John McCabe – More Piano Music of Erik Satie (Saga 5472)

One of the most modern aspects of Erik Satie‘s art is the way it sounds spontaneously created, not unlike Gershwin’s later classical-jazz interface. But while Rhapsody In Blue literally scored the great man’s improvisation, Satie achieved freshness with droll, quirky instructions on his sheet music (e.g. play “without pride”, “Fit yourself with clearsightedness”, etc.) in lieu of traditional Italian imperatives for tempo (e.g. largo, moderato, etc.) and volume (fortissimo, pianissimo, etc.) which allows for great interpretive latitude; so, for example, the Gnossiene no.3 here is taken at comparitively breakneck pace. I don’t think you get that level of variation elsewhere in classical music.

Unlike my previous Satie posts, this mint second volume of Piano Music purchased yestiddy in Ashford is comprised entirely of whimsical solo pieces.

The Last Emperor – Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Byrne and Cong Su (1987)

BYRNE IDENTIFIES, GIVES NAME TO RHETORICAL CONVERSATION DEVICE

Also Releases Soundtrack Album with Noted Chinese Composer

(New York, NY) — Talking Heads’ frontman David Byrne has today identified and named after himself that one amusing rhetorical device where, in a given conversation, you allude in a pithy or humorous way to a previously discussed and ostensibly unrelated subject or anecdote. The allusion, which may be gentle or barbed, must refer to a particular or broad point which arose much earlier in the conversation and draw a clever connection to the current subject under discussion thereby enlightening, throwing into new relief or generally adding richness to the discourse.

To deploy this device in conversation with an interlocutor will henceforth be known as “byrning” or “to byrne”, according to Gerald Garner, head of the new words department at the Oxford English Dictionary.

“This sort of thing often happens to me at parties where conversational ebb and flow can take a meanering, elliptical course,” said Byrne. ”I found that I was able to utilise the rhetorical jape with such delightful regularity when talking to friends or relatives such as Brian Eno and my mother that it deserved to be identified and named.”

“And what better name than after the man who identified it?” he added, winking rhetorically.

In related news, the New Wave vocalist was part responsible for the soundtrack to Bernardo Bertolucci’s acclaimed film The Last Emperor released today. Byrne’s contribution consisted of five short, lilting instrumentals on side two wherein the singer’s typically hiccoughing melodies are carried by an Erhu (aka Chinese violin) and are limited to the pentatonic scale, while the Sanxian (or Chinese banjo) takes the place of Tina Weymouth and strings perform the Jerry Harrison role. As of press time, there were no drums.

Keith Jarrett – The Köln Concert (ECM) (1975)

A unique one, at least as far as my collection is concerned, The Köln Concert is a 2Lp solo improvisational tour de force by American pianist Jarrett recorded live at the Cologne Opera House. If jazz and classical met in George Gershwin like cubism with each angle precisely delineated, they collide here as a roiling action painting, with Jarrett audibly grunting and whooping himself into an occasional frenzy as ideas and motifs tumble out in a rush of repeated gospel-tinged vamps, glissandi and rhythmic ostinati. Jarrett was, for the most part, literally making this up as he went along and sometimes the extemporisation sounds to me only just the right side of self-indulgent noodling and showboating—remarkably, this didn’t stop The Köln Concert from becoming the best-selling solo album in jazz history.

Strange that this passionate music should form the bedrock of that infuriatingly placid genre New Age.

Brought to you by the Wincheap Bootfair for £1.

Leonard Bernstein – Rhapsody In Blue/An American In Paris (Phillips – SABL 160)

What is American Music?

This was the (not quite rhetorical) question for both the Paul Whiteman Aeolian Hall concert premiere of George Gershwin’s Jazz/Classical masterpiece and the 1958 Leonard Bernstein telly programme reviving it. The answer, according to Bernstein, is the appropriately ambiguous fudge: “many-sidedness.”

Even given the multi-faceted nature of the American experiment, the fact is you could make the same claim for any of the peoples in the world. And it doesn’t change the grandness and beauty to be found herein. It’s remarkable how absolutely familiar these pieces of music are even to the dilettante. One recognises theme after theme, motif after motif, phrase after phrase. As natural as breath.

I think I may use Lenny as my intro to the classical music; he did a lot of stuff for Columbia that looks good.

“Sports et Divertissements” Piano Music of Erik Satie – Aldo Ciccolini (HMV Greensleeves)

This again is not made up of the ur-Windham Hill sentimentalismes for which Satie is so justly acclaimed as a cult figure these days, rather, more traditional sounding nocturnes and sonatas. Wrapped in an ersatz Terry Gilliam sleeve, this 1982 double Lp compilation on EMI’s classical own brand HMV Greensleeves label contains piano pieces stretching over roughly 30 years of the great man’s career recorded by Aldo Ciccolini between 1964 and 1971.

You must be doing something right if Pablo Picasso does you a caricature.

Walter Carlos et al.- A Clockwork Orange/Music from the Soundtrack (1971)

Carlos, still in the initial flush of the Switched On phenomenon, provides suitable menace and black humour to Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s dystopian horrorshow.  Alternating between Carlos’s pippy Moog versions of the classics and orchestral versions of other classics, the soundtrack accurately sums up the perversity at the heart of the film culminating in an unsettling (and very fast) version of the William Tell Overture. Things go all Daft Punk on the reworking of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (listed as “March from A Clockwork Orange”) wherein Rachel Elkind’s “articulations” are synthesised in a very “One More Time” way.  Note: The album was edited by John Wood and supervised by producer/Zelig-figure Joe Boyd, a fact which didn’t merit mention in Boyd’s entertaining and warm-hearted 60′s autobiography White Bicycles.

The book and movie were influential to my teenage self giving me and my friends vocabulary words to baffle elders and justification, on literary grounds, for our loutish anti-social behaviour (tho’ we were sensible enough to do it when no-one was watching).

Walt Disney’s Fantasia – Leopold Stokowski with the Philadelphia Orchestra (Buena Vista STER-101)

A photo-heavy family showcase album for the holiday season. Lavish ain’t the word for this 1959 gatefold treble Lp soundtrack to Disney’s 1939 animated tour de force that I got from the same American charity shop as the earlier Spirituals record.  The 20 page, heavyweight paper, full-colour booklet features artwork adapted from the film and it’s interesting to see how the vibrant 1950s interpretations of the earlier art, which must have seemed hopelessly out of date at the time, now seems itself so dated.  No less glorious because of it, though, as you can see.

“We recommend that the volume control on your phonograph be kept at a moderate room level for fullest enjoyment.”  Imagine seeing those words at the bottom of a Motorhead album sleeve.

The Tomita Planets

Tomita does Holst. ‘Nuff said!

Erik Satie – Parade, Relâche Ballets and Gymnopedies (Angel S-36486)

I could fill a book with what I don’t know about classical music. Unfortunately, it would be a very dull book called What I Don’t Know About Classical Music by Prince Asbo. I have, however, latterly become interested in the solo piano works of Erik Satie having seen one of them choreographed. Satie’s piano pieces can properly be described as haunting and, as with the Swingle Singers, once heard are easily recognised. Indeed, they are used regularly as background and you may very well have heard one without knowing. My impression is that Satie himself thought his works “mood music”, Muzak even. This was not pejorative, rather it was purpose-built as wallpaper noise.

This album (on Angel as was this Ravi Shankar) represents a different aspect of the Satie oeuvre, orchestral performance pieces for dance, theatre and film. All very avant-garde, as explained in the detailed liner notes. The music is “modern” with with sprinklings of dissonance and sound effects, but enough melody to satisfy the romantic.

Bach-Swingle Style – The Swingle Singers (Phillips 6444 500)

In the early 1970s I had the great good fortune to see the Swingle Singers perform at the Memorial Theater in Mount Vernon, Ohio. Quite why this classical jazz Anglo/French a capella septet led by eponymous American arranger Ward Swingle made their way to the backwaters of Knox County, I’m not sure, but I was a big fan.  I even met der Swingle himself.*  The Swingle Singers’ schtick is to sing classical or folk melodies wordlessly to a jazz beat.  Their sound is unique and once you hear it, it is impossible not to recognise a second time. Inevitably, however, my head was turned by “rock” and “popular” music and I left the Swingles behind.

Fast forward to 2007 when I heard a Swingle Singers documentary on BBC Radio 2 on the drive from Bristol back to Kent and I remembered: I love the freakin’ Swingles!

As a result, I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled for hot Swingle action and I’ve been rewarded several times including the present album under consideration, a compilation of Bach pieces from various albums including the debut, Jazz Sebastian Bach.  Now, I know I’ve said that, for aesthetic reasons, I don’t buy budget labels (this being on the Phillips’ International Series imprint), but for the Swingles, I make exceptions.  (Another of my Swingles albums, the excellent summit meeting with the Modern Jazz Quartet called Place Vendome, is on Contour!)  Actually, the sleeve isn’t so bad, especially compared to the other Value For Money albums advertised on the back, e.g. This Is…Andy Williams and This Is…Paul Mauriat.

*according to my dad.