Evocations of the Dance IV: Crossovers: When Highbrow Went Lowbrow, When Lowbrow Went Highbrow (1)

http://www.jazzstudiesonline.org/files/Jazz%20as%20Decal.pdf

Fair warning: this is an exercise in false dichotomies – jazz and classical music in the twentieth century were often feeding off similar roots. But my key contention is that even now, long after Gunther Schuller’s ‘Third Stream’, the phenomenon that is the appeal of ‘World Music’, and the fusion of everything that isn’t bolted down (to mix a metaphor), we still have a sense of what is jazz and what is classical music.

It could be borrowings of melodic, harmonic or rhythmic qualities, or it could be the tendency of jazz musicians to favour more complex harmonies or to otherwise show their allegiance to the avant garde, which seems to me more of a highbrow borrowing from the classical music world than an indigenous jazz trait.

So, the following list of tracks represent a slightly selective history of the confluence of jazz tracks with classical elements and classical tracks with a jazz influence.

I want this list to be an organic thing. If you can suggest any tracks I’ve neglected, please leave a comment.

Late 19th & Early 20th Century

 

Year	The Jazz Side Of Things	The Classical Side Of Things
1869		Hungarian Dance No. 5 in G minor (Brahms, 1869) - Yehudi Menuhin, p. Adolph Baller - 1947
1902	On Emancipation Day (from In Dahomey, Will Marion Cook & Paul Lawrence Dunbar) - Len Spencer, banjo Vess L. Ossman - 1902
1903	I'm A Jonah Man (from In Dahomey, Will Marion Cook & Paul Lawrence Dunbar) - Arthur Collins - 1903
1904	Smoky Mokes (Cakewalk) - Peerless Orchestra - 1904	Allegro Marcato (Three Pieces) (Frank Bridge, 1904) - Phantasie Quartet - 1994
1905		Bethena (Concert Waltz) (Scott Joplin, 1905) - Joshua Rifkin - 1970
1906		Central Park in the Dark (Ives, 1906) - Vladimir Cherniavsky & the Polymusic Chamber Orchestra - 1951
1908		Golliwogg’s Cakewalk (Debussy, 1908) - Sergei Rachmaninov - 1921
1909		In Dahomey (Cakewalk Smasher) (Percy Grainger, 1909) - Marc-Andre Hamelin - 1996
1910	Dere was a man (from Treemonisha, Scott Joplin, 1910) - Gunther Schuller - 1976
1911		Polka de W.R. for piano in A flat major (Behr arr. Rachmaninov, 1911) - Sergei Rachmaninov - 1929
1914	Swing Along (Will Marion Cook) - The Afro-American Folk Singers - 1914
	Castle House Rag (James Reese Europe) - Europe’s Society Orchestra - 1914
1915		Chinese Blues (1915) - Sousa's Band - 1916
1916	That Funny Jas Band from Dixieland (Edison, first recording) - Collins and Harlan - 1916
1917	That Funny Jas Band from Dixieland (Victor, second recording) - Collins and Harlan - 1917	Rag-time du paquebot (edited) (from Parade, Erik Satie, 1917) - p. Georges Auric & Frances Poulenc - 1937
	Livery Stable Blues - The Original Dixieland Jass Band - 1917
1918		Rag-Time (Stravinsky, 1918) - Marcelle Meyer - 1925
1919	Rose Room - Art Hickman’s Orchestra - 1919	Piano Rag Music (Stravinsky, 1919) - Stravinsky - 1938

Download Part 1: 1800-1909 here.

Download Part 2: 1910-1919 here.

Links of the Month - November 2011

Very much indulging in shellac and that sort of thing this month: a reminder that there are many, many good blogs on 78s at the moment.

Dark Sweets - Soothing Sounds of Shellac for a Long Winter At the top of my list is this delicious compilation of obscure 78s. Even the cassette tape cover art is spot on, in an anachronistic kind of way.

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Symphonies on American Odeon A 1921 recording of Schubert’s 8th Symphony conducted by Eduard Mörike. (The 8th is the Unfinished, for those among us who love classical music but can’t count.)

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Thomas Mann’s Top 12 78rpm Records Alex Ross looks at the Death in Venice and Magic Mountain author’s pick of classical records.

Links of the Month - October 2011

Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition A selection of photographs created using a microscope. The objects are sometimes shown 2000 times their original size.

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Bizarre Love Triangle – Frente Lovely cover of an already beautiful song. The soaring melody is sung against guitar arpeggios.

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The Composer as Accompanist This site posts some astounding classical 78s, including a solo piano piece by John Ireland. The Shellackophile have some really nice pieces.

Wanda Landowska - A Treasury of Harpsichord Music (RCA Victor)

From a beautiful set of 78s showcasing the keyboard works of classical composers.

Prelude, Fugue and Allegro in E-Flat

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Sonata in D (Scarlatti)

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Sonata in Dm (Scarlatti)

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La Dauphine (Rameau)

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Rondo in D (Mozart)

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Turkish March (Mozart) - Menuetto in D

The quality varies from disc to disc, but the playing renders this a venial sin.

Poor Folk: The Old Sow and Ilkla Moor Baht 'At – Traditionals on 78

While it might produce some great song collectors, England has a frustratingly poor record when it comes to actually recording our own folk songs. English-born recordists such as Hugh Tracey and even the great Cecil Sharp often went further afield for their field recordings (to Southern and Central Africa and north America, respectively).

The trend can be seen in America too (Native American songs were recorded as early as 1890), but it is a fact that many of the earliest wax cylinders that could be considered folk music fall into the ethnographic category, with English recordists often casting their nets beyond Europe.

Of course, we have these recordists to thank for capturing on shellac many cultures which have since vanished, but that surprisingly few people found home-grown folk music worth recording is a constant surprise to me.

Leslie Sarony	Albert Richardson

All this is a preamble to these curious recordings. Whenever English singers or composers touch ‘folk’ material, there is often a sense of condescension there; you can be fairly sure the material will either be popularised (embellished with fashionable harmonies or Bowlderised for crudities) or classicised (by being notated and sung by trained singers – the Vaughan Williams approach) in some way.

These recordings are interesting in trying to deal more honestly with their material. They are not field recordings, so they should not be judged as such. But I would say that Richardson’s ‘Old Sow’ is one of the bravest and most successful attempts to produce a folk recording in a studio setting ever captured on shellac.

The Old Sow - Leslie Sarony (and male vocal choir)

This is the version of the song included on compilations such as Vintage Children’s Favourites 1926-1959. It’s given a little tarting up, with a Gilbert & Sullivan-style chorus bookending the song (which works better on Ilkla Moor Baht ’At, below). It rather irritates me, though, that Sarony fails to make some of the lines scan.

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The Old Sow - Albert Richardson, bass (a capella)

In 1929 Zonophone recorded an unaccompanied rendition of the song by a young sexton whose jobs at the time included “bell-ringing, grave-digging and gardening for the Rector”. The song had been around for at least a century, a version of this song dating back to a broadside of 1828. Richardson later claimed that the recording company had refused to include one stanza that began, “Now, these little pigs shit in the farmer’s hat”.

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On Ilkla Moor Baht ’At - Leslie Sarony (and male vocal choir)

Rather a reversal of the old phrase about the devil not having the best tunes, here is an example of a hymn (‘Cranbrook’ by Thomas Clarke) with secular lyrics. I’m rather dubious about Sarony’s Yorkshire accent, but the Gramophone review of 1934 does credit him for his clarity: “for the first time I have heard the words of this classic”.

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Buttercup Joe - Albert Richardson, bass (with piano accompaniment)

Here Richardson sings another folksy song (it has more of an air of music hall parody of folk music) with earthy subject matter. I think the piano is unnecessary, and creates a slightly odd image of a rustic figure standing by a grand piano at odds with the song’s message.

The Magic Wood

A children’s story on 78rpm. Featuring story and music by Harry Phillips, narrated by Frank Phillips, a man possessed of a wonderful, warm voice with an old-RP accent.

The Magic Wood - (T.P.L.)

With Bells On: Novelty Marches and Pieces for Brass

You can hear some marching bands letting their hair down a bit here in some descriptive records, sometimes with attendant sound effects.

01 The Phantom Brigade – The Home Guards Band

If it is possible to be both spooky and sprightly, well, this is.

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02 Baby Parade – Band of H.M. Welsh Guards

Very curious, this one. No idea what picture I am supposed to conjure up, or how they get that baby sound effect.

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03 In the Shadows (with bells) – Reg. Band of H. M. Scots Guards, Cond. Mr. F. W. Wood

A very traditionally structured piece, with some interesting use of tempi, perhaps representing the shadows of the title.

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04 In A Clockmaker’s Shop (Orth) – The Black Diamond Band

Spirited and experimental, as all good novelty marches should be!

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05 The Sunshine of your Smile (cornet solo) – Sgt. Hunt (cornet) & Irish Guards Band

It’s not a march, it’s not a novelty record, and there’s some appalling broadband noise on this one, too, but it’s here because a wonderful piece for brass and that melody is too pure and beautiful to be forgotten (or even to be sung – the lyrics don’t quite live up to the promise of the tune).

Evocations of The Dance - Part II - A Eudora Welty Playlist

If you’re wondering what the first Evocations of the Dance post was, click here to find out.

The opening of Eudora Welty’s Powerhouse (1941) is one of those masterful pieces of writing you come up with in your dreams but which on real paper seems to elude you:

“He’s here on tour from the city – “Powerhouse and His Keyboard” – “Powerhouse and His Tasmanians” – think of the things he calls himself! There’s no one in the world like him. You can’t tell what he is. [...] He’s not coal black – beverage colored – looks like a preacher when his mouth is going every minute: like a monkey’s when it looks for something. Improvising, coming on a light and childish melody – smooch – he loves it with his mouth.”

Whitney Balliett, eat your heart out!

Shortly after reading this we learn that hardly anybody is dancing. Why not?

“It’s a white dance, and nobody dances, except a few straggling jitterbugs and two elderly couples. Everybody just stands around the band and watches Powerhouse. Sometimes they steal glances at one another, as if to say, Of course, you know how it is with them–Negroes–band leaders–they would play the same way, giving all they've got, for an audience of one... When somebody, no matter who, gives everything, it makes people feel ashamed for him.”

Welty is said to have written the story after she had been to a dance in 1940 at which Fats Waller and his band had been playing. Call me avant garde if you like, but I really think there’s something to be gained from listening to the tracks I’m going to post alongside reading the story.

The story is like a jazz solo, riffing and quoting from the songs played that evening. The story explores the complicated relationship between the black performer Powerhouse (based on Waller) and his mixed-race audience. That said, the blend of sweet, trite love songs and ‘hot’ jazz tunes suggests Welty’s expecting the reader to have a familiarity with the subtle musical textures.

Really, I suggest you download these records below and make a playlist to put on while you read the story. You’ll come away astonished at how much the music is part of the texture of the story.

Two Great Albums by Lee Wiley...

...illustrating the two phases of her career.

A Ship Without A Sail Down With Love Glad To Be Unhappy Moanin’ in the Mornin’ Stormy Weather You Said It You Took Advantage of Me

from I've Got the World on a String (1930 & 1935)

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The Memphis Blues From The Land Of The Sky Blue Water The Ace In The Hole Someday You'll Be Sorry My Melancholy Baby A Hundred Years From Today Make Believe

from A Touch of the Blues (1957)

Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (Vaughan Williams) - The BBC Symphony Orchestra, cond. Sir Adrian Boult

Even on a fairly crackly 78 this is a fascinating record. Well done, that man.

Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (Vaughan Williams) - The BBC Symphony Orchestra, cond. Sir Adrian Boult (1940)

Note for readers

I’ve just updated our links page, including some interesting links to historical classical recording such as this.

Also, I've decided to do a ‘Best of The Web’ thing at the end of every month now, starting with this month.

Ambrose - A Tribute to Cole Porter

Sam Browne, Anne Shelton and Evelyn Dall sing to these stylish orchestrations from the Porter songbook.

Anne Shelton has been featured at MMM before here and here. I didn't realise I had such a thing for her.

Music Makes Me CD Now Available - 78

For those who like the crackly old records posted here, I’ve just had a load of fun putting a CD together of 78s. Some have been featured on the site, while others are either recent purchases or little gems I’ve been saving for just such an occasion.

You buy it through Lulu. I’ve kept the price almost at the base rate, so you’re only really paying for postage and packaging. It’s a nice product with all the cute liner notes you’d expect; something that complements what I do on the site.

Underdogs: The 5 Least Popular Posts on Music Makes Me

Self-publicising crap is a real bugbear of mine. Pages like this and this, shamelessly trumpeting their own content, are such a bore. There’s no way I’m doing a ‘Best-Of-2010’-style post anymore. That’s so 2009.

So, in a break from tradition, I’m presenting the least popular pages on the site. Inexplicably, the following five posts are the least visited on the site! (Of course, you can rectify this travesty by visiting them now!)

	Four pieces on 78 by unknown French pianist I wish I knew about these records, with their handwritten labels, made on the French Pyral label, but apart from the fact that these are well-known practice pieces, I still have had no suggestions.
	Wild Hills O’Wannie - The Small Pipes of Northumbria Showcasing the beautiful timbre of the Northumbrian pipes, quite different in tone to their cousin, the bagpipe.
	Simon Turner OK, I bought it for the hilarious liner notes (reproduced here for your amusement), but the tunes aren’t too bad, either.
	Alec Wilder & American Popular Song A rambunctious, scholarly, tendentious and often funny account of the phenomenon of the American Songbook. It’s a marvellous introduction and a deeply insightful companion to the works of Gershwin, Porter, Mercer, Kern and Berlin. Featuring a couple of beautiful songs written by Wilder.
	Ronald Frankau’s WWII propaganda Features a PDF of Frankau’s propaganda-poem He’s A Perfect Little Gentleman – The Swine! and a couple of smutty songs.

Burns Night (2011) - The Hills of Glenswilly

I've had my haggis. Now time for the whisky.

As an Englishman, it's hard to judge how wrong it would be to put out an Irish song on Burns Night. Well, I've run out of Scottish 78s, and I thought this was (the word ‘Glen’ tricked me), so this will have to do. I've wanted to post it for a while anyway.

The Hills of Glenswilly - John McGettigan & His Irish Minstrels

Have to admit I bought this for the innuendo potential, but it's a nice, if maudlin, little record.

It may put noses out of joint, but then I can always point you to all my previous Burns posts here! That should shut ye up!

Four Last Songs (1937-1958) - I

It took me half of a Sunday to do it, but after I had hatched the idea of a punning collection of last songs by various composers of popular music^*, I racked my brains (and the Internet) and came up with four decent last songs.

A 78s Podcast - Volume II

*A CD comprised entirely of rare and unusual 78s is now available here!*

My second attempt to become the Jive Bunny of shellac. This mix contains some of the best of the 78s already featured on the site and a few I've yet to post. It swerves from low comedy to classical and back again pretty abruptly, but it gives you a sense of what we offer here on the site.

That's Delia Murphy. She sings the track ‘Spinning Wheel’, which I had hoped would be a precursor to the Peggy Lee song, but exceeded my expectations by some distance. In fact, her style is more of an Irish precursor to the ringing diction of Mabel Mercer.

The Obscenity of Jelly Roll Morton

Jelly Roll Morton's 'Make Me A Pallet on Your Floor' is a 13-minute phantasmagoric blues prefiguring the sexual fantasies of Gangsta rap. Morton's famous bravado is here at its most untrammelled. Morton esteems his own prowess, issues commands, threats, and swears. A lot.

This latter fact alone will put a lot of people off, but if you can get past this, it's a fascinating document.

I don't believe I would have otherwise come across the beautiful comparative adjective 'fuckingest', as in 'You the fuckingest bitch, baby, I ever met'.

But the lyric that clinches it, for me, is the following:

Now listen to this baby:


Make Me A Pallet on Your Floor

Now imagine it's 1938. Lomax watches impassively as Morton pushes the song into evermore uncommercial territory. Listen for that lovely moment when Morton coughs and exclaims on the quality of the whiskey Lomax has given him.

(Note: this is my own edit of the recordings, which you'll find are split into tracks on the box set. As far as I can tell, there's no reason for them not to be edited together except the slightly uneven quality of the recordings.)

New Val Rosing Collection - Try A Little Tenderness

Great news. I've just had an email informing me of the release of a new CD to honour the centenary of the British crooner Val Rosing, aka Gilbert Russell*.

It's called Try A Little Tenderness (and yes, he was the first to sing that song made famous by Bing Crosby a year later and Otis Redding much, much later) and you can get it here.

RELATED POSTS

Vladimir Rosing - Mussorgsky Song Cycle Val's father was a very distinctive opera singer.

British Singers Tackle US Pop Hits Val is among those showing the Yanks (I'm vainly trying to summon that patriotism of the Thirties!) that we can swing just as hard as they can.

*As he was known when he sought fame in the United States.

A 78s Playlist (The Nine Best 78s on Music Makes Me)

*A CD comprised entirely of rare and unusual 78s is now available here!*

I've got a present for you. It's a 45-minute playlist to introduce you to the 78s available on the site.

Music Makes Me - A 78s Playlist

There's some comedy, melodrama, protest, classical, swing, popular song, folk and, some, well, bagpipes.

Think of it as a lovingly made mixtape, one that might encourage you to find more about the site and the artists presented (click here to see the tracklist).

01 Blue Danube - International Concert Orchestra, HMV
02 The Lost Chord - Webster Booth
03 The Perpetual Laugh - Charles Jolley
04 Beneath the White Texas Moon - G. H. Elliot
05 Ave Maria - J. H. Squire Celeste Octet
06 Strange Fruit - Aubrey Pankey
07 The Hills of Glenswilly, v. John McGettigan & His Irish Minstrels (Regal Zonophone)
08 Sandy's Honeymoon (Pts. I & II)- Sandy Powell
09 Mean to Me - Alfredo & his Orchestra
10 Au clair de lune - Benno Moiseiwitsch
11 This is Heaven - Talbot O'Farrell
12 Flowers of the Forest - Pipe-Major Forsythe
13 Bop Goes the Weasel - Tommy Reilly

And if you like that sort of thing - shellac, 78s, pre-vinyl scratchy records - if broadband noise is no obstacle to your aural enjoyment, then I present you with the best 78s posts Music Makes Me has to offer...

Panorama of French Chanson 1928-1957

A double album of beautiful ballads, including the original 'Mon Homme', now a staple of the American Songbook. And Josephine Baker. Wow.