its singing solo lines. The second movement Scherzo, darker and more intense, is followed by a wonderful slow movement marked Passacaglia, the end of which is marked by a fiendishly difficult solo cadenza that bridges into the final Burlesque. Daniel Hope played it with great verve and confidence, but in the context of the overall work I found it a bit gratuitous. Still an impressive piece, though, with many of the hallmarks of Shostakovich’s great symphonies.
The last piece was Images pour Orchestra by Claude Debussy. While the preceding Shostakovich work is perhaps a symphony masquerading as a suite, Images is definitely not a symphony. It’s a series of impressionistic and enigmatic vignettes of very differing mood. It’s in three movements, but the central one is itself divided into three distinct parts, so it is really five movements. The opening one includes, to my surprise, the Northumbrian tune The Keel Row and there are references to Spanish and French folk songs later on. The whole impression you get listening to this work is similar to walking through an art gallery looking at paintings that relate to each other in some ways, but contrast in others, or perhaps reading an anthology of poems by different poets.
Three different works from the 20th century, each with a very characteristic voice of its own and each with much to enjoy made for an absorbing concert. St David’s Hall was rather sparsely populated – the Cardiff audience is notoriously conservative in its musical tastes, and the Olympic Torch business wouldn’t have helped – but those that had made the effort were extremely appreciative at the end.
Having got my musical fix for the week I headed home. It must have only been about 9.45, but the concert in Bute Park seemed to have ended already. The city was busy, but not unusually so. The barricades had gone, and the buses were running again. I walked home through Sophia Gardens in the deepening twilight and saw a bat flying nimbly in silhouette against the crescent moon. Whatever happens in the future, that Image will be a treasured memory of Cardiff.
Follow @telescoperC Jam Blues
Posted in Jazz with tags Ed Thigpen, Oscar Peterson, Ray Brown on May 22, 2012 by telescoperI finished a marathon session of examination marking yesterday evening, and gave the papers another check through this afternoon just as a precaution against any errors on my part. Now I’m satisfied with them I’m going to hand them over to the second examiner tomorrow morning for another check. We do take a lot of care over this things, you know…
Having got such such a big job out of the way I think there’s grounds for a minor celebration. On top of that I noticed this afternoon that the total number of visits to this blog has just passed the one million mark! Thanks to everyone who has visited for taking the trouble to read my ramblings. I hope to be able to pass on news of an important development on the blog very soon…
In the meantime, here’s a video I’ve been waiting for a good day to post. It’s the great Oscar Peterson Trio vintage 1964 in excellent form playing a Duke Ellington standard called C Jam Blues which, as its name suggests, is a 12-bar blues in the key of C Major. I have many reasons for loving this performance: Oscar Peterson’s lengthy improvised introduction is worth a shout all on its own, but watch out for the little look he gives to bassist Ray Brown at about 2.34 to signal him in at the start of the next chorus. Look out too for the flawless performance of the legendary Ed Thigpen on drums; one of my Dad’s absolute favourite drummers, and mine too. The three musicians are definitely all on the same wavelength for this track, but the eyeball communication between Ed Thigpen and Ray Brown seems almost psychic.
Follow @telescoperTristan und Isolde
Posted in Opera with tags Ann Peterson, Ben Heppner, Lothar Koenigs, Richard Wagner, Tristan und Isolde, Welsh National Opera on May 20, 2012 by telescoperRegular readers of this blog will know that, although I’m a regular opera-goer, I’m by no means as much of a devout fan of Richard Wagner as many of that ilk, including some of my colleagues. Nevertheless, I have decided to persevere in much the same way as I have done with Brahms. Last night I had an opportunity to do just that by going to the first night of the new run of Tristan und Isolde by Welsh National Opera. I was particularly delighted to see this opera on the WNO schedule for this year, because it is an opera with which I am a little bit familiar, and thus provided me with an excuse to persevere a little bit more, for reasons I shall explain…
Years ago, when I lived in Nottingham, on a warm summer evening I decided to listen to some of the live broadcast on BBC Radio 3 of Tristan und Isolde from Glyndebourne. I made myself a cocktail and took the radio out into the garden with the intention of listening to a bit of it before going out for the evening. This was back in the days when I actually used to go out on the town on Saturday nights; now I’m too old for that sort of thing. Anyway, I was hooked right from the Prelude. Act I came and went and I decided to make some dinner in the interval, opened a bottle of wine, and returned to listen to the rest of it. The glorious music washed over me in the sultry twilight. Darkness fell, a second bottle of wine was opened, and still I listened – no doubt to the consternation of my neighbours. The final Liebestod was so beautiful I almost cried. Eventually I retreated to the house having experienced my first all-out Wagner trip.
My enjoyment of that occasion was of course helped by the fact I could get up and walk around occasionally, as well as by the liberal intake of fine wine. Nevertheless, I took enough out of it to want to see a full performance. Last night was my chance.
I think the first thing to say about Tristan und Isolde is that the music is completely wonderful. Not only ravishingly beautiful, but also haunting and complex. The opening bars establish a vividly chromatic orchestral palette which is used to brilliant effect to create the atmosphere of tragedy that pervades this work. The opening chord, the Tristan chord, is dissonant and its effect is strengthened by its resolution into another dissonant chord.
It’s often been said – probably with justification – that the freedom with which Wagner composed this opera opened up a whole new set of possibilities for Western classical music. It’s also wonderful to listen to.
So as a music drama it scores nearly 100% for the music. As a drama, though, it leaves a lot to be desired. The plot in Act I is absurd even by operatic standards. Isolde plans to poison Tristan and then take poison herself, but her servant Brangäne does a nifty switch of the vials and the two drink a love potion instead. This ignites a mutual desire that had previously been dormant and leads them into a tragic confrontation between love and responsibility. Isolde, you see, is betrothed to King Mark of Cornwall, and Tristan is his most loyal and virtuous knight. You know this isn’t going to end well, but the bit with the potions reminded me of that old Danny Kaye sketch about the “Vessel with the Pestle”.
Act 2 finds Tristan and Isolde in a dark wood, having embarked on an illicit love affair. It’s basically just the two of them on stage expressing their love to each other in wonderful music. Dramatically, however, nothing at all happens for the best part of an hour until right at the end when the King and his men find the couple in flagrant deliciousness. Now I understood why this opera works so well on the radio..
Tristan is stabbed by one of the King’s cronies at the end of Act 2, but the start of Act 3 finds him back in his ancestral home in Brittany, mortally wounded, lying under a very large plank of wood. In despair he hopes that Isolde will find him and mend his wounds with one of her potions (hopefully the right one this time). She arrives, but he snuffs it before she can help. Then another ship arrives, carrying King Mark and his boys, who have obviously been in hot pursuit across the English Channel. Isolde sings of being reunited in love with the dead Tristan and as she sings the stage and other actors fade from view. She dies.
Full marks to Isolde, Ann Petersen, a wonderful dramatic soprano with an electrifying voice; she’s from Denmark, incidentally. Canadian-born Ben Heppner as Tristan, was also in good voice, although he sometimes struggled to project and his rotund appearance called for a bit of audience imagination for him to be seen as a dashing knight. Mezzo Susan Bickley was a splendid Brangäne too.
The Orchestra of Welsh National Opera under the direction of Lothar Koenigs were excellent too, after a rather nervous opening during which they seemed almost to be in awe of the music they were playing. And a special word for the staging, which was rather stark but also very clever, especially during Act I when a translucent screen divided the front and back of the stage and allowed some intriguing lighting effects.
I’d prepared myself psychologically for the 5 hours plus of this performance – not too bad actually, when you realise that includes two intervals, of 25 minutes and 50 minutes respectively – so I coped well enough. The piece definitely has its longueurs, but you can always shut your eyes and imagine you’re in the garden at home..
Follow @telescoper
In the Dark 