Sic Semper Tyrannis

Whatcha Listenin' To?

So, with a disc of Joshua Bell doing the Beethoven Violin Concerto and a four-disc set of the violin sonatas I am now done exploring all of the Beethoven that the library has. The funny thing is, after all of that I didn’t really hear anything that I didn’t already love before. I seem to remember someone positing the idea that chamber music was the setting in which composers really stretched their technique and experimented with new ideas of harmony and form. Maybe it was the generation after Beethoven for which this is true. For Beethoven really seems to be saying the “big things” with his Symphonies. I myself did not have my ears perk up upon listening to the chamber music or even the lesser-known symphonies for that matter. Maybe I have been corrupted. Maybe my 21st century ears have been made numb by the avant garde, the electronic, the…rock n’ roll?

Funkadelic Music for Your Mother

I would be disappointed in myself for not following Beethoven in a post with a mention of Funkadelic. This is a collection of a bunch of their singles. Being more familiar with the brother to this group, Parliament, I can only describe this music one way: think of Sly and the Family Stone without the “up with people,” humanist vibe. Like Sly, this band was weird for the mish-mash of styles they incorporated—psychedelic rock, blue, r&b, even a tinge of black gospel.

Wayne Shorter The Classic Blue Note Recordings

Why am I just now getting around to this guy? For the uninitiated, Blue Note was a record label putting out uber-hip jazz records in the 60s, (and still do today, although I wouldn’t call them “uber-hip” anymore, nor is it a given that their releases even qualify as “jazz.”) I hear shades of Coltrane, Miles Davis’ fusion and unfortunately one bit of awful electric elevator jazz on the last track. There are so many big names in the liner notes, each of them going on to front bands of their own- Freddie Hubbard, Art Blakey, Lee Morgan, Stanley Clarke, John Mclaughlin…Maybe Wayne Shorter is the Kevin Bacon of the jazz world. I shall delve further into this guy’s stuff.

Oliver Nelson The Blues and the Abstract Truth

Aside from the awesome album title, I borrowed this album from the library for one reason- the song “Stolen Moments.” I had been trying to track this song down since playing an arrangement of it in high school. Never before have I heard such a laid-back, grooving song hide such dissonance. It’s deceptive. Deep listening to how the trumpet melody line is harmonized by the saxes in seconds, (think: “notes really close together”) reveals a subtle genius. The deeper in you travel as a listener, the darker and more off-putting the sound. The horror!

10cc The Very Best of 10cc

They are the guys who did the songs “I’m Not in Love,” (a gorgeous creation of the studio) and “The Things We Do For Love,” two songs that played on the radio in my mom’s car for pretty much my entire childhood, are pretty distinct from one another—bouncy pop vs. atmospheric, ethereal baby-making music. So I’m not sure what I expected. But I am sure that these guys defied all expectations. Stylistically, they are all over the map- from goofy 50s pastiche to Cheap Trick-esque arena rock, to Zappa-esque humorous non sequiturs…I was reminded just how different the Brits are with their pop charts.

Creedence Clearwater Revival Chronicle Volume 1

John Fogerty wrote some killer melodies. It never occurred to me until sitting down and really listening to how these songs were constructed. It’s just a matter of separating the musical line from its performance. It kind of requires an abstraction to ignore the “stripped down, simple man’s rock” aesthetic that turned me off for so many years. But upon hearing this collection of songs I gained a new respect for these guys. Placed in context, the sounds they captured in the studio were of the time- listen to the extended guitar solo in “I Heard it Through the Grapevine.” Many people seem to consider the album version of this song to be inferior to the radio edit. I am not one of those people. I love it! The tone is the sound of an amp being played too loud. Guitars don’t sound like that very often in these days of clinical, digital doodaddery. And you can tell that these songs were recorded with the whole band playing together, feeding energy from each other, another rarity these days.

I guess I’m just getting old. It used to take more than simple melodies to keep me interested. Whatever the reason, I have added this to my short list of albums worth buying. Favorite songs: “Lodi,” “Down on the Corner,” “Who’ll Stop the Rain?” and “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?”

posted by Mike @ 9:55 PM