Thursday's my day off, as much as anyone like me can have a day off. So I was enjoying a little of the legendary George Duke keyboard jazz on You Tube whilst having a leisurely brunch when I happened across the wonderful clip that follows. I kinda think of it as George Duke Rhode testing the Rhodes at a Rhodeshow.
Well since I had mentioned the Fender Rhodes during a recent post I figured that I better put this baby on the blog before it became one of the many subjects that I was gonna post about but just, well, I guess, this white boy just gets lost in the blues; he don't know where he been nor how to get back.
My daughter recently purchased one of those iPod dock thingiis that amplify your mp3 music. Man that thing makes a racket ... a criminal racket.
Which, although it has nothing to do with anything, brings us to Elisabeth Katmandoo
Well, actually, it's Elisabeth Kontomanou but I can't pronounce that name let alone remember it, so Katmandoo it's gonna be. (Con-tom-a-no?)
This lady's vocals are strong and vibrant, but it's her sense of rhythm that gets to me, she can be in and out of a whole mix of rhythms like it ain't nobody's business, and she pulls it off every time ... flawlessly.
Trouble, though, with this 'Lisbeth lady is that YouTube, which I utilise to "demonstrate my point" on certain musical topics, has like zilch Elisabeth Kontomanou clips that I can track down apart from this 12 second clip below. Well, anything's better 'n nuffin' I guess, but since my friend Gary likes the blues, and I mean like there's a whole world of blues out there like everyone is already aware of, electric, acoustic, avant g... ah forget it, but you see we's Sonic Explorers, bringin' you the best of the rest so God Hisself don't know where we likely t' end up.
Ace of Clubs
In 1965 (thereabouts) I bought one of those cheaper label Ace of Clubs blues compilation records on glorious twelve inch vinyl (no, I wasn't buying bakelite, I'm not really that old). The Ace of Clubs label was a bit obscure t' ordinary folk but all the blues fans knew it well. It's possible you might remember that John Mayall's "The Blues Alone" was first released on Ace of Clubs.
Anyhow, to cut a long rave in half, this blues compilation record had a few tracks of the unforgettable Otis Spann. Till then, I'd never really heard of the man, since then, I never forgot him.
I think you're gonna like this ...
First, the whole 12 seconds of the Kat lady ... followed by Otis Spann.
Those who, like me, are affectionados of the Bladerunner movie, will need no introduction to today's post, especially if you're already a devotee of the Greek synth master, Vangelis.
Attack ships burning off the shoulder of Orion
Everyone else, please take off your shoes, settle back, roll up a mind expanding diploma of Web Development, inhale deeply and let your mind soar to the the strains of the hauntingly beautiful, rich harmonic sweetness of Rachel's Song, closely followed by the almost bizarre, technically oriented, otherworld lament, "Tales of the Future".
Vangelis - Rachel's Song
Vangelis - Tales of the Future
Joy to all beings (including all fellow replicants) as together we explore the rich emotions rampant within the inner space of the matrix within the matrix within the matrix ... cha terrence
I love the way this song builds from madness to compounded madness. You know I once had a neighbour who had a Siamese cat. I asked her what the cat's name was and she replied "Merlin".
Well, she's a New Zealander and y'know the slightly funny way they speak. Plus the fact that I am half deaf. For months I called that cat Melon till Verity (another neighbour) called it Merlin one day and I twigged. That cat was so in and out of everybody's house it was hard to tell who actually owned it. Finally it moved away and took it's owner with it. Poor Melon fancy having a dumb name like Merlin.
I tend to find the best artists by checking out who the best bassists are playing with and my favourite bassist is ... no prizes if you guessed Lars Danielsson.
Of course there are plenty of other fine bassists, more on them later.
So, I guess after the last post, no not "The Last Post", the last post I made to this Sonic Explored blog, it is abundantly apparent that there is more to a remarkable tune than just emotion, although I do believe that emotion does play a significant role. Other things to take into account may well be skill, energy, passion, belief in oneself and one's ability to write and perform, etc.
And speaking of emotion and skill in one breath brings us to today's "victim", Yanni. Yanni has long been a favourite of mine since my ex-wife first played her Yanni record for me back in the last century. Later, it was with great delight that I watched Yanni perform the fabulous music extravaganza "Live at the Acropolis" which, incidentally is deemed to be the second best selling music video of all time.
During the concert, Yanni spoke of astronauts who have observed planet Earth whilst in orbit. He was quick to point out that the astronauts said that the Earth looked very beautiful from "up there" but that even though it was easy to see the different countries, it was difficult to tell where one country ended and another began because there were no lines drawn on the Earth like there are on a map.
Yanni's belief in the brotherhood of man and his quest to remind people that we all belong to each other regardless of the country of our birth together with his efforts toward fund raising for public broadcasting has earned him the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from the University of Minnesota, where Yanni studied as a young man.
When I see him and hear his exquisite music I wonder if he isn't some demigod sent to Earth to teach us lowly humans to be more loving and kind to each other. If the beauty of his heart is even remotely like the beauty of his music, I think that we could all learn much from Yanni's loving nature.
Yanni - One Man's Dream
From: Live at the Acropolis
If you don't have the opportunity to hear the entire Acropolis performance
also recommended:
Nostalgia
In this clip Yanni actually mentions the word emotion, albeit in Greek
Not your kettle of fish? Want something more upbeat?
The lyrics to this song are especially important to anyone involved in a personal relationship with another human being. This guy so aptly and so poetically sums up many of the pitfalls.
Try this one: unfortunately, embedding has been disabled but you can view the clip on YouTube at:
One blogger was "lamenting" the fact that music blogs all post about the musicians rather than the music. I left a comment on his blog to the effect that "It's the singer not the song".
I mean, what are we supposed to do? Nice tune. Key of Gm. Begins with a Cm7 for a couple of bars and then moves on to F7 for a while and finally to Bflat-maj7. The initial little arpeggio begins at ...
What the heck?
Nevertheless, there is some truth in what that blogger posted, so much so that I pondered it often but didn't come to any immediate conclusions till one day when I was listening to Australian virtuoso guitarist Frank Gimbale and thought to myself, "Whilst I don't dislike anything you're playing Frank, and you've tuned your guitar in such a way as to permit you new and exciting expressions, but you're still using a lot of the same old tried and true moves you normally would".
So I was prompted to wonder what it is that makes a tune truly unique, like Lennon and McCartney's Yesterday, Van Morrisson's Moondance, Page/Plant Stairway to Heaven, John Mayall's Room to Move, Gershwin's Summertime, Roland Kirk Seranade to a Cuckoo ... the list goes on. You know the kind of music I mean. Not just another song but distinctly unforgettable.
I thought long and hard and eventually came to the conclusion that it is purely the emotional content of the tune. Emotion, after all, is what music is all about. What else is being communicated?
Music can be composed "digitally" and by this I mean clinically, mathematically, but without emotion it always sounds as if it was composed by a machine, lifeless like a salt lake on a hot Sunday arvi.
This explains to me why some tunes sound as if they're played by robots using human's instruments. Of course robots should play robots instruments to capture the "soul" of the robot. (I love you R2D2, come home to the battery bank). A lot of shred and fusion guitar can fall into this trap, like a machine practicing its scales.
This brings me to the point wherein the late, great Frank Zappa enters the dialogue (you know you're getting old when lots of the acts that inspire you can be described as late, great). It's difficult for me to think of anything that Zappa wrote that is especially unique.
Hot Rats? Black Napkins? Extremely nice music. In fact all serious music written/played by Zappa is nothing short of spectacular. I saw Frank play Chunga's Revenge from about 3 metres away during an encore in Sydney the 1970s. Awesome is a serious understatement. This guy was nothing short of amazing. During that concert Zappa, talked to the audience, conducted the "orchestra", sang and played the guitar, and all somewhat simultaneously.
To add to this, Zappa was unbelievable prodigious in his writing. His discography is epic in proportion. Frank must've written in his sleep, in the shower, whilst praying (somehow I can't imagine Frank Zappa praying although anything's possible).
The Crux of the Biscuit is the Apostrophe!
So having said that music is all about emotion and then that F. V. Zappa didn't produce anything extraordinary, despite the possibility that everything he ever played was extraordinary I am left wondering just what is the soul of music?
I haven't come any closer to the truth, and remain totally undecided. That's my lack of opinion and I'm stickin' to it.
As I rest my inconclusive "case" I leave you with a virtuoso version of Stairway to Heaven that just reeks of emotion.
Perhaps there's nothing better than a dichotomous enigma, despite all of the opinionated opinionation.
Please enjoy: Stairway to Heaven live (Rodrigo y Gabriela)
Nyaa-aa didn't expect that did ya. I'll bet you thought I'd put Zappa here.
Oh alright ... the emotional sound of Frank Zappa .........
I probably should have included Frank Zappa in that last post, almost sacreligious of me to omit him, but, Zappa and I have always had a love/hate relationship.
Shut Up and Play Yer Guitar
Zappa was a brilliant composer and musician, no doubt about that, but Zappa displayed something that was to me, totally incomprehensible.
Zappa had such over the top ego (megalomania?) that he appeared to belittle his audience, so much disrespect for his listeners, almost contempt, and smut, often funny but not what I would pay for although who could forget such memorable lines as "Fuck, I'm gonna need a truss".
I can truly understand why people would request him to shut up and play.
Zappa at his best was fabulous. At his worst a disgusting bore. But his post isn't actually about Zappa, it's about Daevid Allen.
I think that Daevid has a wonderful command of music and can really create amazing tunes, yet, a bit like Zappa, he seems to sing such childish songs, like nursery rhymes. To make matters worse, unlike Zappa, Daevid's not much of a guitarist. Better than me but that's not difficult to do, a 3 year old can out play me.
Just go to this fabbiatti website and listen for yourself and make up your own mind.
My friend Mitsuo (you might have seen Mitsuo doing pick jockey stuff behind a Gibson Les Paul) likes Daevid (and Gong) but I don't get off on Daeve or Gong much at all, thus to quote Zappa, "I was not impressed".
On the other hand I recently saw Daevid Allen do a 10 miniute slot with Kangaroo Moon during their recent concert down at Mullumbimby. Daevid's skat was full on and amazingly energetic (and this guy's 70 years old), not to mention extremely entertaining. Daevid Allen's cameo was a definite highlight of a really wonderful concert.
Anyway you make up your own mind about Daevid. On the other hand, I can, and do, sincerely recommend Kangaroo Moon. Aw fanks Micro.
Easter is a great time of year since it occurs in the Autumn, at least here in the southern hemisphere. Happy Easter to everybody.
In the 1970s although I had heard and was reasonably familiar with such jazz greats as Oscar Peterson, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Dave Brubeck, etc, even a few lesser entities such as Jeremy Stieg and the amazing Albert Ayler (I had a really nice Jeremy Stieg album back in those days), I was undeniably a rock fan although not died in the wool, fickle creature I am. More on jazz in the '70s in a later post(s), I pwomise.
Jarrett Consciousness
Back in them days (to paraphrase myself) most of my musical gluttony was appeased by the sound of the electric strings of such names as Hendrix, Bloomfield, Blackmore, Page, Santana, West, Harrison, Winter, to name a few, so the brilliance of Miles Davis was OK but not something I though about very much (our subject played piano for Miles), although once I became aware of the cool sound of the Fender Rhodes I tended to drift away from guitar music for longer and longer sojourns.
NB: the Fender Rhodes, possibly best described as an electric piano as distinct from an electronic piano, one could write a whole blog on the Fender Rhodes. So it's little wonder that I didn't actually become clearly conscious of Keith Jarrett till 1978 when I had a flat mate who had one of those amazing hi-fi stereo systems; you know the sort, they cost many thousands of dollars and had speakers big as coffins, separate pre-amp, blackbox amplifier with totally minimlistic markings that only affectionados could recognise for what it is, state of the art turntable, et-bloody-cetera. Green is the colour of envy.
Perhaps Jim wasn't as Young as Neil
Although Jim didn't particularly like us playing rock on his system, more to do with his stylus than anything, you shoulda heard Neil Young's "Like a Hurricane" on Jim's system. Unforgettable.
Well, Jim loved Keith Jarrett, and played quite a lot of his solo piano, but it wasn't actually until 1995 when I listened to a borrowed copy of Jarrett's Koln Concert that I actually became hooked on Jarrett. I very soon had my own copy of the Koln Concert and utilised it as an evening wind down, calm down, take 100 deep breaths and relax, focus back on reality ... device.
Nowadays, my experience of Keith Jarrett has extended to a plethora of hours listening to multiple Jarrett albums. I love this guy's playing although I couldn't tell you which tune is which most of the time.
Milk and Two Sugars Please, Standard
Yep, that's a standard, but that's not the kind of standard I mean here. The song itself (Autumn Leaves) , originally written in the 1940's by some French guys (one a poet, the other a musician) and initially entitled "The Dead Leaves" has become a jazz standard of considerable note (pun intentionally unintentional as usual), and was featured as the title song of the the movie, you guessed it, Autumn Leaves, sung by the late, great Nat King Cole.
Before Keith "rips into it" as Keith tends to do with tunes playable on the piano, and quite a few that aren't playable on the piano, just have a listen to the tune itself. Such an elegant, almost simplistic, display of emotion.
A cross between Jimmy Hendrix and Jade Warrior, I guess.
The great guitarist Terje Rydpal often plays such long atmospheric pieces, and very nice I might add, but I happened across this short piece played on guitar synthesizer. Well worth a listen if you like music and especially if you like guitars.
tarunkrsnadas is a sub-kanistha disciple of His Divine Grace Srila Narayana Maharaja.
Lacking in all good qualities, I struggle to become a Vaisnava devotee of Sri Sri Radhe Radha-Ramana.
Sometimes failing miserably, I can only rely on the hope and inspiration I get from my Godbrothers and Godsisters. If that's not there I fall into hell.
