Carnaval by Wynton Marsalis (1987)
A Random CD Review from the Stutzman Memorial Library
Carnaval by Wynton Marsalis with the Eastman Wind Ensemble (Conducted by Donald Hunsberger) (1987)
It’s no secret on this site that I am a Wynton Marsalis fan. His legend looms large in my early musical education. Every trumpet player, at some point, has to come to terms with Wynton. There are two streams of criticism commonly issued forth about Marsalis. One comes from college trumpet teachers and similar brass music snobs: they dislike him for having the gall to play in the jazz idiom as well as in the classical world. The most snobbish of snobby trumpet players I’ve known have had all kinds of bad things to say about his technique, knowledge and supposed attitude. (I think there is also a little suspicion of his international fame as well.) All of their pronouncements on his technical ability really went in one ear and out the other for me, for I have always been a music-lover first, musician second and trumpet player…well, about fifty-sixth.
The other criticism commonly lodged at Wynton is that, as a jazz musician, he is too conservative, stylistically-speaking. His music sounds as if the jazz of the seventies and eighties never happened. (If only that were the case! For that was the period of jazz’s great identity crisis, from which it doesn’t seem to have ever recovered.) I was surprised to learn in his book that his first band was actually a funk-fusion band. Obviously, he abandoned that aesthetic.
Anyway, this
Carnaval album is one that is sure to make both groups of critics unhappy. What we have here is a collection of standards from the era when the cornet was a solo instrument in vogue in wind band music. The two big names from this period, (the early 1900s I think), were Herbert L. Clarke and J.B. Arban.
Technically, this is “classical music”- wind band arrangements of opera music and theme and variations settings of catchy little ditties- but it was probably closer to pop music in its time. When I was in high school listening to this music, it was mind-blowing purely for the technique on display: these pieces demanded faster and higher playing that I’d ever be able to reproduce with any level of control. And that was the point for the majority of these pieces—show-off music for traveling soloists. It’s a tradition that goes back at least to Franz Liszt and Paganini. In fact, one of the more impressive performances on this album is a transcription of Paganini’s
Moto Perpetuo, in which Wynton plays a steadily unraveling string of 16th notes for four and a half minutes without taking a real breath, employing a trick technique called circular breathing.
I have come to realize since my high school days that there isn’t a lot of difference between listening to a piece containing variations by Clarke or Arban and watching a tight-rope walker. It’s the same kind of anticipatory response. The question arises, though: is this an aesthetic, “musical” response? Should the experience of listening to music, of supposedly experiencing beauty, be comparable to watching a circus act? Of course, I don’t know the answer to that. But here’s one thing I do know. When I listened to this disc a couple months ago, I was actually more enthralled with the sounds of the lyrical pieces, like “Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms” and “’Tis the Last Rose of Summer,” than I was with the busy showpieces. After awhile, all of the flash started to just sound the same. The technique that Wynton displays here is still impressive, no doubt. But I was struck by the simplicity and thick sounds emanating from the whole ensemble on the lyrical tunes.
All this raises an issue for me-namely, that of consistency. I’m Mr. Prog-rock apologist, right? Always talking about how I love the music of “impressive” bands like Yes and Genesis, King Crimson, and Rush and all that. How can I fault Wynton and these cornet soloists for the same thing?
I think it comes down to reactions to expectations. No one expects hairy, ugly rock musicians to be proficient on their instruments beyond three or four chords or caveman rhythms. By the same token, it’s assumed that classical or orchestral musicians reach the highest possible levels of technical ability. In the rock world, technique is a breath of fresh air to me, an elevation above convention. But in the classical world, somehow it’s different. Maybe subtlety is the name of the game in that world.
I’m devolving into circularity here, but one of these days, I will get this issue of “technique” totally fleshed out. One thing is obvious, though. It is very educational to give music and musicians some time to be forgotten and then listen to them a little later and see how your perceptions change the experience.
I think this shows that we bring a lot to the table in our aesthetic cardgames.
The Flaming Lips and Nickel Creek
I’ve just now acquired some time to reflect on last weekend’s musical festivities. Friday night was The Flaming Lips at the Zoo Amp. Well, that was a much larger crowd than I expected. If you’re around me outside of this cyber world, you’ve probably heard me tell you that this was visually the most beautiful concert I think I’ve ever been to. (Although Wilco was pretty stunning, too.) Sure they landed a UFO on stage. George Clinton was doing that in the 70s. But the light show that resulted was something else. Lights and smoke and zaniness... Let me preface the following with two key points. 1) I wouldn’t consider myself a Flaming Lips fan. I’ve only ever heard the album
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, which I love. I went to this concert more out of curiosity than anything else. 2) To be in the know as a musical aesthete in Oklahoma, it’s pretty much required that you like the Flaming Lips. They should hand out copies of
The Soft Bulletin with your driver’s license.
With those caveats, I must say that I was a little underwhelmed by the musical content of the show. For one thing, playing to a bunch of tracks is kinda cheating in my book. It’s not that far removed from lip-synching. Those guys have got to be rich, why not spring for a real person to play the bass and a utility person to trigger all those samples and synth parts? I’m a sucker for thick, synthy string sounds, so I was digging the stuff that Steven was playing. However, there seemed to be a preponderance of slow-to-mid tempo balladry going on. And that may just be their style--plodding psychedelia. If so, fine. I’m just more of a variety type of guy. Anyway, it was an enjoyable show in an epic, kind of
experiential kind of way, not necessarily a musical kind of way.
The next night was almost the exact opposite: Nickel Creek at Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa. This was my third time to see them live. I own the first two albums and I’ve heard the third one, so I sort of knew what to expect. I was impressed with Cain’s as a venue--great sound, not too big, not too small. I was a little surprised at the size of the crowd, it seemed a little smallish to me. (Of course, the last time I saw them was probably two years ago at the giant Austin City Limits Festival.)
I’ve always been impressed with Nickel Creek as musicians. They make very intricate music sound very easy. And this show was no exception. This time I realized how great the vocals sounded. Their harmonies just sounded so lush. Physically, though, they all just seemed really tired, especially Chris Thile, who looked either drunk, or stoned, or both-staring off into space for most of the show. And on just about every one of his solos he seemed determined to get his accompaniment to crack, playing odd phrase lengths and crazy syncopations, etc. Probably just bored. But even though I’ve seen them twice before, I was still blown away by the beautifully musical stuff that they pulled off.
While the Flaming Lips were all about
the show, Nickel Creek was all about the music. They both have their charms.
Not a bad weekend…
New Grandpa Griffith Publicity Photos
Go over to photographer Josh Mccullock's
site if you want to see some of the new Grandpa Griffith publicity photos. When you go to the site, look at My Portfolio and then at the bottom of that page, you will see "The Grandpa Griffith Experiment."
But if I were you, I'd look at the rest of his portfolio as well. The man is talented.
Thrill Jockey Records
Thinking about Nobukazu Takemura got me to remembering the days of about four or five years ago, when I had the money to spend on music regularly. Takemura was one of the artists I discovered on the great label called Thrill Jockey Records. Others I liked were Tortoise, Sea and Cake, Town and Country…I used to buy music online directly from them all the time and was impressed with the personal treatment they would give their customers-including posters with orders and attaching little notes and recommendations. I always thought that was a nice touch.
Sign by Nobukazu Takemura (2001)
A Random CD Review from the Stutzman Memorial Library
Sign by Nobukazu Takemura (2001)
My Excel spreadsheet spit out #572 today and as we all know, that correlates to Nobukazu Takemura’s
Sign. I don’t listen to this one very much as it is really experimental, cutting-edge digital lunacy. I believe the style most often assigned to this kind of music is “glitch.” So, I’m going to go home and give this a long lost listen so that I can speak more intelligently about it. Stand by for further communication…
***************
OK, so I took some time out to listen to this disc yesterday and I’m glad I did. There are only four tracks, each of them sounding significantly different from each other. The first song is called “Sign” and it’s my favorite of the bunch. It’s a little bit glitchy, but not as much as I remembered the whole album being. There is a pretty noticeable structure to this song, signposted by a simple, memorable melody and two main tonal areas. There is some singing and almost decipherable lyrics, but they are not organic in any way--heavily effected and sounding like a happy Speak and Spell singing to itself.
The next song, “Cogwheel,” is 90% digitally tweezed rhythm and 10% quiet, distant keyboard ostinato.
“Souvenir in Chicago” really seems to be the magnum opus of the album. It starts off with a five-note guitar (!) pattern that is looped and then harmonized with itself in counterpoint, (a la Steve Reich), and supported by reedy drones sounding like something like a distorted accordion. As I was listening yesterday, I thought to myself that this is some really beautiful music and I wondered how I missed it before. It’s probably because I was driving while listening to this in the past. Even world-shattering musical beauty can get shifted into background noise in the car. Anyway, two more major sections are left to this song: once the drums kick in, it sounds like a typical Tortoise song, (not surprising, since some members of Tortoise played on this track), but then the song devolves into glitchy robot noises before the final, (and most tedious) part- the sound of a Rhodes piano in “CD fast-forward mode.” You know the sound a CD makes when you fast forward while the audio is still playing? Well, that’s the sound. For probably ten minutes. (Feels like ten eternities.) I think it’s a cool effect, but only if used sparingly.
The last song is called “Meteor” and is my second favorite. It’s got more digital bleeps and bloops for rhythms and it’s as close as this album gets to conventional electronic music, with a semblance of a harmonic scheme at times and a fairly straight-forward programmed beat.
I realized while listening to this stuff that I had underrated the music. I remembered it a little differently than it actually was. It’s fairly challenging music, no doubt, blurring the line between noises and musical ideas, but that’s exactly what’s so interesting about this album. There’s much more of a
balance struck between those two poles of music and noise than I remembered.
On Fall
This time of year gets me every time.
It’s mostly the weather change. To feel the oppressive locust-whine desert heat giving way to cooler breezes, earlier evenings, the “crispness” of it all…there’s something kind of sublime at play. Every year around this time, I start to think that maybe Fall is my favorite part of the year. (But I actually think that about
every season when they’re just beginning. I’m a guy who likes new starts…)
But I think that mixed up with the temperature drop and equinox and all of the environment’s new starts, there’s a remembrance of things past, to use Proust’s phrase. In my previous life as a younger person—as a student—this was certainly the time of new starts. You see, this kind of weather was always accompanied by lots of hopes with the new grade—“maybe this school year will be the best yet,” “who knows who I’ll meet in these new classes, maybe my future wife…”
There was always the sense of anticipation floating around after we made it through the hottest months. I remember dusky evenings sweating it out in a marching band uniform, constantly being at the school after hours for music rehearsals, getting a feel for how new teachers doled out work. Everything had the promise of newness to it.
And if I’m really paying attention, really stretching out my synapses, I can
still feel that vague hope blowing in on the breeze.
P.S. Radiohead’s “The Tourist” played on my Yahoo! Launchcast while writing this: a great soundtrack for reliving Falls past.
Whatcha Readin'?
I just got done reading a pretty inspirational book last night. It’s called
Father Joe-The Man Who Saved My Soul, by Tony Hendra. I didn’t figure out until the Epilogue that Tony Hendra is the guy who played Ian Faith in the movie
This is Spinal Tap.
Why is it inspiring? This guy, Father Joe Warrilow, was a monk that Hendra met when just a little boy and was a godly influence on him through his whole life. The book is largely about how Hendra ventured away from his youthful desire to be a monk, further and further away from the Catholic faith, further and further away from theism. Yet the whole time, something about Father Joe’s patient listening was always in the back of his mind. He still managed to keep track with Joe over the course of his life, if marginally at times, visiting him once a year or so as he became successful, got married a couple times, had kids, lost all faith... Anyway, I won’t spoil the good parts, but suffice it to say that Hendra tells his and Father Joe’s related stories very well. It’s sad to read about his depression, substance abuse, and existential crises and all that, but Father Joe is a rock.
Being not very informed about the ins and outs of Catholic life, it was interesting to also find out about how Catholic leaders sometimes view renunciates and their old-fashioned dedication to Benedictine life.
I’m glad I didn’t know who the author was while reading this book. It would have been hard for me to read some of the soul-baring contained therein with the image of Ian Faith’s “money talks and bullshit walks” face in my head.
I said at the outset that this is an inspiring story. It’s pretty simple. It’s the story of the power of a life lived well. For those who, like me, feel that theism and an ethical life are wrapped up in a Christian-looking package, there is a lot to look up to in the life of Father Joe: patience, contemplation, detachment from the world’s pettier concerns, kindness, humor, gentleness, humility, contentment…I have just enough cynicism towards “worldliness” that I would like to look like Father Joe.
Thanks, Lance, for the recommendation.
