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Gypsy Guitar Django Reinhardt Part 2 VV-013

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In my previous Vinyl Vibrations podcast of Gypsy Guitarist-Great, Django Reinhardt, I reviewed some of his early vinyl recordings. I reviewed nine songs which Django composed in the 12-year period between 1937 and 1949. As a composer, Reinhardt was prolific, with at least 112 original compositions to his credit. His own songs, in my opinion, are the most interesting of his works, because they are his creations, and embody his humor and his thinking in a most complete way.

  • M10 Porto Cabello (D. Reinhardt) rec 5/21/1947, Paris, 3:18, [Django Reinhardt et son Quintette du Hot Club de France, Distribution Musidisc-Europe1979]
  • M11 Double Whisky (D. Reinhardt) rec 5/11/1951, Paris, 2:53, [Django Reinhardt et son Quintette du Hot Club de France, Distribution Musidisc-Europe1979]
  • M12 Vamp (D. Reinhardt) rec 5/11/1951, Paris, 2:39, [Django Reinhardt et son Quintette du Hot Club de France, Distribution Musidisc-Europe1979]
  • M13 Fleche D’or (D. Reinhardt) rec 1/30/1952, Paris, 3:00, [Django Reinhardt et son Quintette du Hot Club de France, Distribution Musidisc-Europe1979]
  • M14 Troublant Bolero (D. Reinhardt) rec 1/30/1952, Paris, 3:30, [Django Reinhardt et son Quintette du Hot Club de France, Distribution Musidisc-Europe1979]
  • M15 Nuits de St. Germain-des-Pres (D. Reinhardt) rec 1/30/1952, Paris, 3:05, [Django Reinhardt et son Quintette du Hot Club de France, Distribution Musidisc-Europe1979]
  • M16 Anouman (D. Reinhardt) rec 1/30/1953, Paris, 2:45, [Django Reinhardt et son Quintette du Hot Club de France, Distribution Musidisc-Europe1979]
  • M17 D.R. Blues (D. Reinhardt) rec 1/30/1953, Paris, 3:08, [Django Reinhardt et son Quintette du Hot Club de France, Distribution Musidisc-Europe1979]
  • M18 Deccaphonie (D. Reinhardt) rec 4/8/1953, Paris, 3:15, [Django Reinhardt et son Quintette du Hot Club de France, Distribution Musidisc-Europe1979]

In Part I, I reviewed…..

  • M1 Improvisation (D. Reinhardt), rec 1937,
  • M2 Minor Swing (S.Grappelli-D.Reinhardt) , rec 9/9/1937,
  • M3 Naguine (D. Reinhardt), rec 6/30/1939,
  • M4 Djangology (D. Reinhardt), rec 5/8/1942,
  • M5 Blues Clair (D. Reinhardt), rec 2/26/1943
  • M6 Belleville (D. Reinhardt), rec 1950
  • M7 Nuages (D. Reinhardt-J. Larue), rec 2/1/1946
  • M8 Swing 48 (D. Reinhardt), rec 7/6/1947,
  • M9 Brick Top (D. Reinhardt-S. Grappelli), rec Feb 1949

 

In today’s podcast, Part II, I continue with more of Django’s original compositions.

DJANGO REINHARDT lived in Belgium and France between 1910 and 1953 and is best known, and most widely published, for his performances with his jazz group “Quintette du Hot Club de France”. The quintet popularized the gypsy jazz style, also known as gypsy swing or hot club jazz or jazz manouche.

The story goes that Django and younger brother Joseph Reinhardt were “discovered” one day,   by a French bass player, Louis Vola, as they were playing guitars on a beach at Toulon, a town in southern France. Vola invited them to jam with his own band, which included the young violinist, Stephane Grappelli, and guitarist Roger Chaput.

The “Hot Club de France” was a music society devoted to the preservation of jazz, and two of its leaders and promoters Pierre Nourry and Charles Delaunay urged Django and Stephane to form a full-time group. The rest is history…..and “The QUINTETTE DU HOT CLUB DE FRANCE was formed in 1934 and remained active for 15 years.

The original lineup included five members, Django, Grappelli, bassist Louis Volla, Django’s brother Joseph, and one other rhythm guitarist, Roger Chaput. There was no real percussion section in the quintette, the two rhythm guitars and bass created all of the percussion in this all-string ensemble. Django and Grappelli remained constants in future recordings, while rhythm guitarists and bassists rolled in and out of the group.

Five years later, when World War II broke out in   1939, the Quintette was on a concert tour of England. Reinhardt, returned home to France, and Grappelli stayed in England throughout WW2. Back in France, Django continued using the Quintette name but without violinist Grappelli, he substituted Hubert Rostaing on clarinet. He also added conventional rhythm section by adding drums.

After the war, in 1946, Grappelli and Django re-teamed under the Quintette banner in an all-string format. and the quintette performed and recorded until about 1948.

All of the songs we review today were recorded in Paris, in five recording sessions, between May 1947 and April 1953. These recordings are found on a rare, two-disc LP set titled “DJANGO REINHARDT et son QUINTETTE DU HOT CLUB DE FRANCE. This LP set was produced in France in 1973 under the Disques Festival label, and distributed by MUSICDISC-EUROPE.

 

M10 PORTO CABELLO. Our first song in this podcast is PORTO CABELLO recorded in Paris, May 1947 a Django Reinhardt composition. THE SONG TITLE—PORTO CABELLO…..brings to mind the seaside resort in Venezuela… Puerto Cabello, after which the CABELLO spider was named …… perhaps Django named it after this distant coastal city…..

PORTO CABELLO has some similarities to the movie theme from SOUTH PACIFIC—BALI HAI —a film to appear two years later, in 1949.

PORTO also has similarities to the Cole Porter song Night and Day, in which Django performs here…..

PORTO CABELLO opens and closes with the Hubert Rostaing clarinet melody. The mid-song guitar solo by Django is mind-boggling, given that the high-speed neck runs are all performed with just the first two fingers.

Personnel

  • Hubert Rostaing cl
  • Eugene Vees rg
  • Emmanuel Soudieux, b
  • Pierre Fouad dm
  • Recorded 5/21/1947, Paris,

M11 DOUBLE WHISKY

Another Django Reinhardt Swing classic

The song has a nice, easy going stride to it. This is a larger arrangement, with lead parts for alto sax.…and muted trumpet ….Django is playing an electrified guitar. The album cover photo shows Django with a spruce-top, large-body guitar with electric pickup clamped in place over the sound hole.

DOUBLE WHISKY WAS

Recorded May 11, 1951, PARIS

Personnel included

  • Django on guitar solo
  • Pierre Michelot b
  • Pierre Lemarchand dm
  • Raymond Fol Piano
  • Hubert Fol as
  • Bernard Hullin tp

[Django Reinhardt et son Quintette du Hot Club de France, Distribution Musidisc-Europe1979]

M12 Next up is a song titled VAMP ….this is a beautiful, slow song for a quartet of guitar-sax-bass-and piano—–VAMP is another great Jazz Standard. Easy to learn, VAMP would be a good candidate for an intermediate music class such as Jazz 101.   Again we have lead parts for alto sax and guitar

For those occasional dancers in the room that will do ONLY the slow dances, myself included, one would want a song like VAMP to play much, much longer…..this song lasts only 2 minutes 39 seconds !!

Recorded May 11, 1951, PARIS

Personnel included

  • Django on guitar solo
  • Pierre Michelot b
  • Raymond Fol Piano
  • Hubert Fol as
  • and now…VAMP

 

M13 Fleche D’Or, that’s French for GOLDEN ARROW

Here we have a somewhat complex and really different sounding introduction and finale theme, with unison playing by guitar muted trumpet and alto sax. This is progressing away from SWING, with more of a bebop sound with a faster pace, alternating rhythms, and a combo consisting of saxophone, trumpet, bass, drums, and piano….plus Django on electric guitar and a screaming guitar at that.. What wild stuff for 1952!!!

Here is an early example of distortion or overdrive from Django’s guitar pickup. I note on the album cover the pickup has a single large white knob, no doubt a control for the amount of GAIN that is sent to the amplifier. Here is an example

It must have been exciting to take his playing to an even higher level, …..by adding amplification and now overdrive/distortion…..AND by progressing into a new style of Jazz Bebop !!!! As a guitar player myself, vicariously, it is a thrill to hear it years later.

Golden Arrow Fleche D’Or was

Recorded 1/30/1952, Paris, 3:00

Personnel included

  • Django on guitar solo
  • Roger Guerin on Trumpet
  • Raymond Fol Piano
  • Hubert Fol as
  • …..and in the rhythm section ……..
  • Barney Spieler b
  • Pierre Lemarchand dm

M14 TROUBLANT BOLERO , or French for “Troubling Bolero” another fine D. Reinhardt composition. TROUBLANT BOLERO starts with an eerie Bass and rhythm guitar line, followed by a muted trumpet melody line, add in the harmony of the alto sax……..then KABOOM, a blazing guitar solo. Just as you get up off the floor from the last solo, Django knocks you over again with this powerful , melodic, finessed guitar solo…again electrified guitar with overdrive…..

TROUBLANT BOLERO was Recorded 1/30/1952, Paris, 3:30

Personnel included

  • Django on guitar solo
  • Roger Guerin on Trumpet
  • Raymond Fol Piano
  • Hubert Fol as
  • …..and again in the rhythm section ……..
  • Barney Spieler b
  • Pierre Lemarchand dm
  • ….And Now…

M15 Nights in the St. Germain-des-Pres , This song, is one of Django’s more obscure “BOP” tunes. But the title tells a great story. The song title refers to a neighborhood in Paris, located around the church of the former Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. This neighborhood was the center of the existentialist movement. There were many cafes, such as Café de Flore, and Les Deux Magots, which hosted French intellectuals during the post-war years and were a rendezvous of the literary and intellectual élite of Paris.

There is one particular cafe in this district, also named St. Germain-des-Pres, that has a rich history in jazz music. During the occupation of Paris by the Nazis, jazz music was outlawed on the airwaves and in public places.The hard-core jazz fans in Paris simply took their music down into the soundproof, underground cellar clubs of St.Germain-des-Pres and the Latin Quarter of Paris. There were many such Clubs such as Les Rats de Cave, The Flore, Les Deux Magots and the Tabou Club.

During the occupation, these were street level cafes by day, and jazz cellars by night. The title of this song comes from the reopening of the infamous club Saint-Germain des-Prés, where at this time, about 1951, Reinhardt was showing off a new sound—his new bebop sound.

Recorded 1/30/1952, Paris

Personnel included

  • Django on guitar solo
  • Roger Guerin on Trumpet
  • Raymond Fol Piano
  • Hubert Fol as
  • …..and again in the rhythm section ……..
  • Barney Spieler b
  • Pierre Lemarchand dm

 

M16 ANOUMAN. Our next piece is An-ouman, written and recorded in January1953. In this recording session, Maurice Vander plays the piano introduction …on a very out-of-tune instrument …….The song has a sad and beautiful melody …played by Hubert Fol on alto sax.

Perhaps Django had some sense that his time on this earth was very short. Is he looking for strength? The song title may be a reference to a Hindu God named HANUMAN —according to Hindu scripture “Lord Hanuman is the only God of Hindus who will retain his divine power when darkness prevails…..”.

Reinhardt takes the lead mid-song, using a hollow-body electric guitar with reverb, giving a sound that fits well with the smoky, late night alto-sax and piano accompaniment. Beautiful music

Recorded 1/30/1953, Paris. Personnel included

  • Maurice Vander P
  • Hubert Fol as
  • Django on guitar solo
  • Pierre Michelot bass
  • Pierre Lemarchand dm
  • AND NOW….ANOUMAN, composed by Django Reinhardt

M17 D. R. Blues, composed and recorded by Django Reinhardt in 1953 …A short 3-minute, 12-bar blues song, arranged for a quartet format…….

Personnel included

  • Maurice Vander P
  • Django on electric guitar
  • Pierre Michelot bass
  • Pierre Lemarchand dm
  • …

M18 DECCAPHONIE

Django’s final recording session took place on April 8th 1953, and it produced this gem…… DECCAPHONIE…..his last composition ….and his last recording committed to wax. He recorded this up-tempo song with……

Personnel included

  • Martial Solal on Piano
  • “Fats” Sadi Lallemand on vibraphone
  • …..and the rhythm section was
  • Pierre Michelot bass
  • Pierre Lemarchand dm
  • PAUSE

The song title….Deccaphonie…. is French for Decca Voice. Many of Django’s recordings were produced on the DECCA label, in the format of the time…..…….these records can be found in 78RPM, 45RPM and LP records, produced from 1939 to 1963. In many, many recordings, it was the DECCA label that gave Django a lasting voice for his work……so the song title DECCAPHONIE seems so appropriate for this song.

Just five weeks after the DECCAPHONIE recording, on May 15th 1953, while walking home from the railway station after playing in a Paris club……Django suffered a massive brain hemorrhage and died shortly thereafter, at home. Django Reinhardt, Gypsy Jazz Guitar Great, was dead at the age of 43.

And so I close out Part II of the Django Reinhardt podcast with this up-tempo, 12-bar improvisation. From April 1953, here is DECCAPHONIE…by Django Reinhardt

Gypsy Guitar Django Reinhardt VV-012

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In today’s VINYL VIBRATIONS podcast, I tour some early vinyl records that showcase GYPSY GUITARIST GREAT DJANGO REINHARDT. Many of these will be original compositions by Django Reinhardt . These recordings of Django are found on Vinyl LP Record compilations of his recordings between 1937 and 1949.  Today I will  divide the show into three segments, DJANGO Songs Pre-WW2, Songs During WW2 and Songs after WW2. In all, I will SHOWCASE ten of the great works of GYPSY GUITARIST DJANGO REINHARDT.

  1. When Day is Done (R. Katscher-B. de Sylva), rec 4/22/1937, ____, 3:10 [Capitol-Bluenote Compilation 1996]
  2. Minor Swing (S.Grappelli-D.Reinhardt) , rec 9/9/1937, _____, 3:14 [Capitol-Bluenote Compilation 1996]
  3. Naguine (D. Reinhardt), rec 6/30/1939, Paris, 2:25 [Capitol-Bluenote Compilation 1996]
  4. Djangology (D. Reinhardt), rec 5/8/1942, Brussels, 3:04 [VERVE Jazz Masters Compilation 1994]
  5. Blues Clair (D. Reinhardt), rec 2/26/1943, _______, 3:01 [Capitol-Bluenote Compilation 1996]
  6. Belleville (D. Reinhardt), rec 2/1/1946, London, 3:15 [VERVE Jazz Masters Compilation 1994]
  7. Nuages (D. Reinhardt-J. Larue), rec 2/1/1946, London, 3:15 [VERVE Jazz Masters Compilation 1994]
  8. Swing 48 (D. Reinhardt), rec 7/6/1947, Paris, 2:45 [VERVE Jazz Masters Compilation 1994]
  9. Brick Top (D. Reinhardt-S. Grappelli), rec Feb 1949, Rome, 3:42 [Djangology remaster 1961]
  10. Night and Day (C. Porter), rec 3/10/1953, Paris, 2:51 [VERVE Jazz Masters Compilation 1994]

 

Django Reinhardt, Jean Vaissade – La Caravane – Paris, 20.06.1928

L’Accordéoniste Jean Vaissade –
Jean Vaissade (acc); Django Reinhardt (bj); unknown (slide whistle) –
1928 June 20 – Paris

DJANGO REINHARDT is so well known in Jazz and Guitar circles that perhaps he needs no introduction…. yet there is much cultural and personal background about this fascinating guitarist and his place in music history in the context of world events of the 1940s !!!

Jean Reinhardt, nicknamed “DJANGO, a gipsy word for “I AWAKE”, was born 1/23/1910, in a caravan, in Liberchies, Pont-à-Celles, Belgium, about 60km south of Brussels, into a family of Manouche gypsies. This was just 4 years before the German invasion of Belgium in 1914 and Germany’s declaration of war on France, in WW1.

Starting at age 8, Reinhardt spent most of his youth in Romani, or Gypsy encampments close to Paris, playing banjo, guitar and violin. His brother Joseph Reinhardt, two years younger, was an accomplished guitarist. Django Reinhardt played the violin at first, then at the age of 12, he learned to play a “banjo-guitar”. A banjo-guitar looks like a banjo, and sounds like a banjo, but is tuned like a guitar and can be played by guitarists. By the age of 13, Reinhardt was able to make a living playing music. His first known recording (in June 20, 1928, AGE 18) is of him playing the banjo –guitar with accordianist Jean Vaissade

Not long after this first recording, also when he was 18, Reinhardt was severely injured in a caravan fire. (For those non-europeans, the term “caravan” refers to a small trailer in which one can live while traveling. In the context of 1928 Belgium, these were horse-drawn caravans.)

In this fire, Django received first- and second-degree burns over half his body. His right leg was paralysed and the third and fourth fingers of his left hand were badly burned. He was able to walk within a year with the aid of a cane. And he relearned his guitar-playing skill … even though his third and fourth fingers remained partially paralysed. He played all of his guitar solos with only two fingers, and used the two injured digits for playing chords. This is an amazing fact, when you hear the speed, clarity and musicality of his guitar solos

Between 1929 and 1933 Django abandoned the banjo-guitar for the classical guitar….. Django somehow was able to acquire an extraordinary guitar, a Selmer Maccaferri. This is a large body steel-string, arched-top guitar with a “D”-shaped soundhole and a wide neck, like a classical guitar. The body had an internal resonator, invented circa 1931 by guitarist and luthier [loo-ti’-er] Mario Maccaferri, the resonator wwas designed to increase the volume of the guitar.

In 1934, Reinhardt and Parisian violinist Grappelli were invited to form the “Quintette du Hot Club de France” with Reinhardt’s younger brother Joseph and Roger Chaput on guitar, and Louis Vola on bass. The guitars also served as percussion instruments—-they had no true drums or percussion section. The Quintette du Hot Club de France (or QHCF) jazz ensemble was composed only of STRING instruments.

Today I will  divide the show into three segments, DJANGO Songs Pre-WW2, Songs During WW2 and Songs after WW2. In all, I will SHOWCASE ten of the great works of DJANGO REINHARDT,

 

In our first segment, we look at three of DJANGO REINHARDT’s SONGS PRE-WW2, defined as the time leading up to September 1939, the invasion of Germany into Poland

M1 When Day is Done (R. Katscher-B. de Sylva), rec 4/22/1937, ____, 3:10 [Capitol-Bluenote Compilation 1996]

When Day is Done performed by Quintette du Hot Club de France recorded in April 1937 with a beautiful octave stle lead-in by Django and a lovely solo intro, followed by a tempo change for stephane grapelli’s violin solo.

Recorded in: 4/22/1937

Personnel of the Quintette du Hot Club de France included

  • Stephanie Grappelli VN
  • Django Reinhardt G
  • Marcel Bianchi RG
  • Pierre Ferret RG
  • Louis Vola B

M2 Minor Swing (S.Grappelli-D.Reinhardt) , rec 9/9/1937, _____, 3:14 [Capitol-Bluenote Compilation 1996]

In Minor Swing we hear the great expression in Django’s lead including fantastic runs up and down the neck.

“Ahhhh Yeah!” THAT WAS Minor Swing (S.Grappelli-D.Reinhardt) ,

Recorded in: rec 9/9/1937

Personnel of the Quintette du Hot Club de France included

  • Stephanie Grappelli VN
  • Django Reinhardt G
  • Joseph Reinhardt RG
  • Eugene Vees RG
  • Pierre Ferret RG
  • Louis Vola B

M3 Naguine (D. Reinhardt), rec 6/30/1939, Paris, 2:25 [Capitol-Bluenote Compilation 1996]

This is a very easy-going solo demonstration of chorded guitar melody, a studio recording from June of 1939. The name of the song, Naguine, is also his second wife’s middle name, Sophie “Naguine” Ziegler, whom he married fours years later, in central France, and with whom he had a son, Babik Reinhardt, who became a respected guitarist in his own right.

  • Personnel Django solo performance

SONGS DURING WAR (1939-1945)

When WWII broke out, (or September 1939) the original quintet was on tour in the United Kingdom. Reinhardt returned to Paris and Grappelli remained in the United Kingdom for the duration of the war (six years, or May 1945). Reinhardt reformed the quintet in Paris, with Hubert Rostaing on clarinet replacing Grappelli’s violin.

Just a few months after returning to Paris, in May of 1940, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands fell to the Nazis. Reinhardt’s problems were compounded by the fact that the Nazis officially disapproved of jazz. Jazz was prohibited by the Nazis at the beginning of the war. The Nazi regime even passed edicts banning jazz records and muted trumpets calling them…. degenerate art!! He made several attempts, unsuccessful, to escape occupied France.

Reinhardt survived the war unscathed, unlike many Gypsies who perished in the Romani holocaust. Nazi Germany, the Independent State of Croatia, the Kindom of Hungary and their allies, attempted to exterminate the Romani people of Europe during World War II…..both Roma and Jews were defined as “enemies of the race-based state” by the Nuremberg laws; ….and the Nazi regime systematically murdered several hundred thousand European Gypsies.

There may be two reasons why Django succeeded in surviving persecution, after all he was living in France and a key musician of “Quintette du Hot Club de France” now for six years. One reason is that Eastern European Romani communities were less organised than Jewish communities, and therefore not well documented. The other reason is that supposedly, Django enjoyed the protection of one jazz-loving Nazi, Luftwaffe officer Dietrich Schulz-Köhn, nicknamed “Doktor Jazz.

Our first wartime song is DJANGOLOGY, recorded in Brussels, May 8, 1942. At this time, Belgium had fallen to the Nazis along with France and the Netherlands, two years earlier. The Battle of Britain had also passed, and Belgium is occupied at this time.

Djangology leads the piece with a brief solo, then the Stan Brenders and Son Grand Orchestra performers are added in, and Django is prominently mixed to be in the front of the orchestra. Note the lack of violinist Stephan Grappelli. He remains in London during the WW2. Here is an early example of jazz guitar with a LEAD role within a large orchestra. The very young jazz guitarist Charlie Christian has died two months earlier in New York.

Without further adieu, Djangology (composed by D. Reinhardt), recorded in 1942

Djangology (D. Reinhardt), from the VERVE Jazz Masters Compilation 1994

Recorded in: Brussels May 8, 1942

  • Personnel Included members of the Stan Brenders and Son Grand Orchestra

M5 Blues Clair (D. Reinhardt), rec 2/26/1943, _______, 3:01 [Capitol-Bluenote Compilation 1996]

Blues Clair is a 12-bar blues format but in a happy major scale and without the commonly used Pentatonic scale of American Blues. Django demonstrates a number of bizaar techniques here, including some fabulous fast-strumming chords , the use of ringing harmonics, and picking strings beyond the guitar bridge. Listen to these strange techniques, all played together, mid song…

We also hear Django’s high paced single-note guitar lead delivery. There is a drum part in this song, not commonly done, in earlier recordings of Quintette du Hot Club de France, the guitar strumming and bass provided all of the percussion.

Recorded in: 1943

Personnel Included

  • Django Reinhardt G
  • Eugene Vees RG
  • Gaston Leonard D
  • Jean Storne B

Now we switch gears and go to SONGS POST WW2. It is now early 1946, eight months after the capture of Berlin by Polish and Soviet forces.

M6 Belleville (D. Reinhardt), rec 2/1/1946, London, 3:15 [VERVE Jazz Masters Compilation 1994]

We start with Belleville, a Django composition. We are back with the Quintette du Hot Club de France and Stephane Grappelli again, recording in LONDON. There are two rhythm guitarists and a bass.

Belleville (D. Reinhardt composition),

Recorded in: London, 1946

Personnel of the Quintette du Hot Club de France with

  • Stephanie Grappelli VN
  • Django Reinhardt G
  • Jack Llewellyn G
  • Alan Hodgkiss G
  • Coleridge Goode B

M7 Nuages (D. Reinhardt-J. Larue), rec 2/1/1946, London, 3:15 [VERVE Jazz Masters Compilation 1994]

Nuages, French for Clouds. Nuages is another jazz standard, it is frequently played and has been reincarnated or emulated in two other songs, for example,

Melancholy Serenade, the theme song of the Jackie Gleason Show, and

Sand, the Hawaiian sounding steel guitar instrumental by Jerry Byrd.

And now the original classic, NUAGES, with a unique guitar introduction, recorded in 1946 in London

 

Recorded in: 1946 in London

Personnel Included

  • Personnel of the Quintette du Hot Club de France with
  • Stephanie Grappelli VN
  • Django Reinhardt G
  • Jack Llewellyn G
  • Alan Hodgkiss G
  • Coleridge Goode B

M8 Swing 48 (D. Reinhardt), rec 7/6/1947, Paris, 2:45 [VERVE Jazz Masters Compilation 1994]

Next up is SWING 48. Another Django original composition. We are back in Paris now. The personnel have changed. We have Hubert Rostaing on CLARINET, instead of Grappelli on violin. Now DJANGO is performing on ELECTRIC GUITAR. This I different kind of sound all together. Recorded in 1947, Django is BLAZING on guitar. His younger brother Joseph is on rhythm guitar. And we have the jazz drummer Andre Jourdan … Swing 48, composed by Django, performed on an electric / acoustic guitar.

Recorded in: Paris, 1947

  • Personnel of the Quintette du Hot Club de France with
  • Hubert Rostaing CL
  • Django Reinhardt G
  • Joseph Reinhardt G
  • Ladislas Czabanyck B
  • Andre Jourdan D

M9 Brick Top (D. Reinhardt-S. Grappelli), rec Feb 1949, Rome, 3:42 [Djangology remaster 1961]

M10 Night and Day (C. Porter), rec 3/10/1953, Paris, 2:51 [VERVE Jazz Masters Compilation 1994]

Next up is Night and Day (C. Porter), rec 3/10/1953, Paris. In the Django Reinhardt et Ses Rythmes we hear PIANO, DRUM, BASS and GUITAR. In the electric guitar work, we hear a prediction of the sounds of SUSTAIN and DISTORTION effects. For DJANGO, this is both a demonstration of his TECHNICAL PROWESS and wonderful MUSICAL CONTENT. Just two months after this recording, while walking from the Fontainebleau-Avon railway station after playing in a Paris club, he collapsed outside his house from a brain hemorrhage. Reinhardt was declared dead on arrival at the hospital in Fontainebleau at age 43.

Recorded in:Paris, 1953, just two months before Dango’s untimely death in France.

  • Personnel of the Django Reinhardt et Ses Rythmes
  • Django Reinhardt G
  • Maurice Vander P
  • Pierre Michelot B
  • Jean Louis Viale D

Jazz Guitarist Charlie Christian VV-011

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PROGRAM NOTES

  1. Hotter Than That, (Lil Hardin) Louis Armstrong Hot Fives, Lonnie Johnson guitar, 1927 (Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz CBS 1973)
  2. Mahogany Hall Stomp (Spencer Williams) (excerpted), Louis Armstrong & Orchestra, Lonnie Johnson guitar, 1929, Parlophone R571
  3. All Star Strut, (R. Mergentroid) Metronome All Star Nine, Charlie Christian amplified guitar, NYC, Columbia Records, 1940
  4. Gone With What Wind, (C. Basie, B. Goodman) Benny Goodman Sextet, Charlie Christian amplified guitar, NYC, 1940
  5. I Got Rhythm, (I + G Gershwin) Charlie Christian Quintet, Charlie Christian amplified guitar, Minneapolis, 1940
  6. Tea For Two, (I. Caesar, V. Youmans) Charlie Christian Quintet, Charlie Christian amplified guitar, Minneapolis, 1940
  7. Benny’s Bugle (B. Goodman) Benny Goodman & his Sextet, Charlie Christian amplified guitar, Columbia, NYC, 1940
  8. Royal Garden Blues, (C. Williams, S. Williams) Benny Goodman & his Sextet, Charlie Christian amplified guitar, Columbia, NYC, 1940
  9. Gilly (B. Goodman) Benny Goodman & his Sextet, Charlie Christian amplified guitar, Columbia NYC, 1940
  10. Blues Sequence / Breakfast Feud (B. Goodman) Benny Goodman & his Sextet Charlie Christian amplified guitar Columbia NYC, 1940
  11. I Found A New Baby (Jack. Palmer, Spencer. WIlliams) Benny Goodman & his Sextet Charlie Christian amplified guitar Columbia NYC, 1941
  12. Solo Flight (Charlie. Christian, James Mundy, Benny Goodman) Benny Goodman & his Orchestra, Charlie Christian amplified guitar Columbia NYC, 1941

In today’s VINYL VIBRATIONS podcast, I tour some early vinyl records that showcase guitarist great Charlie Christian. These performances of Charlie Christian are found on Vinyl LP Record compilations of his recordings between 1939 and 1941. Often you will hear remarks from today’s jazz, pop, blues, even rock guitarists ….like Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, and Eric Clapton ….that their BIGGEST INFLUENCES came from two or three early guitarists — DJANGO REINHARDT, LONNIE JOHNSON and CHARLIE CHRISTIAN. You will hear this many times.

The former, DJANGO REINHARDT, the BELGIAN jazz guitarist, is well known for his EUROPEAN style of jazz, the so-called “HOT JAZZ” or “GYPSY JAZZ” or “ROMANI” style of music, that has become a living musical tradition within FRENCH GYPSY CULTURE. DJANGO’s “GYPSY JAZZ” style is widely emulated by today’s jazz guitarists. DJANGO lived 43 years, between 1910 and 1953, and some of his most popular ORIGINAL compositions, such as MINOR SWING, DAPHNE, BELLEVILLE, DJANGOLOGY, SWING 42 and NUAGES…are jazz standards today. DJANGO REINHARDT is widely recorded, with SIX recordings during his lifetime, and a total of 23 recordings all together, many of which are compilations of his works. So DJANGO as a cultural influence, is a fascinating subject in and of itself, and will be the subject of an upcoming VINYL VIBRATIONS podcast!

LONNIE JOHNSON, ANOTHER Jazz and blues guitarist, is credited with PIONEERING the ROLE of jazz guitar …..and for being perhaps the FIRST recorded case of playing single-note guitar solos. He had an extensive discography and lived to be 71, so Lonnie Johnson is well recognized, having being extensively recorded AND after having a long-standing career, performing as late as 1966, or at age 67 years.

But WHAT ABOUT THIS THIRD INFLUENTIAL GUITARIST …the AMERICAN guitarist CHARLIE CHRISTIAN…NAMED SO OFTEN…..OF WHOM WE KNOW SO LITTLE ??? CHARLIE CHRISTIAN. Who is that??? What are his songs? What was his guitar style? How can CHRISTIAN be cited so often as a strong influence, when there are relatively few recordings to play? IS CHARLIE CHRISTIAN LOST IN JAZZ MUSIC HISTORY?

I am going to bring to light some of this lesser known work of Charlie Christian, and feature some of the first recorded examples of his jazz guitar. More importantly, jazz guitar where the instrument is amplified and the guitarist is playing a lead role. This is truly unusual, in retrospective. Today, I feature the young guitarist genius born in Texas and raised in Oklahoma, named Charlie Christian.

So who is guitarist Charlie Christian?? It’s a fair question ….because Charlie Christian played professionally a very long time ago, and one would only hear this guitarist in the context of music from the AMERICAN SWING ERA. Christian was recorded in the late 1930s and early 1940s. He was captured in …at most…25-30 distinct songs, in which he is primarily captured as a sideman with his catalyst, band leader Benny Goodman. Christian lived to be only 25 years of age, having succumbed to the infectious disease tuberculosis, in Staten Island New York, in 1942.

What makes Charlie Christian so unusual is how much influence and groundbreaking guitar work he did achieve in just 8 to10 years of his adult lifetime.

This guitar work represents one of the FIRST recorded examples of SINGLE-NOTE AMPLIFIED GUITAR, WHERE THE GUITAR IS BEING PLAYED AS A LEAD INSTRUMENT IN A SEXTET or in a BIG BAND. This is very unusual, because of the nature of the jazz guitar.

Until the time of Charlie Christian, the jazz guitar was strictly an acoustic instrument, perhaps a classical guitar, with gut strings, playing a RHYTHM part in the band, with the pronounced strumming of chords in time or double time with the bass line. Often a banjo was used as the rhythm instrument, it was brighter in sound, and projected better than a guitar.

 

So, for the jazz guitar circa 1938, THAT WAS IT…just rhythm strumming. No pickups. No amplifiers, no instrument microphones and definitely no SOLO role for the guitarist. Pretty cozy, really, for the guitar work. No pressure at all…..

M1 LONNIE JOHNSON HOTTER THAN HOT in background…

TEN YEARS BEFORE CHARLIE CHRISTIAN, THERE IS ONE OTHER EXAMPLE OF LEAD GUITAR IN A JAZZ BAND , RECORDING STARTING IN 1925.   —Lonnie Johnson.

  1. Hotter Than That, (Lil Hardin) Louis Armstrong Hot Fives, Lonnie Johnson guitar, 1927 (Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz CBS 1973)

LONNIE JOHNSON was born in 1899 in NEW ORLEANS. He was an American blues and jazz singer/guitarist and songwriter who pioneered the role of jazz guitar and is recognized as the first to play single-string guitar solos. Johnson’s discography is ENORMOUS with 192 songs recorded between 1925 and 1942, 65 of which are his original compositions. He recorded on OKEH (‘OKAY’), BLUEBIRD and DECCA labels. Johnson lived to be 71 and he performed, off and on, even later in life, and he performed as late as 1966 in Toronto.

Now let’s go back in time to 1927, in Chicago, Lonnie Johnson, from New Orleans, is just 28 years old, and here he is being recorded as a guest artist with Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five, the song is “Hotter than That”. This is an experimental jazz improvisation, played in the New Orleans “DIXIE” style of Jazz. LONNIE JOHNSON is playing lead guitar side-by-side with a 26-year old Louis Armstrong,   and Armstrong is doing his SCAT style of singing.

Louis Armstrong has to be credited with the innovation of emphasizing a solo guitarist, ……who would know that this would be the natural future state of jazz bands??? For this particular recording session, the Hot Fives became, in effect, the Hot Six, based on the addition of guitarist Lonnie Johnson. Thank you Louis Armstrong !!

note— LONNIE IS LEAD GTR AT 1:21-1:33 and 1:54-2:07

M2 Mahogany Hall Stomp (Spencer Williams) (excerpted), Louis Armstrong & Orchestra, Lonnie Johnson guitar, 1929, Parlophone R571 (78 RPM record0. Here is another example of Lonnie Johnson in Mahogany Hall Stomp (Spencer Williams), another DIXIE JAZZ style of music.

Lonnie Johnson is credited on this 78RPM album with being “GUITAR SOLOIST“. … this is thought to be a FIRST in CREDITS (GUITAR SOLOIST) in jazz guitar history.

Personnel included

  • Louis Armstrong ~ Trumpet and Vocal
  • Lonnie Johnson ~ Guitar
  • J.C. Higginbotham ~ Trombone
  • Albert Nicholas ~ Alto Saxophone
  • Charlie Holmes ~ Alto Saxophone
  • Teddy Hill ~ Tenor Saxophone
  • Luis Russell ~ Piano
  • Eddie Condon ~ Banjo
  • Pops Foster ~ String Bass
  • Paul Barbarin ~ Drum

M3 SOME TRACKS FEATURING CHARLIE CHRISTIAN ON SOLO GUITAR

Many of the tracks I will play today are from the compilation double album “Solo Flight: The Genius of Charlie Christian”. This is a 1972 LP 2-album set, collecting the few recordings that captured performances of this little-known artist.   Most of the recorded works are of songs performed as SIDEMAN from sessions with Benny Goodman’s bands. The INNOVATION is that Benny Goodman, (like Louis Armstrong with guitarist Lonnie Johnson) saw the future of amplified guitar as a solo instrument.

THIS FIRST SONG, ALL STAR STRUT is performed by the Metronome All Star Nine, Charlie Christian amplified guitar, this was recorded in NYC in 1940. The Metronome All-Stars were a collection of jazz musicians assembled for studio recordings by Metronome Magazine. All Star Strut has the Dixie Jazz flavor to it.   You can clearly hear Christian’s amplified guitar, the traditional rhythm strumming, it is in time with the bass line. The clarinet is first to solo then amazingly, the GUITAR is the second to solo. This is groundbreaking to employ the guitar at a peer level with the other band instruments — clarinet–trombone-piano -bass-trumpet-saxophone-and drums- Christian’s ONE guitar solo is clear and stands up well with these other instruments

 

Personnel

  • recorded in New York, Feb 1940 with the Metronome All Star Nine:

▪       Benny Goodman — clarinet

▪           Charlie Christian — amplified guitar

▪           Harry James — trumpet

▪           don’t read

▪           Jack Teagarden — trombone

▪           Benny Carter — alto saxophone

▪           Eddie Miller — tenor saxophone

▪           Jess Stacy — piano

▪           Bob Haggart — bass

▪           Gene Krupa — drums

M4 GONE With WHAT Wind, (C. Basie, B. Goodman) featuring the Benny Goodman Sextet, Charlie Christian amplified guitar

Charlie Christian is 21 years old, and has the third lead solo, following the Benny Goodman clarinet (age 31) and Count Basie on piano (age 36)           Christian plays his solo for 28 seconds, and is followed by Lionel Hampton, then age 32, on the Vibrophone. This is true Swing Era music. Perhaps the Song title …GONE with WHAT wind….exemplifies the nature of swing, which is emphasis on the first and third beat of a four beat pattern. GONE with WHAT wind, contracted with the later BOP style whack emphasized TWO and FOUR, such as …..salt PEANUTS salt PEANUTS.

Gone With What Wind, (C. Basie, B. Goodman) Benny Goodman Sextet, Charlie Christian amplified guitar, NYC, 1940

from the Benny Goodman Sextet …

Personnel included …

▪       Count Basie — piano

▪           Benny Goodman — clarinet

▪           Charlie Christian — amplified guitar

▪           Lionel Hampton — vibes

▪           don’t read the rest

▪           Artie Bernstein — bass

▪           Nick Fatool — drums

M5 I Got Rhythm, played by the Charlie Christian Quintet, with Christian on amplified guitar, Minneapolis, 1940

Now this is a stretch for recorded material, that is…..case in point on how little material there is from Charlie Christian. Christian is just 23 years old. The so-called “Charlie Christian Quintet” is being recorded privately at a club in Minneapolis, MN, early Mar 1940, on acetate discs, by a local disc jockey. The sound quality is not as good as a studio / professional recording. But there is a lot of solid Charlie Christian guitar work here. Being the lead of his own Quinte, Christian can mix in his guitar at any loudness he wants. In this case….LOUD !!!! Even his rhythm strumming is quite loud in the mix. This is a George Gershwin composition from 1930.

I Got Rhythm,  performed by the Charlie Christian Quintet, Charlie Christian amplified guitar, Minneapolis, 1940

Personnel included (Charlie Christian Quintet):

▪       Charlie Christian — amplified guitar

▪           Jerry Jerome — tenor saxophone

▪           Frankie Hines — piano

▪           unknown — bass, drums

M6 Tea For Two, (music by Vincent Youmans) the song from the 1925 movie “NO NO NANETTE”, performed again by the Charlie Christian Quintet, Charlie Christian amplified guitar, Minneapolis, 1940,

This is another track that was recorded privately at a club in Minneapolis, MN, It is again a highly distorted track, but Charlie Christian shows his chops on this song. Toward the last few measures of this song, in the final guitar solo, are TWO of Charlie Christian’s lead guitar techniques were later reincarnated in the music of two very different and great guitarists — Buddy Guy, and Larry Coryell, respectively. Here is a sample of those two segments…..

Tea for Two, performed by the Charlie Christian Quintet):

▪           Charlie Christian — amplified guitar

▪           Frankie Hines — piano

▪           Jerry Jerome — tenor saxophone

▪           unknown — bass, drums

 

M7 Benny’s Bugle (B. Goodman) Benny Goodman & his Sextet, Charlie Christian amplified guitar, Columbia, NYC, 1940

This is a REAL recording. Following the Cootie Williams bugle call on this quintessential SWING ERA song, Charlie Christian is the FIRST to SOLO on this track.

Benny’s Bugle….(B. Goodman) Personnel included:

Benny Goodman and His Sextet featuring

  • Cootie Williams — trumpet
  • Benny Goodman — clarinet
  •   Count Basie] — piano
  •   Charlie Christian — amplified guitar
  •  George Auld — tenor saxophone
  • Artie Bernstein — bass
  • Harry Jaeger — drums

M8 Royal Garden Blues, (Clarence Williams, Spencer Williams (no relation), 1919). Royal Garden Blues is a jazz standard from Swing Era music..

Performed by Benny Goodman & his Sextet, Charlie Christian amplified guitar, Columbia, NYC, 1940

Royal Garden Blues starts out with the muted trumpet, and Charlie Christian’s brief guitar solo is in two parts, mid song. The song is primarily a Benny Goodman showcase, with Charlie Christian having an easy, mis-song solo.   You have to have songs like that.

Performers:

▪           Cootie Williams — trumpet

▪           Charlie Christian — amplified guitar

M9 Gilly, pronounced “JILL-Y”. Gilly (B. Goodman) Benny Goodman & his Sextet, Charlie Christian amplified guitar, Columbia NYC, 1940

We hear some innovative work on guitar and trumpet—-Charlie Christian’s lead guitar work on “Gilly” is unusual, his single-note lead guitar playing opens the song, followed by Cootie William’s toilet-plunger “wow” trumpet style. The guitar work includes bold open-string harmonics, a few fat-shaped chords, and there is also single-note harmony playing between clarinet and guitar. The interplay between piano, clarinet and guitar is fun to hear. Another Swing Era classic.

 

Notable performances in the Benny Goodman and His Sextet were

▪     Benny Goodman — clarinet

▪       Charlie Christian — amplified guitar

▪       Cootie Williams — trumpet with the WOW effect

M10 Blues Sequence /Breakfast Feud

This next song “BREAKFAST FEUD – BLUES SEQUENCE” is a series of jazz guitar solos from Benny Goodman’s song and features Charlie Christian in a big way, he is the dominant player, with a SMOKING HOT guitar part. This track was obtained from a compilation by the Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz , and published as an LP BOX SET in 1973 by CBS.  Breakfast Feud–Blues Sequence, B. Goodma recorded in 1940

  • Benny Goodman — clarinet
  • Charlie Christian — amplified guitar
  • Cootie Williams — trumpet

 

M11 I Found A New Baby  Benny Goodman & his Sextet

This is one of Charlie Christian’s later recordings, recorded in NYC in January, 1941 on Columbia.. An ultra-clean song in terms of each of the instrument lines, and relatively restrained sound level. Christian has the first mid-song, guitar solo, followed by piano, muted wow-trumpet of Cootie Williams, tenor sax by George Auld. A shortie at 2 minutes 55 seconds. Recorded in New York 15 Jan 1941.

I Found A New Baby (Jack Palmer, Spencer WIlliams)

Personnel from Benny Goodman and His Sextet included

  • Benny Goodman — clarinet
  • Cootie Williams — trumpet
  • George Auld — tenor saxophone
  • Count Basie — piano
  • Charlie Christian — amplified guitar

M12  Solo Flight Background

Our final track in this podcast is the song Solo Flight one of the only songs credited to CHARLIE CHRISTIAN as composer. Many have suspected that more of the Benny Goodman hits were Charlie Christian composition, but this is speculation, and it was not reflected in the form of song credits, copyrights or royalties.   SOLO FLIGHT is credited as a collaboration song…Charlie Christian, James Mundy, Benny Goodman. Charlie Christian begins to solo early in this song, and plays single note lead guitar on amplified guitar continuously to the end. The title is appropriate because he does fly solo for the entire 2 minutes and 45 seconds. By the time of this recording, March of 1941, Charlie Christian knew he had Tuberculosis. But Christian remained busy, not only with the national fame of the Benny Goodman Band and the Benny Goodman Sextet, but also he was busy with a night club in Harlem called “Minton’sPlayhouse”, where he was incubating the next wave of jazz music — BE-BOP music. In June 1941 he was admitted to Seaview Hospital, a sanitarium on Staten Island in New York City. Christian declined in health and died March 2, 1942. He was just…25 years old.

Guitarists-Jazz Fusion Greats VV-010

~ vinylvibrationsbrianfrederick

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In today’s VINYL VIBRATIONS podcast, I tour some LP records that showcase guitarist greats in the emerging jazz fusion music era. These performances are found on Vinyl LP and today’s show is called GUITARISTS – JAZZ FUSION GREATS. In today’s podcast, we will hear jazz and jazz fusion guitarists from the 17-year period of 1960 to 1977, including…

 

1 Charlie Byrd Trio The Guitar Artistry of Charlie Byrd Nuages (Rheinhardt) Riverside 1960

2 Wes Montgomery Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery Four On Six (Montgomery) Riverside-OJC 1960

3 Frank Zappa Chunga’s Revenge Chunga’s Revenge (Zappa) Reprise-Warner Bros 1970

4 Mahavishnu Orchestra Birds of Fire Open Country Joy (McLaughlin) 1973 Columbia

5 Pat Metheny Bright Size Life Missouri Uncompromised (Metheny) ECM 1975

6 Larry Coryell Philip Catherine Twin-House Guitar Duos Mortgage on Your Soul (Keith Jarrett) WEA Musik 1977

7 Al Di Meola Elegant Gypsy Suite Elegant Gypsy Suite (Di Meola) Columbia 1977

We will hear examples of guitarists playing various forms of jazz, leading up to the emerging jazz-rock fusion genre of the 1970s. These are LP records, produced between the years 1960 and 1977. We will hear influences of gypsy jazz in Reinhardt, ear-trained Montomery, zany Zappa, mahavishnu McLaughlin, modal Metheny and elegant gypsy DiMeola …as composers of the songs in this podcast.

M1 Charlie Byrd Trio, Nuages. Charlie Byrd was born in Suffolk, Virginia, in 1925. He was an American guitarist playing the genres of bossa nova, brasilian jazz, latin jazz and swing. Byrd played fingerstyle on a classical guitar. His father, a mandolinist and guitarist, taught him how to play the acoustic steel guitar at age 10. In 1943 he was drafted into the United States Army for World War II, and was stationed in Paris in 1945 where he played in an Army Special Services band. Byrd’s greatest influence was the gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt, whom he saw perform in Paris. After the war, Byrd returned to the United States and went to New York, where he studied composition and he began playing a classical guitar. In 1954 he became a pupil of the Spanish classical guitarist Andres Segovia and spent time studying in Italy with Segovia. Byrd was best known for his association with Brazilian music, especially bossa nova. In 1962, Charlie Byrd collaborated with Stan Getz on the album Jazz Samba, a recording which brought bossa nova into the mainstream of North American music. This song, Nuages is one of the best-known compositions by Django Reinhardt. Reinhardt recorded about thirteen versions of the song, and today it is a jazz standard and a main portion of the gypsy swing repertoire. It was originally an instrumental piece.

Charlie Byrd Trio, The Guitar Artistry of Charlie Byrd , Nuages (Django Rheinhardt) , Riverside OLP 1960, 3:05

Personnel

  • Charlie Byrd guitar  1925-1999
  • Keter Betts  bass
  • Buddy Deppenschmidt  drummer

M2 Wes Montgomery , Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery , Four On Six (Montgomery) , Riverside-OJC 1960, 6:14

Personnel

  • • Wes Montgomery- electric guitar
  • • Tommy Flanagan – piano
  • • Percy Heath – bass
  • • Albert Heath – drums

Wes Montgomery was born in Indianapolis. and came from a musical family. Two brothers were also jazz performers. Monk on bass and Buddy on vibraphone and piano. The brothers released a number of albums together as the Montgomery Brothers, on the Pacific Jazz label. As a band leader, Wes produced many albums, 31 albums over a 10 year period, with three labels, Riverside, Verve and A&M. He also is recorded only three times as a guitar sideman- – showing that Wes Montgomery preferred to lead his own band. Montgomery toured with Lionel Hampton early in his career, age 25-27, however he returned home to Indianapols to support his family of eight. Montgomery worked in a factory from 7:00 am to 3:00 pm, then performed in local clubs from 9:00 pm to 2:00 am.  Montgomery’s created a unique guitar sound, and his tracks can be identified almost immediately based on his signature technique. Some points you may not know, about Montgomery’s jazz guitar technique:

  • 1. Wes could learn complex melodies and riffs by ear. Montgomery played a 4-string tenor guitar from the age of 12 and then started learning the six-string guitar at the relatively late age of 20 by listening then learning the recordings of his idol, guitarist Charlie Christian. Montgomery had the ability to play Charlie Christian’s solos note for note, and in 1948 Wes was hired by Lionel Hampton for this ability. He was just 25, and toured almost two years with Hampton, then returned home to Indianapolis. He did not record for 7 years until his first release, “Fingerpickin”, in 1958.
  • 2. Wes had 3-tiered solo technique, and it worked like this.  First, he would start a solo with single-note lines, [Four on Six EXAMPLE1 at 0:39] then he would follow with his trademark octave sound, [Four on Six EXAMPLE2 at 3:00] and then begin using block chords or chord melodies, often triads, in his solos [Besame Mucho Take 2 (iTunes) EXAMPLE at 2:30 ].
  • 3. Montgomery’s trademark octave sound was dubbed in the music world as the “naptown sound”, a reference to the nickname of his home town of Indianapolis. Here is another example of that “naptown” sound [Four on Six EXAMPLE3 at 1:34].
  • 4. Instead of using a guitar pick, Montgomery played the guitar strings with his thumb. This technique created a mellow, expressive tone. According to jazz guitar great, George Benson, Wes had a two-part thumb. A soft part, used for playing the mellow notes, and giving that mellow sound, and another area that had developed a corn from extended playing. This corn served as a sort of pick, giving the string a plucked or bright or pointed sound

Today we hear a track from Wes’s FOURTH album, The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery, released in 1960, at age 37. It took just two recording sessions in New York City to make this LP, which was recorded as a quartet, with pianist Tommy Flanagan, bassist Percy Heath, who at the time was with the Modern Jazz Quartet, and drummer Albert “Tootie” Heath. The album featured two of Montgomery’s most well-known compositions, “Four on Six” , which we will hear, and “West Coast Blues.  This is song 4 of 8 on that LP. I believe this is Wes Montgomery’s finest record. This recording put Wes Montgomery on the map and earned him Down Beat magazine’s “New Star” award in 1960. Montgomery’s jazz guitar sound is just as fresh today, over 50 years after this recording.

 

M3 Frank Zappa, Chunga’s Revenge is the album and title song, Chunga’s Revenge, Reprise-Warner Bros 1970, 6:16

Personnel

  • • Frank Zappa guitar
  • • Ian Underwood electric alto sax with wah-wah pedal
  • • Sugar Cane Harris organ
  • • Max Bennett bass
  • • Aynsley Dunbar drums

Frank (1940 –1993) was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, recording engineer, record producer and film director. He began writing classical music in high school, while at the same time playing drums in rhythm and blues bands; he later switched to electric guitar.This LP album was produced by Frank Zappa. And all selections were written and published by Zappa. It is a strange album, not just because it is all Zappa, but because of how eclectic these songs are, a mix of songs from POP, JAZZ FUSION, BLUES and ROCK music forms. The title track, Chunga’s Revenge, is a song about a small mutant Gypsy vacuum cleaner, the protagonist of the title song of this album. On the LP front cover is this bit of Zappa story prose about ..the Chunga.. “A Gypsy industrial vacuum cleaner dances about a mysterious night time camp fire. Festoons. Dozens of imported castanets, clutched by the horrible suction of its heavy duty hose, waving with marginal erotic abandon in the midnight autumn air.” The inside panels of this folding LP cover displays a the gypsy vacuum cleaner playing through an amplifier, in front of a campfire, in a camp of caravans, horses, castanets, microphones, and a recording studio control panel. Bizaar indeed. Zappa’s electric guitar work is strong here. The song has a jazz format, with formal beginning and ending and extended improvisation midsection, giving Zappa a long runway to show his colorful wah-wah, compressed guitar style. This marries up well with the wah-wah electric alto sax of Ian Underwood.  Zappa was innovative with his use of tone control, alternating between high distortion and sustain to wah-wah pedal effects.  Zappa would open his show with this slow and very deliberate piece, with an ELEGANT lead melody line. Zappa was 30 at the time of this recording. Thirty years later, Chunga’s Revenge was recorded by Parisian tango revival group Gotan Project for their 2001 debut album La Revancha del Tango.

M4 Mahavishnu Orchestra , Birds of Fire, Open Country Joy (McLaughlin) , Columbia 1973, Side two, track 3., 3:54.

Personnel

  • • John McLaughlin guitar
  • • Rick Laird bass
  • • Billy Cobham percussion
  • • Jerry Goodman violin
  • • Jan Hammer keyboard

This is an example from the “first” Mahavishnu Orchestra lineup, this ensemble recorded two records with Columbia between 1971 and 73. This is the second, and last album with that lineup. The band’s original lineup featured “Mahavishnu” John McLaughlin on acoustic and electric guitars, Billy Cobham on drums, Rick Laird on bass guitar, Jan Hammer on electric and acoustic piano and synthesizer, and Jerry Goodman on violin. This was a multinational group: McLaughlin being from England; Cobham from Panama; Hammer from Prague, Goodman from Chicago; and Laird from Dublin. McLaughlin and Cobham met while performing and recording with Miles Davis during the Bitches Brew sessions. In a word, this song is ELEGANT, with a simple melody and theme.  The sound is a blend of GENRES — the high-volume electrified rock sound (pioneered by Jimi Hendrix), clearly there is an interest in both Indian and Western Classical Music, and another McLaughlin favorite, the feel of funk music.  The music on this early Mahavishnu album was all instrumental.

In “Open Country Joy,” recording starts with a sort of pastoral scene, in which the composer employs various techniques to create a simple and peaceful mode, and starts with the familiar and relaxing sound of the jangley guitar chords of Mclaughlin – – – similar to that jangly sound from the song “Mr. Tambourine Man!” by the BYRDs in 1965 [Example 1 0:00-0:10 Mr Tambourine Man—iTUnes][Example 2 Open Country Joy LP].  4/4 time. Then add in the beautiful electric violin work of Jerry Goodman. The pastoral mode continues for just over a minute. Then, at 71 seconds, all chaos begins, as instruments are turned up, the tempo is doubled, and for another minute there is an incredible energy level, and then at 2:30, we return back to the serene, pastoral scene.

Recorded in 1973 in New York and London, the jazz fusion guitar work of John McLaughlin and the first Mahavishnu Orchestra, performing OPEN COUNTRY JOY.

M5 Pat Metheny , Bright Size Life , Missouri Uncompromised (Metheny) , ECM Records 1976, 4:13

Personnel

  • • Pat Metheny 6 and 12-string guitars  b1954
  • • Jaco Pastorious bass (fretless)
  • • Bob Moses drums

BRIGHT SIZE LIFE must have been an expression that defined a very exciting time in Pat Metheny’s early career. He was 21, and although he had been recording earlier, BRIGHT SIZE LIFE was his first big album. The album was not produced on an American label, but a German label, ECM Records, and recorded in, Ludwigsburg, West Germany in 1976.

All songs but one were composed by Metheny, just a kid from the suburbs of Kansas City.  Metheny was able to assemble some great talent for this first LP. For example the bassist, is another fusion pioneer, Jaco Pastorius, borrowed from Epic records. Pastorius, as you might remember, was one the first to bring the electric fretless bass to fusion. [example Missouri Uncompromised 0:25 to 0:30] And Bob Moses on drums, who had performed with Larry Coryell in The Free Spirits, a jazz fusion ensemble, and in the Gary Burton Quartet. The song “Missouri Uncompromised” is a very strange assembly of ideas. An abstract sound, for all parts, drums, bass, and the strange melody of this song. The lines are angular, and the song has a rhythmic drive.

Perhaps the song is as strange as the namesake Missouri Compromise. From U.S. history, the Missouri Compromise was an agreement passed in 1820 between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in the United States Congress, on the regulation of slavery in the new, western territories. Is there historical symbolism in this song? Or was the song just a random title, pulled from one of Metheny’s college textbooks.  Three years earlier before this album, Metheny had been attending the University of Miami, when, as a Freshman, he was struck by a great opportunity. Should he continue at the University, or take an opportunity to be a teaching assistant. Not just any school. The Berklee College of Music. And not just any teaching assistant, he would be the assistant to none other than jazz vibraphonist great, Gary Burton.  It was 1972, Gary Burton was a BIG jazz player, and already had recorded 17 albums as the leader. And at the time of the recording of BRIGHT SIZE LIFE 1975-1976, Pat Metheny was in already Gary Burton’s band.

Pat Metheny, age 21, his debut LP, Bright Size Life, the song “Missouri Uncompromised”. 

M6 Larry Coryell and Philip Catherine , Twin-House – Guitar Duos, Mortgage on Your Soul (Keith Jarrett) , WEA Musik 1977 (Hamburg), 3:00

Personnel

  • • Larry Coryell acoustic guitar
  • • Philip Catherine acoustic guitar

The song Mortgage on My Soul (Wah Wah) is a Kieth Jarrett composition from his 1971 Atlantic album “Birth”.  In this arrangement of “Mortgage”, the song is actually mis-named on the Twin House album as “Mortgage on Your Soul”.  The Twin House version is played as an acoustic guitar duo, and the guitarists are Larry Coryell and Philip Catherine. In opening the song, they play the same bass line in unison, while the third guitar, which is Coryell overdubbed, takes the first solo. Catherine follows with his guitar solo. Here is some of the song opening sound. Coryell, from Texas, came into prominence in 1967 with Gary Burton Quartet , and is still an active jazz guitar performer today, with his signature fiery sound. Catherine is from Brussels, and like Coryell, draws his influences from Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt.  This track was recorded in London in 1977 by WEA Musik GmbH, and released by Elektra / Warner records.

M7 Al Di Meola  b1954, Elegant Gypsy Suite , Elegant Gypsy Suite (Di Meola) , Columbia 1977, Producer: Al Di Meola

Elegant Gypsy Suite is the second album by American jazz fusion guitarist Al Di Meola, Born in 1954 in Jersey City, New Jersey. At 17, in 1971 he enrolled in the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.

In 1974 he joined Chick Corea’s band, Return to Forever, and played with the band until a major lineup shift in 1976.

In 1977, DiMeola was just 23, and the Elegant Gypsy Suite was recorded as a studio album, which he self-produced. The Genre is Latin jazz, jazz fusion. Di Meola was still a member of Return to Forever at the time of this recording. No wonder the sound of the Gypsy Suite piece is remarkably similar with Return to Forever’s Chick Corea leading on keyboards, compared to Jan Hammer on Gypsy. Return’s Bill Connors guitar on compared to Al Di Meola. And Return’s Stanley Clark on bass as compared here to Anthony Jackson.

Di Meola has a distinctive, though not a virtuoso, sound to his guitar artistry. One of his techniques is his Sweep Picking technique, in which he produces a rapid and specific series of notes with a fluid sound, evident in his lead work here. Here is an example of sweep picking: [EXAMPLE ELEGANT GYPSY SUITE iTunes 3:20 – 3:30] a form of shred guitar. Elegant Gypsy Suite delivers a fusion of rock and latin jazz. with lightning-fast unison playing betweem Hammer, DiMeola and drummer Steve Gadd.

Personnel

  • • Al Di Meola: Electric guitars, Acoustic Guitars
  • • Anthony Jackson: Bass guitar.
  • • Jan Hammer: Keyboards, synthesizer.
  • • Steve Gadd: Drums

 

Rock the Classics VV-009

~ vinylvibrationsbrianfrederick

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:18 — 46.9MB)

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PROGRAM EPISODE: ROCK THE CLASSICS

PROGRAM NOTES

In today’s VINYL VIBRATIONS podcast, I tour LP records from the 1960s and 1970s where the rock or pop artist is performing classical music, or giving a new dimension to classical music. These performances are found on Vinyl LP and today’s show is called ROCK THE CLASSICS ! We will hear from Frank Zappa, Blood Sweat & Tears, Jethro Tull, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Deodato, Steely Dan, today … on ROCK THE CLASSICS.

INTRO to ROCK THE CLASSICS (narrate only the names of the groups)

Today we hear ROCK THE CLASSICS …  we will hear…

  • Zappa entertain us with time riddles from Stravinsky
  • Wendy Carlos reinvents a Cantata from JS Bach, 
  • Blood Sweat & Tears soothes us….with music from Erik Satie
  • Jethro Tull and a jazz rendition of a dance from JS Bach
  • Emerson Lake & Palmer rocks us with Bela Bartok
  • Deodato provides fanfare from Richard Strauss … and
  • Steely Dan celebrates a ragtime classic from jazz great, Duke Ellington

Tracks Today:

M1 Petrushka (I. Stravinsky), Frank Zappa, ‘Tis The Season To Be Jelly

M2 Cantata 147, 10th mvt) (J.S. Bach), Wendy Carlos

M3 Trois Gymnopedies On A Theme (Erik Satie), Blood Sweat & Tears

M4 Bouree (J.S. Bach), Jethro Tull

M5 The Barbarian (Bela Bartok) Emerson Lake & Palmer

M6 Also Sprach Zarathustra 2001, (Richard Strauss) Deodato

M7 East St. Louis Toodle-Oo, (Duke Ellington) Steely Dan

In today’s podcast we will hear seven examples of a rock or pop artist, in one case a classical music rocker, performing classical music, and with striking interpretations, new instruments or technology, or change to the musical meter as influenced by pop or rock rhythm… produced between 1965 and 1977.

M1 Song  Petrushka, Album ‘Tis The Season To Be Jelly, Album Artist Frank Zappa, Composer I. Stravinsky (1911), Year 1967, Released By – Bootleg album

Petrushka is a ballet with music by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, composed in 1911. It was premièred in Paris and although the production was a success, music was reviewed as brittle, caustic and even grotesque. Two years later, in 1913, the Vienna Philharmonic initially refused to play the score, considering the score as “dirty music”.

As for Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention, the album ‘Tis the Season to Be Jelly was recorded at Konserthuset, Stockholm, Sweden on September 30, 1967. Pretty cool really, because The Stockholm Concert Hall (Konserthuset) is the main hall for orchestral music in Stockholm, Sweden, it is the home to the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. Bringing us back to the design of this hall for classical music. Was Zappa compelled or inspired by this great house to include SOMETHING classical? This song, Petrushka, was originally recorded by Zappa and distributed on a bootleg album. So now, going back to the 1913 sentiment about Petrushka being “dirty music”, interesting that the bootleg album cover features a caricature of Zappa’s foot and a smelly sock. Perhaps this truly is… “dirty music”?

At the time of this recording, Zappa was 26 years old, so this is very early in his recording career. Only one year earlier, in 1966, Zappa released his debut album FREAK OUT with The Mothers of Invention. And only a week before this concert performance, Frank Zappa wed Gail Sloatman, with whom he was married and produced four children, right until his untimely death in 1993.

Today we hear a short rendition of Petrushka, as arranged for rock band, by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, and as performed in the Konserthuset in Stockholm, in 1967.

M2 Song Cantata 147, (Heart and Mouth and Deed and Life), 10th mvt, Album Switched On Bach, Album Artist Wendy Carlos, Composer Johann S. Bach (1716), Year 1968, Released By Columbia Masterworks Records

Cantata 147, is written by Johann Sebastian Bach. A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often with a choir. Cantatas were in great demand for the services of the Lutheran church. This cantata, numbered 147 by Bach, was written for the beginning of the 1716 church year, the Season of Advent. It was one segment of a 20-minute Church hymn, as is typical of cantatas of the Baroque period. The 10th movement is named … “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”.

Wendy Carlos—is an American composer and a highly proficient musician and studio engineer, born Walter Carlos, in Pawtucket Rhode Island, in 1939. Wendy Carlos, in the mid 1960s — worked closely with music synthesizer designer Robert Moog throughout the development during commercialization of the MOOG Synthesizer. You may be familiar with some of Wendy Carlos work if you saw the 1971 Stanley Kubrick film, “A Clockwork Orange”. That musical score is a powerful example of the use of an electronic synthesizer to render classical music.

Three years before “A Clockwork Orange” soundtrack, Wendy Carlos released her revolutionary album, “Switched-On Bach”. This album played a key role in popularizing classical music performed on an electronic synthesizer. It one the first albums to clearly demonstrate the use of the synthesizer as a genuine musical instrument. As an early user of Robert Moog’s first commercially available synthesizer modules, Wendy Carlos helped pioneer the technology, which was not user-friendly at that time.  In producing Switched On Bach, the technique of multitrack recording played a critical role – – because each part, and each note of a chorded part, needed to be recorded individually. Switched-On Bach went gold in 1969, and Platinum in 1986. The success of Switched On Bach fostered an increased interest in electronically rendered music, and the MOOG synthesizer as a new type of musical instrument. In the 1970 Grammy Awards, Switched On Bach took three prizes: Best Classical Album, Best Classical Performance – Instrumental Soloist and Best Engineered Classical Recording.

From the 1968 album, Switched on Bach, Wendy Carlos electronic rendition of Johanne Sebastian Bach’s “Cantata 147, 10th movement”, “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”.

M3 Song Trois Gymnopedies On A Theme By Erik Satie, Album Blood Sweat & Tears, Album Artist Blood Sweat & Tears, Composers Éric Satie (published 1888), Year 1969 , Released Sony BMG Music

Eric Satie born 1866 in Paris, was an eccentric by French composer and pianist, his most famous composition is the Gymnopédies.  The Gymnopédies, published in Paris, is three piano compositions. ..short pieces written in 3/4 time, and today are regarded as the precursors to modern ambient music, or …”Furniture Music” as this was once known. Today we use the term “Background Music”.  Speaking as a music composer, I consider the term “background  music” a perjorative expression. First, much of the elevator and office background music programmes leave much to be desired in terms of the quality of the selections, and secondly, who would want their music relegated to the background, to not be on the front of the stage, not the main attraction?? Over the years following the Gymnopedies, music did find significant reinvention through its use as the movie soundtrack, as jingles in modern advertising and program theme songs, and some of the worst arrangements have found their way to true elevator background music.

One of the finest ambient music examples, Gymnopedies has survived the test of time, some 123 years running. It is peaceful and mellow, and you can multitask to this music.

Almost 100 years after this song’s debut, in 1968, Blood Sweat & Tears released their second album, which included an adaptation of Gymnopédie #1 (arranged by Dick Halligan) which they titled as Variations on a Theme by Erik Satie (First and Second Movements). The first movement is a straightforward elaboration of the basic theme using flutes, an acoustic guitar and a triangle. The second is an abstract variation using brass instruments and sound EQ and FX. Halligan is the song arranger, very versatile, he plays Flute, Trombone Organ, Piano, and Vocals on this album. In 1970 this song earned BS&T a Grammy for Best Contemporary Instrumental Performance. Now Gymnopedies as performed by Blood Sweat & Tears.

M4 Song Bouree, Album Stand Up, Album Artist Jethro Tull, Composer  J.S. Bach, Year 1969 Morgan Studio London, Released Reprise in US and Canada

The bourrée is a dance of French origin in the 17th century. “Bourrée in E minor” is a popular lute piece, the fifth movement from “Suite in E minor for Lute”, written by Johann Sebastian Bach. Believed to be the most famous piece among guitarists, “Bouree in E minor” demonstrates counterpoint, as the two voices of the piece, the song’s part and counterpart, move independently of one another, so typical of J.S. Bach’s work organ work.

In 1969, the progressive-rock band Jethro Tull included an instrumental track inspired by “Bouree in E Minor” on their album Stand Up. Leader of Jethro Tull, flautist great Ian Anderson, is a unique, world-class, progressive rocker, featuring the modern flute as the lead instrument within a rock format. Ian Anderson’s tremendous flute expressions, self-learned technique, and vox- flute effects, within a rock framework, clearly set him apart. And almost 45 years following the release of the Stand Up LP, Jethro Tull continues to tour.

On this song, Jethro Tull is made up of:

  • • Glenn Cornick: bass guitar
  • • Clive Bunker: drums
  • • Martin Barre: electric guitar,
  • • Ian Anderson: flute

And now “Bouree” from the 1969 album “Stand Up”, as arranged by Ian Anderson and performed by Jethro Tull.

M5 Song The Barbarian, Album Emerson Lake & Palmer, Album Artist Emerson Lake & Palmer, Composer Béla Bartók, “Allegro Barbaro” (1911), Year recorded 1970, London, Released 1970 Island, Atlantic records and Manticore (UK)

This composition appears on the 1970 debut release of “Emerson Lake & Palmer” on the very first track, “The Barbarian”. This song is an arrangement for rock band of Bartók’s 1911 piano composition, ‘Allegro Barbaro’. Béla Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary’s greatest composer . Béla Bartók was born in a small town in Hungary in 1881. At age 21, in 1902, Bartok met Richard Strauss, at the Budapest premiere of Also sprach Zarathustra, and this meeting strongly influenced Bartok’s early work.

‘Allegro Barbaro’, composed in 1911, is one of Béla Bartók’s most famous and frequently performed solo piano pieces. The composition is typical of Bartók’s style, utilizing folk elements. The work combines Hungarian and Romanian scales; Hungarian peasant music is based on the pentatonic scale, while Romanian music is largely chromatic.

The opening melody of Allegro Barbaro is largely pentatonic (the first 22 notes of the melody use only a tone and a minor third, the building block of the pentatonic scale).

The album, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, is the 1970 debut album of British progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer. The Barbarian opens Side One of this LP. This is a reflection of Keith Emerson younger piano repertoire, now, arranged for a rock band. The Barbarian tracks very closely to Bartok’s “Allegro Barbaro” piece, with the arrangement adding in the four parts of … lead guitar, bass, organ and drums.

Personnel

  • • Keith Emerson: Hammond organ, Moog synthesizer
  • • Greg Lake: acoustic guitar, bass, electric guitar, vocals
  • • Carl Palmer: drums, percussion

 

M6 Song  Also Sprach Zarathustra 2001, Album  Prelude, Album Artist  Deodato, Composer  Richard Strauss, Year  1972, Released By CTI

“Also Sprach Zarathustra” is a tone poem by Richard Strauss, composed in 1896. Richard Strauss conducted its first performance in 1896, in Frankfurt. A typical performance of Also Sprach lasts 30 minutes. Over seventy years later, the “initial fanfare” movement in Also Sprach became well known to the public because it was used as the opening theme in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film “2001: A Space Odyssey”. Brazilian musician Eumir Deodato (pron. ew – m ih r) covered the “initial fanfare” under the title “Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001)” on his 1972 album Prelude. It is a jazz-influenced rendition of the introduction from the Richard Strauss composition .Released as the album’s single in 1972, Deodato’s nine-minute funky rendition peaked at #2 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and #7 on the UK Singles Chart. It won the 1974 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance.

On this song, Personnel

  • • Eumir Deodato – piano, electric piano  (pron  ew – m ih r)
  • • Stanley Clarke – electric bass (solo on “Also Sprach Zarathustra”)
  • • Billy Cobham – drums
  • • John Tropea – electric guitar (solo on “Also Sprach Zarathustra”, )

M7 Song East St. Louis Toodle-Oo, Album Pretzel Logic, Album Artist Steely Dan, Composer Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington (1927), Year 1974 , Released By ABC

East St Louis Toodle-Oo is a song by written by pianist “Duke” Ellington and trumpeter Bubber Miley, and recorded in New York in 1927. This song is of the RAGTIME style, Ragtime’s main characteristic is its syncopated, or “ragged,” rhythm, hence the term “rag-time”. This back-beat style of music began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans many years before being published as popular sheet music for piano. Familiar to many is the early ragtime song from Scott Joplin, his 1899 composition, the “Maple Leaf Rag”.  East St. Louis Toodle-Oo was the first charting single for Duke Ellington in 1927. The song is structurally perfect, and it is considered by many, to be a jazz masterpiece.

This song was covered by American jazz-rock band Steely Dan on their 1974 album Pretzel Logic. You probably did not see much of Steely Dan between 1975 until 1993. Their early tour history was brief, and the tour in support of Pretzel Logic would be the LAST TIME Steely Dan appeared live until 1993. Becker and Fagen disliked touring and wanted to concentrate solely on writing and recording. This led Becker and Fagen to move to a studio process on all later albums, but still under the name Steely Dan.

This version of East St Louis Toodle-Oo is a note-for-note rendition of the original composition. For Steely Dan, there are many reasons this song is unique. This is the only instrumental ever done by Steely Dan, the only Steely Dan song, until that time, to feature a banjo, and is the only song on which Donald Fagen is credited with playing the saxophone. Fagen also plays the piano lead. This album also marks the first time Walter Becker would play guitar on a Steely Dan album.

Musicians on this song:

  • Donald Fagen, saxophone, piano solo
  • Walter Becker lead guitar
  • Jeff “Skunk” Baxter pedal steel guitar
  • Jim Hodder drummer

Side 2 Track 2 from Steely Dan’s Pretzel Logic, their rendition of Duke Ellington’s East St. Louis Toodle-Oo

 

Parts Harmonious VV-008

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PARTS HARMONIOUS            PROGRAM NOTES

In today’s VINYL VIBRATIONS podcast, I tour LP records from the 1960s and 1970s in ROCK and POP that featured singing in multi-part harmonies. Today’s show, is called PARTS HARMONIOUS. There have been many TWO PART harmony songs recorded… so today, for further interest and in seeking out those more difficult or complex, we will focus on multi-part harmonious singing—songs having at least THREE vocal parts!

INTRO to PARTS HARMONIOUS (narrate only the names of the groups)

Today we hear multi-part harmonies from songs of these groups:

  • M1 The Byrds, All I Really Want To Do, 1965
  • M2 The Beach Boys, Good Vibrations (1973 performance), 1966
  • M3 The Hollies, On A Carousel, 1967
  • M4 Three Dog Night, One, 1969
  • M5 The Guess Who, No Time, 1970
  • M6 Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Teach Your Children, 1970
  • M7 Poco, Kind Woman, 1971
  • M8 The Doobie Brothers, Livin’ On The Fault Line, 1977

In today’s podcast we will hear eight examples of THREE (or more) PART HARMONIES, produced between 1965 and 1977.  Starting with…The Byrds

M1 Song  All I Really Want To Do, Album (Single), Album Artist The Byrds, Composer Bob Dylan 1964, Year 1965 , Released By Columbia

Bob Dylan wrote the song in 1964 and recorded it in one take. In 1965 Cher did a cover of this song, and it was the feature of her debut  SOLO album “All I Want To Do”. The Byrds single was rush-released by the band’s record label, Columbia Records, when it became known that Cher was about to issue a rival cover version of the song on the Imperial label. The Byrds’ version “All I Really Want to Do” was the second single by Byrds and was released in 1965 by Columbia Records  The song was also included on the band’s debut album, Mr. Tambourine Man, which was also released in 1965… the single, which we will hear next, begins with Jim McGuinn‘s jangling guitar introduction (played on a 12-string Rickenbacker guitar), ascending melody progression in the chorus, the Byrds high-register harmonies – are clearly influenced by the West Coast surf sound…

 

M2 A live version of the song, GOOD VIBRATIONS taped in 1972-1973 and found on the album “The Beach Boys in Concert”  …the second official live album by The Beach Boys,  Song Good Vibrations, Album (Single) (backed with the instrumental “Let’s Go Away For Awhile“), Album Artist Beach Boys, Composers Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Year 1966, Released By Capitol Records.

The Beach Boys was formed in 1961, initially composed of brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. The Beach Boys were managed by the Wilsons’ father Murry, and signed to Capitol Records in 1962. The band’s early music gained popularity across the United States for its close vocal harmonies . Brian Wilson and Mike Love composed “Good Vibrations” a single released in 1966. The song featured a complex, multi-layered sound. Brian Wilson described “Good Vibrations” as a “pocket symphony”. The song became the Beach Boys’ biggest hit to date and a US and UK number-one single in 1966; Good Vibrations was reputed to have been the most expensive American single ever recorded at that time. The production of the song is reported to have spanned seventeen recording sessions at four different recording studios, and used over 90 hours of magnetic recording tape, with an eventual budget of $50,000.  The group members recall the “Good Vibrations” vocal sessions as among the most demanding of their career, and featured elaborate layers of vocal harmonies.

M3 Song On A Carousel, Album (single), Album Artist The Hollies, Composers Alan Clarke, Graham Nash, Tony Hicks, Year 1967, recorded Abbey Road Studios, Released Parlophone and Imperial

On a Carousel was written by Allan Clarke, Graham Nash and Tony Hicks. It was released by The Hollies as a single in 1967 on the Parlophone label in the UK and the Imperial label in the US. You can hear Graham Nash sing the first few lines. From 1966 until Nash’s departure in 1967, the single release A-sides were all Clarke-Hicks-Nash collaborations; Stop Stop Stop, Carrie Ann, and Carousel.  The Hollies, along with The Rolling Stones and The Searchers, are one of the few British pop groups of the early 1960s that have never officially broken up and that continue to record and perform. The Hollies were inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame …43 years after this hit, in 2010.

Featuring

M4 The song One , as covered by Three Dog Night.  Three Dog Night, is best known for their music from 1968 to 1975.  As of 2011, they are still recording and making live appearances. The band started in 1968 with three lead vocalists, Danny Hutton , Chuck Negron, and Cory Wells. They had made some early recordings in 1967 with Brian Wilson (Beach Boys) and initially went by the name of Redwood.  Shortly after abandoning the Redwood name, the vocalists hired a group of backing musicians, and recorded their debut Three Dog Night album. On that debut album, “One” is a song composed by Harry Nilsson, and famous for its opening line “One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do.” Nilsson wrote the song after calling someone and getting a busy signal. The busy signal became the opening notes of the song. In 1968, Al Kooper (of early Blood Sweat and Tears fame) released the song on his debut album I Stand Alone.  In 1969, Three Dog Night covered the song on this, their debut album Three Dog Night, with Chuck Negron on lead vocal.  On vocals we have Chuck Negron – lead vocals, Danny Hutton  and Cory Wells.

Song  One, Album  Three Dog Night (debut album), Album Artist  Three Dog Night, Composer  Harry Nilsson, Year  1969

M5 Song No Time, Album American Woman, Album Artist The Guess Who, Composer guitarist Randy Bachman and lead singer Burton Cummings, Year 1970 (re-recording), Released By TMK/RCA Corp

The Guess Who is a rock band from Winnipeg, Manitoba.  The song is No Time, composed by guitarist Randy Bachman and lead singer Burton Cummings,  The lyrics begin with “No time left for you, On my way to better things, No time left for you, I’ll find myself some wings.” On vocals we have four singers: Randy Bachman the guitarist, Jim Kale the bassist, and Gary Peterson, the drummer, and lead singer is the multi-talented, Burton Cummings, who also plays guitar, piano, organ, flute, keyboards, harmonica on this album. The version we will hear is the 1970 re-recording (as featured on the American Woman album) that is better-known than the single version, also released 1970. The single was the third in a string of #1, million selling singles, in Canada, for The Guess Who. On the American Woman LP, the song is side one, track two after the title song.

 

M6 Song Teach Your Children, Album Deja vu, Album Artist Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Composer Graham Nash, Year 1970, Released By Atlantic Recording Corp

Teach Your Children” was composed by Graham Nash. Although it was written by Nash when he was a member of The Hollies (prox 1966-1967)  it was never recorded by the Hollies. “Teach Your Children” first appeared on the Déjà Vu album by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, released in 1970.    Check out the pedal steel guitar on this song – – that is none other than… Jerry Garcia .  Composer Graham Nash, who is also a photographer and photograph collector, has stated that his inspiration for the song came from afamous photograph by Diane Arbus, “Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park.” The image depicts a child with an angry expression holding the toy weapon, and prompted Nash to write Teach Your Children, about the implications of war on society. Fourteen years later, in 1984, Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale used the song “Teach Your Children” in a campaign commercial on arms control.

Featuring

  • David Crosby, Steven Stills, Graham Nash, and Neil Young…

Teach Your Children, from the Déjà vu album.

M7  …Kind Woman, is written by Richie Furay (pronounced “foo-RAY”) and is perhaps his best known song.  Composer Richie Furay is also known for forming the Buffalo Springfield with Stephen Stills and Neil Young, in fact Kind Woman was written during his tenure in Buffalo Springfield. In the late 1960s he formed the band Poco with Jim Messina and Rusty Young. This live version of “Kind Woman”, is found on POCO’s Deliverin’ album, their first live album and third album in all. A wonderful steel guitar part, played by Rusty Young. Soaring harmonies on this album. POCO vocals are supplied by all five members: Jim Messina  and Richie Furay on guitars, Rusty Young on steel guitar, Timothy B. Schmit on bass, George Grantham on drums

Song Kind Woman, Album Deliverin’, Album Artist POCO, Composer Richie Furay, Year recorded 1970, released 1971 , Released Epic

M8 The Doobie Brothers and the Title song from their seventh studio album LIVIN ON THE FAULT LINE, released in 1977. “Livin’ on the Fault Line” was composed by Patrick Simmons, guitar.  The Doobie Brothers vocals are supplied by Michael McDonald on keyboard, Tiran Porter on bass, Keith Knudsen on drums, and Patrick Simmons, the composer, on guitar. :

Song Livin’On The Fault Line, Album Livin’On The Fault Line, Album Artist Doobie Brothers, Composer Patrick Simmons, Year 1977, Released Warner Bros.

Larry Coryell Guitar VV-007

~ vinylvibrationsbrianfrederick

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PROGRAM NOTES

In today’s VINYL VIBRATIONS podcast, we explore jazz guitarist and composer Larry Coryell.

INTRO TO  “LARRY CORYELL”:

Larry Coryell was born in 1943 in Galveston. He is an american jazz fusion guitarist. A long background as a musician, he played in local bands in Texas and later in the Seattle area.  He moved to NYC in 1965  – age 22 – and was part of Chico Hamilton’s quartet. In the late 1960s he recorded with jazz vibraphonist great, great Gary Burton. He also played in the band Free Spirits.  He formed his own group, The Eleventh House, in 1973. Later in the 1970s  in 1979, Coryell formed “The Guitar Trio” with jazz fusion guitarist John McLaughlin and flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucia. Coryell’s music combined influences and styles of rock, jazz and eastern. That eastern influence was not doubt a result of his interest in the spiritual leader Sri Chimnoy. Coryell’s discography is impressive.  As leader, there are 36 albums, and as sideman, there are many other albums. This podcast follows Larry Coryell’s work from a rich time in his younger years, 1968-1975, or from age 25-32, recording in New York City for Vanguard Apostolic, Mega records  and Arista.

In today’s podcast we will hear six of Larry Coryell’s best !! Starting with…

  • M1 Song Treats Style Album Lady Coryell
  • M2 Song After Later Album Larry Coryell at the Village Gate
  • M3 Song Further Explorations for Albert Stinson Album Fairyland
  • M4 Song Low-Lee-Tah Album Introducing the Eleventh House w Larry Coryell
  • M5 Song Pavane For A Dead Princess Album The Restful Mind
  • M6 Song Level One Album Level One Album Artist Eleventh House featuring Larry Coryell

 

M1  Song Treats Style Album Lady Coryell. Album Artist Larry Coryell. Composer Jim Garrison

 

Larry Coryell was just 25 when this album was recorded in 1968. It is his first album as a leader.By now, LC had recorded two albums with vibraphonist Gary Burton, in his group The Free Spirits. Decades of collaboration would follow between LC and jazz-great Burton, king of the four-mallet style, on jazz vibes. And now in 1968, two more jazz masters are with Coryell  – – Jimmy Garrison on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums … guest artists on this album. Bassist and song composer Garrison played as a sideman with the John Coltrane classic quartet — along with pianist McCoy Tyner and drummer Elvin Jones, from 1962-1967. Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones formed the “rhythm section” of the John Coltrane Quartet.  They gave bold physicality to Coltrane, due to the focused intensity of their rhythm section.   You will hear that focused intensity of the rhythm section on this song. This rhythm machine, plus Coryell’s licks provide an outstanding TRIO performance. And there is a Milestone Event for Coryell …on this song, “Treats Style”, Coryell takes his first guitar solo!! Larry Coryell’s blues guitar signature is imitated but never duplicated, such as his solo here in TREATS STYLE.  This is great early LC, in his formative years, in the 1960s,   as jazz guitarist, composer, arranger and co-producer. The album was produced by David Weiss and LC. Treats Style, was composed by the bassist, Jimmy Garrison, who was 35 at the time of this album. By Vanguard Apostolic. Year 1969

Featuring the trio – – –

  • Larry Coryell guitar
  • Jim Garrison Bass
  • Elvin Jones drums

M2 Song After Later, Album Larry Coryell at the Village Gate, Album Artist Larry Coryell, Composer Larry Coryell, Year 1971, By Vanguard Recording Society

Featuring

  • Larry Coryell guitar
  • Mervin Bronson bass
  • Harry Wilkinson drums

Larry Coryell is almost 28 at the time of this show at the Village Gate in NYC. After Later is a jazz-rock guitar instrumental, done, in 10/4 time. On this song we have the driven lead guitar jazz rock style of LC, with distortion and feedback effects.

Some of that overdrive is the unique combination of LC’s choice of what is typically a jazz guitar, a hollow-bodied Gibson ES-185 guitar, very sympathetic to stage vibration, such as from Coryell’s amplifier, feeding back into the guitar body. We also hear the use of the wah-pedal later in the lead guitar and even some guitar-shredding style is heard, to produce those ferocious 16th or 32nd note flurries. And finally, the bending of the notes – owed to blues and rock.

I hear a bit of the Jimi Hendrix Experience in this song. A historical note, Hendrix had died just months before this show, in September of 1970. Maybe it’s my imagination, the connection from Hendrix into Coryell’s powerful lead lines in this song, After Later.

Melodic and powerful. This is an early combination of a jazz-type of guitar (such as the gibson ES-185)  and rock-like effects, like guitar overdrive, feedback and a strong rhythm section supplied by bass and drums to 10/4. This was early Jazz Rock and very exciting, Coryell was definitely on to something, and breaking new ground with this unique guitar sound. This is a jazz format, with the song intro and ending using a formal theme, and the “in between” segment, containing a lengthy guitar improvisation supplied by Coryell. It’s not unlike a fine novel, propped up by two book-ends.

I would have loved to be at that show in 1971, “Larry Coryell at the Village Gate”, New York City. What was I doing. I was a freshman in college…and I had to get my hands on this incredible live album, his fifth album.

I missed the show, but I have played this song, After Later, EASILY a hundred …maybe two hundred or more times !

M3 Song Further Explorations for Albert Stinson, Album Fairyland ,Album Artist Larry Coryell, Composer Larry Coryell, Year 1971 recorded live at Montreux Switzerland, By Mega Records & Tapes

Featuring

  • Larry Coryell guitar
  • Chuck Rainey Bass
  • Pretty Purdie Drums

Coryell is 28 at the is time of this live album, released in 1971. The album was recorded at Montreux, Switzerland. This is again a trio. Again, you can hear Coryell’s large hollow-bodied electric guitar. From the album cover, it appears to be a Gibson ES-185, a very LARGE electric guitar indeed.

Albert Stinson was a American jazz double-bassist who worked with Larry Coryell in 1967-1969. He was nicknamed “sparky” because of his huge, bright tone, and aggressive attack. Stinson died in 1969, of a heroin overdose, while on tour with Coryell. Stinson was 24. His bass playing with Coryell can be found on another 1969 Vanguard album titled “Coryell”, where he supplies the bass tracks for two of the album’s seven cuts. Bassist Chuck Rainey supplies the other bass tracks for the album. And here, on today’s show, from the Fairyland album, Chuck Rainey performs on Further Explorations for Albert Stinson, the song, no doubt, is a tribute to this promising young bassist.

This time period was a particularly TRAGIC one for the music world, with MANY prominent artists lost in the three years of 1969, 1970 and 1971, including Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones, Albert Stinson, the subject of this song, Jimi Hendrix, Alan ‘Blind Owl’ Wilson of Canned Heat, Janice Joplin, Jim Morrison of the Doors, and Duane Allman of the Allman Brothers Band.

M4 Song Low-Lee-Tah, Album Introducing the Eleventh House w Larry Coryell, Album Artist Larry Coryell, Composer Larry Coryell, Year 1974, By Vanguard Recording Society

Featuring

  • Larry Coryell guitar
  • Randy Brecker trumpet
  • Alphonse Mouzon percussion
  • Mike Mandel piano & synth
  • Danny Trifan bass

Coryell is 31 at the time of this album, in 1974.

He had created the group Eleventh House in 1973 —and it was active for 3 years. The Eleventh House was a change in format for Coryell.  He does create a new sound with Eleventh House. Coryell composes this angular, Mahavishnu sounding piece. It’s a rock instrumental, with off beats, improvisation for guitar and trumpet. Earlier, Coryell had played in a trio format, such as from the three albums we heard earlier, LADY CORYELL,  LIVE AT THE VILLAGE GATE, and FAIRYLAND. Eleventh House will add two parts to the trio format. In addition to the trio’s bass-drums-guitar, we add the keyboard-synth of Mike Mandel, and Trumpet of Randy Brecker. Pretty cool. A trumpet part that can drive just as fast, and just as strong as the HOUSE’s lead guitar part. Brecker’s trumpet sound is reminiscent of Miles Davis with reverb, and a mix of melodic lines with …angular lines..The percussionist, Alphonse Mouzon gives a command performance. Alphonse Mouzon was supplied courtesy of Blue Note Records.   This is a jazz format, with a long middle section of improvisation. Coryell composed this angular, Mahavishnu sounding piece.  The song is in mixed time. It’s approximately 4/4, but rhythm is broken into segments having 8-beats measures, followed by several 6+8 beat measures. It’s a pretty catchy rhythm, more of the cerebral level of appeal, a sophisticated style and sound, that sets it apart from anyone else on the jazz-rock scene. Coryell uses pedal effects, including EQ and a synthesizer-like sound effect, sweeping across the soundscape. This song LOW LEE TAH, is directed toward the trumpet line and solo, with Larry Coryell in the role of guitar sideman, with his “Sri Chimnoy” or Mahavishnu sounding rhythm guitar backing and brief guitar solo.

M5 Song Pavane For A Dead Princess, Album The Restful Mind, Album Artist Larry Coryell, Composer Maurice Ravel 1899, Year 1975, By Vanguard Records.

Featuring

  • Larry Coryell in a solo performance on guitar

On THE RESTFUL MIND album we hear another, fantastic side of guitarist Larry Coryell in Pavane For A Dead Princess.

Coryell is 32 at the time of this recording. If you like the work of Maurice Ravel, the french composer, who lived between 1875-1937, you may recognize this song. But the song title, means nothing, as RAVEL stated…”Do not be surprised, that title has nothing to do with the composition. I simply liked the sound of those words and I put them there, c’est tout”. So, the Pavane, title meaning nothing,  …is in slow, 2/2 time. This Ravel song, composed in 1899, received luke-warm early reviews, but has enjoyed popularity both in French and English forms.  The song was written for solo piano.  This is Larry Coryell’s interpretation — he plays the Lo Prinzi acoustic guitar.

 

M6 Song Level One,  Album Level One, Album Artist Eleventh House featuring Larry Coryell, Composer Mike Mandel, Year 1975, By Arista Records

Featuring

  • Larry Coryell guitar
  • Michael Lawrence trumpet and flugelhorn
  • Alphonse Mouzon percussion
  • Mike Mandel piano & synth
  • John Lee bass
  • Steve Kahn 12-string guitar

With Level One, we hear more of the angular Eleventh House sound, now with Michael Lawrence on Trumpet. Larry Coryell, and his lead guitar performance on Level One is against a rhythm framework supplied by the fiery percussion of Alphonse Mouzon and bass of John Lee.  Eleventh House featured the dynamic keyboard synth sounds of Mike Mandel, the composer of this tune. LEVEL ONE is similar in terms of the impact and the feel of the music with  John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

The 1971 Mahavishnu album My Goal’s Beyond, was inspired by John McLaughlin’s decision to follow the Indian spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy, to whom he had been introduced in 1970 ….by Larry Coryell’s manager. Coryell and McLaughlin worked together in 1974 in the group SPACES and again in 1979 with a guitar trio of McLaughlin, Coryell and flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucia.  Collaboration continues today with McLaughlin and Coryell,   as recently as 2011.

That was

Song Level One 

Album Level One

Album Artist Eleventh House featuring Larry Coryell

Composer Mike Mandel

Odd Meters VV-006

~ vinylvibrationsbrianfrederick

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PROGRAM NOTES

In today’s VINYL VIBRATIONS podcast, we explore Odd Meters. First, a quick primer on meter.  If you are a musician… bear with me if you will…Rhythm is the arrangement of sounds in time. …Meter places time into groupings, called measures or bars. The meter signature, also known as the time signature, is noted as two numbers stacked one above the other….like a fraction. For example: 4/4. On top—–The number of beats in a bar or measure. And on bottom—-the type of note that represents one beat, most commonly it is a quarter note. Two most common time signatures are

  • 3/4 three-four for three quarternotes per measure
  • 4/4 four-four ….for four quarternotes per measure

We find 3/4 time in the waltz, a simple 1-2-3 dance step, it’s a simple signature comprised of 3 quarter notes.

 

And 4/4 time can be found throughout pop, rock, country, even the classics, its a simple “even” signature comprised of 4 quarter notes.

In today’s podcast we will hear ODD METERS starting with…

  • 1 “The Rite of Spring”.  Part II (The Sacrifice) “Sacrificial Dance”, Igor Stravinsky
  • 2 “Take Five”, Dave Brubeck Quartet, album Time Out
  • 3 “Toads of the Short Forest” Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, album Weasles Ripped My Flesh
  • 4 “Money”  Pink Floyd, album  The Dark Side of the Moon
  • 5 “Good Morning, Good Morning”, album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – The Beatles
  • 6 “Living in the Past”, Jethro Tull, stand-alone single

M1 The Rite of Spring”.  Part II (The Sacrifice) Sacrificial Dance by Igor Stravinsky 

Experts have said that the ballet The Rite of Spring, composed in 1913, changed music forever. It is famous for causing a riot in 1913 at its premiere in Paris. This is because the music and dancing was so different than anything people had heard before. The energy, rhythms and colorful sounds are amazing, even a century later. Igor Stravinsky was one of the first to introduce odd meters into western classical music in his “The Rite of Spring”. Rite of Spring is an example of THE ABSENCE OF A PREDICTABLE METRE or REFUSAL TO ADHERE TO TRADITIONAL METRE. At the time, “traditional” meant Ballet dance with 3/4 metre, a demure orchestra supporting, building, mirroring, the dance choreography. Instead, Rite of Spring demonstrates the uses of pulses and rhythms in music and dance.  This is a complete departure from the norm.  Dancers beat the pulse of music with their feet and arms. Dancers gather and disperse like the rhythmic formations in the music. The rhythm is blatant and out front. To create further tension (and frustration to the 1913 audience), the dance rhythm breaks from the music rhythm, in the last movement – Sacrificial Dance.  The style of music is that there is no consistent downbeat. This arrangement was an outrage !! No consistent time ! Not done before. The Rite of Spring was premiered on Thursday, May 29, 1913 in Paris and was conducted by Pierre Monteux. The intensely rhythmic score and primitive stage performance shocked the audience —as Nijinsky’s choreography was a radical departure from classical ballet.  The audience began to boo loudly. There were loud arguments in the audience followed by shouts and fistfights in the aisles. Unrest turned into a riot. The Paris police arrived …but even so, chaos reigned for the remainder of the performance. Music critic Abigail Wagner described it well – “The1913 audience’s shock at hearing Rite was akin to that of someone who has only read verse in iambic pentameter, reading a prose novel for the first  time”. This is the climactic final of The Rite of Spring, the closing episode of the Sacrificial Dance from The Rite of Spring”.   Igor Stravinsky 

M2 Take Five, Dave Brubeck Quartet Album Time Out. Recorded in New York at Columbia Records in 1959

American Jazz pianist born 1920. Brubeck had studied with the French composer Darius Milhaud, who in turn had been strongly influenced by Stravinsky, and is credited with the introduction of shifting rhythms that sparked a far-reaching surge of interest in jazz and popular music in the 1960s. Brubek shook up the jazz world in 1959 by his use of odd meters. He started to experiment in polyrhythms. After returning from a trip to Turkey in 1958, he produced an album of all original compositions in a variety of time signatures. This album “Time Out” was almost rejected by Columbia Records …But the third cut, “Take Five,” soon became the biggest-selling jazz single of all time. It is in 5/4 time . Take Five is in quintuple 5/4 time, that’s one-two-three-one-two-one-two-three-one-two-. The song is a jazz classic. There are 7 tracks on the album. ..all songs in odd or changing time. Such as 9/8, 5/4, 3/4, 6/4, and salted in with 4/4.

Personnel

Appeared on the album Time Out in 1959  Columbia Records on 7″ record format

M3 Toads of the Short Forest by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention the album Weasles Ripped My Flesh . Toads of the Short Forest”  was recorded 1969. Frank Zappa began writing classical music in high school, while at the same time playing drums in rhythm and blues bands—he later switched to electric guitar. He was a self-taught composer drummer and guitarist. His 1966 debut album with the Mothers of Invention, Freak Out!, combined songs in conventional rock and roll format with improvisations and sound collages.  This song uses multiple time signatures a polyrhythm. You will hear zappa well into the song saying what time each musician is playing in.

In “Toads Of The Short Forest” (from the album Weasels Ripped My Flesh), composer Frank Zappa explains: “At this very moment on stage we have drummer A playing in 7/8, drummer B playing in 3/4, the bass playing in 3/4, the organ playing in 5/8, the tambourine playing in 3/4, and the alto sax blowing his nose” (Mothers of Invention 1970).

Personnel

Produced in 1970 on Bizarre/Reprise Records

M4 Money Pink Floyd in  7/4 time. The album – The Dark Side of the Moon

7/4 time, That’s ONE-two-three-four-five-six-seven. The song switches into 4/4 time for the excellent guitar solo by David Gilmour. This is the eighth studio album by English progressive rock band Pink Floyd. This song opens side two of the album. One distinctive element of “Money” is the rhythmic sequence of sound effects that begins the track and is heard throughout the first several bars. This was created by splicing together recordings Waters had made of clinking coins, a ringing cash register, tearing paper, a clicking machine…to construct a seven-beat effects loop!!  The wonder and beauty of tape recorded effects — in the early years.

Personnel

Composer -the bassist, Roger Waters, composed all songs. Produced by Pink Floyd. Recorded at Abby Roads Studios London 1972-1973. Released by Gramaphone Company Ltd 1973

M5 Good Morning, Good Morning‘ from album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The song has been transcribed as a mixture of 4/4, 3/4 and 5/4. Composed by John Lennon, credited to Lennon/McCartney. Recorded 1967, The guitar solo was played by Paul McCartney.  Left handed, no doubt. Performed by The Beatles on the 1967 Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. The song has an unusual rhythmical feel. It  does not use the same time signature throughout. Produced by George Martin

Personnel

 

M6 Living in the Past song by Jethro Tull composed 1969 and a 1969 single release. Composed by Ian Anderson

It is notable for being written in the unusual 5/4 time signature. The 5/4 time signature is quickly noted from the beginning rhythmic bass pattern. ….1-2-3-1-2 …1-2-3-1-2

Personnel

Released in the US in the same year as their STAND UP album, in 1969, as a stand-alone single.Produced by Island Records. Also is on a 1972 compilation album, Living in the Past, by Jethro Tull.

Symphonic Rock Part 2 VV-005

~ vinylvibrationsbrianfrederick

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In today’s VINYL VIBRATIONS podcast, we look at Part 2 of our program on the subject of SYMPHONIC ROCK. In Part one we focused on some of the vinyl records that featured a rock music format, and featured or incorporatedconcerto3-4  a symphonic or chamber accompanyment  – produced on vinyl records.  We heard Moody Blues, Yes, Led Zepplin, Tommy, Frank Zappa, and Jan Hammer / Jerry Goodman. Today we continue our exploration into artists that either dabbled in symphonic arrangement, or artists that infused their rock or pop sound with classical music orchestra sounds:

1 Twenty Small Cigars, album “King Kong, Jean-Luc Ponty plays the music of Frank Zappa”

2 Vision Is A Naked Sword, album Apocalypse, Mahavishnu Orchestra w London Symphony Orch, Michael Tilson Thomas Cond.

3 Concerto for Jazz Rock Orch, Mvt 1, album Journey To Love Nemperor 1975 composed conducted arranged Stanley Clarke,

4 Concerto for Jazz Rock Orch, Mvts 3+4, album Journey To Love Nemperor 1975 composed conducted arranged Stanley Clarke,

5 The Dick Hyman Concerto Electro, Mvt 1, album Concerto Electro,  Composer Arranger Pianist Dick Hyman

6 King Kong,  album “King Kong, Jean-Luc Ponty plays the music of Frank Zappa”

7 Overture, album Child is Father to the Man, Blood Sweat & Tears, BS&T String Ensemble,

M1 Jean-Luc Ponty and his solo album, featuring the electric violin and the Frank Zappa composition and arrangement of Twenty Small Cigars, from the album King Kong, Jean-Luc Ponty plays the music of Frank Zappa, or just … King Kong. Composed  for Jean Luc Ponty and this solo album, by World Pacific Jazz Records. The King Kong album was released 1970 Liberty Records label. Compositions and recording were completed in 1969. There are five parts on Twenty Small Cigars. Noteably, there is no guitar part.

  • Piano or electric piano George Duke
  • Alto & Tenor sax  Ernie Watts
  • Drums John Guerin
  • Bass Wilton Felder
  • Jean-Luc Ponty  electric violin

Ponty was born in France in 1942 was about 27 at the time of this production. This was his 9th release in a long list of albums – – about 40 to date. His collaborations with FZ included these FZ albums – maybe you recognize the album titles –  Hot Rats, Over-Nite Sensation, Piquantique, Apostrophe – –  were albums on which Ponty played with FZ between 1969 and 1981. Also Ponty collaborated with Mahavishnu Orchestra, albums Apocalypse and Visions, 2 albums by the MO, in the 1970s,  featuring Jean-Luc Ponty.

M2 Vision Is A Naked Sword. Album Apocalypse, Artist is the Mahavishnu Orchestra w the London Symphony Orchestra, Michael Tilson Thomas Cond. Composed by  John McLaughlin. Produced George Martin. Featuring JLP on electric violin and electric baritone violin, And Mahavishnu (aka John McLaughlin) on guitars. And the LSO ( I count 6 LSO performers including KB, viola, violin2, cello, drum and bass parts) with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting, produced in 1974 CBS

M3 Concerto for Jazz Rock Orch, Mvt 1, album Journey To Love, composed conducted arranged Stanley Clarke, Produced on Nemperor 1975. One of those movements in this case the first, that seemed to jump out of the stereo, a stereo possessed. So peaceful, contemplative, driven by the drone of the high “G” note. That surreal opening sound. Starry-like.

  • -Stanley Clarke Piccolo bass with synth, acoustic bass, hand bells, organ,
  • -George Duke mini Moog, organ, string ensemble, acoustic piano,
  • -Steve Gadd drums, percussion
  • -David Sancious electric guitar

M4 Concerto for Jazz Rock Orch, Mvts 3+4,  Album Journey To Love, composed conducted arranged Stanley Clark, produced on Nemperor in1975. Now on Movement 3 the energy level is much higher. A great transition into longer notes and the power of the David Sancious electric guitar lead part. A cooling off movement – movement 4 — drifts off into an “A”-note” drone.

  • -Stanley Clarke Piccolo bass with synth, acoustic bass, hand bells, organ,
  • -George Duke mini Moog, organ, string ensemble, acoustic piano,
  • -Steve Gadd drums, percussion
  • -David Sancious electric guitar

M5 album Concerto Electro, song the Dick Hyman Concerto Electro, Mvt 1, 11:45, composed Dick Hyman, and recorded June 1969, “for Baldwin-Electro piano rock-jazz rhythm and symphony orchestra” . This is a crossover with many imbedded styles…from jazz and classics into a pop and rock genre. Dick Hyman as usual makes this sound seamless. Virtuoso jazz pianist, born in NYC in 1927, a 50+ year career as pianist, organist, arranger music director and composer. Classically trained, his performance days date back to pianist for the Benny Goodman Trio.Dick Hyman worked in the late 1960s with the Moog Synthesizer some covers and some original compositions. He has been active as a jazz session artist, classical composition, film work, and pop/electronic music. In the Concerto Electro, we hear the authoritative sound of the lower registers of the baldwin electric piano and the clear trumpet of Mel Davis.The piano rocks and provided the rhythmic foundation. How many musical styles can there be in one movement of one song ? I count seven styles:

  • rock,
  • sonata,
  • cadenza,
  • bluegrass,
  • bossa nova,
  • gospel, and
  • boogie woogie.

Written in 1967 and recorded in 1969

M6  Jean-Luc Ponty and the title track from his solo album …King Kong . This is another Frank Zappa composition and arrangement. There are six parts on King Kong. Again, there is no guitar part.

  • -Electric piano George Duke
  • -Vibes and Percussion Gene Estes
  • -Tenor sax  Ian Underwood –
  • -Drums Arthur Tripp
  • -Bass Buell Neidinger
  • -Jean-Luc Ponty  electric violin

M7 We conclude with … Overture, album Child is Father to the Man, Blood Sweat & Tears, BS&T String Ensemble, Al Kooper composition, Released Columbia Records 1968

The album introduced the idea of the big band to rock and roll and paved the way for such groups as Chicago. Kooper left the band after this album, changing the nature of the group. This is BS&T’s debut album.  This is track one side one. After hearing it the first time, I thought, now what is the REST of this album all about? The song fits logically with “I can’t quit her”, also composed by Al Kooper, but instead, “I can’t quit her” kicks off side 2 of the LP.

Symphonic Rock VV-004

~ vinylvibrationsbrianfrederick

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Today we will hear from these artists demonstrating SYMPHONIC ROCK:

1 The Moody Blues and Days of Future Passed with the London Festival Orchestra

2 Rick Wakeman’s rendition of “Cans and Brahms” the group Yes

3 “Your Time is Gonna Come” Led Zepplin

4 “I’m Free”, from Tommy, as performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and Chambre Choir with Roger Daltry

5 “Cleetus Awreetus- AwrightUs”  Frank Zappa, and Grand Wazoo featuring a cast of characters…From the Grand Wazoo album

6 “I Remember Me”, From the Like Children (Jan Hammer and Jerry Goodman) album

M1 “The Day Begins” From the “Days  of Future Passed” album, the Moody Blues, with the London Festival Orchestra, conducted by Peter Knight.

This song is side one track one of the vinyl LP. This album paints the picture of everyman’s day, starting with The Day Begins, Dawn, The Morning, Lunch break, the Afternoon, Evening and the Night. One day of a man’s life, on 7 tracks, on vinyl LP ! The seven tracks on Days of Future Passed spawned two hit singles: “Tuesday Afternoon”  and “Nights in White Satin” which hit No. 2… five years after the LP’s original release!.

The lyrics from Days  of Future Passed are true to the band’s name, moody and blue  …such as this: “Cold hearted orb that rules the night, removes the colours from our sight, red is grey and yellow white. But we decide which is right. And which is an illusion?”

One description of this fusion of pop and poetry and the classics is taken from album’s liner notes, written by Hugh Mendl, the executive producer… he writes  …Moody Blues is “extending the range of pop music… and has found a point where it becomes one with the classics”…

“Days  of Future Passed” was Produced in 1967 by Decca Record Company Ltd., using the then-state of the art DERAM sound system. The DERAM or so-called DERAMIC Sound System was an early stereo “all round sound” technique, that allowed more space between instruments. How was this achieved? This capability came from the use of, not just one four-track recording machine, but TWO four-track recording machines. Imagine – eight discrete recorded tracks. Before this, stereo was recorded from one four-track tape recorder. The doubling of recorded tracks provided the ability to put more sound “space” or “spacial realism” between performers on up to 8 recorded tracks, creating more of a soundscape when played on a “stereo”, high fidelity sound system, and when you placed yourself between the two speakers. This was 1967 — the early days of consumer audio. If you had “good” component stereo system, you must have been an audiophile, as those early component systems were very expensive indeed! A good component system included a stereo amplifier, stereo preamp, the reel-to-reel tape deck, a “good” LP turntable, tonearm, massive speakers too…

This album credits the orchestral parts to “Redwave/Knight”.  Well, “Knight” was conductor Peter Knight, while “Redwave” was an imaginary name representing the Moody Blues themselves. Knight built the orchestral parts around themes written by Hayward, Thomas, Pinder & Lodge, the Moody Blues.

 

M2 Full: Cans and Brahms  YES and their 1972 album “Fragile”, Atlantic Recording Corp, . This is an extract from Brahms  Symphony No. 4 in E minor 3rd movement. A solo Rick Wakeman adaptation, on electric piano, grand piano, organ, electric harpsichord, and synthesizer. Rick Wakeman’s modern instruments replace those traditional ones used in the Brahms Symphony No. 4, —the strings, woodwind, brass, reeds, and contra bassoon, when the symphony was completed, in 1885. Some 87 years later, Rick Wakeman arranged this rendition. Even now… 126 years later….the 3rd is a catchy musical movement with left and right-hand parts for keyboard.

M3 “Your Time Is Gonna Come” by Led Zeppelin, released on their 1969 debut album, titled  “Led Zeppelin”. Jimmy Page played a Fender 10-string steel guitar. Bassist John Paul Jones played a church-style organ, using a pedal to generate the bass. Jimmy Page told Guitar Player magazine: “I had never played steel before, but I just picked it up for this recording”. Robert Plant is the vocal. So what do we have. A church organ with the quirky tune of church pipes, Jimmy Page on an out-of-tune 12-string guitar, and Robert Plant on vocals. What a mix !

M4 The song “I’m Free” from the rock opera Tommy, as written by Pete Townshend and The Who, as performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and Chambre Choir, David Measham conductor. And guest soloist on the song “I’m Free”, Roger Daltry. This 2-LP set was beautifully produced.  Ode Records, distributed by A&M Records. Lou Reizner production. “I’m Free” tells of Tommy’s vision to spiritually enlighten others due to his miraculous cure, he becomes ‘evangelist’, his sermons bringing forth the multitudes at Tommy’s Holiday Camp. .  “I’m Free, and I’m waiting for you to follow me”. This London Symphony Orchestra version of Tommy is based on the Who album “Tommy”, released three years earlier, in 1969, Polydor / Decca

M5 Cleetus Awreetus- AwrightUs From the Grand Wazoo album, Frank Zappa. 1972 Warner Bros Records

This invention for small orchestra was composed and Arranged Frank Zappa. Ernie Watts and Mike Altshul on woodwinds. Sal Marquez and Ken Shroyer on brass. George Duke on KB. Vocals George Duke and Frank Zappa .Guitar Frank Zappa. Bass Erroneous. Drums Aynsley Dunbar

M6 I Remember Me From the Like Children album. Jerry Goodman on violin and viola and acoustric guitar. Jan Hammer on piano and moog synthesizer. There is no drum track. Composed by Jan Hammer. 1974 Nemperor Records