Jeff Meshel's World: Recent Episodes
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The greatest rendition of the greatest song.
Have your handkerchief ready.
The post 029: Eva Cassidy, ‘Over the Rainbow’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Elton, Leon, Sara Bareilles, a 2005 film with a song by Sigur Rós, Sinatra, The Greatest Band that Never Was
The post SotW 319: Shallow Dive 2 appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Getz, Lake Street Dive, Meshel, Scaggs, BBC
The post Songs of the Week 318: The Shallow Dive 1 appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Two remarkable voices from the same ‘hood, Smokey and Aretha, velvet and steel, a magical meeting in a magical song. It’s not chemistry, it’s alchemy. Watch it and say a little prayer of thanks for being present at the creation.
The post 160: Smokey Robinson & Aretha Franklin, ‘Ooh Baby, Baby’ (Live) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Did you know that God created Womb-Man as “a help against” her Man? Here Matti Caspi dons a white tux, sits down at a white grand piano in a cowshed, and serenades a very fetching Elsie in the funniest video I’ve ever seen.
The post 150: Matti Caspi, ‘Not Good, Man Being Alone’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
What do you use when words aren't enough?
Music.
The post 247: Perry Como, ‘Kol Nidre’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
In which Jeff indulges in gooey nostalgia, imbibes a few underage beers, ponders his life, and swills the unadulterated, luscious gush of emotion that is Smokey Robinson and the Miracles’ ‘Ooh Baby, Baby’.
The post 159: Smokey Robinson & The Miracles: ‘Ooh Baby, Baby’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
JD was deeply involved with Linda Ronstadt at her most flowerful, collaborated with James Taylor and kissed Hope Steadman. No one deserves that much luck in life.
The post 181: J.D. Souther & Linda Ronstadt, ‘Faithless Love’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
'Saudade' is more than just a word; it's a mindset.
Here's the song that started it all.
The post 075: João Gilberto, ‘Chega De Saudade’ (Jobim) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Fellas, if this doesn't make your blood boil, you're probably dead.
The post 180: Tim Ries, ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ (Flamenco) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Otis recorded this song two months before he died, aged 26. Post 1 of 3: "Spookily Existential Posthumous Hits".
The post 151: Otis Redding, ‘(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Do you know these obscure gems?
Can you tell them apart?
The post 122: George Harrison, ‘You Know What to Do’ b/w Buddy Holly, ‘You’re the One’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
A mad genius vocal arranger, a virtuoso vocalist and an vocal orchestra combine for a unique improvised a cappella concerto.
The post 228: Roger Treece, Achinoam Nini (Noa), Vocalocity — ‘Protected’ (‘Mugan’) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
A rock star who spends his summers in his home village of 40 old people, in a bleak and remote grey landscape, planting trees during the day and collaborating on songs with his father during the long Icelandic evenings.
The post 279: Ásgeir, ‘Torrent’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Justin Vernon sure knows how to impale an earworm on a melodic hook. Even Taylor Swift thinks so.
The post 212: Bon Iver (Justin Vernon), ‘Towers’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
In which the head honcho on a slave ship gives his wards a motivational chat about the New World awaiting them:
The post 140: Randy Newman, ‘Sail Away’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Nogah went and grew up. I still have the highest of hopes.
The post 185: Frank Sinatra, ‘High Hopes’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
As intimate as lovers, as self-effacing as monks, as synchronized as guys who have been on the road together for six years.
The post 127: The Band, ‘Tears of Rage’ (“Music from Big Pink”) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Dylan's “King Lear”--a daughter's love denied.
The post 126: Bob Dylan, ‘Tears of Rage’ (The Basement Tapes) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
"The greatest living artist"
The post 317: Brad Mehldau, the Beato Interview appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Joni's second album. She knows where she stands.
The post 141: Joni Mitchell, ‘I Don’t Know Where I Stand’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
My nominee for Israel's national anthem.
The post 135: Kaveret, ‘Medina Ktana’ (Little Country) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Losing a sibling.
A pop song is just a pop song, and a life is a life. But in our real lives, the two are intertwined, each person with his own background music.
The post 132: James Taylor, ‘Enough To Be On Your Way’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
"No musical instruments or mechanical devices used on this recording other than one guitar."
The post 169: The Mills Brothers, ‘Jungle Fever’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Flat tops and Procyons.
The post 316a: Beatles Quiz–The Answers! appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Answer all 4, request a SoTW Beatles posting of your choice!
The post 316: Beatles Quiz appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
1 Slasher String Quartet
The post 129: Franz Schubert, ‘Death and the Maiden’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
How one crazy Jew reinvented a dead language.
The post 315: Matti Caspi, ‘Eliezer Ben Yehuda’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
The perfect soggy, squishy rain song, bringing its own depressed weather system.
The post 162: The Everly Brothers, ‘Crying in the Rain’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
How to be a ‘cool’ musician.
Or maybe about How To Be.
The post 130: Thelonious Monk, ‘Let’s Call This’ (Monk’s Advice to Lacy) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
This is what love at 60 should be--gentle, warm intimacy born of years of two very individual individuals living together, creating a world bigger than the sum of their own selves.
The post 281: Carla Bley with Steve Swallow, ‘Lawns’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Founder of a successful insurance company. on weekends he composed modernist music that lay unheard for 50 years and "responded to negligence with contempt".
My new role model.
The post 280: Charles Ives, ‘The Unanswered Question’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Dylan just turned 82, and the dude shows no signs of slowing down. I wrote the following SoTW seven years ago, when he won the Nobel.
It’s my attempt to get to the heart of how I perceive Dylan as an artist.
The post 248: Bob Dylan, ‘You Ain’t Going Nowhere’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
The vibrations and the beauty that are so uniquely my Jerusalem.
The post 282: Shuli Natan, ‘Jerusalem of Gold’ (Naomi Shemer) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Guaranteed to make you shake AND rattle AND roll.
The post 120: Sam Cooke, ‘Shake, Rattle and Roll’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
You've never heard of the Norwegian singer Radka Toneff. Trust me, it's your loss.
Listen to her sing Jim Webb's 'The Moon's a Harsh Mistress'. Tell me you weren't moved.
The post 033: Radka Toneff, ‘The Moon’s a Harsh Mistress’ (Jimmy Webb) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
What her first album should have sounded like--
The unique, divine Laura Nyro.
The post 270: Laura Nyro, ‘Stoney End’ (Seattle Bootleg, 1971) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
It’s Israel’s 70th birthday today. We get pretty tired of seeing ourselves on the front page of the NY Times every day. On the other hand, we also see ourselves as the center of the universe. Go explain it. Well, this 1974 song does it best – our wry perception of our very existence, our precariousness, our homey patriotism – ‘Medina Ktana’ (‘Little Country’) by Kaveret (Beehive).
The post 135: Kaveret, ‘Medina Ktana’ (Little Country) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Betcha you’ve never heard of Sandy Bull, the crossover fingerpicker bridging the Kingston Trio and Ornette Coleman via India and Arabia.
Don't feel bad, almost no one has.
Betcha if you listen to him a bit you’ll really like him.
The post 275: Sandy Bull, ‘Blend’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
So why did Joni's Gershwin award turn me off?
The post 163: Joni Mitchell, ‘For Free’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
A jelly bread of a song, the rare meeting of psychedelia and reality, a most electric and eclectic homage to the ephemeral bliss of the carnal--Derek & The Dominos' rapturous recording of 'Little Wing'.
The post 095: Derek & The Dominos/Jimi Hendrix, ‘Little Wing’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
My g-g-g-generation, dropping like flies, teenagers dying of old age.
Carpe diem?
After my nap.
The post 250: Mose Allison, ‘Young Man’s Blues’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Remember Paul Simon's 'Anji'? Remember Pentangle?
Call it what you want--New Acoustic, Fingerpicking, American Primitive, Folk Baroque--there's a whole world out there of intelligent and sophisticated. virtuosic guitar music fingerpicked on a steel string guitar, using old blues and country techniques, full of fascinating directions.
The post 276: Leo Kottke, ‘Eggtooth’ (New Acoustic) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
David Lindley, Jackson Browne’s wingman par excellence, passed over to that celestial studio this week. In his honor, we’re revisiting his unforgettable vocal hook on ‘Stay’.
The post 089: Jackson Browne/Maurice Williams, ‘The Load-Out/Stay’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Turns out 500,000,000 Amy Winehouse fans were right. Go figure.
The post 217: Amy Winehouse, ‘Back to Black’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
50,000,000 Amy Winehouse fans were right, after all.
The post 217: Amy Winehouse, ‘Back to Black’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Brazilian/American jazz/bossa pianist/singer Eliane Elias should be a household name – she is a serious musician, outstandingly talented, commercially appealing, and uncommonly pleasing to look at.
The post 138: Eliane Elias, ‘Baubles, Bangles and Beads’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Croz's swan song--the finest music he ever made.
The post 306: David Crosby, ‘Glory’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Some of the most exciting music I’ve heard in years. Oh, do give it a listen.
The post 278: The Danish String Quartet, ‘Sønderho Bridal Trilogy – Part II’/Dreamers’ Circus, ‘Kitchen Stories’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Randy shines. Paul shines. That's a lot of shining, and this is one darn good song!
The post 305: Randy Newman & Paul Simon, ‘The Blues’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Wordless.
The post 304: Luciana Souza/Paul Simon, ‘Amulet’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Jeff's Top Ten from the last fortnight--surprises, non-surprises, and Rachael Price going 'Ooh-ooh--ooh'.
The post 273: The Necks, ‘Sex’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Joni, skating on thin ice, on a river so long that our own feet can fly us away from this troubled world.
Peace on earth, goodwill towards men and women, everyone.
The post 222: Joni Mitchell, ‘River’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
What’s the difference between a lovely little song and a precious gem?
David Crosby’s harmony on Jackson Browne’s ‘Something Fine’.
The post 171: Jackson Browne with David Crosby, ‘Something Fine’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
“At one point I found myself holding my breath.”
The post 303: Sara Bareilles, ‘Yellow Brick Road’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
In a perfect world, the best girls would go for the most talented guys.
Vilray is a most talented guy. Rachael Price is definitely the best girl.
And here they are, singing together.
The post 272: Vilray, ‘Do Friends Fall in Love?’ (with Rachael Price) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Right up there with food and water--Those Special Pop Songs.
The post 302: Bonnie Raitt, ‘I Can’t Make You Love Me’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
If you ever want to know what's new in music, check out what Jacob Collier's been doing for the previous couple of months.
The post 236: Jacob Collier, ‘Hideaway’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Noah’s dove, still searching for land.
A secular Israeli prayer for peace.
The post 102: Netanela, ‘Shir HaYona’ (Matti Caspi) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Pop pap? Glorious? Should I admit in public that I really, really like this song?
The post 107: The Association, ‘Everything That Touches You’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
(Boom!Boom!Boom!) Are you rea-dy???
The evolution of the first 4 seconds of Laura’s masterpiece.
The post 170: Laura Nyro, ‘Luckie’ (“Eli & the 13th Confession”) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
A moment of your attention please for the most famous unknown jazz pianist of the 1950s, the wonderful, forgotten but unforgettable Mr Herbie Nichols.
The post 091: Herbie Nichols, ‘House Party Starting’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
In which the daughter of Louis Armstrong's musical director, Julliard graduate and studio singer par excellence, sparkles up an old Grateful Dead tune backed by a mandoline, string bass and tambourine.
Jerry would have loved it. So would Satchmo.
The post 069: Catherine Russell, ‘New Speedway Boogie’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Yom Kippur is when we Jews face up to the way we lead our lives. The cantor uses the liturgy to break open our hearts and try to pry open God’s. But if there were going to be a secular soundtrack, it would have to be Bach’s Cello Suites.
The post 113: J.S. Bach, ‘Prelude to Suite #2 for Unaccompanied Cello’ (Casals) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
A Rosh HaShana gift – 15 bootleg covers that never appeared on Laura’s official albums.
The post 271: Laura Nyro, ‘Walk on By’ (Bootleg Collection) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
It’s early September, the leaves and the pages of the calendar are turning, a time for some sober and somber thoughts about whither we are headed. Here’s a great song about September and life and reflection.
The post 147: Frank Sinatra, ‘It Was a Very Good Year’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Why Joni Mitchell isn’t relevant in a world of Millenial zombies.
The post 277: Joni Mitchell, ‘Electricity’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Alchemy 101:
Take a jazz banjoist, a classical double-bassist, and a percussionist of traditional Indian music, toss in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, mix vigorously. Waddaya get? A ménage a trois of a centaur, a mermaid, and a Toyota Prius? Nope! "The Melody of Rhythm" is as natural as the petal of a daisy -- unforced, convincing and absolutely lovely.
The post 092: Béla Fleck, Edgar Meyer, Zakir Hussain, ‘Babar’ (“The Melody of Rhythm”) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
If I’m a wave, then she’s a shoreline
Watching the tide rise
Waiting to break me.
Galia.
The post 301: Erik Bosio (& jeff meshel), ‘Galia’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
A song from Leon. A perfect love song.
The post 093: Leon Russell, ‘A Song for You’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
When dinosaurs roamed the earth...
An obscure Brian Wilson gem--impossibly brilliant, impossibly stupid, engraved in my 16-year old heart forever.
The post 269: Brian Wilson, ‘Sandy’/’Sherri She Needs Me’/’She Says That She Needs Me’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
My favorite May-December clip.
A man and a woman and the electricity between them.
Ah, Brasil...
The post 022: Roberta Sá and Chico Buarque, ‘Mambembe’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Minimalism and "the only adequate musical response—one of the few adequate artistic responses in any medium—to the Holocaust."
The post 086: ‘Different Trains’, Steve Reich (Kronos Quartet) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
The sweetest music you'll never hear.
The post SoTW 300: Decapede, ‘Creston Gold’/Buddy Holly, ‘Peggy Sue’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Mehldau plays The Beatles. What the heck does that have to do with paranormality??
The post SoTW 299: Brad Mehldau, ‘Junk’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Aural sex.
The post SoTW 298: The Civil Wars, ‘Billie Jean’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
A perfect love song.
The post 093: Leon Russell, ‘A Song for You’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
I got a Plan A, and I got a Plan B
And if it's absolutely necessary, we'll go to Plan C
The post 297: Lake Street Dive (Rachael Price), ‘Hypotheticals’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
A brilliant, fully-realized composition improvised on the piano by an obstreperous bassist. Then it was orchestrated.
How wondrous are the works of Man.
The post 104: Charles Mingus, ‘Myself When I Am Real’/’Adagio Ma Non Troppo’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
When I’m “trying to tell a stranger about rock and roll”, trying to explain just how wise and sophisticated it can be, I often refer to 'Younger Generation', an expectant father's apprehensions about the daunting task awaiting him.
One of the best songs to come out of the world of rock.
The post 098: John Sebastian, ‘Younger Generation’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Evans, his pain, and the music: "I have always preferred playing without an audience."
The post 096: Bill Evans (solo), ‘Easy To Love’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
1966--when Paul Simon mistook Jeff for Art and gave away that unforgettable, bouncy 'Red Rubber Ball'.
The post 090: The Cyrkle, ‘Red Rubber Ball’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
On Holocaust Day we remember the incomprehensible persecution suffered by Moldovan/Polish/Russian Jewish composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919–1996) at the hands of both the Nazis and the Soviets.
The post 097: Mstislav Rostropovich, ‘Cello Concerto Opus 43, Adagio’ (Mieczyslaw Weinberg) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
A fetching beauty with a catchy rock song in a first-rate jazz context. What more could one ask for?
Saxophonist Tim Ries toured extensively with The Stones, who sponsored his very fine, very varied Rolling Stones Project.
The post 080: Tim Ries w. Norah Jones, ‘Wild Horses’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
It's Passover! Let's sing a song of slavery!
Paul Robeson brought the Spiritual to the concert hall, singing the suffering and indignity of his own father in slavery. A remarkable life any standards.
The post 044: Paul Robeson, ‘Go Down, Moses’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Most of the little I understand of the female psyche I've learned from Joni Mitchell.
The post 106: Joni Mitchell, ‘Cactus Tree’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
This is what the kids call, I believe, a “mind-fuck.”
You hear it, you see it, but you can't believe it.
The post 296: Jon Gomm, ‘Passionflower’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Who da daddy of rap?
Who da grandaddy?
The post 176: Chuck Berry, ‘Too Much Monkey Business’ (Bob Dylan, ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Randy Newman's first album sold numerous dozens of copies and remains almost unheard of even today.
I'll tell you what I think of the album. I think it's one of the greatest works of art to arise from the 'rock' idiom.
The post 085: Randy Newman: ‘I Think It’s Going to Rain Today’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
As our hearts weep with the innocent Ukrainian victims of Russian aggression, our thoughts turn to Dmitri Shostakovich, a courageous human being and a great composer who lived and worked under the shadow of Soviet oppression.
The post 084: Dmitri Shostakovich, Prelude & Fugue No 16 in B-flat Minor (Tatiana Nikolaeva) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Trombonist-singers. Whodathunkit?
Rita Payes — Nunca vas a comprender
Nils Landgren — Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight
If I told you this week’s ear worm is a bossa-tinged original song by a 22-year old Catalan girl accompanied by her mother on guitar, I’ll bet you’d click onwards.
And what if I said, “Watch this clip and tell me you didn’t love it. I dare you.”? Would that make an impression?
And what if I just said I think the clip is kind of perfect? Might that entice you?
What if I told you that Rita Payés has been singing since with a vocal and stylistic maturity way beyond her years, the sweetest voice this side of Barcelona, and that her mother is a highly-respected classical Spanish guitarist, might that convince you to try her?
Watch this clip and tell me you didn’t love it. I dare you.
Here she is at 15 in Catalan, accompanied by Mom.
Here she is at 20, singing and tooting some straightforward jazz in English.
Here she is at 21 with I assume her husband. Pretty rootsy, huh?
And here they are with the baby outside.
And here again, just because it’s perfect, Rita Payés with her mom, singing ‘Nunca Vas a Comprender’.
You can find the lyrics below, English translation thanks to fellow music blogger Alan Tigay. Check out his fine wide-ranging site here.
Rita has oodles of clips you can browse in all sorts of styles, many of them in a jazz context. Her most recent releases are both minimalistic, Rita and her voice and her trombone and her mom’s guitar, “Imagina” (covers, 2019) and “Como La Piel”, ‘Like Skin’, (originals, 2021).
But that’s not all.
What if I told you there’s another trombonist-singer, Nils Landgren (b 1956), a Swedish actor/musician, ‘The man with the red horn’. He’s played on over 500 albums and is mostly known for his trombone funk band. But throughout his career he’s detoured into some sweet covers that have left an indelible impression on me and some of my friends.
Check out Nils’ cover of the beautiful ‘Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight’ (here’s James Taylor’s original).
Or his unforgettable ‘Get Here’. The vocal begins at 1:57.
It was written and recorded in 1988 by American jazz singer Brenda Russell (b 1949) while she was living in Sweden. Oleta Adams had a hit with it in 1993.
I’ve watched Nils sing it over and over. It’s a great example of how a cover treatment can transcend the originals. Here’s another version of ‘Get Here’ of his for you, just because he does it so damned well. (“You can make it in a caravan, cross the desert like an Arab man, I don’t care how you get here, just get here if you can.”)
And here he is singing Sting’s ‘Fragile’ (which had its own SoTW) in 2003 in the heady company of Pat Metheny and Michael Brecker (neither of whom need introduction), as well as two lesser-known musical heroes of mine, Esbjorn Svensson on piano (recent SoTW 294 on his trio) and Lars Danielsson on bass (I’ve spent several bezillion hours with him over the last couple of years). I confess I’m not familiar with the drummer.
It amazes me how much passion Nils Landgren can invest in his poker-faced, uninflected androgynous vocals. If you’re looking for more of his laid-back, non-funk, non-trombone vocals, check out ‘Killing Me Softly’ or ‘I Will Survive’.
| You’ll never understand That I loved you You’ll never understand As I did | Nunca vas a comprender Que yo te quise Nunca vas a comprender Cómo lo hice | | You’ll Never Understand You spoke to me of a love so beautiful You needed to prove That you were capable of living that | Tú me hablabas del amor De eso tan bello Te faltó por demostrar Que eras capaz de vivir aquello | | But please forget that I’m still here and I don’t want to suffer from you any more My love | Pero no Te olvides por favor que Sigo aquí ya no quiero sufrir más por ti Mi amor | | Over time I decided That all I lived was just a memory And it killed me inside | Con el tiempo decidí Que es un recuerdo Todo aquello que viví Y me mató por dentro |
The post 295: Rita Payés, ‘Nunca Vas a Comprender’/Nils Landgren, ‘Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
https://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Miles-Davis-So-What.mp3 Hi Everyone out in SongofTheWeekland. As I’m sure all of you remember, way back in SoTW 035, we made a promise to stroll through Miles Davis’ remarkable voyage through the 1950s.
In 035 we talked about the reactionary revolution of his “Tuba Band” of 1947, better known as “Birth of the Cool”. Then in 041 we visited his remarkable series of albums with his first quintet, focusing on melodic, sweet, laid-back treatments of standards. And in 055, we took a look at “Sketches in Spain”, one of three stunning large-canvas collaborations with Gil Evans (who was also an inspiring force behind “Birth of the Cool”). In SoTW 244, ‘Green Dolphin Street‘, we discussed Miles’ very first recording with a young Caucasian dude named Bill Evans, his brand-new pianist, precursing “KoB” by 10 months. (And just a bit of subtle foreshadowing, way back in SoTW 003 we wrote about Jerry Garcia & Dave Grisman’s version of ‘So What’.)
We’ve been getting piles of letters asking for some sort of closure to this cliffhanger, so this week we’re going to conclude the decade with the masterpiece of masterpieces, the coup de grace of the whole shmeer, “Kind of Blue”.
How good is this album? A few quotes:
Duane Allman: “I haven’t hardly listened to anything else for the last couple of years.”
Chick Corea: “It’s one thing to just play a tune, or play a program of music, but it’s another thing to practically create a new language of music.”
Hip hop artist and rapper Q-Tip: “It’s like the Bible—you just have one in your house.”
US House of Representatives: “A national treasure.”
But my favorite appraisal is from critic Robert Palmer (liner notes from a remastered re-release):
[For music fans and critics] “no ‘great work’ is sacrosanct. Not all rock aficionados share a high opinion of Sgt. Pepper; to some, it’s uneven, self-indulgent, overproduced, underwritten—and dated.” But “Kind of Blue” is unique, he says. It has no detractors.
It’s universally acknowledged to be a masterpiece. By rockers, by rappers, by jazzists, by aficionados and snobs, by layfolk and casual listeners. By those of wooden ears. By elevator riders. It’s the prettiest background music you’ll ever not listen to. But if you do, it’s a monolith of lyric beauty and depth.
It is perfect.
It is so subtle, so nuanced, that you can listen to it several trillion times (as many have) with it sounding wholly fresh and vital every time. Ask Q-Tip.
Miles’ 1955 quintet was still playing in the throes of post bebop, complex, dense, chord-laden music, which Miles now labeled “thick”. His band was falling apart, due to a fatal mix of drugs and ego. Pianist Red Garland went his way. Drummer Philly Joe Jones was grooving in his own vein. John Coltrane was bounced from the band for abuse and unreliability. While Miles was in France, Coltrane served a tour of duty with Thelonious Monk and got himself clean. Miles returned, rehired all three in addition to new-on-the-scene alto sax Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, recording with them the experimental album “Milestones,” and then fired the drummer and pianist. So we’re left with Miles on trumpet, Coltrane on tenor, Cannonball on alto, and good old Paul Chambers on bass. Jimmy Cobb came in on drums.
L to R: Cobb, Adderley, Evans, Davis, Coltrane
Via Gil Evans, Miles had read and been deeply influenced by a book called “The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization”, which posited an entirely new approach to what notes are played. It created Modal jazz. Jazz prior to this had been based on chord changes. Modal music talked about playing within a scale, free of the fetters of chords. The artist improvises melody, without the strictures of the over-evolved, ‘thick’ post-bebop music. Think of Peggy Lee’s ‘Fever’. No chords, just a series of modulating scales. Miles:
“No chords … gives you a lot more freedom and space to hear things. When you go this way, you can go on forever. You don’t have to worry about changes and you can do more with the [melody] line. It becomes a challenge to see how melodically innovative you can be. When you’re based on chords, you know at the end of 32 bars that the chords have run out and there’s nothing to do but repeat what you’ve just done—with variations. I think a movement in jazz is beginning away from the conventional string of chords… there will be fewer chords but infinite possibilities as to what to do with them.”
Okay, that may be a bit dry for a lot of normal people. But listen to this! “The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization” was written by George Russell, a 25-year old black drummer who was hospitalized in 1945 for 16 months with tuberculosis. To wile away the time, he wrote this theoretical work. Gil Evans turned all the cool young musicians onto it. So now, in 1958, Miles asked George Russell to recommend a pianist who could play this modal stuff. (Russell had just finished recording a jazz concept album/composition entitled “New York, N.Y.” Participating in the session were Art Farmer, Bob Brookmeyer, Hal McKusick, John Coltrane, Milt Hinton, Barry Galbraith, Jon Hendricks, Phil Woods, Al Cohn, Max Roach, and Benny Golson, Oh, yeah, and a young honky pianist named Bill Evans.) Russell:
*I recommended Bill.
“Is he white?” asked Miles.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Does he wear glasses?”
“Yeah.”
“I know that motherfucker. I heard him at Birdland—he can play his ass off. Bring him over to the Colony in Brooklyn on Thursday night.”*
The club was in Bedford Stuyvesant, a neighborhood whites didn’t ordinarily enter. But George and Bill did, Bill sat in and got his white ass hired, and the classically-trained wimp became the pianist for the coolest jazz band in the world. Miles:
When Bill Evans—we sometimes called him Moe—first got with the band, he was so quiet, man. One day, just to see what he could do, I told him [and you have to hear Miles’ raspy whisper to really appreciate this]*, “Bill, you know what you have to do, don’t you, to be in this band?”
He looked at me all puzzled and shit and shook his head and said, “No, Miles, what do I have to do?”
I said, “Bill, now you know we all brothers and shit and everybody’s in this thing together and so what I came up with for you is that you got to make it with everybody, you know what I mean? You got to fuck the band.” Now, I was kidding, but Bill was real serious, like Trane.
He thought about it for about fifteen minutes and then came back and told me, “Miles, I thought about what you said and I just can’t do it, I just can’t do that. I’d like to please everyone and make everyone happy here, but I just can’t do that.”
I looked at him and smiled and said, “My man!” And then he knew I was teasing.*
Bill brought a great knowledge of classical music, people like Rachmaninoff and Ravel. He was the one who told me to listen to the Italian pianist Arturo Michelangeli, so I did and fell in love with his playing. Bill had this quiet fire that I loved on piano. The way he approached it, the sound he got was like crystal notes or sparkling water cascading down from some clear waterfall. I had to change the way the band sounded again for Bill’s style by playing different tunes, softer ones at first. Bill played underneath the rhythm and I liked that, the way he played scales with the band. Red’s playing had carried the rhythm but Bill underplayed it and for what I was doing now with the modal thing, I liked what Bill was doing better.
This Miles Davis sextet played standards and material from “Milestones” through most of 1958 without making any significant recordings. Miles:
Some of the things that caused Bill to leave the band hurt me, like that shit some black people put on him about being a white boy in our band. Many blacks felt that since I had the top small group in jazz and was paying the most money that I should have a black piano player. Now, I don’t go for that kind of shit; I have always wanted just the best players in my group and I don’t care about whether they’re black, white, blue, red or yellow. As long as they can play what I want that’s it. But I know this stuff got up under Bill’s skin and made him feel bad. Bill was a very sensitive person, it didn’t take much to set him off.”
Bill wanted desperately to please everybody and to fit in. So although he didn’t actually service the guys, what he did learn during that time was how to shoot heroin. After seven months, he’d had it with the road. He was replaced in the band by the very competent if uninspired blues-oriented pianist Wynton Kelly. In March, 1959, Miles brought Evans back for a couple of recording sessions. Wynton was the sitting pianist in the group—Miles liked to do that, to set one band member near another, to get them nervous. Fun guy, that Miles Davis.
Only hours before the session, Miles wrote down some sketches and taught them to the musicians during the sessions themselves. No rehearsals. Here’s the modal framework, go. Five songs for release in six takes.
The very eloquent Bill Evans, from the original liner notes of “Kind of Blue” (you’ll pardon me for the extensive quote, but I have read these words hundreds of times, and find them an unplumbable source of wisdom and inspiration):
*“There is a Japanese visual art in which the artist is forced to be spontaneous. He must paint on a thin stretched parchment with a special brush and black water paint in such a way that an unnatural or interrupted stroke will destroy the line or break through the parchment. Erasures or changes are impossible. These artists must practice a particular discipline, that of allowing the idea to express itself in communication with their hands in such a direct way that deliberation cannot interfere.
The resulting pictures lack the complex composition and textures of ordinary painting, but it is said that those who see well find something captured that escapes explanation.
This conviction that direct deed is the most meaningful reflections, I believe, has prompted the evolution of the extremely severe and unique disciplines of the jazz or improvising musician.
Group improvisation is a further challenge. Aside from the weighty technical problem of collective coherent thinking, there is the very human, even social need for sympathy from all members to bend for the common result. This most difficult problem, I think, is beautifully met and solved on this recording.
As the painter needs his framework of parchment, the improvising musical group needs its framework in time. Miles Davis presents here frameworks which are exquisite in their simplicity and yet contain all that is necessary to stimulate performance with sure reference to the primary conception.
Miles conceived these settings only hours before the recording dates and arrived with sketches which indicated to the group what was to be played. Therefore, you will hear something close to pure spontaneity in these performances. The group had never played these pieces prior to the recordings and I think without exception the first complete performance of each was a “take.”*
I’m not going to wax poetic here trying to replicate in mere words the beauty that is “Kind of Blue.” If you want to read more about it, Ashley Kahn wrote an entire book called “The Making of ‘Kind of Blue’“. But if you don’t own the album, you really should. Remember what Q-Tip said? One phrase of the first song on the album, ‘So What’, is worth a thousand words. The entire song is worth a book. The album is worth a library. It’s an education in itself. And if, as one assumes, you do own the album, give it a spin. It will sound as fresh as it always does. And thanks be to He Who Created jazz musicians for instilling in these six guys the talent to create such magical beauty. Humans creating perfection. Not something you run into everyday.
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http://jmeshel.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/06-House-of-Jansch.mp3 A couple of my erstwhile acquaintances have recently been bad-mouthing Donovan, and them’s fighting words for me. Yeah, yeah, I know, hippie-dippie, limpid, Dylan wannabe, yadda-yadda. They know not of what they speak. Donovan Leitch is one fine artist, with an admirably muscular aesthetic that his maligners would easily recognize if they’d just lay aside their preconceptions for a moment and listen to the right music.
The “Rolling Stone Record Guide” says, “Listening to Donovan’s albums is like being consigned to relive the most insipid parts of the Sixties. Pretentious falderal.” Gee, he should listen to the music before he writes. And if he did, he should stop writing.
I wrote a very similar lament about the very widespread misapprehension of James Taylor, so many people judging him by his Greatest Hits. Why would anyone let the record companies choose what songs of an artist to listen to? Okay, I do so on occasion for initial exposure, but I certainly wouldn’t stop there, not with a serious artist. Donovan may not be an artist of JT’s breadth, depth or stature, but there’s some stunning stuff beyond the best-known dozen.
LtoR: It, Wannabe
Donovan Leitch (b. 1946, Glasgow) broke onto the charts in 1965 as ‘the British Dylan’, with some very fine sensitive-soft acoustic neo-folk hits, ‘Catch the Wind‘, ‘Colors’. But even on his first two LPs, the gems were hidden underneath these hits. Try ‘Sunny Goodge Street’, a dreamy jazz/folk amalgam years ahead of its time. (For extra credit, this also beautiful stripped down live solo treatment.)
Then came the two big hits, ‘Sunshine Superman‘ and ‘Mellow Yellow’, each of them charming or annoying, depending on your mood (or State Of Mind, as it were). For me, the charm certainly wore off by the 3-millionth listen.
Not so with the LPs that spawned them. “Sunshine Superman” and “Mellow Yellow” each contains ten songs, with nary a dud among them. Both are beautiful, intelligent, solid and memorable. Both are drug-inspired, but there’s not a vapid, self-indulgent note in either. Each song is finely crafted, with a hard core of intelligent artistry.
After these two albums Donovan went on to record more hits (‘There Is a Mountain’, ‘Lalena’, ‘Atlantis’), and then to wallow through decades consigned to the periphery. But he did some fine, fine work, and deserves to be remembered for that.
Much of the credit for the sheer beauty of the sound of “Sunshine Superman” and “Mellow Yellow” must go to producer Mickie Most. I’m not usually one to rave about studioship, but the recording here is a work of art in itself. Every instrument, every sound, is a pleasure to listen to – especially Donovan’s acoustic guitar itself. The sitar is employed far more convincingly than any contemporary, including George Harrison. Strings and brass embellish the palette with the greatest of restraint and the finest of taste. The acoustic bass and brushed drums are often employed even on the grittier cuts, providing an utterly entrancing mix of jive and resonance. (Give a listen to how ‘Sunshine Superman‘ mixes acoustic and electric sounds so effectively.) Admittedly, these are sounds created in and for a marijuana cloud. But they stand just as tall and proud in the clear light of day, over half a century later.
Beatles, Donovan chez Maharishi
Take for example ‘House of Jansch’, a tribute to folk/jazz legend Bert Jansch (pronounced ‘Yansh’), partner of John Renbourne in Pentangle.
It’s based on a fun, off-beat acoustic guitar riff with a seventh jabbing you in the chest at the end of the sentence. The cast includes ye olde standup bass, percussion provided solely by brushes on cymbals, a flute or two and a saxophone, and what I think is a celeste, which is a keyboard version of the glockenspiel (but I’m not betting the family farm on that one.)
Don’t ask me what the song ‘means’, I have no idea. Just sit back, take a toke or not, and enjoy the trip.
For your further listening edification:
From the sitarish, trip-drenched “Sunshine Superman’: the seemingly carefree ‘Ferris Wheel‘ (with the warning “Take time and tie your pretty hair, the gypsy driver doesn’t care if you catch your hair in the ferris wheel’); the hippie-hipster ‘Bert’s Blues‘, ultra-cool but replete with baroque strings, appears on “The Queen’s Gambit”soundtrack. Or even one of the weaker cuts, the soon-to-be standard (Kooper-Bloomfield-Stills Super Session, Vanilla Fudge, Brian Auger) ‘Season of the Witch‘.
Bob, Don, Mary
From the brassier and brasher “Mellow Yellow”: the allegory-laden ‘Three King Fishers‘ (the bongo/sitar/violin/acoustic guitar combination in the break is worth the price of admission), (For extra credit: coool live version); “, the naked, harrowing ‘Young Girl Blues‘; the recreation of a trip in minor in ‘Sand and Foam‘.
*Girl ain’t nothing but a willow tree
Swaying in a summer breeze,
You’ll never change what has to be.
Girl ain’t nothing but a willow tree.*
*Sometimes I don’t know what I said till I did,
I want to be the father of your kid.
Dragonfly he sleeps till dawn,
I knew I’d be here when love has gone.*
*Crystal ball is what I wish for you,
Get it straight, I love the both of you.
Someone’s goin’ through a cold turkey.
Girl ain’t nothing but a willow tree.*
*I give your baby a contact high
I love another is what I sigh -ha-
Looks like rain, I do declare,
Your baby wants to take my chocolate eclair.*
*I couldn’t cry, I could not laugh,
Incident about a silken scarf.
I know what a jealous trip can be.
Girl ain’t nothing but a willow tree.*
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This week’s Song of The Week is about beatniks, high school nostalgia, and the convoluted paths we take to visit our past. Oh, yeah, and about a terrific if somewhat obscure jazz standard. If that sounds oxymoronic, it’s because the unique charm of jazz lies in the fact that a song can be both obscure and yet a standard. But we’ll get to that.
Ella Fitzgerald, ‘Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most’
The best part of my youth was spending junior and senior years in Ensemble, a select 36-voice group, top of the heap of the half-dozen choirs at Woodward HS in Grover’s Corner, Midwest. I’ve been singing ever since, and still attribute my basic good habits to the training from those years, third period, right before lunch, five days a week, not counting summer rehearsals. Heaven only knows how the level of the group was so high at a regular public high school. I remember distinctly being no higher than the middle of the pecking order of the eight basses in terms of vocal abilities (range, quality, reading, memory). Don Howells was the best. He sang ‘You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling’ with more resonance, depth, and soul than Bill Medley. Don was a pretty nice guy, even if he wasn’t stellar academically, and I hope his significant vocal abilities stood him in good stead wherever he wound up. My guess would be either pumping gas or in a correctional institution. But, my, that boy could sing.
I’m talking about Ensemble because I think it was really fine musically. If this were nothing but a self-indulgent nostalgia trip, I’d be talking about that legendary garage band The Dropouts, and their groundbreaking performance of Van Morrison’s ‘Gloria’, which introduced electric music to my high school’s halls.
http://jmeshel.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Gloria-The-Dropouts.mp3 Anyway, in my memory, Ensemble was the finest amateur group I’ve ever sung in, and there have been many. But one wonders about the veracity of one’s memories, especially concerning the romantic days of one’s youth, right? So thanks to the wonders of modern technology and the luxury time on the hands of lots of bored baby-boomers, I was able to listen to Ensemble singing the standard ‘The Second Time Around’.
http://jmeshel.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Second-Time-Around-Ensemble.mp3 I’ll be the first to admit, it sounds pretty unspecial. It sounds VERY unspecial. Is my memory that askew? Well, it just so happens that in recent years I’ve had some degree of contact with four members of the group– Marc, Mark, Aaron, and Kathie. And it turns out that four of the five of us have been seriously involved with singing over the course of our lives, three professionally. They all corroborate my memory. It was an excellent, stringent training ground for precise, high-level choral singing.
Our director was named Frank Lang. He was a bachelor, a mamma’s boy according to rumor. Probably in his mid-30s when he taught us. He was petulant but professional. A good-humored guy, but he worked intensively with us for so long that there were plenty of conflicts along the way. I’m not idealizing that. We didn’t idolize Mr Lang. My memory tells me that even then, as obnoxious high-schoolers, we respected his professional talents. I was a particularly obnoxious teenager, universally disliked by my teachers. A pain in the neck, a wiseass with a big mouth, a chronic disrupter of classroom decorum. Except for Ensemble. At the bell, I’d be sitting in my chair. Actually, at the edge of my chair. That’s what Drill Sergeant Lang forced into our hormone-choked brains. When you sing, your back is straight, your butt is at the edge of your chair, and your body is fully engaged to support your voice production. Even today, no matter how tired, no matter how bored, that’s how I sit in rehearsal.
All five of us remember a lot of the repertoire. We could sing a lot of the songs today. We all would be happy to have the opportunity, which of course we won’t. But there’s one particular arrangement that Mr Lang brought us that I’ve had a dynamic relationship with for these 44 years since I last saw him. I remember the score, written in his hand. It was his arrangement of a difficult, beautiful, challenging jazz song, ‘Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most’.
The lyrics of the song were written by Fran Landesman in 1952, who with her husband Jay and pianist buddy Tommy Wolf, wrote a beatnik musical (sic), “The Nervous Set”, poster by Jules Feiffer, which actually made it to Broadway. Here’s a fascinating clip describing Fran as an impresario and hostess of no small renown, a central figure in the bohemian scene of the late 50s/early 60s in St Louis (where she was central in promoting the nascent careers of Woody Allen and Barbra Streisand, among many others), later in London. According to friends, Fran was inspired to write ‘Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most’ by TS Eliot’s poem, ‘The Wasteland’. (I wrote my master’s thesis on TS Eliot. In retrospect, I wish I’d written it on Fran Landesman.)
*April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.*
I sure wish I could talk a bit about the beatnik scene of the 1950s, but another time. Perhaps I’ll take that opportunity when I talk about the companion piece from the same musical, another obscure standard, ‘Ballad of the Sad Young Men’, a very, very beautiful song itself.
Ms Landesman wrote more versions of lyrics for this song than Dylan did for his masterpieces of the mid-1970s. At the end of the post you can see the version I know best, the lyrics Mr Lang incorporated into his choral arrangement for Ensemble.
I don’t know what version of the song inspired Mr Lang. All the 1950s cool chick singers recorded it – June Christy, Chris Conner, Blossom Dearie, Julie London, Helen Merrill, Irene Kral – as well as many non-cool ones (Carmen McRae, Betty Carter, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan). Although the song has never really penetrated the wider audience’s consciousness, in recent years both diva vamps (Jane Monheit, Holly Cole, and a personal favorite, Kat Edmonson) and rock/pop singers (Rickie Lee Jones, Bette Midler) have had their go at it, a credit to the song’s staying power (as one critic said, the song “grows every year”). Barbra Streisand sang it live at the very beginning of her career (1962) and again towards the end (2009). One of my very favorites versions is that by Norwegian Radka Toneff (who is always wonderful, with her glacial purity), to whom I paid tribute at some length in SoTW 033. The song has also been given innumerable instrumental treatments over the years.
As I’ve mentioned, ‘SCRHYUTM’ (sounds suspiciously like…) is an inordinately challenging song technically. Despite the catchy hook of the title (with the roller-coaster stomach-in-your-throat plunge on ‘hang you up’, the melody is slithery, slippery, abstract, bordering on unsingable. From experience, let me tell you that this isn’t one that you want to try to perform unaccompanied. I’ve been listening to the many attempts, and have heard some very fine singers struggle with the song. So why do so many keep trying their hand at it? Because it’s so enticing and elusive and seductive, because it’s so precise and affective in its evocation of the spring blues. April can indeed be the cruelest month.
Interestingly, very few men have sung the song, although there’s nothing gender-specific about it.
So which version are we going to go for with our Song of The Week? I wish it could have been Ensemble’s but that one’s gone. It could easily have been Radke’s, or either of Barbra’s. But we’ll go with the best-known version of a too-little-known song, that of Ella Fitzgerald’s from the album “Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie!” (1961). We’ve been carrying on far to long to give fair space to the impeccable, inimitable Ms Fitzgerald. Let’s just say that she more than anyone has the technical skill to deliver the song effortlessly, focusing purely and sweetly-sadly on the oh-so-melancholy music itself.
I don’t know what musical path led Mr Lang to ‘Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most’. I don’t know what his tastes were. But my guess is that this is what he really loved, and that we performed ‘The Second Time Around’ and ‘Jingle Bells’ a lot more for obvious reasons. I remember his arrangement of ‘SCRHYUTM’, albeit sketchily, because it was (and still is) a very difficult song. I would give an awful lot to hear his version today.
Choral jazz is a sub-sub-sub-genre I worked in passionately for years, , especially as it’s being taken to new levels in Scandinavia todayinspired by Mr Lang, a very short midget on the shoulders of a giant. I sure wish I could show him the work I was fortunate enough to do in the field. And I believe very firmly that Mr Lang’s arrangement was half a century ahead of its time. Probably more, because the field still hasn’t gotten there. I thought it was intriguing when I encountered it at 17. Today, in retro-retrospect, it looks all that much more brilliant.
And I sure wish I could tell him how much it’s been a part of my musical soul after all these years. I’m guessing it would give him some satisfaction, to know that he planted some musical seeds inside those pimpled skulls, seeds that actually took root. I was 20 years younger than the Frank Lang in the picture, and I’m a whole lot older than that man now. A few years ago one of my old high-school friends sent me Mr Lang’s obituary from the Grover’s Corner News. I’m not going to have the chance to thank him face-to-face. So I’ll do it here, second best but still somewhat gratifying. Thanks, Mr Lang.
If you liked this post, you might also like:
SoTW 033: Radke Toneff, ‘The Moon is a Harsh Mistress’
SoTW 057: Anita O’Day, ‘Tea for Two’
SoTW 045: Julie London, ‘Bye Bye, Blackbird’
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https://www.jmeshel.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/07.-The-Coasters-Yakety-Yak.mp3 Jerry Leiber and Mike Stollerwere the first great record makers of rock and roll. This week’s song is going to a favorite among their many, many, many hits. I hope you’ll bear with me if a take a somewhat circuitous route in getting to it.
Know what a shaggy dog story is? “An extremely long-winded tale featuring extensive narration of typically irrelevant incidents, usually resulting in a pointless or absurd punchline.” Well, that’s me to a T. But maybe you’ll find some of those Leiber and Stoller incidents as interesting as I do. If not, I won’t be hurt. Just click on the links and enjoy their very fine music.
Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller were both born in 1933.
Stoller grew up in NY, his first exposure to black music was at an integrated sleep-away camp in 1941(!) where Paul Robeson was a guest artist singing spirituals and Hebrew folksongs. Stoller heard a black kid playing boogie-woogie in a barn, which he says changed his life. Back home, he took piano lessons with James P. Johnson (1894-1955), king of the stride piano, composer of “The Charleston”, mentor of Fats Waller, compadre of Willie ‘The Lion’ Smith and Bessie Smith. In his early teens, Stoller fell under the spell of Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk, the luminaries of bebop.
Leiber grew up in poor Baltimore, fought in street gangs, blacks and black music an integral part of the social landscape. He says that his musical revelation was as a kid washing dishes in an all-night diner, watching the short-order cook leaning back with a joint hanging out of his mouth, listening to Jimmy Witherspoon’s “Ain’t Nobody’s Business“.
Leiber and Stoller met up in 1950 in LA, two 17-year old Jewish boys bubbling with enthusiasm for R&B. In 1951 they managed to get a few songs recorded for some ‘minor labels with major talents’, including even the young Ray Charles. In 1952 they wrote “Kansas City” for Little Willie Littlefield, which became a hit for Wilbert Harrison in 1959, and was eventually recorded by some 300 artists including The Beatles.
One morning they got a call from guitarist/producer Johnny Otis. He was in his garage rehearsing with Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton. He needed a song for her. Our boys wrote it in minutes and drove over to Otis’s garage. There they met Ms. Thornton attired in her combat boots and oversized overalls. Mike played the song on the piano, and she began to croon it.
“Big Mama,” Jerry suggested gently, “maybe if you’d attack it with a little more–”
“Come here, boy,” she said, motioning me to stand even closer to her. “I’ll tell you what you can attack. Attack this…” she added, pointing to her crotch.
Johnny Otis came to the rescue, saying “You sing it Jerry, you show Big Mama how it goes.” This is the result (you want to watch this clip, trust me).
Leiber and Stoller were paid $1200 for the song, but the check bounced. Released in 1953, it did fairly well by R&B’s modest commercial standards, but within one month 5 more versions had been recorded.
In the mid-50s, white kids were beginning to become attracted to the dangerous sexuality of black rhythm and blues – but it was a bit too raw and threatening, so they greatly preferred to buy white versions of black music. The first commercially successful rock and roll songs were Bill Haley’s 1954 sanitized cover of Big Joe Turner’s “Shake Rattle and Roll”, and “Rock Around the Clock” in 1955.
There were lots of clones and imitators of Bill Haley, including a long-forgotten Freddie Bell and the Bellboys. In 1956 They were having a successful run in Las Vegas, and one of their popular numbers was a jokey, novelty version of Big Mama’s “Hound Dog”. Elvis Presley and his band were having an unsuccessful run in Vegas at the same time. They watched Freddy Bell nightly. Elvis liked the song, and adopted it as his show-closer. When he appeared with it on Milton Berle’s TV show, over 40,000,000 people saw the performance, and the network received thousands of letters of complaint about how ‘Elvis the Pelvis’ was promoting juvenile delinquency. It’s well worth watching both this clip for the music, and this one for the sex.
I guess that’s when life as we’ve known it in the second half of the twentieth century really started.
In 1956, Stoller was vacationing in Paris. He and his wife were returning to New York on the luxury liner the S.S. Andrea Doria. It collided with another ship and 46 passengers died. Stoller and his wife made it into lifeboats.
Jerry ran up to me on the pier saying, “Mike, you’re okay!” before adding, “We have a smash hit.”“You’re kidding?”“Hound Dog.”“Big Mama Thornton?”“No, some white kid named Elvis Presley.”
Although Leiber and Stoller had great respect for Elvis as a performer, they never really liked what he did to the song. They eventually became the main songwriters for his movies, producing dozens of songs which Elvis recorded, including “Love Me,” “Loving You,” “Don’t,” and “Jailhouse Rock.” For a while they were becoming quite friendly with Elvis, but Colonel Parker didn’t like those Jewish boys hanging around his golden rooster and kept them away.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Leiber and Stoller had met up with Nesuhi and Ahmet Ertugun, sons of the Turkish ambassador to the US, great jazz and R&B fans, owners of Atlantic Records. Leiber and Stoller were soon grinding out major hits for Atlantic for The Coasters.
They used The Coasters to paint aural pictures, their own very wonderful version of comic-book blues.
These hits left an indelible mark on popular music for two reasons. First, because as L&S said, “We didn’t write songs; we wrote records.” They wrote not just the song, but also the arrangement, the style, the sound, the nuances of the vocal performances, the entire production. And in that, they were the first real creative artists in the popular idiom. In that, they predated the Brill Building songwriters, not to mention The Beatles and Dylan and the generations of music makers they inspired.
Oh, yeah, and secondly—well, just listen to how great these hits are: “Riot in Cell Block #9”, “Smokey Joe’s Café”, “Down in Mexico”, “Young Blood”, “Searchin'”, “Yakety Yak”, “Charlie Brown”, “Along Came Jones”, “Poison Ivy”, “Little Egypt”.
Impossible a task it is, but house rules say I have to pick just one for our SoTW. Should it be the first, “Riot in Cell Block #9“, the manic genius anarchical jailhouse opera production? The paean to STD “Poison Ivy” with the greatest couplet in rock annals, “You’re gonna need an ocean/of calamine lotion”? No, let’s just go with the greatest of the great, the anthem of all the sullen, acned, lethargic adolescents we all were–”Yakety Yak“. Written just for me and ‘all my hoodlum friends outside’.
Take out the papers and the trash
*Or you don’t get no spendin’ cash
If you don’t scrub that kitchen floor
You ain’t gonna rock and roll no more
Yakety yak (don’t talk back)*
Just finish cleanin’ up your room
Let’s see that dust fly with that broom
Get all that garbage out of sight
Or you don’t go out Friday night
Yakety yak (don’t talk back)
You just put on your coat and hat
*And walk yourself to the laundromat
And when you finish doin’ that*
*Bring in the dog and put out the cat
Yakety yak (don’t talk back)*
Don’t you give me no dirty looks
*Your father’s hip; he knows what cooks
Just tell your hoodlum friend outside
You ain’t got time to take a ride
Yakety yak (don’t talk back)*
Leiber and Stoller’s career didn’t end there. They had hundreds and hundreds of memorable hits (‘On Broadway’, ‘Stand By Me’, ‘Spanish Harlem’, ‘Ruby Baby’, ‘Only in America’, ‘Is That All There Is?’, 20 songs by Elvis, many if not most of The Beatles first recordings), and still write on occasion.
One reader told me that I was focusing too much on singers with morbid, sensationalist, Yellow Journalism sob story bios – Blind Willie Johnson, Eva Cassidy, Radke Toneff. Well, no one’s going to make an afternoon TV movie about Leiber and Stoller. But someone did make a very successful Broadway show.
In 1995, Smokey Joe’s Cafe: The Songs of Leiber & Stoller opened on Broadway – 39 songs by L&S, running for over five years, the longest-running musical revue in Broadway history.
So there.
The post 042: Leiber & Stoller, ‘Yakety Yak’ (The Coasters) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Dolores in a Shoestand (from Tuesday Wonderland, 2006, 8:53)
https://www.jmeshel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/06-Dolores-In-A-Shoestand.mp3 Dolores in a Shoestand (from Live in Hamburg, 2007, 17:39)
https://www.jmeshel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2-02-Dolores-in-a-Shoestand.mp3 Dolores in a Shoestand (video from Live in Marciac, 2007, 8:08)
Leucocyte (official video, 2008) “The essence of this journey of discovery is its ecstatic energy. It is a trip through the bloodstream sans compositional safety-net and stylistic restraints in which the borders of musical communication are sounded out.”
I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, one of which I’d like to expiate right here—bared chest, full disclosure, mea culpa— with you as my witness, in hopes that you won’t repeat my blunder.
It has to do with the Swedish piano trio, e.s.t., the Esbjorn Svensson Trio (1993-2008). ‘Jazz for the 21st Century.’
They’re dynamic, appealing, fun, funny, adventurous, unique. They’re a bona fide jazz combo, not a crossover gimmick, the first European group to make the cover of Downbeat. But they are featured on Scandinavian MTV, and kids of all ages all over Europe ran to rock-oriented venues to see them perform pieces with strong structure, memorable melodies, verse/chorus structure, and extended improvisations usually beyond the attention span of young folk.
They’ve been compared to Keith Jarrett, Brad Mehldau, Vince Guaraldi, Bill Evans, the Bad Plus, and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. They’ve been called jazz fusion, trippy jazz and explosive trance. They credit Béla Bartók and Radiohead as influences.
Dan Berglund played double bass, sometimes bowed, sometimes run through a distortion pedal. The guy is so intense, so cool, so virile, that I suspect some Israeli blood snuck in there somewhere. Percussionist Magnus Öström looks to me like a guy who has figured out the world but is keeping the secret to himself. He’s the one who propels the music, injecting that pulsating excitement with two hands and one foot, while boldly experimenting with touches of electronica with the other.
Pianist Esbjorn Svensson formed the group in 1993 and died in a freak diving accident in 2008 at 44. I’m not going to try to describe him. Go listen, go watch. The group left behind a sterling reputation within and without jazz circles, an ongoing legacy and appeal to non-jazz listeners, and a treasure chest of music.
All three members of the group employed careful, intelligent, minimal electronic manipulations of their sound as garnishes, enhancement. But basically they’re an acoustic piano trio playing an exciting new kind of jazz.
Their song titles say more about their world than my words can: From Gagarin’s Point of View. Dodge the Dodo. A Picture of Doris Travelling with Boris. Leucocyte. Mingle In The Mincing-Machine. The Unstable Table & The Infamous Fable. And our SoTW, Dolores in a Shoestand.
Dolores in a Shoestand includes a whole rainbow of e.s.t.’s attractions. Check out the adreneline-charged introduction to this extended version, beginning with percussion with turbo electronica driving the pulse. And don’t miss the part near the end where the audience is clapping a steady beat against Esbjorn’s manic syncopations.
Oh, yeah, the bare-all confession? Twenty years ago I was buying CDs somewhere. The salesman convinced me to buy e.s.t.’s disc Good Morning Susie Soho. I guess I listened to a few bits, ran off to listen to The Four Tops Greatest Hits Vol. II or some such non-demanding, non-rewarding pursuit, and left e.s.t. to languish on my shelf.
I’ve been listening to a lot of Scandinavian jazz in recent years. Including now many tens of hours with Esbjorn and the guys. Maybe even hundreds. Their catalog is rich and uniformly excellent, both their live and studio recordings. Jump in anywhere. Their videos are fascinating, intriguing, arresting. I don’t often have the patience to sit and watch jazz videos. But with e.s.t. I do. Try it, I beseech you. Don’t make the same mistake I did, don’t deprive yourself of the pleasures of this music.
If I’ve convinced you, that’s my good deed for the day. My expiation.
The post 294: e.s.t., ‘Dolores in a Shoestand’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
https://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Emerson-Quartet.mp3 JS Bach, 1746
My knowledge of classical music is patchier than an Iowa quilt. But my wife still harbors delusions that I’ll grow up some day, and in her mind listening to Bach is a more dignified and mature activity than listening to The Beach Boys. A lot of people with highly-refined musical sensibilities don’t really understand Brian Wilson, but the opposite is the opposite, I believe. Anyone – even a corner-boy drug dealer from West Baltimore who takes a moment to pause and listen to “The Art of the Fugue” by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) – must grasp that he is standing before a grandeur and beauty rare in the course of our ordinary lives. Like standing on the lip of the Grand Canyon. Like gazing at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Like hearing your grandchild say “I love you, Poppa.” Those moments in which we transcend the traffic-jam that is our life.
Bach wrote this work during the last decade of his life, parallel to the B-minor Mass, another momentous work. But if the Mass is an exploration of how God informs and transforms the human soul, “The Art of the Fugue” is a demonstration of the counterpoint between the sublime, infinite perfection of God’s laws of nature and the workings of the human mind.
Emerson Quartet
Let’s start with a couple of terms, just to get us on the same page of the score.
Fugue – a composition built on a subject and one or more ‘imitations’ (variations), which recur in opposition to each other. A fugue usually has an exposition, a development, and a recapitulation returning to the subject in the tonic key.
Counterpoint – the interaction (literally ‘point against point’) of two or more voices that are independent in contour, rhythm and harmony.
The two usually go together. In other words, you have two or more independent lines interweaving, comprising a unified whole. There’s a whole world of theory underlying this, which I wouldn’t try to explain if I could. But it’s way, way beyond my Pooh-brain’s capacity. In “The Art of the Fugue”, Bach set out to explore the extreme limits of this form.
He begins with ‘simple’ fugues (believe me, that’s a technical term, not a lay description), which are actually two voices—a main theme and another completely independent line which plays against it. Then you get an inverted fugue, where Herr Bach turns the score upside down and continues playing it. But not necessarily in the same voice–he can move it up a third, or a fourth, or an eleventh, whatever he feels like on that fine Leipzig morning. That’s four lines intertwining, yes? But then he’s getting bored, so he combines the two, the original fugue together with its inversion, maybe taking one of the lines at half speed, one at double speed. And then, after a cup of coffee, he’ll write another ‘mirror’ line that can be played the same either forward or backwards.
And that just takes us halfway through the work, which comprises fourteen fugues and four canons. The structure of the pieces in the second half are so complex that even anal I can’t get through a single paragraph describing the workings under the hood.
“The governing idea of the work is an exploration in depth of the contrapuntal possibilities inherent in a single musical subject.” (Chrisoph Wolff). Each of the fugues uses this theme as its basis:
Here it is in a stripped-down harpsichord version, Contrapunctus 1.
https://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Contrapunctus-1-Moroney.mp3 “The Art of the Fugue” is unique in that it’s primarily a theoretical work. Bach didn’t even name it. His son-in-law attached the name “Die Kunst der Fuge” (BWV 1080). Bach didn’t even bother to orchestrate it – he failed to mention what instrument/s should play it, apparently because its performance was of secondary importance to him. Hence the many, many different settings in which it is played.
If you, like me in my weaker moments, think that various versions of a classical piece are inherently indistinguishable, try this exercise. Here are a number of versions of the same fugue. What will jump out and bite you is not only how greatly the orchestration impacts the piece, but how individual and discrete each one is from its colleagues.
For our Song of The Week, we’re presenting Contrapunctus 9, a 5, alla Duodecima. I have only the foggiest idea what that means, but it shor is pretty. We’ll start with my very favorite, the version I listen to most often, my default music for soothing my soul:
- The Emerson Quartethttps://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Emerson-Quartet.mp3
- The Julliard String Quartethttps://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Julliard-String-Quartet.mp3
- Academy of St Martin in the Fields, directed by Sir Neville Marriner – 2 violins, viola, cello, violone (a Baroque instrument), 2 oboes, English horn, bassoon, organ, 2 harpsichordshttps://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Neville-Marriner.mp3
- Glenn Gould – organhttps://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Gould-Organ.mp3
- Glenn Gould – pianohttps://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Gould-Piano.mp3
- Tatiana Nikolayeva – pianohttps://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Tatiana-Nikolayeva.mp3
- Davitt Moroney – harpsichordhttps://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Davitt-Moroney.mp3
- Ton Koopman-Tini Mathot – 2 harpsichordshttps://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Ton-Koopman-Tini-Mathot.mp3
- The Liszt Ferenc Chamber Orchestra, Budapest, directed by Janos Rolla – orchestrahttps://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Janos-Rolla.mp3
- Musica Antiqua Koln, directed by Reinhardt Goebel (period instruments)https://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Musica-Antiqua-Koln.mp3
David Finckel, cellist of the Emerson Quartet: “I don’t know if there’s scientific evidence to support it, but when I listen to this music I feel my brain cells being realigned. The fugues are so complex yet so perfectly ordered, so respectful of the laws of physics that govern music and make it a universal language. Just hearing Bach’s work, even without much concentration, is like having my musical windows cleaned–all other music around me becomes clearer and more understandable.”
Bach didn’t quite finish “The Art of the Fugue”. While he was writing apparently the final fugue, based on the notes B-A-C-H (B natural), the score peters out. Bach’s son says he died while writing it. Here’s what the original looks like. Here’s what it sounds like, in Glenn Gould’s rendition:
https://www.jmeshel.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Ton-Koopman-Tini-Mathot.mp3 Contrapunctus XIV (Fuga a 3 Soggetti) unfinished]
I confess–for me, listening to Bach isn’t so different from prayer. They are both human attempts to impose an artificial order upon an inherently chaotic world. They’re both beautiful; and, thank God, they both make a lot of sense.
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like:
005: Glenn Gould, Toccata in Cm (J.S. Bach)
084: Dmitri Shostakovich, Prelude & Fugue No 16 in B-flat Minor (Tatiana Nikolaeva)
113: J.S. Bach, ‘Prelude to Suite #2 for Unaccompanied Cello’ (Casals)
The post 077: J.S. Bach, ‘The Art of The Fugue’ (The Emerson Quartet, ‘Contrapunctus 9’) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
https://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20-ToTS-June-8-Complete-Pt-1.mp3 “Some people just want to be hit over the head, and then if they’re hit hard enough maybe they feel something. But some people want to get inside of something and discover maybe more richness.” – Bill Evans
(c) Chuck Stewart
I’ve been looking forward to writing about Bill Evans’ ‘Nardis’ for years. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call it the raison d’etre for this blog. It’s a song he played from its very first recording in 1959 through virtually his very last breath in September, 1980. You might well not know this music, so I’m both proud and humbled to be the vessel of this musical offering, because it’s among the most sublime and moving artistic creations I’ve encountered.
This posting is longer and more detailed than usual. It describes the arc of Bill Evans’ career and the remarkable creative outpouring during the final year of his life, focusing on a piece which accompanied him during those twenty years and then exploded into his signature confrontation with his impending death. If you have limited time or patience or interest, I urge you to skip down to the last section, The Nardis Legacy, where I describe ‘Nardis’ as played during the final months of his life by ‘The Last Trio’.
Career Overview The career of Bill Evans (1929-1980) had an unusual curve. He hit NYC in 1956 and immediately became a sought-after sideman, most memorably in his key contribution to Miles Davis’ 1959 “Kind of Blue” (SoTW 079). Not long after this, he became addicted to heroin. In 1959, he formed his “first trio,” which reinvented the piano trio and played a key role in determining the sound of modern jazz. They recorded two studio albums. Their “Live at the Village Vanguard” session (SoTW 060), recorded ten days before the death of bassist Scott LaFaro, constitutes some of the most beautiful music I know.
Evans withdrew from the world. His manager forced him into the studio for the little-known, harrowing 1962 “Solo Sessions” (SoTW 096). He came out of the self-imposed exile due to the need to support his habit. At the urging of young bassist Chuck Israels, Evans formed the “second trio,” which operated for three years. Their output was uniformly excellent, but a cut below that of the first trio.
From 1966 till 1978 Evans partnered with bassist Eddie Gomez and a series of drummers. The musical output was that of a genius coasting, feeding his drug habit, struggling to stay afloat, gradually destroying his body. The music is always graceful, intelligent, refined, but rarely as memorable as the second trio, never as breathtaking as the first.
In mid-1978, Evans (now subsisting on cocaine) found two young partners, bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joe LaBarbera, and founded his last trio. Over the next year and a half he developed a more intense, expansive style, culminating in a creative explosion in the several months leading up to his death on September 15, 1980. According to all accounts, he sensed that his death was imminent. He played in those last months with a frenzy born of the very profoundest awareness of his own tenuous mortality. The vehicle for that expression became the set-closer, ‘Nardis’, especially the incredible solo piano introduction which Bill Evans created anew, night after night.
Early Nardis From early 1958, alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley was a member of Miles Davis’ group together with John Coltrane. When Cannonball went into the studio to record his album “Portrait of Cannonball”, producer Orin Keepnews brought a young white boy named Bill Evans to play piano on the session. Cannonball’s boss, Miles, wrote a song for the session called ‘Nardis’.
https://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2011/12/1958-Adderley.mp3 It was a strange piece, modal (rather than chord-based), a concept Miles was just beginning to dabble in. This means that the music remains within a scale, rather than being based on shifting chords. Think ‘Fever’. Think ‘You Can’t Judge a Book by Its Cover’. Think ‘Kind of Blue’ (SoTW 079).
No one has succeeded in guessing what the name ‘Nardis’ meant. Bill Evans was a fan of anagrams. His song ‘Re: Person I Knew’ was derived from ‘Orrin Keepnews’. ‘NYC’s No Lark’ comes from the name of fellow pianist and junkie Sonny Clark. Dinars? Drains? Nadirs? Ranids? What’s a ranid?
No one even understood it musically. (“Eastern-sounding” was the best anyone could do.) Cannonball’s version is pretty embarrassing – awkward, stiff, thoroughly a flop. Evans: “You could see that the other guys were struggling with it. After the date, Miles said I was the only one to play it the way he wanted.”
By the way, Davis’ authorship has often been disputed, probably due to the fact that he never played the song, it was totally absorbed by Evans, and by the fact that Evans claimed credit for writing ‘Blue in Green’, while Davis (a well-known self-accreditor) claimed it for his own. But Evans himself often stated that it was Miles who wrote ‘Nardis’.
Half a year later, Miles brought Bill into his group in order to further explore modal jazz, at which Evans was considered an expert. This direction would reach fruition in April, 1959, in the masterpiece “Kind of Blue” (with Adderley on alto sax) (SoTW 079).
L to R: LaFaro, Evans, Motian
In December 1959, Evans’ first trio recorded their first album (“Portrait in Jazz”) in which they discovered that they could levitate. In February 1961 they recorded their second studio album, “Explorations”, in which they refined the magical, gravity-defying interplay, discovering that they could dance together while suspended in the air. Alongside half a dozen tired standards which they revitalized and a couple of originals was ‘Nardis’. Listen to Adderley’s group’s arthritic stiffness. Listen to Bill Evans’ transcendent, weightless reading of what can hardly be called the same composition. It already here includes an extended bass solo, a feature that would reappear in the song over the next decades—but never again in the hands of Scott LaFaro.
https://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2011/12/1961-Explorations.mp3 In June, 1961, at the Village Vanguard, the trio would create a floating pas de trois. (SoTW 060). Ten days later LaFaro died in a car wreck.
His death sent Bill into a deep depression. Bill’s brother remembers him wandering around NYC wearing some of LaFaro’s coat. It was a bleak time. In April 1962, short of cash and in debt to his record company, Evans went unwillingly into the studio to noodle for an hour by himself in a darkened room. I discussed the resulting recordings in SoTW 096. Among the pieces Evans played is ‘Nardis’, in an interpretation as profoundly different from that by the first trio half a year earlier as is white from black, life from death. A shimmering waft becomes an open wound, transformed by naked pain. These five minutes of profound, unguarded introspection come from the place Evans would revisit 17 years later. Here he is experiencing the first tragedy of his life. There he would be facing the final one.
https://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2011/12/1963-Solo.mp3 If the music of the second trio never reached those heights (or depths), it was infallibly impeccable. Here they are playing ‘Nardis’ in a live performance from 1964.
https://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2011/12/1964-Bunker-Israels.mp3 The Middle Years L to R: Gomez, Evans (c) Phil Bray
Then came the long, relatively uneventful Gomez era, by far Evans’ longest collaboration (1966-78), the least exceptional years of Evans’ exceptional career, years where he was rarely doing anything but coasting. One can’t blame Gomez. He’s not an inferior bassist, certainly no less competent than Marc Johnson. Perhaps one should credit him with propping Evans up for all those years (a compliment that has been given to his long-time manager Helen Keane; but then Evans needed a lot of propping). Simultaneously with Gomez’ departure, Evans’ career soared. He found two young collaborators whom he credited with inspiring him to an entirely new approach. But the fact remains that all those Gomez years were Evans’ least interesting ones. Here’s a recording from the “Portraiture” album (1969) with a long, meaningless bass solo. This rendition includes a piano introduction. I’d fly to Mongolia to see Evans play like this today, but let’s face it: compared to what came before, and to what came after, he’s on auto-pilot. There are a dozen more recordings like this scattered through the Gomez years, but from what I’ve been able to find, Evans never recorded ‘Nardis’ from 1972-1979.
https://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2011/12/1969-Portraiture-.mp3 Here is a remarkable clip from Finnish TV, 1970, Evans and Gomez (and drummer Marty Morrell) performing it in a private home in Helsinki. Note Evans’ deteriorated state of dental affairs (a dentist fan would soon give him a new set of teeth). Note the tie and shirt. One can only assume the shirt (and its wearer) hadn’t been washed in several weeks. Note his articulateness, the precise formation of his perceptive thoughts. Note the spot-on musicianship. And this is a shadow of what he was capable of.
The Last Trio During the short-lived tenure of the last trio, from the summer of 1979 till September 1980, ‘Nardis’ became the vessel through which he expressed a last remarkable outpouring of creative energy, growing in intensity month after month, week after week, night after night.
(c)Henry Kahanek
The song begins with a piano solo about five minutes long, followed by an extended bass solo, followed by an extended drum solo, followed by the group. Here’s an example of a complete version of the song, which usually last between 15 and 20 minutes. It was always the closer of the evening’s program. To be honest, I find the bass solos invariably bland and the drum solos annoying.
But the solo piano introductions achieve an artistic expression of a rare – if not unique – intensity.
Here’s an early version from July 19, 1978, with newly-discovered bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Philly ‘Joe’ Jones, Evans’ long-time drug buddy and musical partner from back in the 1950s. Evans often said that Philly was his favorite drummer, ever. Note how paltry Philly’s drum kit is here. Rumor is the rest was in a hock shop, pawned to feed his habit. Note also how much better his drumming is than anyone else Evans played with. This is the earliest version I know of the final format of ‘Nardis’. The gravitas is yet to arrive.
In January 1979, Joe Labarbera joined the group permanently. Here they are in Iowa in one of their first performances, at the Maintenance Shop. As Bill says in the introduction, “It’s still evolving.”
Here’s the trio in Buenos Aires in September, 1979. They’re finding the groove. It’s serious, but not yet harrowing.
https://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2012/01/07-1979-Sept-27Buenos-Aires.mp3 Here they are on November 26 in Paris, darker by far.
https://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2012/01/08-1979-Paris-Nov-26.mp3 Here is December, 1979, at the Balboa club in Madrid, in an energetic, forceful version.
https://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2012/01/09-1979-Dec-12-Madrid.mp3 Listening to this series of performances I think of the nature shows where a vegetable-growth slow process is compressed to a few seconds. This is a compressed view of the growth of the soul. From version to version, we bear witness to Evans’ interpretation of ‘Nardis’ deepening exponentially.
In June, 1980, a hundred days before his death, Evans returned to his favorite club for a week’s stand at the Village Vanguard in New York, the site of the great recording with the first trio twenty years earlier. Four evenings were recorded, June 4, 5, 6 and 8. They’re documented in a 6-CD boxed set called “Turn Out the Stars”. The performances of ‘Nardis’ closed each evening. They are extemporaneously improvised, each one a unique expedition into the nether limits of the human soul. The technical virtuosity Evans employs is jaw-dropping. Together, they constitute a sublime, harrowing vision.
https://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2011/12/1980-TOtS-June4.mp3 https://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2011/12/1980-ToTS-June5.mp3 https://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2011/12/1980-ToTS-june6.mp3 https://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2011/12/1980-ToTS-june8.mp3 In early August the trio appeared at the Molde Jazz Festival in Norway. Here’s a video of ‘Nardis’ from that performance.
From August 31 to September 8, 1980, the trio appeared at the Keystone Korner in San Francisco. This stay is documented in the 8-CD boxed set “The Last Waltz”. Here are the six performances of ‘Nardis’ included there:
https://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2011/12/14-1980-LW1-Aug-31.mp3 https://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2011/12/15-1980-LW2-Sept-1.mp3 https://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2011/12/16-1980-LW3-Sept-3.mp3 https://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2011/12/17-1980-LW6-Sept-6.mp3 https://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2011/12/18-1980-LW7-Sept-7.mp3 https://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2011/12/19-1980-LW8-Sept-8.mp3 The “Last Waltz” performances are perhaps less finely polished than those in “Turn Out the Stars”, but no less intense. Evans’ strength was failing. He died a week later, on September 15.
The ‘Nardis’ Legacy *Do not go gentle into that good night,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.*
Bill Evans was many things – wise, and good, and wild, and grave; but he never came near old age, doomed to an early death from twenty years of self-destruction, first by heroin, in these last years by cocaine.
These piano solos are a unique expression of a man staring unflinchingly into the abyss. But what does he see? And what does he say? I’ve been puzzling over this for weeks now, and feel no closer to The Answer. I’ll tell you what they’re not—they’re not morbid or self-pitying. They’re not ‘raging’, but they certainly are crying out against the dying of the light. How will I deport myself when I face my death? Will I look for some broad, expansive, comprehensive overview of the meaning of my life, of human existence? Or, like Bill Evans in these performances. will I drive myself in a fury to dig, and dig, and dig, to get to the bottom of all this? I don’t know. I hope I’ll be old and doddering, and that I never see the truck coming up behind me, that the light goes out unexpectedly and suddenly.
Because I certainly would not have the courage, the drive, the gravity that this great artist displays as the Angel of Death embraces him closer and closer to her bosom, night after night.
What does it ‘mean’, this music? What does it ‘mean’, this life? I don’t know. I don’t know what the Grand Canyon ‘means’. But I know the utmost depth of the naked, mortal soul when I see it. Here it is. Bill Evans’ ‘Nardis’.
‘Nardis’ complete, June 8, 1980, from “Turn Out the Stars”:
https://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20-ToTS-June-8-Complete-Pt-1.mp3 https://www.jmeshel.com//wp-content/uploads/2012/01/21-ToTS-June-8-Complete-Pt-2.mp3 The post 124: Bill Evans, ‘Nardis’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
http://jmeshel.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Secret-O-Life.mp3 Beautiful live ‘Secret O’ Life’ from 2010
“Hey, Jeff, who are your favorite rock artists?”
“Beatles, Dylan,…”
“Oh, that’s very original.”
“Laura Nyro…”
“Who?”
“James Taylor.”
And he snickers, “I thought you were some kind of big music maven? You’re just another hippy-dippy fan of sensitive singer-songwriters, you probably go around humming ‘Oh, baby it’s a wild world‘ and ‘Take me home to the place I belong‘.”
Or, for the more sophisticated, the one who distinguishes between Al Stewart and Rod Stewart, it’s not a snicker but a sneer: “Whoa, ‘Fire and Rain‘/’Sweet Baby James‘/’You’ve Got a Friend’. Very impressive. Classy choice, Meshel.”
And the real aficionado, the one who actually owns a JT Greatest Hits CD, will say, “Ah, ‘Handy Man‘/’How Sweet It Is‘/’Shower the People‘, good singer.” And they’ll say it with a tone of ‘well, okay, if Neil Young is too heavy for your Pooh brain…’
James Taylor is one of the most misperceived and underappreciated artists I’m acquainted with. That may sound a bit off the mark, seeing as we’re talking about an American Icon, a guy who appears in the White House (or maybe it was on “West Wing”, which is for me more prestigious), who’s been filling halls regularly for over 50 years.
But folks, to think that James Taylor is ‘You’ve Got a Friend’ and ‘Fire and Rain’ is like thinking that The Beatles are ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ or Dylan is ‘Blowing in the Wind’ or The Rolling Stones are ‘Satisfaction’ (whoops, they are—but the other examples hold).
James’ first album is virtually unknown in his canon, and somewhat outside the curve of his recording career. It hardly made a ripple, but it’s a Desert Island choice of mine, the purest depiction I know of a young man’s distress at facing the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune since those words were first uttered. But our subject today is James’ career, and that started with his next album,
“Sweet Baby James” (1970, including ‘Fire and Rain’), one of the iconic albums of a pantheonic era, virtually creating the gentle folk-rock singer-songwriter mode. Then came “Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon” (1971, which included ‘You’ve Got a Friend’ and the first use I know of congas as basic color in the musical palette of acoustic rock). Then the uneven “One Man Dog” and “Walking Man”, each with a couple of gems among the dross.
And then, from 1975 to 1991 came a series of seven LPs/cassettes/CDs (well, it’s a long period) that constitute in my mind the heart of James’ career, a body of work as rich and inspired and varied as any artist of the time–”Gorilla”, “In The Pocket”, “JT”, “Flag”, “Dad Loves His Work”, “That’s Why I’m Here” and “Never Die Young”.
Over the next ten years, approximately the 1990s, he released three more workmanlike CDs, each containing two or three memorable cuts. And over the last decade he’s done live rehashes of his hits and two CDs of “Covers”, a specialty of his–“Up On the Roof“, and “Wonderful World” (in which, if you listen carefully, you’ll see that he sings circles around both Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel; to my mind, James is one of the two great harmony singers in rock, together with David Crosby); yet another album of originals; and one of Great American Songbook standards. I can’t say why in recent years James chooses to present himself as a celeb. I’d have thought being a legend was a more dignified status, but what do I know?
I read and follow the advice of critics quite a lot. I have respect for the learning and taste that professionals have cultivated. I usually use them as guides to music that I’m new to, but with music I’m more familiar with I’m not afraid to hold oddball views. Like with James. I don’t think much of his work in the last thirty years, certainly not in comparison to the fifteen that preceded them. And it’s this period that I’d like to encourage you to get to know.
I’ve spent a ridiculous number of hours listening to compilations of James’ most typical songs, the downers, the ones describing sweet pain, songs like ‘Rainy Day Man’, ‘Something in the Way She Moves’, ‘Something’s Wrong’, ‘Oh, Susannah’ (yes, the Stephen Foster tune), ‘You Can Close Your Eyes’, ‘Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight’, ‘Let It Fall Down’, ‘Wandering’, ‘Love Songs’, ‘Junkie’s Lament, ‘Daddy’s All Gone’, ‘Another Grey Morning’. It really does give me great pleasure just to type the names, I love those songs so much.
But from the many, many, many JT songs that have been such an intimate part of my life and ears and soul, I’d like to offer up as SoTW something ‘middling’. From the middle of his career, middling tempo, middling well-known. Just to show you that he’s not all melancholy. That he spent a lot of time churning out works of the finest artistry, one after another.
So here it is, from the album “JT” (1977), the lovely, whimsical, gentle, loving ‘Secret o’ Life’. What can you hear here? The intricate interplay between James’ acoustic guitar and the electric piano (this is the fabric of the song, a technique he employs often, a wonder of beauty); a lovely melody just a little too jazzy to allow you to sing it easily; a warm, human, embracing vocal; humor and wit and wisdom. What the heck more can you ask of a pop song?
*The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time
Any fool can do it, there ain’t nothing to it
Nobody knows how we got to the top of the hill
But since we’re on our way down we might as well enjoy the ride*
The secret of love is in opening up your heart
It’s okay to feel afraid, but don’t let that stand in your way
‘Cause anyone knows that love is the only road
And since we’re only here for a while, we might as well show some style
Give us a smile, isn’t it a lovely ride?
Sliding down, gliding down.
Try not to try too hard, it’s just a lovely ride.
Now the thing about time is that time isn’t really real.
It’s just your point of view, how does it feel for you.
Einstein said he could never understand it all
Planets spinning through space, the smile upon your face
Welcome to the human race, some kind of lovely ride
I’ll be sliding down, gliding down
Try not to try too hard, it’s just a lovely ride.
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136: James Taylor, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel – ‘Wonderful World’
046: James Taylor, “Never Die Young”
139: The Swingle Singers, ‘On the 4th of July’ (James Taylor)
132: James Taylor, ‘Enough To Be On Your Way’
The post 056: James Taylor, ‘Secret O’ Life’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
http://jmeshel.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Little-Saint-Nick.mp3 I live in the only non-Christian country in the Western world, so come Yuletide, things are pretty normal out on the streets (well, ‘normal’ by local and Omicron standards). It’s quite a shock for visitors, how conspicuous Christmas is in its absence. And take into account that I live about 85 kilometers (52 miles) from the original manger. That’s easily traversed on camelback in two days.
As close as it is, it’s a rather foreign event here. But I grew up in a wholly Christian world, so I feel pretty comfortable about the whole thing, just a bit distanced from it. There have been years when I haven’t even noticed the holiday beyond a mention or two on the local news. But since the great majority of SoTW readers abide in The Big World Out There, I figured it would only be proper to dedicate this week’s posting to the good old red-and-green.
The world would be a poorer place without Christmas music. So much of our Western tradition revolves around it, from Liturgy’s Greatest Hits to Bob Dylan’s (some would say ‘bizarre’, others ‘unfortunate’ “Christmas in the Heart”). What is Christmas music for me? Well, of course, it’s Nat King Cole, and Bing Crosby. But there’s a lot of my high school Ensemble in there, too. We had a whole repertoire of holiday songs, many of which I can still sing through without blinking, and we’d perform every night in December, it seems.
So every year around solstice time I treat myself to some of my Chrismas favorites.
Kurt Elling’s wonderful album “The Beautiful Day” is always there. I’m not going to give up the religion of my forefathers, but boy he paints a very attractive picture, Kurt does.
And we’ll visit some suitably solemn music, such as “O Magnum Mysterium” by Morten Lauridsen, as performed by the Nordic Chamber Choir. I had never heard of any of the three until recently. It’s a beautiful, spiritual, sacred motet, a cappella. Morten is a USC professor and 3-time Grammy nominee. And it turns out that he is currently “the most frequently performed American choral composer”. Well, how about that? Well, I’ve been away for a long time. Give a listen to that Nordic Choir. Just about perfect, I’d say.
And what would Christmas be without my buddies The Real Group? Hark, The Herald Angels Swing.
Two of my favorite chanteuses wrote great songs about the dark underside of the holiday — Joni Mitchell’s ‘River’ (check out this very, very beautiful treatment by the Danish rhythm choir Vocal Line. Heaven.) and the great Yuletide cheer-killer, Laura Nyro’s moving ‘Christmas in My Soul‘.
And then there’s that paragon of spiritual uplift, Phil Spector’s “A Christmas Gift for You”, featuring such gems as The Ronettes’ ‘Frosty the Snowman‘.
But the chestnut roasting on my imaginary fire, polished all candy-apple red, grinning, waiting to be bop — The Beach Boys “Little Saint Nick“. I’ve written about Brian Wilson and his band often and with a pedant’s gravity. But what the heck? Who can resist an ebullient hot-rod carol?
*Just a little bobsled, we call it old Saint Nick
But she’ll walk a toboggan with a four speed stick
She’s candy apple red with a ski for a wheel
And when Santa hits the gas, man, just watch her peel.*
Now that’s holiday spirit.
So to our readers all over the world, from the whole staff of Song of The Week, y’all have a good holiday — everyone, everywhere.
The post 031: The Beach Boys, ‘Little Saint Nick’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
The people and things closest to you eventually become invisible to you. That which you see every day for decades becomes so imbedded in your processor that the nerve endings are dulled to them. Strangers are in clearer focus than your parent, your child, your spouse. Familiarity breeds transparency.
So it is with music. Take The Beatles, for example. I listened to every cut of theirs several bejillion times, from the day they were released. They’ve been inaudible to me for decades. I used to try tricks like listening to only one channel with the bass cranked up while standing on my head. It worked a little, but I got dizzy. All the newly remastered sets? The same. If I really, really focus, while lying on a bed of nails, with two prison guards dashing me with a bucket of freezing water after each track, I can summon enough concentration to probe the music just a bit. But usually, if I want to experience a Beatles song, I just close my ears and play it in my brain. Ye olde portable neuro-jukebox.
http://jmeshel.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Stephen-Stills-Suite-Judy-Blue-Eyes.mp3 Judy Collins & Stephen Stills (Photo: Graham Nash)
So you can imagine my pleasure when by some fluke of nature or warp in history I’m able to hear a piece of near and dear, great music from 1968-9.
One of my most epiphanous moments in music, I remember it clearly, was reading the then-new and revolutionary rock music tabloid Rolling Stone, sometime in the late summer or fall of 1968. There was a small, modest item in the lower left corner of the front page: ‘Graham Nash (of The Hollies), Dave Crosby (recently fired from The Byrds) and Stephen Stills (of the recently disbanded Buffalo Springfield) have been hanging out together. There are rumors that they might form a new group.’
I sensed then and there that that trio would create a new aesthetic in popular music– elegant, intelligent, and beautiful music with a level of vocal harmonies unknown since the Ink Spots. I had more than an inkling of the impact Nash, Stills and Crosby would make on popular music, way before CS&N. If only they had been selling stock, I’d be a rich man today.
In 1968, The Byrds were the premier American rock group. Their albums “Younger Than Yesterday” and “The Notorious Byrd Brothers” were among the best of the era. Jim/Roger McGuinn was the leader, bassist Chris Hillman was a serious contributor, but madman David Crosby contributed the magic, especially in vocals (‘Eight Miles High‘, ‘Renaissance Fair’, ‘Tribal Gathering’. The Hollies were a pretty darn fine British invasion group, their best songs based on tight harmony (‘Bus Stop’, ‘Pay You Back with Interest‘).
Buffalo Springfield
Buffalo Springfield was an LA-based rock group led by army brat/southerner Stills, Winnepegian Neil Young, and Ohio>NYer Richie Furay. All three evolved through the folk music scene into rock. They were immensely talented, sharing the songwriting and guitaring and lead singing, and unfortunately spent most of their energies fighting rather than creating music. When they did shut up and sing, it was occasionally divine.
I’m not going to go off on my anti-Neil Young Big Chief Wah-Wah tirade here. Let it suffice to say that I view him as a talent far inferior to Stills, pretty much an obstacle and an annoyance.
As a live band, Springfield debuted on April 11, 1966 and gave their last concert May 5, 1968. They made three albums. The first, containing Stills’ immortal ‘For What It’s Worth’, has very little else that’s listenable. (Here’s Buffalo Springfield singing it live on the Smothers Brothers TV show, including Tommy in a cowboy outfit, Stephen doing a Chuck Berry duckwalk, and the guitars painfully untuned.) The second Springfield album has some of the best music to come out of early rock, especially ‘Bluebird’, the immortal ‘Rock and Roll Woman’ (here’s a live version!) [See also SoTW 198]. The third album had some stunning Stills songs (‘Questions’, ‘Pretty Girl Why‘), but no coherence, as the band was already in its death throes.
BS reunited in 2010-11 in support of the special-needs school backed by Neil Young, where his two sons learned. Well, I hope it makes them happy, and that they make a lot of money for this worthy cause. But in the twoscore years since CS&N and CSN&Y’s breakups, they’ve periodically risen from the grave to haunt gullible, desperate fans with bloated and pathetic echoes of their former demideific selves. I’m not even going to give you any links to that non-music. It’s just painful. Let’s just stick with the Good Old Days.
Judy Collins & Stephen Stills (Photo: Robert Altman)
As far as I can unravel the chronology, around the time of Buffalo Springfield’s breakup, in the spring of 1968, Stills (b. 1945) was hanging out with the very popular and very modestly talented Judy Collins (b. 1939). On April 26th, he accompanied her to a recording session in NY for what was to become her hit album “Who Knows Where the Time Goes”. He was there as boyfriend and studio musician. Stills was a very fine multi-instrumentalist, and has provided the musical backing on acoustic guitar and bass for albums as fine as Joni Mitchell’s “Blue“.
Collins’ album includes Ian Tyson’s song, ‘Someday Soon’, which would become a signature song for her. In this clip, Graham Nash interviews her about the origins of ‘Suite:Judy Blue Eyes’ (written by Stills for her); then Stills joins them on stage to perform ‘Someday Soon’.
At the end of Collins’ recording session, Stills bribed the engineer to stay and allow him to record some songs he’d been working on. Judy went home, admonishing him “not to stay here all night.” Stills relates: “I peeled off a couple of hundreds and told the engineer, ‘I’ve got to record these demos or I’ll forget everything.'”
He took a cassette of the songs with him (which he soon lost) and forgot about the session. In 1978, the studio was about to close, and the owner told one musician named Joe Colasurdo to ‘take whatever tapes you want, they’ll just end up in the trash bin’. He took home a box of reel-to-reel tapes, intending to record over them. But one had the name Stephen Stills on it. He heard it, realized that it was a lost treasure. For years he tried to contact Stills to give him the tapes. (If you’re a mortal who has ever tried contacting a celebrity, even for wholly legitimate reasons, you know how utterly frustrating that can be). Eventually he met a friend of a friend of Graham Nash, and got the tape to him. At a recording session with Stills, without saying a word, Nash put on the tape. Stills, and everyone else, was floored. Nash told him he should release it untouched.
And, thank goodness, he did. Because it’s so vivid, so vibrant, that it’s enabled me to hear this music afresh. In an NPR interview, Stills calls the music here innocent, much higher than he can sing it today. He said that rediscovering this tape is “like being on a dive and finding a gold sovereign.”
Neil Young, Richie Furay, Stephen Stills
“Just Roll Tape: April 26th, 1968” (that’s what he said to the engineer at the start of the recording) contains 13 songs, none of which he’d recorded previously. This wasn’t a nostalgia trip; it was an initial take on material which would serve him for years to come (he would later record nine of them on subsequent albums). The best known include a cover of Lennon’s ‘In My Life’, and Stills’ ‘Change Partners’, ‘Wooden Ships’, ‘Helplessly Hoping‘, and our Song of The Week, the iconic ‘Suite:Judy Blue Eyes‘.
I find it particularly remarkable that these recordings are so well-cooked. There’s no fumbling, inventing words for unwritten verses, or trailing off when he doesn’t know exactly how to finish the song. He’s a consummate, serious artist, this Stephen Stills.
His guitar playing is stunning–intense, commanding. He uses mostly open tunings; in ‘Suite’, it’s a tuning attributed to Springfield bassist Bruce Palmer, EEEEBE (see the Wikipedia article). His vocals are jaw-dropping technically, and affectively wrenching. This is really fine music, folks.
Crosby, Stills, Nash
Stills is a pretty strange character. There’s one video of him at a very laid-back concert “Celebration at Big Sur”, everyone very mellow and stoned and acoustic, until he gets into a fistfight with a fan who rubs him the wrong way. This three-part interview (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) from 1972 shows a variety of his facets–on the one hand, mispronouncing the word ‘eclectic’ and inventing stories about dodging machine-gun fire as a boy during a junta, on the other hand (in the first part), showing us his open tuning and playing Bo Diddley’s ‘Who Do You Love?’ and Chuck Berry’s ‘You Can’t Catch Me’ for us solo, and then in part 3 playing ‘For What It’s Worth’ on the piano.
“Just Roll Tape” carries more than a modicum of historical interest. After all, Stephen Stills of April, 1968 wasn’t just ex-Buffalo Springfield, he was of course also pre-Crosby, Stills and Nash. Three months after our SoTW recording, at a party at Mamma Cass Elliot’s house, Nash asked Stills and Crosby to repeat a new Stills song they had sung, “You Don’t Have To Cry.” He improvised a second harmony part; they immediately realized that something unique had occurred. They soon went into the studio, and in 1969 released their eponymous first album, making them an instant supergroup.
Together with ‘John Wesley Harding‘, ‘Music from Big Pink’, and ‘Sweetheart of the Rodeo’, ‘CS&N’ was a harbinger – and catalyst – of the new direction the music and the mind of the generation would take. Prior to this music, the world was electric, frenetic and violent –Jumping Jack Flash, speed and Vietnam. On the horizon was the fallout from Dylan’s motorcycle accident, a distinct turn inwards to the organic, the acoustic, the earth-bound. A wholly new reality.
‘Suite:Judy Blue Eyes’ was a theme song of this change. It was also a hit, ranked 426 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and a symbol of the generation. CS&N would perform it at Woodstock, the signature moment of the festival. “This is the second time we have played in front of people, man. We are scared shitless.” Here’s a lovely montage of the three of them talking, arguing, and singing, including Stills singing ‘4+20’ in the famous appearance on the Dick Cavett show the day after Woodstock, still wearing their mud-caked clothes.
The ‘Just Roll Tape’ version of the song is virtually identical to the record version, with two verses inverted and without the ‘Doo-doo’ ending. “That was an afterthought in the studio.” (I got a particularly perverse pleasure from Stills’ story in the NPR interview about how the Bulgarian Women’s Choir, who were “heroes of ours”, sang this section for him. Why is it that when I sing the praises of this group (see SoTW 030), people look at me strangely, whereas when Stephen Stills does it, the girls all swoon?
He also says there that he prefers ‘the middle part’ (‘Friday evening’) of “Just Roll”‘s ‘Suite:Judy Blue Eyes’ to the recorded version. For my money, it’s all very fine. I love how he tunes, and without taking a breath, flies into the song, as if he’s afraid he’ll be tossed out of the studio at any moment and wants to get it all down before that happens. He’s on. Or ‘It’s my heart…’ where he goes into a high, high falsetto, and his aim is oh-so-true. Stevie Winwood would be impressed.
In the interview, the song is referred to as a breakup song. For all the myriad times I’ve listened to the song, I suppose I couldn’t rattle off the lyrics. I just read through them (printed below, with a transcription and translation of the Spanish at the end). The lyric is far more coherent, unified, and communicative than I’d thought. This isn’t a random assembly of musical parts. It is indeed a suite in the fullest sense, a telling story of the end of a relationship.
At the end of the NPR interview, Stills thanks Joe Colasurdo for giving him the tapes. “The guy is my friend for life.” Well, let me join you in that, Stephen. Thanks for the very precious gift, Joe. And thanks, Stephen.
*It’s getting to the point where I’m no fun anymore,
I am sorry.
Sometimes it hurts so badly I must cry out loud
I am lonely.
I am yours, you are mine, you are what you are
And you make it hard.*
*Remember what we’ve said and done and felt about each other,
Oh babe, have mercy.
Don’t let the past remind us of what we are not now,
I am not dreaming.
I am yours…*
*Tearing yourself away from me now
You are free and I am crying
This does not mean I don’t love you
I do, that’s forever,
Yes and for always.
I am yours…*
*Something inside is telling me that I’ve got your secret.
Are you still listening?
Fear is the lock, and laughter the key to your heart,
And I love you.
I am yours…*
*Friday evening, Sunday in the afternoon
What have you got to lose?
Tuesday morning, please be gone I’m tired of you.
What have you got to lose?
Can I tell it like it is? (Help me I’m suffering)
Listen to me baby.
It’s my heart that’s a-suffering (Help me I’m dying)
It’s a-dying, that’s what I have to lose.
I’ve got an answer:
I’m going to fly away.
What have I got to lose?
Will you come see me Thursdays and Saturdays?
What have you got to lose?*
*Chestnut brown canary, ruby-throated sparrow
Sing the song, don’t be long, thrill me to the marrow.*
*Voices of the angels, ring around the moonlight,
Asking me, said ‘she’s so free, how can you catch the sparrow?’*
*Lacy, lilting, lyric, losing love, lamenting
Change my life, make it right, be my lady.*
Que linda me recuerda Cuba,
La reina de la mar Caribe.
Quiero sólo visitarla allí,
Y que triste que no puedo. Vaya,
Oh va, oh va.
*Translation:
How beautiful, it reminds me of Cuba,*
The queen of the Caribbean Sea,
I just want to visit her there,
And it’s so sad that I cannot. Oh my
Oh my, oh my (mispronounced)
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SoTW is a non-commercial, non-profit venture, intended solely to promote the appreciation of good music.
Feel free to recommend Song of The Week to friends.
We enjoy your comments and will try to respond to all of them.
SoTW is a non-commercial, non-profit venture, intended solely to promote the appreciation of good music. Readers are strongly encouraged to purchase the music discussed here at sites such as eMusic or Amazon.
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The post 072: Stephen Stills, ‘Suite:Judy Blue Eyes’ (“Just Roll Tape”) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Bill Evans Trio – ‘Gloria’s Step’ (1st Take), from “The Complete Live at The Village Vanguard”
From the same album, ‘All of You‘ and ‘Waltz for Debbie’
Most mornings I started the day with Bill Evans. Not just any Bill Evans, but “The Complete Live at The Village Vanguard”. Sometimes we play music to reflect our mood, sometimes to enhance it, to complement it or to change it. But between my first and second cups of coffee, when the world is just a pre-moodal blur, I can do whatever I want. So I almost invariably start with something easy on my ears, easy on my mind, easy on my soul. Like Brad Mehldau, for example, a 51-year old pianist, one of the best jazz artists around. And almost invariably, after a few minutes, I ask myself “Why not go for the original? It’s early, at this hour you don’t yet owe anybody anything, listen to whatever you want.” And if I’m feeling really indulgent or up or down or in the middle, I say, “Well, if we’re indulging ourselves, let’s go for the very best.” And there goes that 3-CD 1961 set, which gets us up to 10:00, on the cusp of our third cup of coffee, and the world has become a pretty tolerable place.
I have a hard time filtering all the things I want to say about Bill Evans (1929–1980). For many years, this set has been the work I’ve listened to most, loved most, and appreciated most (and those are three distinct issues). It has moved me as few other works have – Bach’s Suites for Cello, Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks”, James Taylor’s Apple album (a partial and admittedly disparate list) are the company it keeps in my soul.
Bill Evans’ “Live at The Village Vanguard” can be perceived in several ways. It can sound like inoffensive cocktail music. It’s very ‘nice’, pleasant on the ear. And yet jazz fans know that in this performance Bill Evans reinvented the piano trio (the jazz equivalent of classical music’s string quartet), and in my opinion single-handedly changed our perception of rhythm in modern music, evolving it from the mechanical metronome to the sublime interplay of fluid improvisation. And on a whole different level, if you look at the album cover for one of the releases, you’ll see there was something harrowing going on below the surface.
Bill grew up as a ‘nice boy’ in New Jersey, graduated from Southeastern Louisiana University with a degree in classical piano performance. But that failed to hold his attention, because he sight-read music so well, was able to perform the classical repertoire at such a level of refinement from the git-go, that he failed to maintain the necessary edge to practice hard enough to make a career of it. He played a bit of jazz in New York, served in the army and in the late ’50s returned to the scene in New York, where he quickly made a name as a highly esteemed studio musician. Although record companies were interested in recording him, he made only two albums under his own name in five years – by his own choice, maintaining that he would record ‘when he had more to say’.
In 1959, Miles Davis became interested in exploring modal music and asked his mentor Gil Evans to recommend a pianist to join his working band, someone with a solid grounding in the European tradition and knowledgeable in musical theory. The resulting collaboration between Miles and Bill Evans was “Kind of Blue”, a universally acknowledged masterpiece, some say the seminal marriage of American jazz with the European tradition.
But Bill left the band shortly after that recording to pursue two main interests –the search for a trio which would express his unique musical vision, and the beginning of what would be a lifelong addiction to drugs, beginning here with heroin, later modulating to drink and cocaine till his death at the age of 51. But he achieved also his other goal, with the 25-year old drummer Paul Motian and the 23-year old bassist Scotty LaFaro.
Evans was seeking to evolve beyond the traditional piano trio format in which the bassist, drummer and the pianist’s left hand all provided a predictable backdrop for the pianist’s right hand. He wanted to build a group of equal partners in creativity. In LaFaro, he found his musical soulmate. From the fall of 1959 till June 1961 they developed this new musical language together in two studio recordings, “Portrait in Jazz” and “Explorations”. In June, 1961, they went to the Greenwich Village jazz club The Village Vanguard for a week’s gig. Their producer, Orrin Keepnews, decided to record them on Sunday, because that included an additional matinee show (two sets, in addition to the regular three evening sets), giving him more material to choose from. Here’s Keepnews discussing the formation of the trio, here discussing the trio’s work on that legendary day.
Like many great jazz recordings, the participants felt that it was ‘really good’, but had no sense of recording for posterity. Sixty years later, that day’s music is universally regarded by jazz fans as a unique work of genius and transcendent beauty. Ten days later, the car Scotty LaFaro was driving in upstate New York veered off the road and hit a tree, killing the driver. Distraught, Bill Evans sank into his heroin habit and stopped recording for a year.
The first album released from the Village Vanguard sessions was called “Waltz for Debby”. Evans and Keepnews focused their selection on performances written by and featuring LaFaro.
“Sunday at the Village Vanguard” followed the same year, and some years later “Bill Evans – More from the Vanguard”. In 2005, the entire day’s recordings were released as a 3-CD set, “The Complete Live at The Village Vanguard”.
The rest of Evans’ career would follow an unusual trajectory. After a year and a half of depression during which Evans wandered around wearing Scott’s clothes and recording only one solo session, young bassist Chuck Israels dragged him out of his shell to form the second trio, with drummer Larry Butler. They recorded the sterling albums “Moonbeams” and “How My Heart Sings“, and a number of fine live performances on television. Evans then teamed with bassist Eddie Gomez and a series of drummers over the next 10 years. He also recorded in other contexts, most notably in duets with guitarist Bill Hall and several groundbreaking experiments in recording himself overdubbed in two or three parts (the Grammies didn’t know whether to give him the prize as solo or group artist). Ravaged by drugs, Evans somehow managed to maintain the highest levels of musical standards (to the point of one notorious performance where his left hand was rendered useless by the excesses of the needle, but he performed admirably right-handed). His followers are so dedicated that every scrap of his recordings is released commercially. I personally own and listen to well over a hundred CDs of his, even the relatively mundane years with Gomez.
Then incredibly, in 1979, he formed a new trio with two young musicians, Joe LaBarbera (drums) and Marc Johnson (bass). He developed a probing new style and recorded extensively, in a final burst of creative energy, right up to his death in 1980.
But nothing ever matched the magic of that Sunday in 1961. Nothing by Bill Evans, nothing by anyone else.
The songs that Bill Evans’ trio played that day are mostly standards (‘My Foolish Heart’, ‘All of You’, ‘My Romance’, ‘Some Other Time‘, ‘Detour Ahead’, ‘My Man’s Gone Now‘, ‘I Loves You Porgy’), with a scattering of originals–LaFaro’s ‘Gloria’s Step‘ and ‘Jade Visions’, Evans’ sublime ‘Waltz for Debby’. After much deliberation, I selected for our Song of The Week ‘Gloria’s Step‘ for several reasons. First, that was the first piece they played that day. Secondly, there’s a 10-second break in the middle where the tape recorder lost power, nearly causing the technical team heart failure. I think that interruption is fittingly emblematic of the truncated life of this trio and of the fragility of the moment of inspiration. But mostly, I chose it because of its innate beauty. I could describe at length the unusual, affective melody of the song, the revolutionary mid-keyboard blocked chords of Bill Evans’ left hand, the utterly and unutterably magic interplay between these three musicians. But I’d never do it justice. Because this is as beautiful as music gets, and no words can rival that.
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096: Bill Evans (solo), ‘Easy To Love’ 124: Bill Evans, ‘Nardis’ 094: Brad Mehldau, ‘Martha, My Dear’ (“Live in Marciac”) The post 060: The Bill Evans Trio, ‘Gloria’s Step’ from “Live at The Village Vanguard” appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Janis Joplin & Tom Jones, ‘Raise Your Hand’
Photo by Richard Avedon
I was explaining to a friend recently why I avoid live performances, especially in the rock idiom. I tried to explain that it’s because I’m an effete snob, that I want to listen to the best music possible, that rock at its best is studio music. Back in the day, I had no interest in hearing Crosby, Stills and Nash trying to recreate on stage the perfection they achieved in the studio. I hit my zenith (or nadir, as the case may be) in 1969, when I respectfully declined VIP tickets and an interview with The Who on their first Tommy tour. It’s also why I left Woodstock after one day. I went for the music, I got rain and mud and shmutz. So I went home, showered, put on my headphones, and listened to Sgt. Pepper.
But when the friend asked me what the best live show I ever saw was, I said, “Ah,” with a smile of sweet recollection. “No contest. Janis Joplin, with Big Brother and the Holding Company, 1969.”
“Wow,” said the friend.
In those days I was writing for a twice-weekly college newspaper with a circulation of 25,000. That made me very popular with the record distributors. Unfortunately, they never offered me the graft or the other perks I’ve read about, but they did stock my record collection generously, and got me interviews with whoever passed through our fair burg.
So it was that Janis came to town with her band, less than a year after the release of her first real LP, “Cheap Thrills” (‘Combination of the Two‘, ‘Piece of My Heart‘, ‘Ball and Chain‘) and a semi-bootleg of unauthorized demo tapes by a small label (including some very, very fine cuts such as ‘Down on Me‘ and ‘Call On Me‘). I had an ‘interview’ backstage with her before the show, which meant just hanging with her and the band, schmoozing with her while she guzzled her Southern Comfort. Yes, she really did. She was down-to-earth, friendly, warm, jovial, unpretentious. She was also quite diminutive in stature and homely. She made me feel quite comfortable, although I was just a kid of 20, and she was a star of 26.
But when she got on stage, it was something wholly other.
She moved me. She moved the hall. She sang about love and rejection, about pleasure and pain. Every second was real, profoundly honest and exposed, engaged to the very marrow of her bones. There are lots of stories about how unpopular she was in high school in Port Arthur, Texas, how she nurtured all kinds of resentment and an addict’s need for the audience’s affection. Speaking from experience, that sort of resentment can be one powerful motivator.
I was so moved that at the end of the finale, ‘Piece of My Heart’, while the audience was on its feet thanking her, I jumped up on stage to hug her. I guess perhaps I meant to kiss her on the cheek. But her juices were in full flow, and she gave me a full-blown Janis kiss, deep and memorable.
Her performance on stage taught me all sorts of things. For example, it enabled me to understand the attraction of human sacrifice. It’s one thing to read about the purging, cathartic impact of the hero’s tragic end on the 5th century BCE Greek stage. It’s another to watch Janis sing “Take another little piece of my heart!”, and mean it quite viscerally. That’s what she did, she bled for the audience. She pulled out her pain right there on the stage, tore it out of her heart, and offered it up to us. I’ll give you my very lifeblood, just love me. More bloody and gory than the slashiest flick or real morgue (I’ve witnessed a couple of autopsies). She was carving up her soul, and handing it to us to share. That’s how deep her need for approval was. So it’s really no surprise at all that two years later she was dead.
Together with the memory of that event, the defining image I carried with me of Janis for many years was, ironically enough, her guest shot on The Tom Jones Show.
Huh? Yeah, exactly.
Tom Jones, for all you Martians out there, was a very popular Welsh pop-soul singer (b. 1940). He had a strong voice, danced lithely and provocatively, and ‘ladies of a certain age’ were wont to throw their panties at him. We effete snobs (see above) viewed him as a cheap, dumb-headed purveyor of offensively shallow pop pap. Here he is in that period at his crass best. The clip is worth watching. Just keep a barf bag handy.
In 1969 he had a network television show on which he hosted some pretty good musicians. There weren’t a lot of network shows on which we could see ‘our’ musicians, so we swallowed our pride, took a Dramamine, and tuned in. Even when he duetted with fine artists, he pulled them down to his level rather than rising to theirs. Which was a shame, because he had some really fine chops. He could have been a good singer if he would have just refrained from pandering crap. Here he is singing with Wilson Pickett, exactly the kind of music to which I prefer silence.
Here’s one that’s a little better, singing ‘Good Golly Miss Molly’ with Little Richard. Fortunately, the manic Mr Penniman is so detached from the reality around him that he keeps on keeping on despite the Welsh welching.
And if you say it’s not fair to pair him with a male, thereby denying him all of his testosteronic histrionics, here he is singing soulless soul with Aretha herself.
You can almost see Ms Franklin blush. Even the regal Aretha she can’t elicit anything real from Plastic Tom.
Tina Turner fares better here, in this medley. She’s as hot as—well, as hot as only Tina can be, and Tom sings quite admirably, I’ll admit. He’s clearly focused more on keeping up with Tina than in pandering to the saggy tomatoes in the crowd. But it’s still Vegas. It’s nothing that will be imprinted indelibly in your musical memory.
And then Janis came on the show. First she sang one misguided effort, an unfortunate misinterpretation of a really fine ballad, ‘Little Girl Blue.’ But then they sang together. Watch this. I’m not comparing Aretha or Tina to Janis, but in the Me-Tom-You-Jane matchup, they pale in comparison. Watch Janis transmogrify him where so many had failed before her. Watch her open the floodgates of her energy. Watch her invest that flat sound stage with terawatts of sexual electricity. Watch her turn him on and lift him up.
That, folks, is the magic spell that Janis Joplin cast on me, on my friends, on my generation. That’s the altar on which she sacrificed herself for our voyeuristic satisfaction. After his tens of thousands of conquests, this is how old Plastic Tom remembers his duet with Janis fifty years later.
I don’t mean to brag or anything, but at the end of ‘Raise Your Hand’, Tom tries to hug Janis and she pushes him away. Me she graced with a kiss I still haven’t gotten over.
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