Music – Page 5 – A Honey of an Anklet

Cole Porter in Japanese

Is it an opera or a musical? Anthony Tommasini offers a distinction that might settle the ~~argument~~ discussion that Leta and I regularly have:

Both genres seek to combine words and music in dynamic, felicitous and, to invoke that all-purpose term, artistic ways. But in opera, music is the driving force; in musical theater, words come first.

This explains why for centuries opera-goers have revered works written in languages they do not speak. Though supertitles have revolutionized the art form, many buffs grew up without this innovation and loved opera anyway.

When I hear on the radio the voice of an artist that I haven’t heard in a long time, it’s rarely happy news. And so it is with the passing of Phoebe Snow, who died last week after a long illness, as Tom Cole and Neda Ulaby report. “No Regrets,” from the Second Childhood album (1976) is a shimmering three minutes of new swing that will always be with me.

Totally serial

Composer of the avant garde Milton Babbitt has died at the age of 94. I dabbled in Babbitt in my salad days but I never quite became a fan. Audio clips of many of his pieces and a video interview from 2001 (in which he favorably compares art music composition to microbrewing) are at NewMusicBox.

Missing the 70s

Winter is now a little quieter: NPR reports that Gerry Rafferty has died. Just the other day, I was just listening to City to City on my walk.

To be free

A slightly belated tribute to Billy Taylor, who passed away this week after a long long career, as reported by A Blog Supreme. Several years ago, I attended a series of “jazz appreciation 101” talks by Dr. Taylor, given in Kennedy Center rehearsal space. He was a welcoming, generous teacher. One of the things I remember is his observation that you can learn a lot about jazz harmony just by mastering Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life.”

Some quizzes: 2

With just a little guessing, I scored a semi-respectable 18 of 25 on the 10-minute drop-the-needle challenge to identify jazz classics. Which means I missed some really easy ones. But I’m not man enough to take the full 111-song challenge.

(Link, and a hint, via A Blog Supreme.)

Some links: 48

Another option for DIY sound designers looking for scene transition music: Rumblefish’s Music Licensing Store. I haven’t priced the fees, but the prospect of pre-cleared music “for any project” would benefit community theater directors looking to take a play into the competitive festival circuit.

Bloomsday: 2010

In honor of Mr. Bloom’s walk, a link to notes on Luciano Berio’s Thema (Omaggio a Joyce), spoken-word electronica from 1958 that uses the text of the overture to the “Sirens” chapter. Alas, no licit streams or MP3s of the piece appear to be available.

Muscial necrophilia

Via Aaron Cohen, guest blogging at kottke.org, a delicious diatribe that I’d found and lost and now find again: Pat Metheny critiques Kenny G:

…he did show a knack for connecting to the basest impulses of the large crowd by deploying his two or three most effective licks (holding long notes and playing fast runs —never mind that there were lots of harmonic clams in them)…

Still looking for Chase at the iTMS

Five genres on my iPod not likely to be found elsewhere, as assigned by me:

Irish Soul (The Commitments)
New Swing (Joe Jackson, Swing Out Sister, Meaghan Smith)
Electrofolk (Beth Orton, Snakefarm, Nels Cline)
Brass Fusion (Chicago, The Ides of March)
Alien Pixie (Björk, Laurie Anderson, Radiohead)

Slippery

In the European classical tradition, the piano, with its twelve precise divisions of the octave—inflexible, immovable—has dictated musical thinking for several centuries. Once developed, the piano quickly became a machine of almost tyrannical influence throughout the Western world. Its division of the octave into twelve intervals, each mathematically equidistant from its neighbors, forces one to regard pitches as discrete entities, like nations with strictly policed [borders]. A piano-generated melody goes from point to point with no expressive sliding in between. This is not a fault—Bach and Mozart built their entire work on the notion—rather, it is a stylistic choice. Since the advent of the black-and-white keyboard… Western instrumental music has had to state itself according to the twelve discrete, individual pitches of the scale, resulting in a more limited universe of emotional expression.

—John Adams, Hallelujah Junction, ch. 10, “The Machine in the Garden”

The B feature

Via Arts & Letters Daily, Lucie Skeaping recaps what we know of 17th century jigs, bawdy theatrical afterpieces.

Were jigs recited over the tunes, did they contain song interludes, were they through-sung like mini-operas, or did all three of these at various times apply? Of the 12 surviving English jig texts roughly half contain specific tune titles printed at various points alongside the text, that is, the names of popular ballads or dance tunes of the day.

Voices, guitars and drums are really expressive instruments for the same reason that they’re really inexact instruments: [You] can’t coax the same note or beat out of them exactly the same way twice, even if you try.

Any stage actor could tell you that, and ruefully.

She mentions, as an exemplar, Denny Doherty’s early entrance for a chorus of The Mamas and Papas’ “I Saw Her Again.” Heck, I always figured that he meant to do that. It was effing brilliant.

Category: Music