David played two tracks from the new Harmonia Mundi release of the little match girl passion, the first I'd heard this haunting music since the 2007 premiere. (Let it be said: David's got a kick-ass sound system that he likes to play loud.)
My piece is called The Little Match Girl Passion and it sets Hans Christian Andersen's story The Little Match Girl in the format of Bach's Saint Matthew Passion, interspersing Andersen's narrative with my versions of the crowd and character responses from Bach's Passion.
Ornette and Don play the same intro, head, and tempo that Bird played.
Ornette solos first, on the form, with Bley laying out.
Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately? --Bley comes in on the third
bridge in the wrong place, and the form is kind of a free-for-all
afterwards, although they don’t leave Bb much, and there seems to be at
least one more clear bridge. Cherry’s brief comments behind Ornette’s
solo include the melody of “Congeniality.” The most astonishing moment
is the rubato unison line that Ornette and Don play to conclude the
solo. It is significant that on his versions of other people’s music,
Ornette always includes some original written material.
Parker and Coleman both being musicians who couldn't help but play what was in their heads.
And John Litweiler in his Ornette Coleman biography asserts that Parker and Coleman (along with Buddy Bolden and Louis Armstrong) provided the "major turning points in the course of jazz history."
I'm fascinated by this intersection of two jazz legends, although frankly, this particular song is not all that great.
The local eight-year-old is singing Aretha Franklin's Respect next week in a show at school, and points out that the song was actually written by Otis Redding. Who knew?
Wikipedia: "Respect" is one of several songs considered to have defined the 1960s. It has appeared in dozens of films and still receives consistent play on oldies radio stations. In the 1970s, Franklin's version of the song came to exemplify the feminist movement.
I'm listening to Ornette Coleman this weekend. For the first time, I've encountered the John Zorn album of Coleman songs. Crazy, frenetic versions of crazy, frenetic songs. Fun...
One of the things I absolutely hate about Wynton Marsalis and Stanley Crouch is how they pair a complete ignorance of hip-hop, with an irrepressible need to analyze it. And then people, themselves ignorant of hip-hop, solicit their opinions.
I'll leave it to others to comment on Stanley Crouch. But this topic somehow led me to this quote from the Wynton Marsalis site:
Mr. Marsalis is listed as the composer of several songs, but did not compose any of the material on these CDs. Wynton Marsalis and Sony Music are taking legal steps to address the situation and to prevent music fans from being defrauded.
As a listener, thanks I guess.
Of the thousands of CDs I happen to own, I don't actually remember thinking I was defrauded by what I purchased. I do remember my buddy in high school buying from TV an album of recent pop hits, which turned out to be cover versions with cheesy instrumentation. But I don't think any legal standards were actually violated in said transaction.
A few searches turn up some other interesting items:
One by One was written by Wayne Shorter. (Keep Swinging)
I have an MP3 by Wilco of One by One by Woodie Guthrie.
There are at least 3,510 songs on lala related to, if not actually, One by One. (lala)
Although this is not what first comes to mind for me when mentioning "Charlie Parker," Wynton Marsalis, in the eighties, suggests American people have been taught to think "junkie." He goes on to trash Weather Report but I'll accept that as legitimate, if misguided, competitive aesthetics. (Night Lights)
Stanley Crouch has good things to say about Marsalis' recording of Monk tunes (wyntonmarsalis.org): This recording is one of the most original overall renditions of the
music of Thelonious Monk. It is on par with the wonder of the subject.
Wynton Marsalis’ arrangements and those of his musicians almost always
frame the work in completely fresh ways while maintaining Monk’s power.
Somehow, the joy of music gets lost. And I say that as a Monk fan (and someone who also likes Shorter, Guthrie, Wilco, Marsalis, and Parker).
Something Else!!!! (sometimes called Something Else!!!! The Music of Ornette Coleman) is the 1958 debut album by jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman. According to All Music, the album "shook up the jazz world", revitalizing the union of blues and jazz and restoring "blues to their 'classic' beginnings in African music".
Ok, anything that accomplishes all that deserves four exclamation points in the title.
To beat the heat on the Peninsula this evening, I drove up to Mission Street in San Francisco and walked around for an hour.
The twenty-something couple raiding recycling bins was a sad note; the gleeful kids smashing a pinata the highlight. All to the tunes of the Chicago Underground Trio.
Then I came home, on the way avoiding various cars on steep streets in Bernal Heights.
To recap the weekend, we were in Half Moon Bay on Friday night when it was 50 degrees, it was 97 99 today in Menlo Park,then in the low 60s in San Francisco by the time I got there, and now it's back to 64 in Menlo Park at 10pm. The tug of war between ocean cold and valley heat (and the general notion of micro-climate) continue to fascinate.
And in a nice gesture towards truly contemporaneous music, Michael Kaulkin has just posted an MP3 of his City Walks, for string quartet. The work premiered last week in Berkeley.
City Walks opens with a cello solo heard here played exquisitely by cellist Gianna Abondolo...The piece ends with this adrenaline-soaked Presto Capriccioso and tongue-in-cheek extended coda...The title “City Walks” came about because the form of the piece started
to remind me of a linear walk through some city, where the environment
changes as you move through various neighborhoods, yet you somehow know
you’re still in the same place. The street signs are all brown, say,
and there’s a lovely Craftsman typeface on all the public buildings,
yet each neighborhood has its own distinct feel.
2. Sound vs. Symphony: It's usually only about sound for me. Narratives - when the music peaks, how sections relate to each other - I've never really cared for. I've also never really been able to hear tonal relationships, so the grand D major falling into Db major (of the 9th) doesn't do much for me (of course, the muted resonance of strings playing in a very foreign Db major thrills me). Ditto my TV habits: if Ben misses an episode of Lost, he can't bring himself to watch a later episode without first catching up on what he missed. I, on the other hand, have never understood plot twists and can easily go to bed without first finding out who the winner is on Iron Chef. But sound! Piano, celesta, harmonium, 3 harps, organ, 2 mandolins, throw in a lingering flute and an almost inaudible clarinet, it's orgasm central right there.
It's about the sound for me as well, although even simpler, non-orchestral, instrumentation that blurs foreground and background can be equally as satisfying e.g. Chas Smith's Scircura:
Harpsichordist Margaret Fabrizio, who used to be on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, reports that it was raining during the premiere performance of Terry Riley's piece, and the roof of the old building leaked. "About 10 minutes into the piece, I had the distinct feeling that I was in a tropical rain forest. Seconds later, an umbrella went up. Then more, until the hall was filled with people sitting under their umbrellas. Unforgettable."
And here's a description from the article of what the Tape Music Center would get with the $1200 they were trying to raise:
"We already have five tape recorders," said Burton Subotnick, director of the center, "plus 14 loop machines, all sorts of sound generators, filters, and simple things. What we need is a central mixing panel or control cabinet to tie it all together and into a keyboard, so that a composer can create electronic music precisely as if he were working from the keyboard of a piano.
I assume this was a quote from Morton Subotnick. Note also that a young Pauline Oliveros is in the accompanying photo.
