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.

Danby and the Sparrows’ Nest – Historic Rotherhithe Organ – Nicholas Danby (1960-1970)

Two organ pieces by English composers of different eras. If you like the sound of an eighteenth-century English organ untainted by German influence, this will be your sort of thing.

Gramophone, again, is quite helpful here:

Noel Mander’s sympathetic restoration ten years ago in no way changed its tonal qualities, and it remains an instrument of great historic interest and beauty. The trumpet is quite as good as any continental reeds of the period, although completely English in treatment; the cremona has an authentic krummhorn flavour. The diapason chorus is wonderfully full, clear and ringing, and Cecil Clutton believes it to be one of the finest to be heard in London. The cornet is a splendid specimen: a five rank solo stop consisting of a stopped eight-foot rank, principal twelfth, fifteenth and seventeenth, with a compass from middle C upwards.

Oh, OK, that meant almost nothing to me, but here is one detail that does: if you listen carefully, in the quieter passages of the Fantasia you can hear the tweeting of nesting sparrows. These sparrows were immune to the efforts of the recording engineers, and so remain a part of this recording, as they should.

Fantasia for Double Organ (Orlando Gibbons) (1583-1625)

Air & Gavotte (Samuel Wesley) (1766-1873)

Timbre! Unusual Instrumentation Playlist - Vol. I

Timbre, as Frank Zappa says in the Real Frank Zappa Book, is everything. But it’s also confusing. To a Westerner, the sitar eternally signifies the mysterious allure of the East, while – as Talvin Singh once pointed out – ‘in Bombay, an electric guitar is exotic’. Why is this?

ABOVE: A rare and dangerous example of the urethra flute.

This playlist argues that context, rather than the instrument itself, is the key. I hope to demonstrate this by putting fifteen instruments in an unexpected context.

It’s a playlist that plunges into the world of exotic tones with a banjo in one hand and an ocarina in the other, and comes out the other side with a sore head, yodelling.

It would be doing the merely obvious
to include such gimmicky instruments
as the trapezoidal harp (ABOVE).

I have deliberately steered clear of the more familiar examples of instruments being used in an unusual context. Much as I love the sitar on the Beatles’ Norwegian Wood, or Jethro Tull’s use of rock flute, and the whole of the Tubular Bells album, I’m looking here for juxtapositions of timbre that still have the power to surprise.

I hope you find yourself marvelling at the sound of a violin screeching across a dub track, or a sousaphone powering an rock tune, as much as I did.

Jungle Flute – Don Tracy & the Voodoo Family

Flute

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(Dance to the Music of) The Ocarina – Irving Berlin

Ocarina

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The Twisted Nerve – Bernard Hermann

Harp

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Jan Pahechan ho – Mohammed Rafi

Electric guitar

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Got a Match – Frank Gallop

Harpsichord

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I Touch Myself – Rolf Harris

Wobble board

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A Day In The Life – The Koto Ensemble

Koto

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K.G.’s Half Way Tree – Augustus Pablo & The Simplicity People

Violin

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Yaman (The Colonel’s Lady) – The Indo-British Ensemble

Sitar

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Donna Lee – Tom Slavicek

Banjo

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Prodigy Medley – The Banana Sessions

Sousaphone

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Take Five – Cayman Islands Steel Pan Jazz Trio

Steel pans

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Bag’s Groove – Leon Thomas

The yodel

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Oboe Mambo – Machito And His Afro-Cuban Orchestra

Oboe

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It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock ’N’ Roll) – AC/DC

Bagpipes

Timbre! Unusual Instrumentation Podcast – Vol. I

 
If you can suggest any more for the next playlist, please leave a comment or contact me.

Oh, and have a happy new year!

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.

A Concert-in-a Turn - The Honris (Narrated by Peter Honri) (1974)

This post gives those with an interest in the history of music hall a chance to sample a wonderful book about the remarkable Honri family. It’s called Working the Halls by Peter Honri. Like many such books on the subject, it’s now out of print, but this post is a chance for you to read a few excerpts and listen to tracks from the accompanying flexidisc, called Concert-in-a Turn.

ABOVE: Sickert’s Old-Fashioned Mother Of Mine, a portrait of Talbot O’Farrell, in etching and pastel form, respectively.

It features a loving preface (or ‘Overture’) by Spike Milligan which laments the fact that “a few etchings and paintings by Sickert are the only colourful evidence we have of a great age”, a period “that began with gas-lit stages and ended in the tense days before World War II”.

Sickert’s Brighton Pierrots

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.

The Astonishing Sound of the CORDOVOX - Mike Timoney (1971)

I’m a big fan of accordions, so I knew I had to have this. I was nonetheless perturbed by a perusal of the liner notes:

Many musicians who’ve gone over to electronics have tended to use them for either novelty or bizarre effects. Not so Mike Timoney; he displays restraint, discretion and impeccable taste.

If you’re a regular reader of this site, you can imagine how my heart sank.

Turns out Timoney is an accordion prodigy who, when he saw this Leslie-speaker-clad beast, had to have one — at a cost of over £2,000.

I mean, look at some of this kit:
The album’s got some weird programming (‘Whiter Shade of Pale’ AND ‘Je T’aime’ on the same record?), but two tracks amused me enough to rip and here they are:

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly (Theme)

Wheels

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.

Impact - The Exciting World of Stereo Sound (1968)

Amazingly, this stereo showcase compilation still sounds quite innovative. (Is anyone still doing stereo experimentation, or is it all 4.1. Surround Sound ?)

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...

Dido and Aeneas - Kirsten Flagstad & Elisabeth Schwarzkopf

Even though taken from 78s, this vinyl transfer sounds superb and has much more than the devastating 'Dido's Lament' to recommend it.

Act 1 - Dido's Court - Kirsten Flagstad & Elisabeth Schwarzkopf

Act 2 - The Cave of the Sorceress; A Grove During a Hunt - Kirsten Flagstad & Elisabeth Schwarzkopf

Act 3 - The Harbour at Carthage; The Palace - Kirsten Flagstad & Elisabeth Schwarzkopf

Mussorgsky Song Cycle - Vladimir Rosing

 

Mussorgsky Song Cycle - Vladimir Rosing (Myers Foggin, piano)

I'm already in love with Rosing's rich, colourful voice, and this song cycle really demonstrates his range, but is anyone able translate the titles of the songs from the Russian for me?

Song Titles in Russian/Cyrillic

1-я сторона: Песни и пляски смерти, вокальный цикл (М. П. Мусоргский — А. Голенищева-Кутузова) № 1—4:

1. Колыбельная; 2. Серенада; 3. Трепак; 4. Полководец.

5. Забытый, баллада (М. П. Мусоргский — А. Голенищева-Кутузова);

6. Светик Савишна (сл. и муз. М. П. Мусоргского);

7. Гопак (М. П. Мусоргский — Т. Г. Шевченко, перевод Л. Мея).

2-я сторона:

1. Колыбельная Еремушки (М. П. Мусоргский — Н. А. Некрасов);

2. Сиротка (сл. и муз. М. П. Мусоргского);

3. По грибы (М. П. Мусоргский — Л. Мей);

4. Где ты, звёздочка, № 1 из цикла «Юные годы» (М. П. Мусоргский — Н. Греков);

5. Днепр (М. П. Мусоргский — Т. Г. Шевченко, перевод Л. Мея);

6. Козел, светская сказочка (сл. и муз. М. П. Мусоргского);

7. Блоха, песня Мефистофеля из трагедии И. В. Гёте «Фауст» (М. П. Мусоргский. Перевод А. Струговщикова)

P.S. You can hear Rosing's son Val crooning in my post of British singers from the 1930s.

More Classical 78s - Piano and 'Cello curiosities

Harlequinade (Popper)

The Broken Melody (Van Biene)

(See the relevant tags below to explore our other classical 78rpm records.)

Bach and Arthur Sullivan at 78rpm

Three 78s featuring classical repertoire.

First of all, a quirky rendering of the Bach-Gounod 'Ave Maria' on Celestes from the monocled chap on the left:


Ave Maria -  J. H. Squire Celeste Octet

Then the final chorus of the St Matthew Passion, In Tears of Grief:

Final chorus, In tears of grief, No. 78, pts 1&2, St Matthew Passion, harps. Dr. Thornton Lofthouse, the Bach Choir and the Jacques orchestra

And for afters, a song I'd never given a thought to until I heard this soaring Webster Booth version. At one point his singing does make my needle jump off the turntable, but I can forgive him because it's such a good record.


The Lost Chord - Webster Booth

You might not believe me, but I had never guessed that there was real trauma underlying the song, as described here.

For images, visit Organ Grinder's Monkey Blog.

More Gigli

Having posted some Neapolitan songs as sung by this incredible tenor before, here he is singing O Sole Mio. (I can't be bothered with that 'who's-the-greatest-tenor' debate, but feel free to tell me if you know of a better one.)

O Sole Mio

Go to the other Gigli post - Neapolitan Songs.

A Stravinsky Moment: Paul Patterson's Time Piece

Have you ever listened to a piece of music that you thought was fantastic but did not satisfy your usual musical tastes?

I suppose I must seek this experience out. When it happens, I savour it. When I discovered The Rite of Spring when I was 15, it was unlike anything I'd heard before. But still I kept listening to it again and again, savouring a newness, which, paradoxically, never wore off.

We have a few phrases for things that require a recalibration of our aesthetic: a work may signal a "paradigm shift"; we can label it "genre-transcending"; or, with a touch of apathy, we label it labelless: "sui generis". These are unsatisfactory descriptions because they're reductive: taste is rarely collective.

So I find myself in a bind with Paul Patterson's 'Time Piece': I am left, 15 years later, with nothing more insightful to say than that I'm having another Stravinsky moment.


Time Piece - The King's Singers (Paul Patterson, words by Tim Rose-Price)

Read the lyrics here.

Bagpipe 78s

As is to compensate for their otherwise insalubrious timbre, it seems that the tone of the bagpipes are relatively unaffected by the broadband noise you get on a lot of 78s.

I'll put my neck out and wager that Pipe-Major Forsythe makes the most polarising instrument on earth sound quite agreeable.

Flowers of the Forest

The Barren Rocks of Aden

Beniamino Gigli - Two Neapolitan Songs

Two Neapolitan songs from probably their most brilliant interpreter.

Senza nisciuno (Barbieri & E. de Curtis) o. Dino Olivieri, La Scala o. 1934
Varcarola triste (Banderano - Cecconi) o. Vito Carnevali 1949

I have since posted some more Gigli.

Farnham Festival, 1963

From the second side of an LP recorded at the opening of the Farnham Festival on May 13th, 1963, in which the choirs of Farnham Girls' grammar school (in Surrey) sing some charming songs guilelessly for you.

Rather a good way to discover these songs if you don't know them already!

A Spring Carol Sequence (Edmund Rubbra)

Ching-a-ring-chaw (Arr. Copland)

Dirge for Fidelis (Vaughan Williams)

The Pearly Adriatic (Yugoslav Folk Song)

Ted Heath's Au clair de lune

A sedate jazzing of the Debussy.


Au clair de lune - Ted Heath

Cf. the post on Classical 78s

It’s from this album: