Paul McCartney: Hey Jude (as arranged for the Stan Kenton and Maynard Ferguson Orchestras respectively)

OK!  We're back with a vengeance!  This week we're pulling out all the stops and going to do something we've never done before!  Are you excited?!  You should be.

THIS IS EXCITING.  LOOK AT THESE CAPS!  THEY'RE SO BIG!

LOOK AT THEM!

*ahem*

Bringing it down a notch- this week I've decided to take a new heading on LF.  We've talked about mostly instrumental music and almost exclusively what many of you might consider to be "Classical Music".  An odd misnomer that has stuck with our interpretation of music since...well...since people starting listening to music at the push of a button.  

And here's the modern interpretation of musical genres as perceived by the post-MTV-generation

"What happened?" you might find yourself asking.  Where were our champions of music culture when video did indeed kill the radio star?  The answer to that question is that they never left.  They've always been there waiting in the shadows.  Waiting to be discovered, hiding on some pawn shop shelf quietly gathering dust.  Biding their time.  And no, I'm not talking like some sort of musical hipster.

No, my dear readers, this music has always been there.  Sometimes on the surface and sometimes just below.  So, in order to hopefully push our demographics deeper into the 18-35 year olds we are going to being a new series entitled:

Music Written After 1960 That Doesn't Suck

In this series I hope to find four examples of very modern music that exhibits all of the characteristic symptoms of music that is beneficial and enjoyable to listen to.  Basically, anything that isn't Miley Cyrus riding construction equipment.  

"I'm not touching it."

In week one we're going to pull a piece that many of you probably know quite well.  For me it is a piece that brings back many happy memories of my salad days as a high school trombonist.  It is none other than "Hey Jude" written by Paul McCartney (b. 1942) and performed by none other than the Beatles.  

The tune itself has an interesting history.  McCartney eventually claimed that he wrote it for John and Cynthia Lennon's son, Julian, on the occasion of his parents divorce. McCartney and the younger Lennon grew very close over the years, to the point that Julian himself admitted he looked to McCartney as a father figure more so than the elder Lennon, even prior to his untimely assassination.  "Jules" was a difficult name to sing, so the change was made to "Jude" at some point in the history of the song.  Paradoxically, John Lennon thought it was about him, taking the lyrics "you have found her, now go and get her" to be some sort of mixed blessing about his relationship with Yoko Ono.  McCartney even claimed for some time that it was about himself, written as a mantra for pushing forward in the rough transition the Beatles endured in the Ono Era.  Though this may have been a means of protecting Julian from the spotlight.

It was 20 years before Julian Lennon knew the song was originally inspired for him, as a message of hope and support through a difficult hour.  Despite this narrow scope, the song seems to reach a broader audience and I think McCartney ultimately hoped it would.  The hybrid messages of carrying on and pushing forward despite the weight of the world held like Atlas speaks to many of us in our different stages of life.  The fact that all these people claim to think McCartney was writing it for them expresses volumes about the universal appeal for this song.  For me personally, my connection came in 2001 where our high school band had elected to perform a Beatles half-time show.  We included in this show several well-written charts and one of those was in fact "Hey Jude".  

Now, this was not your dad's "Hey Jude".  This version was written for none other than the Stan Kenton Orchestra.  The only recording that I can find that exists of this particular version is on the album "Live at Redlands University".  At this point in time (late 60's through the 70's) Kenton and his counterpart Maynard Ferguson were working primarily with college musicians and helped launch many a career for young talent.  It was an exciting point in jazz history, I mean- how often do you get to play for someone like Kenton or Ferguson and just be a college kid? 

Never, that's how often.  

Unfortunately, the only way to hear this particular track is to buy it and to your further disappointment you will have to buy the whole album (as per Amazon and iTunes purchasing requirements).  The main reason I like this version is that Dick Shearer has an absolutely, disgustingly sick trombone solo at the start.  It starts out with a super funky groove from the rhythm section and then goes into this nice rendition of the first verse. Second time around Shearer jumps up an octave and he nails a high F.  It's like trombone heaven up there.  

It sounds like angels printing money.

So, unfortunately for you I cannot publish a link to hear this golden funk on tap.  I can recommend that you do buy the album (there's a bunch of good tunes on there, not to mention a revisit of "Peanut Vendor" which is hot to the touch).  

Here's a link to that on Amazon:

It's worth the damn $8.99.

But for you cheapskates (I mean 99 percenters) here's a rendition that Maynard did in the 70's.  Pay special attention to the shag carpeted stage.

It's pretty nice.

Homework- Find at least one other rendition/arrangement of "Hey Jude" and write a note about the differences/similarities and if you liked it better or not.  

See you next Friday.

-ED




Sources: 
www.youtube.com
www.wikipedia.com

Gustav Holst: Second Suite in F for Military Band (Movement 4: Fantasia on the Dargason)

In our last week of the Desert Island Band Literature competition we are talking about folk songs again, but this time it's with Gustav Holst (1874-1934).  

Now, I realize LF has been on an unannounced hiatus for a few weeks now.  Long story short- I needed a break.  I do understand that the 2.3 of you who faithfully read this site must be devastated, but I have to explain a few things.  

Over summer I interviewed for, landed, and have begun a full time position outside of teaching.  I had been a music educator from January 22nd, 2007 until May 23rd, 2013. As a related side note, half of America's teachers leave the field after just 5 years.  

I made it 1 year, 4 months, and 1 day past that. 

And there was much rejoicing.

It was not an easy decision to come by, and that (more than anything else) has impacted my desire to sit down and write out the latest and greatest Listening Friday entry.  

The idea of pursuing a career in music entered into my brain sometime around middle school and into high school.  I played trombone starting when I was 10, and I had become highly involved in my church through running their sound board.  I participated in many performances through this time, both secular and religious, both with my school and with the church.  

I can remember being a young sound tech and running the board for a Christmas or Easter cantata and being overwhelmed by the musical performance.  Looking back, I'm sure it was a fine exhibition, but who knows what the quality actually was.  For some reason something clicked.  Something in my brain said, "This is what you are meant to do."  

I misunderstood.  

In the summer between my Junior and Senior years of high school, I was awarded a scholarship to attend the Florida State University Summer Music Camps in Tallahassee, FL.  At this point I was already well-acquainted with FSU and had been up for the Tri-State Band Festival they host (which is nothing short of a big recruit-a-thon, but a valuable experience none-the-less).  Dr. James Croft was conducting us for one week, and at this point he was still the Director of Bands and had not retired.  He chose several pieces for us to perform, but the one that remains lodged in my memory was Gustav Holst's "Second Suite in F for Military Band".  

Hello.

Dr. Croft, for those who don't know him, was a tall, wiry, old man.  He had aspired to become a basketball player in his youth, but found a career in being a band director more fitting.  He had been at FSU a long time before I encountered him, and had been in front of many, possibly tens of thousands of high school kids at one time or another.  He spoke very softly most of the time, so softly the entire band would strain to hear every word, leaning in, not daring to move even a finger, lest the sound of a distracting movement obscure a gem of wisdom floating through the hall.  

Now, to someone who had not the distinct pleasure of being rehearsed by Dr. Croft this might sound a bit enthusiastic, and you would be right.  But I can't accurately describe the feeling of being in the room with this man and under his baton.  If there is magic in this world, Jim Croft was a proprietor.  

He began to rehearse the Holst.  We struggled in all the familiar places, the 3rd movement of course, the saxophone intonation at the beginning of the 4th.  He guided us down his well-trodden path and looking back I have to wonder what the first time he rehearsed this piece must have been like.  He explained the history behind Holst and how he and Vaughn Williams and Grainger had all become enchanted with folk music of the European continent and had basically spun these simple melodies into gold using only pen and manuscript.  

It was magic.  Pure and simple.

The fourth movement of the work encompasses two pieces from what was essentially a handbook on how to perform the country dances of the time.  These dances were intricate patterns involving on average 8-12 couples and the movements were all highly regimented and organized.  The two melodies are the Dargason and Greensleeves (also known as 'What Child is This?').  Holst begins simply enough with two saxes playing the main theme and then works his way around the band, feeling the lay of the land so-to-speak as he experiments with the texture a bit.  

At some point it all changes.  Greensleeves is introduced, but not as a separate entity.  It is woven into the texture created by the Dargason and essentially becomes one in the same. Now the Dargason is a melody in a meter that is known as 6/8.  This means that there are 6 beats in each measure and that each beat is marked by an 8th note.  Greensleeves is in 3/4 which implies 3 beats per bar and a quarter note as the beat. Mathematically, they're the same thing.  If you take half of a quarter note, you get an 8th note, which would mean that there are in fact 6 8th notes in a measure of 3/4, same as 6/8.  The difference comes when we examine how each meter is interpreted.  

6/8 is divided into two larger groups, 1-2-3 and 4-5-6.  A conductor will indicate where beat 1 and 4 are to the ensemble, the pulse is felt internally.  With 3/4 however, each quarter note is given its own pulse, thus making the feel of the melody a bit more triangular.  What Holst successfully demonstrated was that using a compositional technique known as the 'hemiola' you can juxtapose three over two evenly.  

He demonstrates this two times, the second is prelude to the finale of the movement where we are treated to polar opposites of texture.  A tuba and piccolo play the remaining lines of melody to a triumphant stinger at the end.  

It was through rehearsing this piece that I heard that voice again, I wanted to live this life of the magician and be constantly surrounded by this wondrous music that I was party to.  I would not be deterred and thus launched head-long into a music education degree the following year at FSU.  

Now I certainly live with no regrets of any of this, because my time at FSU was great. Performing with the many wonderful ensembles and learning from some of the finest men and women to grace the profession was nothing short of amazing.  However, upon entering the 'real world' and realizing that so little of the magic is actually available for use and on tap was quite defeating.  Limiting factors were incessant and quite frankly it ground me down.  I don't really care to go into the details, but know that with the exception of one year I truly feel my job was cleaning up one mess after another.  

Fix all the bands.

But even more basic than that, I started to notice that my personality did not fit in.  As many of my friends adapted and grew more and more acquainted with their musical endeavors, I felt more locked in and unable to escape.  I began to not care about progression or advancement.  It felt like being trapped.  I constantly felt like I was enclosed and was constantly being drained of any and all of the musical magic I could muster.  

So, I quit.

And I walked away from it.  


But it's not as easy as it sounds.  

My whole career I've toyed with the idea that my becoming a band director was a horrible, misguided mistake.  But walking away meant abandoning something I felt I could be proud of.  It meant letting down all the people who had held up a guiding hand along the way.  I felt burdened by guilt for wanting to get out.  Not to mention being unemployed wasn't necessarily the best option at the time what with a family to feed and all.  

But I left.  I took a big chance and tried to find other employment, initially looking towards something close to my degree and experience, but finally figuring out what I had misunderstood all along.  

I am not one to be the center of attention, but like standing to the left of it.  In all my years of running that sound board in church I had realized that I love the performing arts, but my place in it was not on the stage. 

My place is just off stage.  

Now, that's not to say I would ever sell my trombone or give up my J-Bass, but the terrific weight of building a band program and guiding them through the various stages of development is not something I am greatly built to accomplish.  

I've been thinking a lot lately about whether or not this was the right choice.  I have been having trouble finding the right way to word this entry, perhaps it's poetic justice to find myself having to visit this piece again at time like this.  

But ultimately, I do have a love for music and a passion to continually learn more about it and I don't think that will change any time soon.  So without further explanation, here is the final piece in our Desert Island repertoire: Gustav Holst's Fantasia on the Dargason.

Homework: Make a decision today to be happy.

See you next Friday. 

I promise.

-ED




Sources:
www.youtube.com
www.wikipedia.com

Percy Grainger: Irish Tune from County Derry

So we're continuing our little journey into the band literature world and building our hypothetical list of desert island band literature with piece #4.  I can't help but feel that this list is so inadequate and ultimately useless.  I mean, if you were actually stranded on a desert island, what the heck would you do with band music anyways?  There's no power, so any recorded versions of these charts would only last so long.  There's solar power, but that's assuming you'd bring a portable rig to make that all work.  So that leaves sheet music, but why?  You're in a survival situation!  What is band music going to help with?  Plus if you're sharing a desert island with a bunch of musicians, you're gonna have a bad time.  But I digress...

NO!  FOR THE LAST TIME I DON'T LIKE PINA COLADAS
OR GETTING CAUGHT IN THE RAIN!

Ultimately, I want you to know that this list is in no way comprehensive.  This blog, coincidentally, is in no way comprehensive.  In moments like these, I have to look back towards my goal, my calling.  This blog was built on the sole purpose to expand musical knowledge beyond what we already know.  I hope that one day it gets popular enough that people might actually email me a suggestion or two to listen to, so that I might hear something I've never heard before.  But, until that day- I'll just keep going off what pops into my head.  This week, it's Percy Grainger (1882-1961).

Who, according to Reddit, looks like a "sadomasochist,
atheist, anti-Semitic, vegetarian" version of Ryan Gosling.

Grainger was an interesting character.  His father was a bit of a sleaze ball who married his mother without informing her that he had previously fathered a son with a different woman in London and that he had contracted syphilis which he so graciously shared with Grainger's mother.  She became the sole caregiver and raised the young Percy herself.  This began a close, but potentially worrisome relationship between mother and son, that some claim was incestuous in nature.  There are many examples of Grainger's personality that showcased a private life of sexual deviance (not to mention a whole not-so-private museum), but that's quite another story.

Grainger was born in Australia and eventually moved to London after becoming quite skilled on the piano.  He frequently performed concerts, often expressing his intent to promote his performing faculties ahead of his compositional talents.  He had a knack for taking European folk music and arranging it various styles that incorporated different genres that were commonplace in his day and age.  He was an avid follower of technology and even pioneered the use of recording technology to capture his folk song material in a manner that he would be able to use while composing, so as to reproduce it in his arrangements in such a manner that it would emulate the texture and emotional context of the original.

So speaking on folk tunes, let's examine what is probably the most convoluted tale of historicity for any folk song ever written.  The Air from County Derry.  There are two components at work here, the first being the actual melody.  There are numerous claims to who actually wrote the thing in the first place, but most people attribute it to a region in Northern Ireland known as Londonderry county, although there is some disagreement over that name itself.  Nationalist Irish do not favor the "London" added to the prefix of Derry and it became a naming dispute ubiquitous to "the Troubles" through the 1960's onward to 1998.

Not those troubles...

Anyways, the tune was written by someone in Ireland and that's as far as most anyone can determine.  You can look up the various claimants of the authorship if you'd like.  The other aspect of the piece relates to the text itself.  Grainger did not concern himself with the text as his renditions are instrumental in nature (for piano, band, etc.), but the most prevalent textural treatment is "Oh Danny Boy" written by the English lawyer, Frederick Edward Weatherly in 1910.  Here's the text:

Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side
The summer's gone, and all the flow'rs are dying
'Tis you, 'tis you must go and I must bide.

But come ye back when summer's in the meadow
Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow
'Tis I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow
Oh, Danny boy, oh, Danny boy, I love you so.

And if you come, and all the flowers are dying
If I am dead, as dead I well may be
I pray you'll find the place where I am lying
And kneel and say an "Ave" there for me.

And I shall hear, though soft you tread above me
And all my grave will warm and sweeter be
And then you'll kneel and whisper that you love me
And I shall sleep in peace until you come to me.

Weatherly originally did not set his song to Londonderry Air, however three years after penning these words, he reworked it to fit.  "Danny Boy" has become somewhat of an unofficial anthem for Irish-Americans and Canadians and it is often reserved to be sung at funerals of those such people.  I've heard it described by many musicians as the greatest example of melody known to man, and throughout my tenure as a music educator I have observed it to hold a special place in the heart of many a salty, old band director.  Grainger's treatment of the tune is unequaled.

For me personally, I came to know this piece through high school band and like many of you who might read this blog, I had the pleasure of having Joe Kreines conduct our band while we worked through it.  I think more than anything, it reminds me of my grandmother, my "Ninie", who would often sing songs like this one to her grandchildren and who also took great pride in the Irish blood that flowed through her veins.  It is a heritage that I carry proudly, and Grainger's setting is a beautiful piece of the old country that I can share with you today.

Homework: Free write this week.  Whatever comes to mind.  Be brave.  

See you next Friday.
-ED


Sources:
www.youtube.com
www.wikipedia.com