Category Archives: Song

Essential listening: the Guarneri play Janácek

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On a 1998 Philips CD, number 456 574-2, the Guarneri quartet plays both of Leoš Janácek's string quartets:  the 1923 "Kreutzer Sonata" and the 1928 "Intimate Letters".  This is wonderful music, tonal but not staidly so, beautifully played (in 1996) by the Guarneri.  Plenty of melodic and harmonic beauty, deeply felt but not sloppy or over-the-top.  Excellent recording captures the rosiny, woody aspects of string tone, and a bit of astringence but not too much.  Good acoustic ambience...fairly reverberant, but the sound is very clear.  Possibly more closely-miked than is completely realistic, but that gives a clear insight into the separate lines without sounding glaringly close up.  I don't know the other recordings of this piece, so can't comment on which others one might entertain in addition to, or instead of, this one.  Doesn't really matter:  this is essential music, beautifully rendered.  I will say no more except that every music lover would be well-advised to listen to these pieces, in this or some equally good recording if one exists, and to go hear them live if the opportunity arises.

 

Sorry for the lack of correct Czech diacritical marks.  A computing issue I will work on.

Readings: Titta Ruffo, "My Parabola" / Video "Credo in un Dio crudel"

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I recently read the autobiography of Titta Ruffo, an operatic baritone who was one of the greatest singers of all time.  Fascinating reading, very evocative of the atmosphere of Italy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  A tough childhood, deeply in conflict with his father, in whose metalworking shop he was apprenticed.  Apparently quite forthcoming about some aspects of his life, such as this conflict, an early affair with a married woman (he claims to have resisted on moral grounds until she assures him it is a loveless marriage that she never wanted), and very reticent on other matters, such as his own marriage, the identity of the female singer who was his muse and professional advisor for many years, and the nature of the news that required his abrupt return from a triumphal tour in South America, with which the book abruptly ends.  This news was the murder of his brother in-law, the antifascist Italian politician Giacomo Matteotti, by fascists.  The book seems a bit self-absorbed at times, but I don't find it as self-aggrandizing as some have:  the wonderful voice and worldwide triumphs are, after all, just the facts.  Besides a fascinating portrait of Italian life at the time, interesting insight into the life of a world-traveling musician at the time, and into worldwide musical culture.

As just one sample of why Ruffo is so important, I'll embed his performance of Iago's aria, "Credo in un Dio crudel" ("I believe in a cruel God") from Verdi's Otello.  I will admit to not being very familiar with this opera (I know, I know, how can I claim to love music and Verdi, etc...), and this aria.  I had listened to a few versions of this on Youtube, as it's considered one of the major baritone arias,  but although I could imagine it could be powerful, it had never quite gelled.  With Ruffo it does.   Interpretive power and vocal beauty...some of the long-held notes are amazing in their sustained, consistent sound that perfectly combines darkness, brilliance, and richness.  But even more significant is his characterization of Iago, whose implacable hatred of the world and determination to sow evil are audible.

Gerald Finley sings Donne set by Adams

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My attention was drawn to Canadian-born baritone Gerald Finley by hearing (on CBC radio while visiting Kitchener-Waterloo for the Quantum Landscape conference at PI) his rendition of the aria "Batter my heart...", a setting of the John Donne poem, "Batter my heart, three-person'd God," as J. Robert Oppenheimer in John Adams' opera Doctor Atomic, about the creation of the atomic bomb.  A few years back I found the opera, on DVD, to be pretty good, though with some weak points.  Hearing Finley sing it reminds me that this aria was one of the strong points. He has a wonderful voice, clear, ringing at times, flexible but still with plenty of power when needed, and he gives meaning and drama to the words he sings.

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis

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Two nights ago, I heard the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, at the Lensic Performance Center in Santa Fe. Excellent concert. Trying to reconstruct the setlist will be tricky. It started with John Lewis' 1940s composition Two Bass Hit. Nice reminder that bop developed almost as much, if not more, in big bands of the era as in uptown NY jam sessions like those at Minton's. A punchy arrangement, with a good solo by Marsalis. His tone is great, and perhaps best heard live, very large, very flexible, burnished but capable of being bright, but not usually brittle. Very loose, flexible phrasing too, occasionally seeming almost a little too loose. A big, big sound, the Armstrong influence on his trumpet sound very evident, somewhat rare since bebop days, and good to hear. This was followed by another Lewis song, from later in his career, I think, and with more of the classical chamber-jazz influence that Lewis pioneered; also excellent. A highlight of the program, which I think was next in the concert, was a movement, "Insatiable Hunger", from a suite based on Dante's Inferno, by one of the orchestra's saxophonists, Sherman Irby. I realize this sounds potentially pretentious and ill-conceived, but nope, this was not the case. Although the opening theme played by a sax made me a little uncomfortable because it it sounded like it was a quote of another famous jazz tune (which, however, I didn't manage to put my finger on), but then veered away from it, overall the piece really worked. Very bluesy, with lots of lines and phrases some of which are almost blues clichés worked together antiphonally and contrapuntally, really getting up a head of steam. Not sure if this was intricate through-composed work (probably) or wild collective improvisation by a seasoned team working together (my guess is there was only a bit of improvising going on, if any), but it worked well. I'd just been reading Amiri Baraka's "Digging", and thought to myself at this point that I could see why, besides any possible sociopolitical reasons, he digs this group.

A Gerry Mulligan chart, originally for the Woody Herman orchestra, was played with verve and underlined the fact that Mulligan was probably as important as an arranger as he was as a saxophonist---his work was as important a component as anyone's of the seminal Miles Davis Birth of the Cool sessions, for example.  Excellent solo from Paul Nedzela on baritone sax (Mulligan's instrument).

Ted Nash's arrangement of Clifford Brown's Ceora was a bit heavy on flutes and a maybe a bit fussily arranged for my taste, but still very enjoyable, as was the other Nash arrangement on the program, Chick Corea's 3/4 tune Windows,

Generally a high standard of soloing. Wish I could be certain of who played which solo, and remember more clearly to credit some excellent players. More detail, perhaps, after I look back at the program.

A fast, punchy arrangement of a tune I think they attributed to Charlie Parker (but was it Donna Lee? I thought that was actually written by Miles Davis...) was top-notch. A good solo on alto from Sherman Irby.

A piece by a youngish trombonist with the band, titled "God's Trombones". I'm embarassed I don't remember this well enough to really give a critical appraisal; I remember enjoying it.

The concert finished with "Braggin' in Brass", the sole Ellington piece of the night, with Marsalis' in his prefatory monologue drawing attention to the fact that this is a showpiece for a difficult trombone part. In fact, the opening muted trumpets were pretty impressive too, but the three trombones' unison on the superfast, syncopated trombone chorus was unbelievable---they sounded like one instrument.  (Hard to be certain without an audio record, but it seems like the unison was tighter than in the 2010 video from a Havana concert that is linked above.) This was the evening's other piece featuring a Marsalis solo, and it was a good one, pretty long and getting into long, fast boppish lines although--- very minor cavil, but one I think I've noticed in some other Marsalis performances --- the next to-last-phrase seemed to be winding up for a concluding exclamation point, but the last phrase didn't quite provide it, ending a tad abruptly.

Sound was good for the Lensic, where I've occasionally endured serious problems (a fabulous concert by pianist Kenny Werner a few years back was marred by extremly distorted and loud amplification of the piano). The LCJO brings their own sound-man with them (he could be heard encouraging the band and reacting to solos on occasion, a nice touch that helped to get the crowd into it too), and this is a very good thing. The mix, if perhaps a tad bright, was very clear. My only complaint is that it was overall too loud, hurting my ears on occasion and perhaps paradoxically, probably diminishing the impact a bit --- the incredible dynamic range of a live big band being an essential part of the experience. But that's a minor point---kudos to the LCJO for recognizing the importance of sound enough to bring their own sound man and equipment to provide clarity and the right balance.

I would have liked to hear just a little more classic swing. Say, one number by Basie or one of the other southwestern territory bands that had that powerful bluesy riffing thing.

Definitely go hear these guys if they come your way. The traveling version of the band is fifteen pieces---but that's a heck of a big sound when everyone is as together as this crew is. A taste of the real thing the way it used to be, plus evidence of people continuing to do vital work for big band, like the movement from Mr. Irby's suite.

Stream the Chris Potter quartet Live at the Village Vanguard

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Haven't finished listening but Chris' Potter's jazz suite Sirens is starting out strong, with a modal vampy thing going, Trane and bop influences and some blues cries in Potter's soloing, but not too derivative.  Now at around 4'40, holy molé it's starting to smoke!

You can stream it at NPR.

 

If you're in NY, last set tonight in 20 min (I'd guess sold out), last night is tomorrow Feb. 10.

Now at 9 min, Iverson is doing a beautiful chordal thing, now putting a line over it in the treble, kind of McCoy influenced but with a bit more impressionist color and a mellower vibe.  This is the stuff, folks.

Thanks, NPR, for making it it little less painful for a jazz fan not to live in NYC.

Short listening notes: Janácek, Hindemith, Khaled, Steely Dan, Macy Gray, Handel

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In lieu, for the moment at least, of longer reviews, I'll note a few things I've been listening to with great enjoyment recently:

Janácek's piano music.  Both the Sonata and the series of short pieces called "On an Overgrown Path" are major masterpieces.  Lyrical, evocative, often passionate.  Tonal, but with Janácek's sometimes unusual harmonic colors, which however are completely natural and expressive, not self-consciously displayed.  Both Rudolf Firkusný on Deutsch Grammophon and Alain Planès on Harmonia Mundi are excellent.  I give the slight edge to Planès for a softer-edged, more atmospheric piano sound, but you can't go wrong with either.  This music really should not be missed.

Paul Hindemith, When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd  and Requiem, "Für die, die wir lieben" ("For those we love").   Annelies Burmeister, mezzo-soprano, Günther Leib, baritone, Soloists and chorus of the Berliner Rundfunks, and Berliner Rundfunks Symphony Orchestra.  Deep feeling here; this is not what I'd think of as "gebrauchmusik" ("use-music", a term probably from an earlier phase of Hindemith's career).  These pieces are post-World War II.  I need to listen to this CD again, but recall my first listen, about a month back, as a wonderful discovery.

Khaled, Liberté.  Khaled, for those who don't know, has long been perhaps the greatest star of the North African (especially Algerian) popular music called Rai.  In the Arabic-speaking world, he's a superstar.  When I first put this on, I was not paying much attention, and thought it not as good as the earlier, essential N'Issi N'Issi and Sahra.  Played it again last night, and revised my opinion:  it's superb.  His voice is as good as ever, his command of swirling North African melisma as secure as ever, and the material, a substantial amount of which he writes himself, is mostly excellent.  Overall, though it features electric bass and some synths, the sound is "rootsier" than the other two albums I mentioned, with lots of instrumental interludes featuring traditional North African instruments and a string section recorded in Cairo.  Reminiscent of some of his stuff from even earlier than N'Issi and Sahra, when he was more of a rising regional star than an international superstar.

Steely Dan, Katy Lied.  I wasn't really familiar with this album, which apparently predates the essential classic Aja, but it's solid.  Great to discover another 10 mostly excellent songs from the Dan, in the same vein as Aja, if perhaps a bit more varied and not as consistently great.  If you like jazzy chords with your pop-rock, lots of possibly tongue-in-cheek 70's-beatnik/hipster lyrical attitudinizing, and the occasional sax solo, the Dan is for you.  But you already know that from Aja, and the hits (Rikki, Do it Again, etc...) that still make classic-rock radio.  Excellent listening.

I Try: The Macy Gray Collection This is some kind of Greatest Hits CD I picked up cheaply.  Solid neo-soul and R&B singing from Ms. Gray.  Her voice is nice, a bit lighter than those of the gutsiest, earthiest female soul singers (e.g. Aretha), but with a slightly smoky texture, too.  That's a description, not a criticism.  Mostly very good material, some written by Gray herself.  Highly recommended.

G. F. Handel, The Messiah (oratorio).  Elly Ameling, soprano; Anna Reynolds, alto; Philip Langridge, tenor; Gwynne Howell, bass.  Academy and Chorus of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Neville Marriner, conductor.  (London 444 824-2).  Excellent soloists, very clear recording, with relatively light instrumental forces and a reasonably light-footed, baroque feel, but probably not original instruments or finicky attention to baroque stylistics.  With some of the sweetness (compared to many original-instruments treatments) that I tend to associate with Marriner/St.Martin's productions.  Beautiful.  The music is of course profound and essential listening.  Sir Colin Davis, leading the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, with Heather Harper, soprano, Helen Watts, contralto, John Wakefield, tenor, and John Shirley-Quirk, bass, is also excellent, with a fairly similar overall feel (perhaps a somewhat less lush and sweet, more severe feel overall).  Unfortunately it seems to be marred by some kind of constant scratchy background noise, not extremely loud, but annoying once heard.  I have no idea what this is; if it's the result of a poor digital transfer in the early days of CD, then a remaster from analogue tape is in order; otherwise, let's hope there's a better master tape around somewhere because this performance is good enough that it deserves a noise-free reissue if possible.

Learning "rootless" voicings for jazz piano from Earl MacDonald

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[Understanding this post probably requires a basic knowledge of seventh and related chords and extensions and alterations as used in "straight-ahead" (swing, bebop) jazz and mid-twentieth century American popular song harmony.  The highlighted (and recommended) links will tell you what they are, and something of how they function in jazz harmony, though not the full story.]

A basic component of most jazz pianists' toolbox is the so-called "Bill Evans" or "rootless" or sometimes "left-hand" voicings.  Each of the three terms is inaccurate.  These were to some extent used before Evans came on the scene in the late 1950s/early 1960s, but he perhaps used them more extensively than others.  (Wynton Kelly, Red Garland, and Ahmad Jamal are among those also cited as inclined to use them.)  Along with McCoy Tyner, Evans also was a pioneer in using quartal voicings, which would probably be equally good candidates for associating with his name, but are not our topic here.   A few of the "rootless voicings" contain the root of the chord, though most do not.  And although they are commonly used in the left hand while the right plays melody, they may also appear in the right hand.  "Four-note voicings" might be another term one sees used, though I'm not sure if that's as specific.

In some of the classic books on jazz piano playing (like Mark Levine's highly recommended "The Jazz Piano Book"), these may be introduced a bit too early, and some teachers may overemphasize them early on (especially to students who are already fairly aware of the basics of jazz harmony).  Working pianists, who usually play in a rhythm section in which the bass takes care of stating the roots, like to use these voicings in order to stay out of the way of the bass line, and because they allow for more "color" tones, as found for example in standard extensions of 7th chords to include 9ths, 11ths, 13ths.  (Some of these may be called "alterations", a term whose appropriate application I'm not completely clear about and am not going to get into here; it usually refers to a #11, b5 (enharmonically the same as a #11), b6=b13, b9 or #9, but precisely which notes are "altered" and which are just extensions depends on (what is considered to be) the harmonic context.)  For learning jazz theory in a way that gets it into your ear (and fingers, if playing piano and not just hearing jazz harmony is your ultimate goal), I think it's best to practice four-note voicings with roots first.  These can work for elementary solo piano playing, and for getting the sound of a tune including the roots fixed in your mind (play the "rooty" voicings in the LH, and the melody or an improvisation (yours, or a transcribed one) in the RH).  Of course you can use these same possibilities with the Evans voicings, and you will find that many of them are the same as "rooty" four-note voicings for chords a third higher, so practicing the rooty ones first also helps with the Evans ones.  I'll post on rooty voicings at some point, but here I'll discuss learning the more advanced Evans voicings, something I am in the middle of doing.

I'm using pianist Earl MacDonald's excellent post on how to learn these voicings.  I recommend printing out both his post, and his pdf file with music notation and taking them to the piano.  I won't go into detail, but just say a few things that might be a useful supplement.  Two voicings, labeled "A" and "B", are given for each chord type.  Frequently, though not always, the B voicing just involves taking the bottom two notes of the A voicing and making them the top two notes.  For example, the first two chord types he considers (minor 9th, and  [dominant] 13th) work that way.  I tend to think of these kinds of four-note voicings as a pair of intervals (that between the bottom two notes, and that between the top two), separated by the interval between notes 2 and 3 (top of the bottom interval, and bottom of the top interval).  Then I just think of the move to the other voicing as moving the bottom interval up an octave (or the top one down an octave, depending which way I'm moving it).  It can help to keep in mind how the middle interval will change when you do that:  e.g., for the minor 9th voicings, from a minor third for the A voicing (I don't think explicitly about this in this case, because the A voicing here is just a root position major seventh starting on the third of the chord we are voicing, e.g. Cm9 is voiced as EbMaj7)  to a half step, or vice versa.  The cool thing about these voicings is that when you want to move from, say, a B voicing  to a voicing for the same type chord with the root down a fifth (very common root movement, with or without a change in chord type), you just keep the top two notes the same and move the bottom ones down a half step or a whole step.  So again, thinking about the chord as a pair of intervals helps.  Of course ultimately you want to get this into your fingers, and not "think" too explicitly.  For example, to move the minor 9th B voicing to a minor 9th a fifth down, you go to the A voicing of the new chord, by keeping the top two notes the same as in the previous chord, and dropping each of the bottom two by a whole step.  When you start incorporating the voicings into chord progressions, the chord type will often change, but since root movement down by fifths is common and important, you can frequently negotiate these progressions effectively by going from an A voicing for the first chord to a B voicing for the second, or vice versa, keeping track of which notes change and which stay the same.  Often  you will just move the bottom interval, or just move the top interval, which is nice.  And if you've practiced root-included 7th-chord progressions, you might find some of the movements are similar, or the same, just used over a different root.  I haven't done much along these lines yet, but obviously ii V7 I  or the minor homologue, iiø V7 i, are the first ones to work on.

The basic construction principle for most of the voicings can be understood starting from the example of the minor 9th chord.  The chord tones used are 3, 5, 7, and 9 (3 and 7 of course refer a minor third and minor seventh relative to the root, since this is a 9th chord; the 9th here is major).  The A voicing is [3 5 7 9], B voicing is [7 9 3 5] (left to right going low to high in pitch).  When a voicing has a natural 11th (enharmonically, 4th) it appears instead of the 3rd.  (This happens with one chord type, the half-diminished chord with natural 11th.)   When it has a 13th (= 6th) it usually appears instead of the 5th, in the above constructions.  There is an exception to the 5 goes to 6 rule for the A form of the standard major (no 11th) voicing:  the A form is a 6 9 voiced [3 5 6 9] (so one can think of the 6 as having been substituted for the 7th).  A #11th, on the other hand (one chord type: the Maj7#11), is substituted for the 5 (the boppers used to think of the sharp 11 as a flatted fifth; thinking that way there is no substitution going on here; then again I don't think the boppers often added a sharp 11th to major chords).  The Maj7#11 is also an exception to the rootless rule: it is voiced  A: [1 3 11 7] and B: [11 7 1 3].  The other exception to the rootless rule is the B form of the standard (eleventh-less) major chord: it is a Maj7 with root, voiced [7 1 3 5], i.e. the major 7th and then the root-position triad, starting a half-step above the 7th.  This pair of major voicings is the only one that doesn't obey the rule of putting the bottom interval on top while keeping the top interval as the bottom of the new voicing, to go from A to B voicing.  Rather, the bottom goes on top, but the formerly top interval shrinks (if you must think this way) from 6 9 (a fourth) to 7 1 (a half-step) as it becomes the new bottom interval.

One could probably understand a bit more about the choice of particular types of voicings from the voice-leading properties they give rise to in common progressions (primarily major and minor ii V I or i type progressions).  Curious is the omission of a voicing for the dominant 7th #11.  This was a very important chord starting with bebop.  If this reflects Evans' practice and not just MacDonald's predilections, I wonder if it's because Evans usually used a different type of voicing (quartal?) for this chord type?

If MacDonald's exercises seem time-consuming and difficult, let me just say that you can progress fairly quickly, and it's worth it.  Here's a point from MacDonald that I really appreciate his emphasizing; it's crucial to remember, not just about this but about many, many exercises involved in learning to play jazz (and other musics, for that matter, e.g. scale practice):

Learning voicings is similar to learning to ride a bike.  At first it is difficult, frustrating, and at times, painful.  But once it is learned correctly, you never look back, and you can do it instinctually ever after.

A few comments on MacDonald's suggested learning routine. For all of the exercises, I've done them sometimes without sounding the root, but frequently with the root sounded in the bass. I think this is important to get the proper harmonic function of the voicing in your ear. Less crucially, I've done some of them with the right hand as well. Exercise number 8, taking the voicings down the circle of fifths with metronome (he refers to it as the circle of fourths; up a fourth is down a fifth, modulo octaves) is particularly crucial; I think this is where you'll really get the voicings memorized. Besides sometimes doing it with sounded roots, when I don't sound the root, I've been saying its letter name out loud. This also helps in better memorizing the circle of fifths, which anyone playing any music with essentially Western tempered harmony will want to do. Another point is that before working on each chord type, it is good to sound out the full chords, in root position, stack-of-(usually)-thirds configuration, and then compare this sound to the rootless voicing sounded with the root in the bass. You'll really start getting an idea of how extensions and alterations sound by doing this (especially if you sound out the lower seventh chord before adding extensions). You don't have to do this for every root (I haven't been), but it might be worthwhile too.

I have not yet made flash cards and done the "random roots"  exercise.  I've tried going up by fifths, as preliminary step toward getting away from the reliance on "muscle memory" and explicit thinking about the "lower the bottom two notes" trick for moving the root down a fifth while going from an A to B voicing, and I recommend it, as it's a cool sound as well.  I'm ignoring his suggestion about completely mastering one chord type before going on to the next, in that I've worked quite a bit on the 13th chord without complete mastery of the minor 9th, but I think that's OK as long as you don't mix things up to much and really push on each type focusing primarily on one at a time.

Finally, the observation he asks you to try to ignore, that five of the chord types share the same voicing (just with a different root), is quite neat and important, an example of the general phenomenon that putting a different bass note under a given set of pitches in the middle or upper register can make an enormous change in the way they sound. Not only could it be used for reharmonization of a given melody, but I imagine it could be used (and probably is used) in composition, not just jazz but classical composition (many of these 7th, 9th, 13th, 11th, and 6th chords appear in classical music, especially Ravel, Debussy, Stravinsky, and Copland) to effect modulations, by changing the root under a given voicing and then treating it as if it has the new harmonic function, resolving it in some standard way. It would be neat to find---or create---examples of this.

Review: Dum Dum Girls "Only in Dreams"

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This has been sitting around as a draft for more than a year now.  A quick track-by-track review of the Dum Dum Girls' September 2011 album "Only in Dreams" from last year on Sub Pop records.  Not ultra-heavy or consistently deep, but very enjoyable and interesting.  Definitely recommended.  It mixes bouncy guitar pop-rock with wisps of doowop, washes of surf and even occasional smears of grunge, quite organically and effectively.  Before the track-by-track comments, the official Youtube stream.

Always Looking kicks things off in style with a grungish main theme, and a slightly Grace Slick-ish vocal sound.  I have a feeling of having heard something like this from Mudhoney somewhere...perhaps it's a nod to the Sub Pop pedigree.  A poppier interlude ("I never felt a beat in my heart / till you made it start"), more reminiscent of Blondie, leads to a bit of tasty surf guitar.  Bedroom Eyes begins with a very pretty, sing-song melody in major in the guitar intro, then swings right into a peppy, uptempo verse, anchored by the superb chorus ("Oh, I need your bedroom eyes").  A new musical and episode late in the song ("you will never sleep again") tops things off with a bit of a triumphant feeling, and is nice structural touch, leading back to the main verse/chorus sequence again.

Just a Creep is a bit enigmatic---we don't learn who the creep is or what he's done.  Is this the same guy whose bedroom eyes she needed in the previous song?  "It upset me to learn you act this way / It must be hard to be yourself each day / you act so sweet / but you don't cut deep / you're just a little creep".  Excellent surf guitar obbligato.   In My Head is another song of separation and longing, but set to relatively upbeat and catchy music.  It's also a very well crafted song, with a full-fledged verse, chorus, and bridge, and interesting substructures within them.  The verse is set off by a doowopish chorus ("Oh don't you tell me / I am your baby/over the phone/it don't feel right/Come home and kiss me/ tell me you miss me / come do it right").  A superb song, perhaps the album's best.  Do we have a lyrical (though certainly not musical) nod to the Stone Roses here? ("I just wanna be adored")   Heartbeat is another excellent song with plenty of fifties doowop and pop influence, and a lighter feeling overall.  In general the drumming could lean a bit less on the two-eighth-notes on two / one-eighth on four backbeat, although it's very appropriate for many of these songs.  Musically Caught in One seems to continue in the mildly melancholic but peppy vein, though if you listen to the lyrics things are getting a bit heavier...there seems to be pain, and an unfaithful lover, involved.

With Coming Down we have, just in time, a more marked change in musical style... we have here an example of a minor-key guitar anthem, in a mood of nostalgia, yearning, regretful leaving, and wallowing in all of the above.  An interlude with a different feel leads to a higher-pitched, somewhat more triumphal sounding section ("there I go...").  Harmonically, and in mood, the song is related to Knockin' on Heaven's Door.  The guitar then lays out for a heavier bit in which the singer finally gets more specific about the source of this mood ("if you only had a heart").  For an example of how good a singer Dee Dee is, just listen to her control over the changing timbre as she stretches out the word "start". Simple and effective.

Wasted Away is again fairly uptempo, but remains emotionally engaged, and keeps up the theme of missing a lover, if a bit ambiguously ("I'd rather waste away than see you only in dreams / but there's nothing to say / at the end of the day you're wasting away").  Fuzzy, ringing guitars provide a foil.  Teardrops on My Pillow begins in a pop-punkish kind of vein, reminiscent of Hüsker Dü or some of Bob Mould's other projects, then "Teardrops on My Pillow" is intoned in a definite fifties-pop context. Hold your Hand ("I wish it wasn't true but there's nothing I can do except hold your hand") explores yet another vein of fifties vocal pop, slower but with a surging chorus ("But you'd do anything to bring her back").

I was afraid this immediately appealing album might pale on repeated listenings, but so far, it's just gotten better.  There's a lot of interesting detail to savor in the songwriting, and the vocal harmonies just get tastier.

 

Jeremy Denk plays Schumann and Bach at Los Alamos

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Jeremy Denk played Schumann's Davidsbündlertänze and Bach's Goldberg Variations at Los Alamos' Duane Smith Auditorium last Saturday (January 12), presented by the Los Alamos Concert Association.  A wonderful experience to hear two long works, each consisting of a sequence of many short pieces, and each among the pinnacles of keyboard music of their respective (romantic and baroque) musical eras.  Do not miss a chance to hear Denk play this repertoire.  The Schumann is a fascinating compendium of romantic gestures and episodes, only occasionally rambling and soft-edged as Schumann can be, mostly quite focused and beautifully shaped.   Denk's touch, as compared to some pianists, seems just slightly firm, and sometimes a bit monolithic on chords, sometimes slanting his interpretations towards the architectonic rather than the lyrical.  This could be quite piano-dependent, of course, and is not a bad thing.  In any case the last 10 minutes or so of the Schumann were pure song as played by Denk.  The Goldberg was a magnificent experience, sometimes recalling Glenn Gould's 1950s version with fast tempos (though there was no sense of excessively fast tempos overall), and great clarity, especially rhythmically.  Inner voices were often brought out, though less compulsively and analytically than by Gould.  In this piece Denk, playing a 9-foot Steinway, got an effect somewhat like a performance on a large, powerful, harpsichord---a coherent, speaking-with-one-voice impression, while still taking advantage of the piano's more lyrical potential when called for.  Very rarely, the faster tempos in certain variations left me momentarily feeling confused about the beat, but that might have been due to a momentary lapse of attention on my part, and in any case was made up for by the powerful overall impact of those same fast tempos.  Denk's touch is relatively precise, but not excessively glassy or percussive, rather just slightly soft-edged, keeping things clear and well-defined but without getting clanky and aggressive nor dry.  Just beautiful in the Goldbergs.

We got Mr. Denk back out for an encore: he played a fairly lengthy, and very familiar piece by Chopin in a somewhat dreamy, musing mood... probaby a ballade or nocturne...I should know the name.  It was magic.  Somebody brightened and dimmed the house lights accidentally toward the end, making the audience laugh, and breaking the spell a bit, I thought.  Whether the spell was broken in his playing, or just in my attention, I'm not sure... a shame, but not a huge one, since as I said most of the encore was pure enchantment.

Denk is about to record, or perhaps has just recorded, the Goldbergs;  I plan on getting it when it comes out.  I'm also very interested to see he's recorded some Ligeti, and Ives' Concord Sonata... I listened extensively to Gilbert Kalish's wonderful version of the latter masterpiece on a Nonesuch LP a couple of decades ago, but from what I've heard of Denk's playing, I'd love to hear him do it.

Ethan Iverson plays Hall Overton's Polarities #1

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Via Ethan Iverson's blog Do the Math, a panel discussion at The Jazz Loft Project, of jazz and classical composer, arranger and pianist Hall Overton. Iverson kicks it off with a superb performance of Overton's classical piece "Polarities #1" (begins around 2'00 in the video).  A performance that should not be missed. Some more of my thoughts follow the video.

The Jazz Loft Project presents "Hall Overton: Out of the Shadows" from Center for Documentary Studies on Vimeo.

This is a wonderful piece of music and a superb performance of it. To my ear there are hints of jazz, especially at the beginning. The first two measures definitely sound like they could be the opening of a jazz ballad with relatively "advanced" harmonies, and the descending figure in the bass in the third measure sounds very Monkish.  [Update: this figure reminded me of a specific phrase in a Monk composition, which I suspected was "Nutty".  Sure enough, it's the first part of the falloff that Monk sometimes adds to the end of one of the first phrases in "Nutty".  Not only that, but the opening of Polarities seems related to the phrase to which Monk adds this falling line.  Though very different harmonically, there's some similarity in melodic profile and rhythm.]  A few other spots have that "advanced jazz ballad" feel.  While Overton was on the faculty at Juillard and apparently also taught at Yale and the New School, most of us jazz fans know Overton primarily as the arranger for the Town Hall big band concert featuring Monk, so a Monk reference is hardly a farfetched supposition.  The piece is roughly atonal or at least in very unstable tonality, but not twelve-tone, and very expressively balances atonal features with what seem to me passages with stronger harmonic implications.  The musical language often seems to me poised between Debussy and Schoenberg.  The sequence of chords around 3'19 to 3'33 in the video remind me of Debussy in his more declamatory frame of mind, while some of the passages preceding and following it remind me of his lyrical side.  I was quite surprised to be strongly reminded, around 3'39-4'00,  especially in the chord alternation at 3'44, 3'50 and 3'56 and melodic line connecting these bits, of Cecil Taylor's fantastic 1973 solo piano performance "Indent".  To my mind, Indent is some of the most important and enjoyable music to come out of the twentieth century, and if you don't know Taylor or have listened to other pieces and not "gotten" him, I'd say Indent or the early-60's band-as-jazz-orchestra side "Into the Hot" (the other side of the Impulse LP is Gil Evans' "Out of the Cool"), are the places to start.  Accessible but building in intensity and complexity.  I recall reading that Taylor intensely studied twentieth-century classical scores early in his career, so I guess it's not impossible that there was some direct influence of Overton's classical work on Taylor's composition or vice versa, especially since Overton was active in jazz circles in New York at just this time (mid to late 50s), but accidental convergence is just as likely.  (Though Indent is from 1973, the "vice versa" possibility is because Taylor might have developed some of these ideas very early even though they may not have been appearing in his performances at the time, which in the late 50s were still often based on jazz standards.)  Iverson recently linked the transcipt of a 1964 panel discussion between Overton, Taylor, and others that grows somewhat contentious, making this perceived momentary connection between their musics even more startling to me.

Iverson also points out that this piece appears, played by Robert Help, on a collection from the 1960s, "New Music for the Piano", available from New World Records, and he suspects this is the only appearance of Overton's classical music on CD.  Based on this performance of Polarities, that is a real shame and I hope it is rectified soon.  Also based on this performance, Iverson would be a fantastic pianist to do it.  He's not just playing the notes here, he has gotten inside the music and it's gotten inside him: each phrase is expressed as if he composed the music himself.  He gets a fantastic, bright and ringing but not harsh tone out of this piano, and can give it nuances to bring out or contrast different lines. The clarity and control are astonishing too.  Really beautiful music-making from both Overton and Iverson.  I hope we can hear more of this combination sometime.