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Blood Sweat and Tears Greatest Hits

It’s a great idea, isn’t it? Take little bits of big band jazz and little bits of blues rock and crash them into each other like those scientists are doing on the border of France and Switzerland with their particle accelerator. Blood Sweat and Tears made a type of fusion that doesn’t sound like “fusion,” i.e. John McLaughlin, Miles Davis, Weather Report, Return to Forever, etc. Blood Sweat and Tears were less cerebral than those other artists, more accessible to a mainstream audience. But don’t think for a moment that their music was simple. In fact I would venture to say that just as much thought went into those tight, funky horn charts as went into an entire lengthy McLaughlin improvisation, for instance. But it’s the old difference between “entertainers” and “artistes.” Blood Sweat and Tears leaned toward the former on that continuum, sounding like some kind of long-haired Broadway Blues Revue.

Britten: The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes and Elgar: Enigma Variations

I’ve discovered yet another hole in my orchestral musical education: the Brits. So much of what we hear of “Classical” or “orchestral” music comes from dead Germans in wigs or brooding Russians. I got this CD to start to hear other microtraditions. I’m glad I did because there were two moments on this disc that were absolutely sublime for me: Britten’s Young Person’s Guide is a set of variations to a fairly simple tune that shows off each of the various sections of the orchestra, but also shows off the tool kit of a creative musical mind.

(I think we easily forget the special kind of mind it took to write for an entire symphonic orchestra back in the day before it was possible to easily HEAR all of the parts you’re setting down on paper. Composers had to keep a lot of plates spinning when it came to orchestration, bearing in mind the standard ranges of all of the instruments, the timbre of those ranges, how chords should be voiced, etc. etc. etc. etc. Those were different days…)

Anyway, the goosebumps came for me at the end of the piece when the quick, furious high woodwinds are gradually joined in counterpoint by the rest of the orchestra playing the original theme in a slow, ponderous manner. This is a genius juxtaposition.

And then there is Elgar’s Enigma Variation known as “Nimrod.” I’ll put it simply: it’s one of the most affecting, beautifully simple pieces of orchestral music I’ve heard in a long time, (and according to my cello-playing friend Josh, an awful lot of fun to play!) You owe it to yourself to soak in this handful of minutes of absolute transcendence!

Iggy Pop: Lust for Life

I have two reference points for this music in my head: David Bowie’s output from around the same time and The Strokes’ music from about twenty years later.

I’ve asked the question before, but can a piece of audible art survive and be vibrant and relevant after it is heard just about every hour on the hour in a Carnival Cruise commercial aimed at guys snoring in their easy chairs with the television tuned to the PGA Tour? There was probably a time when the song “Lust for Life” was the most subversive, breathtaking song emanating from turntables across the world.

Now would not be that time.

posted by Mike @ 9:50 PM