Radiohead, Albert Hammond, Mike Hazlewood, arr. Scott Bradlee: Creep

There is a perception that the music of this present generation is a lot crappier than it used to be. Now, I don't stand here professing that all contemporary music is quality, but I will tell you that music has existed for almost as long as humans have walked this Earth and for approximately the same amount of time several of them have made inordinately shitty music.

Perhaps the reason that this reality of music getting worse exists comes from a couple things that can easily be observed.  First and foremost, to quote Winston Churchill, "History is written by the victors."  Our entire cultural music experience is based on the premise that only music that gets listened to will be played.  We tend to look through music history with a lens that filters out all the gunk and tripe that never made it.  A downside to this is that sometimes things written in previous eras get tossed aside, and may remain undiscovered until someone later on can make it relevant to our cultural experience.  Case-in-point: Bach's Cello Suites and Pablo Casals.

The other aspect that is more apparent today than ever before is that music is an easily consumed commodity and much more accessible to the layman to both listen to as well as create. This sea change has created a music industry that frequently focuses on image and marketability over musical talent.  I reference my previous statement in saying that the only music that gets played is music that will be listened to.  In a capitalist society, if it wasn't making money, it wouldn't last long.  

Scott Bradlee (b. 1981) is an American musician, pianist, composer, and arranger from New York and approaches this new world of music creation and destruction with a backward looking glance. He's an incredibly talented pianist and has a natural flair for stylistically motivated arrangements that discover unknown facets of contemporary pop.  His experiment in sound operates on a favorite premise of mine in that if you get enough talent and put it into a box filled with instruments something good will come out.  

He is the founder of the Post-Modern Jukebox, a group of rotating and guest musicians who take various pop songs from different decades and reimagines them in alternate style universes.  He was actually tapped by the game developers of the BioShock series to create tunes that fit into the dystopian world of the game.  His formula usually is to take a tune that is presently popular and arrange it as a top 40 hit from the 30's (or any other decade that makes sense for that particular song). 

What interests me the most is his seemingly uncritical targeting for songs that will fit into his arranging machine.  He has rehashed several examples of pop music from today that would be rejected by the more conservative listening community as examples of the ejecta of the modern entertainment business and a byproduct to be consumed and destroyed- certainly not showcased and performed by ridiculously talented New York session musicians.

The example we look at today features a refresh of a song that can be considered to be part of the modern music "art" scene in and of itself.  "Creep" by the English alt-rock band Radiohead was released originally back in 1992 to a lukewarm reception in their home country.  The song did find a tremendous amount of success in Israel, several Scandinavian countries as well as the US.  In what is somewhat of a paradox, the band's general opinion of the song is somewhat jaded, initially fighting the pressure to re-release the song in the UK after it garnered world-wide attention.  

Postmodern Jukebox originally published their cover of "Creep" back in August of 2014, featuring a popular vocalist in rotation with the group, Karen Marie (who is nothing short of remarkable and hysterically funny too!).  Following a tour in Europe the band re-recorded the arrangement with Haley Reinhart who takes it in a different direction altogether.  

One of the more unfortunate things about the recent trends in popular music is not necessarily the embrace of image and marketability over all else, but more so the loss of musicality as something to be praised and embraced. The advent of autotune and the insane amount of post-processing technology that goes into producing an album allows for a sound that would be unobtainable under normal circumstances.  And before you go trashing Rihanna, et al...

...this sort of technology is present in the classical world too.  The difference between a classical recording today and one 50 years ago is worlds apart.  Sound design has evolved significantly, microphone placement and the sheer number of different microphones available means that in a studio every detail can be accounted for and captured and then processed into the final product.  Such music is also subject to the various edits and cut and pastes that any other music track would endure to be shaped into the final product.  This is just a part of where the music industry has gone with the tools that are now available and just like any other kind of tools you may find, these can be mishandled. 

So I invite you to sit back and put some headphones on and listen to good musicians playing good music. And remember, bad music has and always will exist.  There's nothing to be done about that. But take heart! 

Good musicians will persist and as a result... 

So will good music.

See you next Friday.

-ED

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Bradlee
http://postmodernjukebox.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creep_%28Radiohead_song%29

Johann De Meij: Symphony No. 1 "The Lord of the Rings"

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost. 

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

J. R. R. Tolkien 

Johann de Meij (b. 1953) is a Dutch trombonist/composer/conductor that incidentally we haven't talked about in over two years.  Born in Voorberg, Netherlands he is well known for his love of wind band and Tolkien.  He is a prolific and popular composer, amassing four large-format symphonic works for band as well as a quite a few popular concertos, including the T-Bone Concerto for trombone.

Normally I launch into some diatribe about how historical the composer was or what sort of environment existed to forge the work we're talking about, but this one is pretty straightforward.  de Meij is a low brass band nerd and he really likes Lord of the Rings.

The piece itself is divided into five distinct movements that all are sorts of character studies of the various characters and locations in the LOTR universe.  They are:

1. Gandalf (The Wizard) 
2. Lothlórien (The Elvenwood)
3. Gollum (Sméagol)
4. Journey in the Dark
1. The Mines of Moria
2. The Bridge of Khazad-Dûm
5. Hobbits

The first movement begins with a triumphant, heroic theme that then transitions into another, quicker theme evoking imagery of a breakneck chase across Middle Earth.  These all feel very much like film scoring, with lush, full band sound supporting these massively sweeping melodies. The piece then brings about a hymn-like conclusion to the chase and enters a bit more introspective section that recaps the original 'Gandalf' theme.

If I had to compare it to a specific style in Western-Art Music, I'd say it's a bit like a symphonic poem, but instead of evoking specific imagery of setting, date and or time, this is more of a character study of sorts.  It explores the emotions and actions of the individual characters more so than setting any scenery in the mind's eye.  The exception to that would of course be the 2nd and 4th movements which do explore actual locations within the LOTR universe.  Movement II establishes a sort of curious, but slightly dangerous tone establishing the formal and reserved nature of the elves in Lothlórien with a stately waltz that echoes a Baroque ensemble that transitions to a forest of woodwind-inspired birds.  It concludes with a restatement of the original theme and fades into the darkness.

Gollum is this wickedly twisted, loping galop that effectively sounds terrifying with an alto saxophone solo at the beginning.  Again, de Meij expresses more the quality of the character and his personality rather than specific scenes that take place within the book.  Just listening to this, if you knew nothing else about Gollum, you'd know he's not exactly the sort of person (or thing) you'd want to hang around.

Journey in the Dark captures the tension and anxiety of the ring-bearing party's entrance into the Mines of Moria and the madness of the orc attack following which we hear a brief statement of the Gandalf theme right before things wind down a bit, probably demonstrating some of de Meij's most vivid storytelling through music as we hear Gandalf's famous stare down with the balrog.

In the final movement we again visit not specifically a place, but a archetype of the Tolkien world, the Hobbits.  Introduced by the Gandalf theme, which is befitting as through the books and the movies we're often given to view the Hobbits through the lens of Gandalf, it then transitions to a folksy, upbeat tune that sounds very, well...Hobbity.

My only gripe with this movements is that this movement then goes into what essentially amounts to a slow, "pomp and circumstance"-esque rehashing of the same Hobbit theme. It's very well done, but after almost 40 minutes of music, it's a bit stale.  Like writing, composing tends to have a problem with overstating the obvious and in my humble opinion, this restatement of the main Hobbit theme drags on for a bit too long without saying anything too terribly new.  Perhaps de Meij was pre-editorializing the insanely long ending as described by Peter Jackson.

Despite this, I still really love this work.  de Meij captures a Romantic style and love of a good melody and blends it quite well with more modern compositional techniques for band today.  Not that I don't think Howard Shore did a fine job with the score for the Peter Jackson movies, but I certainly wouldn't have been disappointed had they approached de Meij for the job himself.

Interestingly, he was actually discouraged from writing the work as it was to be his first major work and at that time (in the mid-1980's) there wasn't much wind band music longer than 30 minutes.  This work you will notice clocks in around 45 and despite the protestations of his contemporaries in the early days, de Meij's Symphony No. 1 was the catalyst that launched him into contention with some of the finest composers of this era, gave him the ability to found his own publishing company, Amstel Music, which currently publishes several Nordic composers to this day.  de Meij is a much sought-after conductor and frequently can be found in performances all over the world.

If you've only got a few moments, I'd recommend at least listening to Gandalf.  However, if you're a die-hard Tolkien fan it might be worth it to settle in for the full 45 minute epic.

See you next Friday.

-ED

Sources: 
http://www.naxos.com/news/?op=1063&displayMenu=Naxos_News&type=2
http://www.johandemeij.com/music.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._1_%22The_Lord_of_the_Rings%22

Josh Ritter, trans. Chris Thile: Another New World (Bach: Partita for Violin No. 3, Mvt. 1)

Fractal geometry will make you see everything differently. There is a danger in reading further. You risk the loss of your childhood vision of clouds, forests, flowers, galaxies, leaves, feathers, rocks, mountains, torrents of water, carpet, bricks, and much else besides. Never again will your interpretation of these things be quite the same. 

— Michael F. Barnsley

Fractals Everywhere (2000)

In the strange and curious ways that our minds tend to operate, I often suspect that there are certain sequences of thought that are analogous across various experiences.  Whether enhanced by memory and time or rooted in reality, the first time we experience certain events places some sort of marker in our internal database that makes us believe, rationally or not, that it was the bee's knees.

First time driving a car, first time away from home, first time kissing a girl- all experiences in this "first-time" vein have a tendency to reside in the annals of time as nothing short of remarkable, magical even. The ultimately tragic part of this "newness" is that over time the excitement tends to fade.  What once created a tremendous high will eventually become mundane and ordinary and often we find ourselves scrapping to achieve that initial crest, forever searching the horizon for our Annabel Lee.

In 1849, Edgar Allen Poe wrote the poem Annabel Lee.  He also died that year from causes that have never adequately been determined.  Poe has garnered a reputation for being a master of the written word as it relates to death and the macabre, though some research into his life suggests that this direction was as much a product of his environment as much as it was a conscious decision by the author himself.  Poe was aspiring to become a writer in a time when a lack of international copyright laws gave publishers little impetus to actually pay for anything to fill their journals and publications. It is entirely possible that his focus on such dark topics was partially established to stand out in the discerning press of his age.

That's not to say Poe wasn't an odd duck though.  He did marry his cousin, Virginia, (who was half his age) and whom would die approximately a decade after their marriage from what we're told was tuberculosis.  It is thought that these experiences combined with the considerable alcohol consumption he used to cope with them also played a significant factor in shaping the author.

Annabel Lee is a poem describing the story of a young love so potent that it was ended by the jealous rage of the angels observing it from above.  There is a certain maritime element to the story and Poe uses it as a setting for the poem that describes the presumed death of his love and his perpetual remembrance of Annabel Lee and the emotions that once existed between them.  It speaks to a longing perhaps not just that a man has for a woman, but possibly of the passion that can evolve out of man's heart toward just about anything really.

Even a memory.

In his sixth full length studio album, the singer-songwriter Josh Ritter presented the world with his own poem set to music called, Another New World.  The text evokes several nods towards Poe's work, where we follow a hardened adventurer who has arrived at a precipice of Alexandrian proportions.  Having discovered all the natural spoils the Earth has afforded, he begins to ponder the possibility that the last unexplored region may house another world of inconceivable wonder.

The tale continues that the "Annabel Lee" is a most seaworthy vessel and should any ship crafted by man be capable of broaching the last stronghold of Earth's bounty it would be she.  The captain in Ritter's song possesses a passionate relationship with the ship, where upon leaving harbor to venture into the unknown he muses as his crew-mates are waving farewell to their loved ones, he "never had family, just the 'Annabel Lee'", and therefore no "cause to look back." Ritter establishes the relationship between the captain and the 'Annabel Lee' as two lovers who have conquered adventure after adventure and her captain is assuredly leading her to safe harbor in what must be the last frontier for the both of them to find, together.

However, as in any great epic, disaster strikes and the "Annabel Lee" is frozen in ice as she penetrated the Arctic circle.  Slowly her crew deserts to seek passage home, but the captain remains and eventually finds himself slowly destroying the ship in order to keep a fire stoked to survive in the hold.  The end of the poem brings him home safely, but leaving the ship to her fate while pondering visions he has of her in safe harbor on the top of the world.

There are certain pieces of music that resonate with me to the level that I feel it in the flesh and sinew of my body, as if somewhere deep in my genetic code, there is some sort of familiarity that causes a sympathetic reaction.  It is difficult to predict this reaction, however when it occurs it is quite apparent.  Much time is then expended trying to relive and explore that "first-time" experience as I am careful to analyze it further.

You see, there is a danger in furthering one's knowledge in any subject area.

The quote today comes to me from a geometry textbook I used in or about the 10th grade.  It has stuck with me as it seemed quite profound to my teenage mind at the time.  Part of the danger Dr. Barnsley is implying comes with the understanding that as we grow to learn more of the natural order of things around us, the magic will wear off.  As any educated musician will tell you, 18th century-based music theory is a pretty solid way to reduce music to what is essentially mathematics.  It dissects and lays bare what non-musicians perceive to be "music" and transforms it into something else entirely.  It makes it impossible to simply sit and listen to music without attempting at least a mildly provocative analysis.  At least for me.

The consequence of this is that some music has grown exceedingly boring.

So when I discover something as indescribable as "Another New World"-  I just want to stay and live in that "first-time" listen forever.

The Josh Ritter version is remarkable, but the arrangement I have chosen to share comes from one of my most cherished musicians, Chris Thile (who we've discussed before).  The video is of him performing the work live and at its conclusion he drifts seamlessly into the prelude to Bach's 3rd Partita for solo violin.  Thile's technique and musicality is unmatched.  Listening to him play this work will in fact put you aboard the ship as you brace against the cold spray off the bow. Your hands grapple for stability against the icy, damp wood of the gunwale.  I swear you can feel the grain of the timber under your fingernails if you close your eyes tight enough.

This piece, this poem speaks to me on such a personal level.  It hearkens to a place that I feel all of us at one point or another have mistread in that we seek the unattainable and sacrifice a part of ourselves in the vain attempt to reach our destination, whatever it may be.  It speaks on a love so deep that we'd give up everything to find safe harbor again, and in doing so we inadvertently allow that love to slip through our fingers.  It's almost a bit of hubris, but of an ironic sort as our pride is not for our own consumption, but for our beloved.

And in tragic conclusion our pride is the ruin of all.

The question remains, and Ritter gives it to us to wonder, was it worth it?  To sacrifice happiness for ourselves in the hopes that somehow, against all odds, our own "Annabel Lee" finds her way to the new world?  Or is she adrift, charred and icebound, in the cold, bitter tranquility on the edge of the unknown?

The pairing of the Ritter and the Bach is Thile's own invention, and one I suspect that is directly related to his virtuosic appreciation for the mandolin.  But going a little deeper, and knowing what we do about Bach, I am forced to ponder if this piece would not have resonated deeply with the master himself?

See you next Friday.

-ED

Sources:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174151
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annabel_Lee
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe

Chris Thile and Edgar Meyer: Big Top

The first time I heard Béla Fleck and the Flecktones the idea that if you take enough musicians who are ridiculously talented on their instruments and put them into one box, that whatever comes out will be astonishing.  The idea that ability supersedes genre is one that has oft been practiced and proven by Fleck and others that all operate in this land of Neo-Bluegrassish music.  Rather than shunning the different lineages of these instrument groups, we instead try to accept it all for what it is and generate a product that reflects the diversity in texture and sound, assuming that making music takes precedence over form and function.

Such is the case with Chris Thile (b.1981) and Edgar Meyer's (b.1960) new album, Bass & Mandolin.

"Mine's bigger."

It is comprised of ten original compositions by the duo for bass and mandolin (with a few for piano or guitar as well).  It is a whirlwind of technical prowess coupled with risk-taking tonality.  Sitting and listening to it for a few times now I can't help but feel like this is what it might sound like if Paul Hindemith wrote for Flatt and Scruggs.  There is an earthy, human tone to all of it, but each piece can drift seamlessly in and out of the bluegrass genre and drift atonally about without offending the ear. There's a unique combination of harsh dissonance and super-human technical prowess that merges with the characteristic folk and bluegrass harmony to establish a new breed of music that exists somewhere between Bach, Weber, Cage, and Grainger.  

Thile pulls on his appreciation for the Baroque habit of musical ornamentation frequently, creating these elaborate mandolin riffs that leaves one pondering the notion that the instrument itself might actually be restricting to the performer's ability to translate the whole of his ability.  While Meyer reinvents the double bass as a 6' tall fiddle.  There are moments where you just can't help but feel like we're all just showing off for company.

But the moment before it goes off and gets labeled a technical freak show, we are reminded that there is a sense of order to all of this and Bach and Hindemith regain control of the helm.  It's a proper balance of musicality and technicality.  

The piece I most identify with on this album is "Big Top".  It begins with a playful interchange and then a bass melody that moves through keys like a fat kid through cake.  It then works itself into a jazzy, circus-like groove that allows a mandolin solo that takes us back to a minimalist interlude peppered with chromatic runs that break knuckles.  

It's this creative back and forth between two instruments at the polar ends of the frequency spectrum that makes this album work.  It has the feeling of a technical contest without the sense of one-upsmanship.  Both men are competitors to the same end and working toward a common goal.

Thile hails from California and has contributed much to the world by way of the two groups, Nickel Creek and Punch Brothers, both of which have worked to develop this unique brand of folk music. Meyer on the other hand was born on the Bluegrass-homeworld of Tennessee and grew up under the tutelage of his orchestra director father and thus has a firm foot in the classical and bluegrass worlds.  His virtuosic abilities on the bass are noteworthy if for no other reason than it's really freaking hard to play a bass in the manner Meyer has adopted.

Well, damn Paul, I've always thought I was just big-boned.

The thing about this music is that it fills a musical void for me.  As of late I've grown more and more frustrated with the crap that radio stations deem appropriate to blast in our ears daily.  In researching the duo I came across no shortage of news articles praising their current tour.  One in particular stuck out from journalist Joel Francis of the Kansas City Star.

If albums like this had singles and radio had interest in playing anything like this, the enchanting “El Cinco Real” would be on every DJ and programmer’s desk in the country. Instead it will have to settle for a life of NPR bumper music.

Someday I hope we as a society can rise up against the spoon-fed mediocrity of the radio and television, and maybe the internet can be a vehicle for such an act of treasonous subterfuge. In any event, I do sincerely hope you take the time to enjoy what Meyer and Thile are doing for our ears and maybe explore it a little further.

See you next Friday.

-ED

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/ent-columns-blogs/back-to-rockville/article2258403.html#storylink=cpy

Sources:
www.youtube.com
www.wikipedia.com
http://www.thilemeyer.com/
http://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/ent-columns-blogs/back-to-rockville/article2258403.html

J. J. Johnson: El Camino Real

J.J. Johnson (1924-2001) may as well have invented the slide trombone, because I don't know many that even hold a candle to what that man was able to make it do.  He spanned a career of over 50 years and was widely known as a performer, composer and a proprietor of bebop.

Following the swing era of the 1930's came a fast, uptempo solo-laden style known as bebop.  Artists like Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charlie Parker were busy making jazz so insanely fast so as to force their audience to stop dancing and start listening.  They played piano, trumpet, and saxophone respectively- all instruments that lend themselves to having fast fingers.

Alas, the trombone was kind of that odd kid on the block in the bebop club.  You know, the one who you rode the bus to school with in the 6th grade?  He always had messy hair and your friend swears he saw him eat a bug one time.  The trombone was like driving a Cadillac through a car wash when it came to the total technicality with which these beboppers bopped their bees.

#Wildlyimpractical

That is, of course, until J.J. Johnson stepped up to bat.

Mr. Johnson had an ear and a technical ability that has been equaled only rarely.  While he was playing with the Count Basie Orchestra, Dizzy Gillespie himself had this to say, "I've always known that the trombone could be played different, that somebody'd catch on one of these days. Man, you're elected." Eventually, Johnson moved on and began performing with combos across the globe and in 1954 setup with trombonist Kai Winding to form a combo that would produce a lot of trombone fruit goodies.

And totally BA album covers.

Johnson then sidestepped into composition, citing the challenges of being a black musician and the inequities offered to performers of different races.  He collaborated with Quincy Jones in California and began writing for soundtracks to various movies and television shows, falling into the style of the time with the studio orchestra sound that is ubiquitous with the 1970's.  Basically, adopting the tenets of West Coast Jazz and applying his own brand of arranging to the mix.

Johnson would return to performing in the late 80's but his health began to deteriorate through the 90's following a diagnosis of prostate cancer.  In 2001, he took his own life.

I have a theory about those among us who don't live in the same plane of existence as the general cattle herd.  Artists, geniuses, those that go above the curve to create a new art or reality that didn't exist before must constantly be in the moment of their craft. It's what essentially sustains them, and I suspect it's perceived both as a blessing and a curse.

This week's listening comes from a collaboration album from the tail end of his career where he arranged some of his favorite pieces into elaborate, lush and widely accompanied tapestries reflective of his time as a film composer.  It sounds like you're stepping into a 1970's sound stage with Starsky and Hutch at the wheel.  The Brass Orchestra in some ways represents the culmination of J.J. Johnson's gift to not only the trombone side of the world, but music in general.  

J.J. Johnson stopped performing in the mid-90's because he felt unable to present the talent level that he had grown accustomed to.  On his worst day, I'm positive he'd still outplay the hell out of trombone ants such as myself, but so consumed by his work he must have been that to produce an inferior product was unacceptable, if not heartbreaking.  It broke my heart to see it end the way it did, but I can't imagine the pain of fighting the disease coupled with the pain of losing something so precious.

Trombone had to be in the man's DNA.

See you next Friday.

-ED



Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/06/arts/06JOHN.html
http://www.jazzhouse.org/gone/lastpost2.php3?edit=981455192
http://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com/2008/08/jj-frank.html
http://tromboneforum.org/index.php?action=printpage;topic=43469.0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8szlAP-E174

Pharrell Williams: Happy arr. Christopher Bill

Every so often I find a difficult time in choosing what to write about. It usually happens when I coincidentally get too busy to really devote any valuable time researching artists/composers/pieces for the blog and Friday rolls by at light speed and nothing's been done.

This entry was supposed to be about J.J. Johnson.

It also was supposed to be done by Friday.

If you're keeping score we're down by 2 and in overtime. This happened a lot when I was a teacher as you may be (or probably aren't) aware that teachers get squat when it comes to time to actually plan anything useful. Fortunately, there are those in our society who dictate what teachers are actually supposed to do without requiring them to think. But that's a topic for a much more cynical and jaded blog than this one.

Today we're "Happy" courtesy of Pharrell Williams (b. 1973) who is proclaimed by Wikipedia to be "an American singer-songwriter, rapper, record producer, musician, and fashion designer," which is an actual job title somewhere in the world.  

Williams released this single which became almost instantly a chart-topping hit worldwide. Accompanying the tune is a 24 hour music video, which www.24hoursofhappy.com purports to be the world's first 24 hour long music video. Basically, the song is looped continuously while a camera follows random people around, which sounds kinda fun.

In reality, it's somewhat like being stuck on "It's a Small World" for an entire day.

We feed on the boredom of small children.

Anyway, the song (like most top 40 stuff) is a little more than its deliciously catchy hook, and basically everything you'd expect from a tune called "Happy", just fun without much depth.

Much like this blog.

One thing I did pick up in listening to it was that Williams does possess a very lyrical tenor voice that just floats along in a wonderfully trombone-like tapestry.  I found myself thinking each time I heard it (which was a lot because Clear Channel and iHeartRadio won't stop playing a song until it's beyond dead) that this would be excellent fodder for a transcription for trombone ensemble.

It turns out I was right.

Enter Christopher Bill (b. ?), a trombonist out of New York who has grown in popularity by producing clever covers of top 40 hits and releasing them, performed by himself, onto YouTube.  His most recent one of Williams' tune has garnered a lot of attention on FaceBook and the like, however he has numerous on his website at www.classicaltrombone.com and here's the really cool part, the arrangements are 100% free.

Of course, there is a recommended donation.  After all, Mr. Bill is in fact a student at New York's SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Music and probably could use the scratch. To me, it's especially enthralling to see a classically-trained musician, let alone trombonist, using his talents to reach into the large audience share of popular music. Throughout my time co-existing with such types as "trombone jocks" and other titans of the performance factories of the world, I often noted their inherent disdain for anything less than your standard Hindemith or Mahler.  I think it does a disservice to musicians and music alike.

So, Mr. Bill strives (perhaps inadvertently, I don't know the guy personally) to establish some sort of bridge here between hither and yon. I am reminded of a recent FaceBook post I observed regarding a video of Britney Spears having some sort of lip sync meltdown.  I also think back to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and their so-called debacle at the Super Bowl and any other innumerable instances where a professional musician has been called out on using any number of digital aids.

There are many sides to this issue.

To dissect it a bit, we have to analyze the fact that live performance and recorded performance are two very different and very disparate animals.  What sounds good live, may not (and often doesn't) translate well to recording.  Since the wax cylinder, man has been trying to achieve that holy grail of audio medium that will reproduce live performance with such astounding quality so as to make God himself weep.

By the same token, transferring what sounds good on an album to a live performance is not always a feasible task either.  Often times when recording, you're dealing with numerous takes, isolation booths that split the group apart, different microphone placements that hinder mobility and that's all before it's processed through a digital audio workstation.  After that occurs you have literally millions of tweaks and effects that can be applied to adjust the sound of the track to absolute aural perfection, a process that can literally take months to complete.

Now in today's world, we are experiencing a blur of the digitally altered reality of the album track and the gritty analog of the real world.  More and more musicians are using digital effects in live environments and with that comes a sense that the performance is somehow more artificial than before.

Couple things:

Well, just the one thing I guess.

The music industry is by all intents and purposes a consumer-driven market.  If a song doesn't sell, or generate hits, radio stations don't play it because they won't attract an audience to pay their advertisers. That doesn't even get into ticket sales, but if no one listens online or over the air it's not going to be played at the super bowl.

Now, the whole RHCP unplugged thing was a result of nothing more than the environment.  When you're playing to a 100,000 seat stadium you are going to be playing hell with sound delay.  Since we live and operate in a medium within which sound travels significantly slower than does light, this becomes a concern in larger venues, especially when you factor in that somehow that mix has got to be set up to go live to 5 million viewers as well.

So, take your gritty analog live product, amplify the hell out of it through some crazy digital signal processing miracle to reduce the echo delay from the fact that your audience is sitting 100 yards from your speakers and then pile on the crap salad the fact that you've got to go live audio to the biggest audience in the entire history of mankind?

So what if Flea didn't plug his bass in?

In order to give you, the listener, the CD-ready product you demand and expect, there are sacrifices that have to be made.  It's up to you if it's worth the perceived sacrifice in musicianship and/or performance value.  I don't really know if it's right or wrong, because I'm more of the mindset of what matters at this point is the product.  Because our analog and digital worlds are colliding like two neutron stars, there's not a solid place to stand in order to make an accurate judgement of whether it's less musical for someone to play along to a track of themselves.  I would posit that so long as they made the track themselves, what's the difference?

Enter Mr. Bill and his charming YouTube videos.  In his "Happy" cover, he utilizes a digital looping device that he records each portion of the song about 4-8 bars at a time and then loops it in a very specific order under him playing new components that he adds intermittently throughout the track.  It requires no shortage of dexterity and timing to get it to work right.

Also, he has to actually play the trombone too.

Now, what you're hearing is anywhere from 0-100% of him actually playing while you're watching. But it's 100% him, just recorded.  And for that matter, you're watching him on a recording too.  So, what's the difference?

Now, you may be saying, "Well, the Chicago Symphony doesn't use digital effects when they play Brahms 4, so this guy is out of line."  OK, they don't.  But when they record Brahms 4, you can bet your ass there's an engineer that's editing the absolute pants off those tracks so that the final product will sound as immaculate as everyone says the CSO actually is (which is not a dig, the CSO is awesome).

My point is, if a piece of music or a specific performance means something to one person, then what difference does it make whether or not it's "real" or "artificial"?  If it means nothing to you, then it's no harm done if you don't listen to it, but all it takes is just making one person happy.

See you next Friday.

-ED




Sources:
http://www.classicaltrombone.com GO VISIT THIS MAN'S SITE RIGHT NOW!
http://www.24hoursofhappy.com
wikipedia.com
youtube.com

Clifton Williams: Symphonic Dance No. 3 "Fiesta"

Ok, so I'm a little behind the times with this.  A lot of stuff happened this past week and frankly, I didn't have time to sit down and devote my usually exhaustive researching skills to writing the latest entry. So, I elected to take a week off.

However.

This week marks a very important milestone in the history of Listening Friday on the web.  It is now officially one year since I first embarked on publishing my little LF assignments to the world (and mostly the Ukraine).  I can't say I have any remarkable or earth-shattering things to say about this other than...

Which is a lie.

So, Happy Birthday, ListeningFriday.com!  The actual birthday is March 18th, which also is Rimsky-Korsakov's birthday.  So there's that.  I guess we could do an entry about him.

But we won't.

Today is all about Clifton Williams (1923-1976) and a badass little piece he wrote called "Symphonic Dance No. 3 "Fiesta"".  Aside from generally being awesome for most of his life, the last professional position he held was on the faculty at the University of Miami where he worked with Alfred Reed and also taught composers such as W. Francis McBeth and John Barnes Chance (among others).

The San Antonio Symphony commissioned Williams to write a piece for their 25th anniversary and he created a five movement work that explored the many cultural influences that intertwine the fabric of the Southwest town.  The 5 dances are:No. 1: Comanche Ritual,  No. 2: Military Ball: The Maskers, No. 3: Fiesta (duh, try and keep up), No. 4: Square Dance, No. 5: New Generation.  Later, after these premiered, he went back and arranged 2 and 3 for concert band.  His former student (and equally prolific composer of wind band lit) W. Francis McBeth set the 1st movement for band, but wikipedia reports that Williams daughter is in possession of that manuscript.  The interesting movement now is that a lot of Williams' unpublished music is starting to be revealed and placed into print, almost 40 years after his passing.  Very cool from a composer that really had an understanding for composing for wind bands.

Plus, he rocks the goatee.

It is an interesting conversation to have, discussing the differences in the compositional worlds of band and orchestra.  John Mackie, a more recent and still very alive composer of several popular works for band, has a tremendously awesome blog entry detailing what it's like to be a composer caught between both worlds.  Here's an excerpt:

Band is loud. She’s not quite as pretty as Orchestra, and she’s a bit, shall we say, bigger-boned, but she has that truly “hot” aspect to her that Orchestra never had. And most importantly, Band loves what you do. Whereas it was like pulling teeth to get Orchestra to look at your new music (and if she looked, she was generally not impressed, often comparing you unfavorably to one of her many ex’s — like Dvorak), Band thinks it’s awesome. Band tells you things like “you’re special and perfect and I’ll appreciate you and your music like Orchestra never has, and never will.”

I would encourage you to read the full entry here. His blog is also pretty awesome in general, and probably more useful than this one at any rate.   Anyway, Williams was also caught between both worlds and became more successful in the then-burgeoning realm of concert band literature.

"Fiesta" is meant to evoke the emotions and sensory stimulation of a carnival-type atmosphere one might associate with the many...well, fiestas that occur in Mexican culture.  The lively street bands, the colorful costumes and parade floats, and of course bull fighting.

A blood sport to the core, the powerful image of the toreador taking on the massive bull evokes a lot of emotion and imagery (both good and bad) and Williams captures that in an immense brass section toward the middle of the work, precipitated by a solo trumpet herald.   This work reminds me of one of my favorite pieces of art, The Hallucinogenic Toreador by Salvador Dalí.  In this work, Dalí was inspired by a box of pencils he had bought that featured an image of the Venus de Milos on the front. Reportedly, he ran through the store, remarking to anyone who'd listen that there were two toreadors he was able to see within the visage of the goddess and thus this work was born.  Dalí himself was a big fan of bullfighting, growing up with it as a boy and thus he painted himself at a tender age, looking up toward the arena where the bullfighter blends into a mixture of Venus' (Venii?), gadflies and an expiring bull, while his wife's disembodied head floats angrily over the scene.

She didn't like the fights.

So I invite you to sit back, investigate some surrealism courtesy of Mr. Dalí and transport yourself to the Latin side of our continent with Mr. Williams.

See you next Friday.

-ED

PS.  I'll work on getting an entry for last Friday up later this weekend.  Pinky swear.



Sources:
www.wikipedia.com
www.youtube.com
http://ostimusic.com/
http://programnotes.wikia.com/wiki/Symphonic_Dance_No._3_-_%22Fiesta%22