aworks :: "new" american classical music

Royal Garden Blues (1927). Bix Beiderbecke /couldn't afford name acts/

2009-12-11T20:57:02-08:00

Beiderbecke via Wikipedia

The always intelligent Renewable Music indicates his displeasure at recorded music in general and that Stanford students no longer appreciate high-fidelity, specfically.

For various reasons, the album, the CD and now the MP3 have been a great part of my life although that's not the interesting thing to blog about today.

What I would like to highlight is this recent quote from Elijah Wald in How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'N' Roll:

...the [Prohibition] liquor laws very likely account for one of the era's most striking musical anomalies: that many of its most exciting jazz groups never performed in public. To cite the most famous examples, Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, and Bix Beiderbecke all made their greatest recordings during these years with small bands -- Armstrong's Hot Fives and Sevens, Morton's Red Hot Peppers, and the Beiderbecke-Trumbauer groups -- that existed only for those record sessions. In public, Morton was leading a larger dance orchestra, Beiderbecke and Trumbauer were with Whiteman, and Armstrong was doubling with Carroll Dickerson's Savoyagers and Erskine Tate's Vendome Theatre Orchestra.

Without being able to sell alcohol, smaller clubs couldn't afford name acts and so the music business steered towards larger dance halls and larger orchestras.

lala playlist of those artists (with the intro of West End Blues being a well-known highlight):

"a" works :: large and small j...

Soliloquy (on a Separation) (2001). Billy Joel /fantasies and delusions/

2009-12-11T19:14:20-08:00

Image via Wikipedia

Billy Joel's Fantasies and Delusions is #7 on the Billboard Traditional Classical Albums chart for this decade. I admit I now own said album but it was in the name of research (and curiosity).

Check it out on lala:

Opus 1-10 'Fantasies & Delusio...

Also note I have blogged twice about his music, including three years ago when I didn't yet have the guts to buy it.

Update: I corrected the spelling in the title and the problem where the photo made the composer look unnaturally fat.

Trinkle Tinkle (1952). Thelonious Monk /not one-handed/

2009-12-08T19:38:42-08:00

Bud Powell via last.fm

On Fresh Air, Terry Gross interviews Robin Kelley, the author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original. In particular, they spend a fair amount of time on Trinkle Tinkle and Monk's life in the early fifties when he was arrested for heroin possession after Bud Powell passed on the drugs when they were stopped by the police. This resulted in the lost of his New York cabaret card until 1957.

Although Monk was ultimately diagnosed as bipolar, Gross also asks if he might have been autistic but Kelley thinks not.

They also talk about Monk's ability, unlike other bop musicians, to play with a strong left-hand as influenced by the great stride pianists like Willie "The Lion" Smith and James P. Johnson. From the book:

A later generation of bebop pianists would often be accused of one-handedness; their right hands flew along with melodies and improvisations, while their "weak " left hands just plonked chords. To the great stride players that gathered at Johnson's house and elsewhere, the left hand was just as important as the right...He [Monk] was exceedingly well grounded in the piano players who preceded him, adding his own originality to a very sound foundation.

Terry Gross goes on to gush about Monk's versions of standards including Gershwin's Nice Work If You Can Get it...

Trinkle Tinkle - Thelonious Mo...

Nice Work If You Can Get It - ...

Dance Patterns (2002). Steve Reich /the birth of a .../

2009-12-07T21:56:08-08:00

Cover of Reich Remixed

The new web version of New York classical radio station WQXR is gearing up to have a Steve Reich "Maximum Reich" extravaganza from Thursday until Wednesday:

Daily focus:
Thursday: The Birth of a Style: Influences and Teachers
Friday: Counterpoint: From Vermont to Cello
Saturday: Reich in Full Voice: Vocal, Choral and Tape
Sunday: The Cave (Reich’s only opera)
Monday: Live Concerts from the WNYC Archives
Tuesday: Music for Percussion
Wednesday: Reich Remixed: The Next Generation

For the occasion, Nonesuch will post a downloadable track of Reich's Dance Patterns (MP3).

My favorite feature so far on the WQXR website is the ability to quickly see what's playing on all of WQXR 105.9, WQXR Q2, WNYC 93.9, and WNYC AM, and then listen if the content meets one's own highly specialized aesthetic selection criteria. Alas, right now, there is no match but I'll try again later.

Étude Op. 25, No. 1 (1825). Frédéric Chopin /the truth is/

2009-12-06T16:39:25-08:00

Thelonious Monk via last.fm

From the third page of Robin Kelley's Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original:

The truth is Thelonious Monk possessed an impressive knowledge of, and appreciation for, Western classical music, not to mention an encyclopedic knowledge of hymns and gospel music, American popular songs, and a variety of obscure art songs that defy easy categorization. For him, it was all music...Monk loved Frédéric Chopin, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Beethoven, and Bach, and like many of his peers of the bebop generation, he took an interest in Igor Stravinsky. And his life was no more monastic than any other urban jazzman's.

Kelley goes on to research the life of Monk's slave ancestors and points out the connection with Julius Monk, a white cabaret impresario in New York whose great-grandfather owned those slaves:

Had he known this history, he might have been inspired to head down to the Five Spot after his show and thank Thelonious personally for the privileged life he was able to enjoy...Julius's excellent musical education, like his father's and brother's medical school education, was partly paid for with inherited wealth, the source of which turned out to be the sweat and toil of John Jack Monk [Thelonious' great-grandfather] and the other African-descended people held in bondage.

This is going to be an interesting book. The NY Times has an excerpt.

It Got Dark (2009). Thomas Newman /ephemeral santa monica canyon/

2009-12-05T11:58:32-08:00

Out West Arts on the Newman piece from the LA Philharmonic "West Coast, Left Coast" festival:

Newman notes the works’ relation to the development of Santa Monica Canyon over the last century, and there is a certain quality of memory in the eight uninterrupted movements. It’s pretty. But I still felt like I’d seen this particular film before.

The composer:

“It Got Dark is a result of many years of collecting ephemera — photographs, postcards, recorded interviews — from the areas surrounding my home on the west side of Los Angeles. I always meant to organize them in a way that shed light or cast shadow over what is now vs. what was then, and my unique position of seeing both at once…

As one who also wants to organize his ephemera, I like the idea.

Six Marimbas (1986). Steve Reich /who sampled?/

2009-12-04T19:58:14-08:00

A new site to find out who sampled what. Here's Steve Reich's Six Marimbas as sampled by Susumu Yokota:

Blue Sky And Yellow Sunflower ...

aworks ordered list :: notable listening #1 /freight train? indiana? microtonal riley? doors do gershwin?/

2009-12-04T19:35:46-08:00

Indiana Image via Wikipedia

Normally, I like to at least comment and link on what I post, but 880 commute fatigue is setting in and I was late getting home after trying the shortcut through Newark (California) and having to wait for a freight train. Freight train? What is this, Indiana?

Anyway, my latest listening has resulted in this lala playlist of notable tracks. Composers include microtonal Terry Riley, Albina Stefanou, Julia Wolfe, Randall Wolff, Skip La Plante.The Who via the Smithereens version of Tommy, Haitian music via Alan Lomax, and George Gershwin via The Doors...

:: notable listening #1

Ok, one comment. If the rumor is true, please don't let hegemonic Apple screw up lala...

Update:

Apple Inc. acquired online music company Lala Media Inc., possibly signaling an expansion of the computer giant's music strategy. Terms could not be learned. "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time and we generally do not comment on our purpose or plan." said Apple spokesman Steve Dowling. (WSJ)

Vertigo (1958). Bernard Herrmann

2009-12-03T19:35:35-08:00

A new site with embeddable movie clips. Here's Vertigo.

Update: I got rid of the auto-play clip. Click on the Vertigo link to see and hear Jimmy Stewart's nightmare...

Digital Loom (2005). Mason Bates /preconceived notions of goodness/

2009-12-02T18:05:24-08:00

I'm probably listening to more new music than ever, via lala. But the service has the side effect that I know little or nothing about that new music as I hear it. I don't generally miss liner notes but maybe I need to rethink that stance.

Case in point, I found a recent album, Digital Loom, by Mason Bates. I recognize the composer but not this particular work. And on first listen, I have no idea what I am listening to. It's organ and electronica and voices and strings and just doesn't fit any of my preconceived notions of goodness (or badness).

Unfortunately, the link to the work on the composer's website is broken so I can't quickly brief myself. A quick google search did turn up the fact that Bates is on the new Grand Valley State In C remix album (which is now on lala, by the way).

Mason Bates: Digital Loom - Ma...