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Shine on me

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , , on December 22, 2010 by telescoper

Pianist Jaki Byard was one of the most consistently original musicians of his jazz generation, but he was also consistently underrated. His eclectic style embraced the avant garde free jazz of the 60s and 70s as well as traditional gospel and folk music. Whatever he played, though, it definitely sounded exactly like Jaki Byard. Anyway, in 1968 he teamed up with the extraordinarily talented multi-instrumentalist Roland Kirk to record a typically varied selection of music, including this one which has been a favourite of mine since I first heard it on the radio about 30 years ago. It’s one of the most played tracks on my iPod, and it never fails to bring a smile to my face even when I’m stuck on stationary train feeling miserable.

Shine on me is attributed to that most prolific of all composers, Trad. It’s a theme that turns up in a few very early jazz recordings, but I think it began life as a gospel song way back in the mists of time. In this version, though, it’s given a foot-tapping beat which is just so very nineteen-sixties. Roland Kirk’s decision to start the piece on clarinet was truly inspired, and you can tell that all four musicians had a blast playing this. I suppose it’s a sort of parody, but it’s an affectionate one.

Finally, let me mention the drummer Alan Dawson, whose playing is based around a sort of half-funk half-boogie, but with all kinds of polyrythmic stuff on on top; he drives this along like the clappers and makes it such a joy to listen to.


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Messiah

Posted in Biographical, Music with tags , , , on December 12, 2010 by telescoper

Just back from St David’s Hall, Cardiff, where I’ve been listening to a performance of Handel‘s great oratorio Messiah by the Orchestra, Soloists and Chorus of Welsh National Opera under the baton of Conductor Lothar Koenigs. I haven’t got time to write much (as I’m famished), but I enjoyed the concert so much I wanted to write something before the buzz disappeared.

I don’t mind admitting that Messiah is a piece that’s redolent with nostalgia for me – some of the texts remind me a lot of Sunday School and singing in a church choir when I was little and then, a bit later, listening to the whole thing at Christmas time at the City Hall in Newcastle. I loved it then, and still do now, almost 40 years later. I know it’s possible to take nostalgia too far – nobody can afford to spend too much time living in the past – but I think it’s good to stay in contact with your memories and the things that shaped you when you were young. I haven’t seen Messiah live for a very long time, and tonight was like meeting an old friend after a long absence, and discovering that he’s just like you remembered him all those years ago.

Setting aside the wistful reminiscences it brought to mind, tonight’s performance was in any case exceptional. The Orchestra of WNO was on top form, and Lothar Koenigs directed them with great skill and vision. The tempo might have been a bit brisk in places for some tastes – or so I was told in the bar at the interval – but I thought the pace was excellent. Soprano Laura Mitchell and tenor Robin Tritschler both sang with crystal clarity, and bass baritone Darren Jeffrey was in fine voice too. Mezzo Patricia Bardon seemed to struggle a little bit to assert herself; her chest tones have a slightly woolly sound which at times got lost in the undergrowth of the orchestra’s string section, but that was only a problem in a few places.

The centerpiece of the performance, however, was a magnificent display by the WNO chorus. They were kept under a pretty tight rein for most of the time by Chorus Master Stephen Harris, who had them holding back enough in reserve that when they unleashed the full fortissimo the dramatic effect was truly thrilling. Little surprise that they got such warm applause at the end; I thought they were magnificent.

The one thing I wasn’t sure about before the concert started was whether and to what extent the folk at St David’s Hall would observe the tradition of standing during the Hallelujah Chorus. I’ve never been sure how widespread this practice was; it was definitely accepted (and indeed expected) way back when in the City Hall, Newcastle, but I fear many in the rest of the UK think of us Geordies as uncivilised rabble and for all I knew the posher parts of England might have abandoned this quaint practice decades ago.

Cardiff is actually a bit like Newcastle in some ways, but the tradition of music making is much stronger here in Wales. On the other hand -as one of my former colleagues from London days warned me when he heard I’d decided to move here – Cardiff is also a bit old-fashioned. I know what he meant, and I think he was right, but I don’t think it’s at all the worse for being so.

Anyway, I was delighted that, when the time came for the Hallelujah Chorus, the entire audience rose as one to its feet to hear a stunning rendition of this most majestic piece of music. It was King George II’s decision to stand in acknowledgement of Handel’s genius that initiated this ritual, and there’s a very special feeling knowing that you’re celebrating something that’s been celebrated the same way for over 250 years and is still something that’s completely exhilirating to listen to.


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How are things in Glocca Morra?

Posted in Jazz with tags , , on December 10, 2010 by telescoper

As regular readers of this blog (both of them) will know, I listen to quite a lot of jazz. In the course of doing that it has often struck me that there can hardly be a tune that’s ever been written – however unpromising – that some jazz musician somewhere hasn’t taken a fancy to and done their own version. Louis Armstrong turned any amount of base metal into gold during his long career, but here’s an example from a more modern legend, Sonny Rollins, who is still going strong at the age of 80. It’s a tune called How are thing in Glocca Morra? and it was written for the 1947 musical Finian’s Rainbow (which I hate). This version, though, recorded in the mid 50s by a band led by Sonny Rollins on tenor sax, is absolutely gorgeous. It doesn’t take much to inspire a genius…


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Change of the Century

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , , , on December 4, 2010 by telescoper

It’s cold and rainy outside so I thought I’d indulge myself by posting a bit of music. When I was in Oxford last week I was treated to a glass or two of wine after my seminar and during the conversation I was mildy castigated by Pedro Ferreira for not posting enough “modern jazz”, and especially not enough Ornette Coleman. I explained that I always feel like I’m cheating when I just put up a bit of music without actually writing something about it at the same time, and I especially feel that way about pieces that some people might find a bit challenging.

Anyway, I went through my collection just now and found the pioneering album Change of the Century which is well represented on Youtube (and not cursed by the copyright mafia), so here we go…

Coleman’s music must have sounded strange and dissonant for listeners in the late 1950s but it was soon assimilated and became part of the language of jazz from the 1960s onwards. This album dates from 1959, right at the start of his acceptance as a major artist. This album is actually also one of his most listenable LPs and contains a number of tunes which are catchy and even singable. There are obvious overtones of Charlie Parker throughout, but Ornette is already introducing some novel features, especially the use of suspended rhythmic figures which Miles Davis was to call the “stopping and swinging” approach to improvisation.

The album also features Don Cherry on trumpet, Billy Higgins on drums and the superb Charlie Haden on bass so it’s by no means a solo vehicle for Ornette Coleman’s alto saxophone. Indeed, some of the most exciting moments in the album belong to the intricate alto-trumpet unison passages, which are so complicated but played with unbelievable accuracy by the musicians. The following track, simply called Free, provides good examples.

Ornette Coleman’s playing, though, is truly remarkable: agile, constantly moving and full of nervous energy, but also bursting away from the constraints of the bar lines and sometimes taking ideas over the boundary between one chorus and the next. In this respect he was fortunate to have Haden and Higgins playing behind him because they seem to be able to sense the direction of these spontaneous departures, giving the music a close-knit unity which sets it apart from so many other groups recorded at the same time.

If you’re interested in modern jazz you really should get this album. It’s consistently brilliant. As a taster, here’s the track called Free, which is my favourite.

Don Cherry and Billy Higgins are sadly no longer with us, but Ornette Coleman is still going strong. I hope to post some reflections on his later work in due course.


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Lontano

Posted in Music with tags , on November 30, 2010 by telescoper

Off to Oxford for the rest of the day to give a talk, which is apparently either a colloquial seminar or a seminal colloquium. I haven’t worked out which. Anyway, I thought I’d leave you with a wonderful bit of music by the genius  that was György Ligeti. This piece, called Lontano, is one of the many works by this composer I have on my iPod so I’ll be listening to it again as the train speeds (?) through the snowy countryside taking me towards the dreaming spires..


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That’s a Plenty

Posted in Jazz with tags , on November 25, 2010 by telescoper

By way of a little Thanksgiving gift to my friends and colleagues over in the US of Stateside, and also to warm the cockles of everyone shuddering here in the cold snap that’s fallen over Blighty, here’s a rare taste of hot jazz from a very young Benny Goodman.

This track was recorded in 1928, long before the start of the Swing Era of which Benny Goodman’s Orchestra was in the vanguard, leading Mr BG to be called “The King of Swing”. His clarinet sound is a bit rougher around the edges than he achieved in the slick performances of his later years, but then he was only 19 at the time and he certainly plays with a huge amount of drive.

This was recorded with a trio of himself on clarinet, a piano (Mel Stitzel) and a drummer (Bob Conselman). After he formed his big band in the thirties he continued to make records with a band of the same format, but featuring Teddy Wilson on piano and Gene Krupa on drums. I never quite worked out why he preferred not to have a bass player in the small group recordings (although he often included Lionel Hampton on vibes), but this older track at least demonstrates that he was consistent in that respect!

And another thing. I’m not an expert, but to my ears there’s more than a hint of the sound of  Klezmer music in this recording. Waddayathink?

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Sorrowful Songs

Posted in Music with tags , , on November 14, 2010 by telescoper

Polish composer Henryk Górecki passed away on Friday 12th November 2010 after a long illness. Górecki was a peripheral figure in the contemporary classical music world whose music was known only to connoisseurs, until 1991, when a recording of his Symphony No. 3 – the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs – was released to commemorate the victims of the holocaust. The piece – and particularly that recording of it – became immensely popular around the world and sold well over a million copies – which is amazing for a modern classical CD.

Critics reacted with hostility to its success, suggesting that people were buying the CD in order to have it as background music while they sat drinking wine at home. I can’t speak for anyone else, of course, but although I don’t understand the words of the songs that are incorporated in it except by reading the sleeve note, I still find it extremely moving and listen to it regularly. I’m not very good at bandwagons, cultural or otherwise, but this was one I’m glad I jumped on.

Górecki himself said

Many of my family died in concentration camps. I had a grandfather who was in Dachau, an aunt in Auschwitz. You know how it is between Poles and Germans. But Bach was a German too—and Schubert, and Strauss. Everyone has his place on this little earth.

That’s a good thing to ponder this Remembrance Sunday as you listen to the following excerpt from the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs (which was in fact written in 1976, but not recorded commercially until 15 years later).


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Stardust

Posted in Jazz, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , on November 7, 2010 by telescoper

Stellar stuff. Tune by Hoagy Carmichael.  Alto saxophone by Sonny Stitt. Images by various artists astronomers.

Sometimes I wonder why I spend
these lonely nights dreaming of a song
The melody haunts my reverie,
and I am once again with you
When our love was new
and each kiss an inspiration
But that was long ago,
now my consolation is in the stardust of a song.

Beside a garden wall,
when stars are bright,
you are in my arms
The nightingale tells his fairy tale
Of paradise where roses grew
Though I dream in vain,
in my heart it will remain
My stardust melody,
The memory of love’s refrain


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The Orchestra of Welsh National Opera

Posted in Music with tags , , , , , , , , on October 30, 2010 by telescoper

Another Friday evening, another concert at St David’s Hall. This time it was the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera, performing a very mixed programme of pieces (by Rachmaninov, Ravel, Webern and Stravinsky). We’ve been hosting a former PDRA of mine, Chiaki Hikage (now at Princeton) and his wife Mihoko for a week so I invited them along. Chiaki gave a seminar on Friday afternoon at which he endured the usual bombardment of questions from Leonid Grishchuk, so I thought he would need some relaxation afterwards.  I even managed to get front-row seats. It turned out to be a wonderful evening of twentieth century classical music, full of excitement colour and dramatic contrasts.

First up was The Isle of the Dead, Op. 29 by Sergei Rachmaninov,  inspired by a painting of the same name by Arnold Böcklin and written around 1909. The rhythms of the opening passage evoke the motion of a boat moving across the sea to the island, from which point the piece develops among a cloud of increasingly dense harmonic layers into a dark atmosphere full of foreboding. It’s a piece that many probably find a bit melodramatic, but I found it both accessible and fascinating.  In fact it struck me that it wouldn’t be out of place as the soundtrack for a horror movie!

After that we had a short break while the stage crew wheeled in the old Steinway for the second piece, the Piano Concerto in G by Maurice Ravel. This is a relatively late piece by Ravel, written around 1930. Its three movements form a sort of sandwich, with the first and third up tempo, jazzy in style and very Gershwinesque. The second, adagio, movement is very different: longer lyrical and tender, although I still detected a jazz influence in the walking bass of the left hand figures during the nocturne passages. The piece was played in sparkling fashion by Jean-Philippe Collard. We were so close that we could hear him humming along as he played. Apparently that bothers some people, but not me. I suppose that’s because so many jazz pianists behave a similar way, as did Glenn Gould.

Anyway, after a glass of wine at the interval it was time for something completely different, the Six Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 6, by Anton Webern. This is a suite of short, intense, atonal pieces, sort of orchestral aphorisms, that embrace a huge range of musical ideas. Although  sometimes a bit cryptic, I found these pieces in their own way at least as evocative as the Rachmaninov we heard earlier. The disorientating atonality of the compositions gives them an edgy restlessness, which I found very absorbing. If they were to be used in a film soundtrack it would definitely have to be  a psychological thriller or  film noir.

The last work was probably the most familiar, The Firebird Suite (No. 2, 1919 version) by Igor Stravinsky from the ballet of the same name. This consists of five pieces, again of varied tempo and colour, ending in an exhilirating finale.

Overall it was a hugely enjoyable evening, with all parts of the orchestra tested to the limits and emerging with flying colours. I’d like to put in a special word for the percussionists, though. Perhaps because my Dad used to play the drums I always feel they don’t get the credit they deserve standing there at the back. In particular, during the Webern and Stravinsky works, the percussionists – especially the tympanist – had an awful lot to do, and did it absolutely superbly. However, all parts of the orchestra played their parts equally well under the baton of Lothar Koenigs. This orchestra has had a few problems recently so it was a relief to find them on such good form.

The St David’s Hall was only about two-thirds full, but the audience was thoroughly appreciative – especially for the outstanding performance of the Ravel Piano Concerto. I’m going to get hold of a recording of it by Jean-Philippe Collard as soon as I can!

P.S. Our front row tickets only cost £22 each. Amazing.


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Greensleeves

Posted in Jazz with tags , , on October 27, 2010 by telescoper

Contrary to popular myth, Greensleeves was not written by Henry VIII. It was actually composed by the person who seems to have written all the best tunes, Trad. Here’s my favourite version, in a jazz style that’s very far from “Trad”, by a superb band led by John Coltrane, as found on the brilliant album Africa/Brass recorded in 1961.

ps. I think it was the pianist McCoy Tyner who wrote the arrangement for this piece, but I’m not 100% certain of that.

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