Posted in Country Music, Rock, Lennon and McCartney on Aug 31st, 2008 No Comments »
Here’s another version of a Lennon and McCartney song that I offer in confirmation of my thesis that their best versions are not by the Beatles. This is Emmy Lou Harris.
Posted in Jazz on Aug 29th, 2008 2 Comments »
One of my first posts on jazz here was about this classic recording of mainstream jazz. It was recorded in December 1953 as a jam session by a band led by trumpeter Buck Clayton. The other members of the band were trumpeter Joe Newman, trombonists Urbie Green and Henderson Chambers, Charlie Fowlkes on baritone sax. The rhythm section was Count Basie’s – without Count Basie – Freddie Green on guitar, Walter Page on bass, Jo Jones on drums. ‘Sir’ Charles Thompson was on piano and he composed the piece. You have to bear in mind what was happening in modern jazz at the time. That febrile, nervy and essentially neurotic music called bebop had swept the classic and swing jazz of Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Count Basie, Lester Young into the dustbin of history. That was the intention. Well, it hadn’t - any more than Wagner swept Mozart into oblivion. Classical values endure. And here it is - composed, relaxed, comfortable and at ease with itself. Not all art is revolutionary - and the best often isn’t.
Posted in Classical on Aug 28th, 2008 No Comments »
If, before facing the hangman’s noose, I had to choose one slow movement in all chamber music to hear as my final musical farewell to this world, it would be from Beethoven’s Archduke Trio. If, however, I was given a last minute reprieve and then asked to choose another slow movement to express my relief and joy at my return to the world of the living it would be this - from Brahms Piano Quartet No. 1. Here it is played by Gyorgy Pauk (violin), Nabuko Imai (viola), Ralph Kirshbaum, (cello), Peter Frankl (piano) from a concert I attended at St John’s, Smith Square, on 10 January 1982.
Posted in Folk Music, Rock on Aug 25th, 2008 No Comments »
An intense, insistent and hypnotic version of this tragic and vicious ballad from Fairport Convention. The late Sandy Denny’s deadpan vocal suits it perfectly. Dave Swarbrick on banshee wailing violin, Richard Thompson’s guitar crackling with electricity.
“I’d rather a kiss from dead Matty’s lips than you with your finery” before being skewered to the wall.
The coda is a long instrumental, an improvised duet between Swarbrick and Thompson, a tribute to their close musical relationship in the band, cranking up the tension.
Posted in Jazz on Aug 25th, 2008 No Comments »
This is one of those odd jazz encounters between two men whom you wouldn’t ever expect to share the same stage - Ian Wheeler, traditional jazz clarinettist, and Joe Harriott, avant-garde alto sax player, England’s answer to Ornette Coleman. They are accompanied by a rhythm section of banjo, bass and drums. To try and get a sense of its oddity, imagine John Coltrane playing with Eddie Condon’s Dixieland Band or the Firehouse Five plus Two. But it works and it’s’wonderful. Listen to them chase each other round and round this Gershwin tune, Wheeler the more outgoing, Harriot more introspective. I wrote my original appreciation of this 1961 concert recording here.
Posted in Classical on Aug 22nd, 2008 No Comments »
Following on from my previous, I was intending to post something from the Well Tempered Clavier played by Wilhelm Kempff on the piano. Alas my vinyl recording is worn and hasn’t transfered to digital well. So here, as a more than adequate substitute is Alfred Brendel playing the lovely Andante from the Italian Concerto. Imagine, as you listen, this being played tinnily, plinkety-plink, on the harpsichord and acknowledge how much better and fuller, to our ears, it is, played so well, on the modern piano.
Posted in Folk Music, Classical, Rock, Lennon and McCartney on Aug 22nd, 2008 No Comments »
I’m pretty much set against authenticity in music - the idea that the only way to play a piece of music is by replicating the conditions under which it was originally played. So we get whinnying valveless trumpets, catgut wailing violins and any keyboard piece before 1780 played on that instrument guaranteed (like a nail across a blackboard) to set my teeth on edge - the harpsichord. The best version of the Well Tempered Clavier is by Wilhelm Kempff, played on the piano.
By the same token the best versions of songs aren’t always by the originals. I think this is particularly so with Lennon and McCartney songs. In many cases the Beatles did them worst - naive top-of-the-voice vocalising, clanging guitars, primitive bass and Ringo’s thumping-headache drums.
Here’s an example of one done better - Maura O’Connell singing I Will. Heaps better than McCartney.
Posted in Rock on Aug 16th, 2008 No Comments »
I have no excuse - ever - for forgetting my wedding anniversary. Ann and I were married on 16 August 1977 - the day Elvis died. Here’s an Elvis song from his best, early period (that is, before he went into the army) in memory of that event - and of the man himself.
Posted in Folk Music on Aug 15th, 2008 6 Comments »
I’m not sure if this is a Scottish or an Irish song (I’m inclined to thinking it Scots) but this is a superb version by the Black Family. Mary Black takes the lead vocal, but the effect is in the chorus when they all join in. It’s a universal song about what we all know - that new love is always sweeter than true love.
Posted in Folk Music on Aug 13th, 2008 No Comments »
For me this is one of the most dramatic and tragic songs ever recorded by The Corries. It never fails to move me. In part it is because of the simple direct singing of the late Roy Williamson but in part too by the dramatic colour given by the instruments played by Roy and Ronnie Browne. These are Combolins, hybrid instruments, designed and made by Roy Williamson himself. The two instruments aren’t the same - the one played by Roy comprises guitar strings and some thirteen extra strings which act as a drone. Ronnie’s instrument is a combination of mandolin and guitar with an additional four bass strings.
The song is an ancient Scottish ballad about love and vengeance. I have written a fuller appreciation of the song here.
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