If you were born between 1955 and 1970, you should know how to respond to this prompt:
"There's a red house over yonder..." If you don't, typing the first three (or at most four) words in any of the major search engines will get you an auto-complete that will give you links to the many lyric sites and wikis that have the answer. If you don't feel like testing it for yourself, here's a link.
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As any aficionado knows, that's a line from Have a Cigar, the masterpiece of Pink Floyd's album Wish You Were Here. Although somewhat overshadowed by the group's tighter "concept" albums, Wish You Were Here is, to my ear, their best musical effort.
I was never that much of a Floyd fan, but I always liked Wish You Were Here. I think I first got familiar with it not too long after it came out in 1975. Much later, I came to really appreciate David Gilmour's guitar playing. His solo, along with the demented vocal by Roy Harper, is what makes Have a Cigar so great. Their rhythm section was less interesting to listen to. I know that Roger Waters is generally regarded as the main creative force of the group, but the rhythm section always sounded lethargic to me. The other tracks on Wish You Were Here are also intriguing, with the guitar playing a consistent highlight. As with Floyd's other successful works, the tunes and songs are memorable (every piece on the album has a hook and a lyric that will stay with you forever), even if some of the effects are pretty dated. I never really got into their later big concepts (Animals, The Wall). Actually I think their artistic output, with a few notable exceptions, declined after Wish You Were Here. I'm not sure that, despite their later huge successes (again, Animals and The Wall), they ever again reached the same level as Have a Cigar. I'm bingeing on John Coltrane. I picked up the remastered CD of 'Round About Midnight and have been reminded how great the Miles Davis Quintet and Sextet recordings are. More accurately, I have been reminded of the magnitude of Trane's contribution to those recordings. They are great recordings, full of fine performances, but in my current mode, it's all just accompaniment to Trane's solos. He's singing at the top of his lungs (through the horn).
It's particularly astonishing to realize how much Trane developed after 'Round About Midnight, although it was his first record with Miles' band and undoubtedly his biggest exposure to that point. Those sessions were in 1955 and 1956, long before Giant Steps, yet he was already a thoroughly unique voice. When I was buying the 'Round About Midnight CD I saw a "Best of Miles and Coltrane" compilation. It had a couple of tracks from Kind of Blue, but not Freddie Freeloader. I immediately asked myself: how could a "Best of" compilation that includes tracks from Kind of Blue not include Freddie Freeloader? On the subject of Freddie Freeloader, if you have never heard the vocal version by Jon Hendricks, find it and listen to it immediately. Physical Graffiti has been occupying my attention lately. I mean that literally. The songs have been in my head all day, every day, since I listened to the whole album twice last weekend. It has always been, for me, that kind of an all-consuming work.
First and foremost, this album cements (to the extent it had not happened already) Led Zeppelin's place in history as the single most important band after the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Sorry, it isn't even close. Just think about all the music, good and bad, that follows the trail first blazed by Led Zeppelin. Good: Van Halen with Dave. Bad: hair bands. Good/bad: Ozzy Osbourne; Van Halen with Sammy. By the time Physical Graffiti was released, of course, Led Zeppelin's influence was already pretty well recognized. I'm not sure anyone was ready for this one, however. Epic track after epic track, played louder than anything before or since. Robert Plant's shriek reaching new heights. Jimmy Page's lead now fully formed. And the best rock rhythm section ever assembled, with the possible exception of Gibbons/Hill/Beard. My personal favorite? In My Time of Dying. I didn't even know until years later (how many years later? Well, I learned it from Wikipedia) that this was an adaptation of a blues first recorded by Blind Willie Johnson. Wait, maybe my favorite is The Rover. It's unbelievable that this track was recorded two years prior to the sessions that produced most of the songs on the album. A power trio + vocal performance by which all others must be judged. This wasn't good enough for Led Zeppelin IV? No, my favorite (or at least the one that is the most impossible to get out of my head) has to be Ten Years Gone. The guitar solo positively swings. I guess I can't decide which track is my favorite. I'll have to listen to the album some more. how just about every rock singer who came along after Bob Dylan, copied his style? Just to point out one notable example, listen to Keith Richards' vocal on "You Got the Silver" (from Let it Bleed, the first Rolling Stones album I remember hearing). It is reputedly his first solo vocal. Why would he borrow from Dylan? Well, everyone did.
One other thing about Let it Bleed: did you know that "Love In Vain" was written by the legendary Robert Johnson, but wasn't credited to him on the cover? Discussing jazz rhythm sections will give me the opportunity to talk about my favorite jazz drummer, because he was part of two of my favorite jazz rhythm sections. Who is that drummer? He is Elvin Jones, who unfortunately didn't have the public profile of, say, Art Blakey, but was to my ear the most interesting jazz drummer of them all.
I almost forgot I was going to write about the whole rhythm section, not just the drummer. Well, as I usually say, just listen to the records. In this case, I mean Wayne Shorter's 1964 album on the Blue Note label, JuJu. McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman, and Elvin Jones are the most interesting, fun-to-listen-to backing trio that I can think of. Listen to McCoy and Elvin on Mahjong, Reggie and McCoy on Yes or No, and Elvin on Deluge and, especially, Twelve More Bars to Go. Elvin swings as hard as anyone ever has, but in a way unlike anyone else that I have heard. By the way (and more about this later), I had never even heard Wayne Shorter outside of Weather Report until I happened to find an album called Wayning Moments at the library. It caused me to seek out other records wtih Shorter as the leader. The two records I found, JuJu and Speak No Evil, are both classics, but are important not just because they mark the emergence of Shorter as an influential composer and performer. They also, I think, mark the emegence of two of the most important jazz pianists after Monk, namely McCoy and Herbie Hancock. That leads to the other favorite rhythm section I mentioned that included Elvin Jones: Elvin, Ron Carter, and Herbie on Shorter's album Speak No Evil (recorded less than five months after JuJu). Elvin continues to amaze, Ron Carter is also coming into his own at this time, and Herbie is displaying his unique feel that was already showcased on Empyrean Isles (recorded earlier in 1964) and would fully blossom the following year on Maiden Voyage. that Giant Steps (the whole album, not just the title track), despite being an absolutely unbelievable, groundbreaking, earth-shattering, stupendous performance by Trane, is an amazingly awful recording? The first time I heard it, I actually thought the piano was an electric keyboard. On top of that, the effort to make the recording "stereo" only succeeded in making it unlistenable on headphones, unless you like the feeling that your head is becoming lopsided.
Going back to what I said some time ago about the contribution of a rhythm section cutting across genre lines, a discussion of one of the all time great, and at the same time most reviled, albums in the history of jazz fits right into the topic. The album is Herbie Hancock's magnum opus, Headhuters (what one commentator referred to as a "damnably great" record). I'm not going to get into the whole jazz fusion argument here. I just want to listen to the rhythm section.
You say you're sick of "Chameleon?" Fine, skip it and listen to "Watermelon Man." Listen to it repeatedly. Listen to the drummer. Listen to how tight he is. Listen to how tight he is with the bassist. Listen to how tight he is with Herbie's unreal multi-instrumental multi-track rhythm playing (the thing that sounds like a guitar is a clavinet). Listen to the drummer some more. Listen to what a great laid-back jazz feel he has even while he is laying down a groove that is funky, funky, funky. Harvey Mason's performance on this album might be the funkiest of all time (Bernard Purdie notwithstanding). OK, I lied, you can't skip "Chameleon." Go back to it now and listen to the rhythm section some more. Herbie's clavinet is even more inspired on this track. And Harvey Mason is just, well, the grooviest metronome you're ever going to hear. Well, one particular element of each of them, anyway: the drummers. Wait, don't scoff, just listen to the music. First, "Come Together" on Abbey Road. Many people may be unaware, or have forgotten, "Come Together" was the first single from the album. It's also the first Beatles single I remember hearing (which should give you an idea of my age), but this isn't an exercise in nostalgia. No, listen to the track, and concentrate on Ringo. Hear that? He's got a jazz feel, and a pretty darn good one, at that. Now, listen to the rest of Abbey Road, and listen to the drums. Maybe it's because the songs on this album are more rhythmically oriented than the band's earlier output, or maybe it's just that there's more space for him in the way the songs were arranged and recorded, but whatever the reason, I think Ringo's playing made a large contribution to the artistic success of Abbey Road. Other, earlier Beatles recordings where Ringo is clearly a significant contributor include "I Am the Walrus" (again, listen to the jazz feel) and "Everybody's Got Something to Hide (Except for Me and My Monkey)" (I presume Ringo is the one playing the maniacal cowbell part).
Next, haul out the Stones' Some Girls. I know, it's tough to admit today that you liked it in 1978, but just ignore the lyrics (amazing how stuff that once seemed so edgy and entertaining can turn out to have been so insipid) and listen to, well, just about any of the tracks, but how about "Respectable." Charlie is driving the band, and they're displaying more energy than they had for years before this album. Several other tracks on this album also showcase Charlie as a solid, forceful player, even though (or perhaps because?) it seems at times as if his drum set consists of only bass drum, snare drum and high hat, nary a tom tom or cymbal to be heard. As you might know, Charlie later made some critically acclaimed jazz records, while Ringo married Barbara Bach and was the narrator for the Thomas the Tank Engine series. Achievements of a lifetime, to be sure. |
AuthorA lawyer who likes to write music commentary. Archives
January 2020
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