In my previous post I discussed Television, one of the great bands that came out of the New York rock scene of the 1970’s. In seemed natural to go from Television to another band that will forever be associated with CBGB, Talking Heads (as in “the name of this band is Talking Heads”). However, the record I want to talk about is not one of the early records that document their sound during their CBGB days. I want to discuss their fourth (an in my opinion, their best) record, Remain In Light.
Released in 1980, Remain In Light was a departure from their earlier records although the template for the sounds on Remain In Light can be traced back to the Fear of Music song “I Zimbra”. The songs on Remain In Light were heavily influenced by the Nigerian musician Fela Kuti. Fela’s music, called afrobeat, is a mix of jazz, funk and Ghanaian/Nigerian music called High-life. Instead of of the band writing music to David Byrne’s lyrics, the music was developed from groves developed from jam sesions that were recorded one at a time in a discontinuous process. Byrne would subsequently improvise lyrics in a stream of consciousness fashion over the tracks. Those lyrics would often reflect a recurring theme in David Byrne’s music: the strangeness of everyday life. The music, while usually just comprising of one chord, was all about the groove and featured interlocking melodic riffs and rhythms that gave the music an incredible sense of propulsion.
In order to play the more complex music live, the band’s core four were augmented with additional players. They included Adrian Belew on guitar, Bernie Worrell on keyboards, Steve Scales on percussion, Dolette McDonald as backing vocalist and in an interesting twist, Busta Jones as an additional bassist. They essentially made the ensemble a double quartet with two guitarists, two keyboard players, two bassists and two drummers. The expanded lineup added textures to the music that made it work. In particular, the contributions of Adrain Belew (who had previously played with Zappa and David Bowie and would go on to join King Crimson) and Bernie Worrell (a founding member of Parliament-Funkadelic) standout with may absolute favorite moment being Belew’s insane guitar solos in The Great Curve.
The video below was originally broadcast on Italian television and captures the band on the tour promoting Remain In Light. Unlike their epic concert film Stop Making Sense, the songs are presented in a more traditional concert setting. But what this video lacks in innovative staging it makes up for in Belew’s amazing guitar playing and by including some of the great songs that were not heard in Stop Making Sense: “Stay Hungry,” “Cities,” “I Zimbra,” “Drugs,” “Houses in Motion,” “Born Under Punches,” and “The Great Curve.”
0:27 – Psycho Killer 5:27 – Stay Hungry 9:33 – Cities 14:48 – Band Introduction 15:45 – I Zimbra 19:53 – Drugs 24:26 – Take Me to the River 30:15 – Crosseyed and Painless 36:56 – Life During Wartime 42:02 – Houses in Motion 48:51 – Born Under Punches 56:56 – The Great Curve
After college, I returned back to my home, trying to get a foothold onto this thing called life. Coincidentally, my brother also moved back home after realizing that a future life in academia was not what really cared for either. I was a serious deadhead in college and was playing bass in a band that played Dead and southern rock (Allman Brothers, Marshall Tucker Band, etc). I also had expanded my interest in jazz and for a while I played guitar in a little jazz chamber trio of vibes, guitar and bass that was heavily into the ECM school. My brother meanwhile had begun to listen to some of the more critic approved punk and new wave bands. As in our younger days, our separate record collections began to merge so next to my Dead bootlegs and Gary Burton Quintet (featuring a very young Pat Metheny) albums were his records by Blondie, Talking Heads and Television’s debt album, Marquee Moon.
Television, like Blondie, Talking Heads and The Ramones were part of the New York rock scene of the 1970’s that centered around clubs like CBGB and Max’s Kansas City. In fact, Television was the first band to ever play at CBGB. But like Blondie and the Talking Heads, their identification as a “punk rock” band was more a function of hype and being affiliated with a scene than their actual sound. While the stereotypical punk band tried to portray an attitude of anti-virtuosity and defiant primitivism, Television featured the interplay of their two guitarists, Tom Verlaine and Richard Loyd, who were not afraid to take extended solos. It was because of their dual lead guitar attack that I would describe Television as The Velvet Underground meets The Allman Brothers but on further consideration I would say they were more like The Velvet Underground meets early Quicksilver Messenger Service. This is primarily due to the guitar sound of Tom Verlaine which Patti Smith described as “a thousand bluebirds screaming”. Not being as poetic as Ms. Smith, I hear Quicksilver’s John Cipollina mixed with surf guitar and the garage band rock that served as models for many of the early punk bands. With their use of inter-meshing cyclic guitar riffs, I hear elements of the early minimalist composers like Steve Reich. While Verlaine was the principal songwriter and vocalist, guitarist Richard Loyd was a more than capable partner in the sound equation. The interplay of their guitars over the tight and lean rhythm section of Fred Smith on bass and Billy Ficca on drums made them a band to be reckoned with. Tom Verlaine’s strangled vocals may take some getting used to but they fit his lyrics which paint surreal pictures of a nocturnal lower Manhattan that seemed timeless.
The centerpiece of the album is the 11 minute title cut. The first guitar solo (at around the 3:02 mark in the video clip below) is by Loyd and bursts out of the gate and is short and concise. Verlaine’s solo starts at the 4:50 mark and it’s more subdued start quickly builds in intensity until the whole band is pounding away at a series of ascending chords with the tension breaks into a moment of sublime resolution.
Television Marquee Moon
The next clip is the audio of a show from San Francisco on the Television’s final tour before their 1992 reunion and demonstrates the band playing harder and looser than on their two more crafted studio albums. The rhythm section is still drum head tight but playing with a lot more muscle while the guitars sound grittier.
Television – Live At The Old Waldorf, San Francisco, 06/29/1978
Marquee Moon gets it’s share of critic love, often being cited as one of the great albums of the New York punk scene and a cornerstone of alternative rock (whatever that is). The acclaim is well deserved.
This is sort of a continuation of my previous post. There I talked about the “missing” studio record that Grateful Dead never made as a follow-up to their classic 1970 albums Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty. The songs that would have have appeared on such a record were instead spread out over several live albums and solo records of Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir. I want to talk now about another hypothetical Dead studio record, the last one.
In November 1994, the Dead went into the studio to record basic tracks for their follow-up to 1989’s Built To Last. Unfortunately, the sessions didn’t produce much that was usable. Garcia’s lack of engagement was cited as the main culprit as well as the band’s general lack of comfort in the studio. This was a shame because the band actually had a slew of new songs that, if given a proper treatment in the studio, would have resulted in a album that would have been their best studio record since the seventies.
The video clip below was created by Tony Sclafani, author of “The Grateful Dead FAQ” (http://www.amazon.com/Grateful-Dead-FAQ-Greatest-History/dp/1617130869). As a long time Deadhead, I found the book a very interesting read. While I didn’t agree with all of his assertions, he brought up many interesting points and ideas about the Dead’s music and their place in popular culture. One of the book’s chapters discusses this lost “last studio album” by the Dead. Using live versions of these new songs, the author put together a video that gives us an idea of what that album would of been like.
Keeping the same song sequence for reference (I would have done a little differently), it opens with the Liberty, a tune that first appeared on Robert Hunter’s 1987 record of the same name. Garcia rewrote Hunter’s music for the Dead’s version and it would of made a great opening song for the record. I couched toured the Dead’s Fare Thee Well shows and was very pleasantly surprised when they pulled this out during the July 4th show (but a bit obvious from a lyrical standpoint). Next up is another Garcia/Hunter song, So Many Roads. A ballad that ramps up to a powerful anthem like ending during the long fade. A great opportunity for Jerry to sing like someone who’s seen a thing or two in his life. And so art imitates life.
The mood picks up for the Weir/Hart/Hunter song Corrina. Techno Dead! Jamtronica! I love it! I always dug it when the Dead went funky (or their version of it anyway) and the Dead always had a history of being a dance band way back from their primal beginnings. It may have been the free form hippie dancing that’s easy to make fun of but people danced none the less. Corrina is also part of a thread in Grateful Dead songwriting which takes an folk or blues song as a starting point and then proceeds to create an entirely new song. Think Casey Jones, Stagger Lee or Candyman.
Days Between is the last great Garcia/Hunter song. This is a song that transcends the term “ballad”. This is Garcia starring out into the abyss. This song took on a whole other level of meaning in the wake of Garcia’s death but even before then, the song hit listeners in a deep way. Live, it was often played in the second set, coming out of the drums/space segment where it seemed to rise out of a foggy mist, not unlike the phantom ships mentioned in the lyrics. Garcia’s voice always seemed to convey a sense of gravitas and never more so than here. This song would have been the undeniable heart of the record, it’s emotional core.
An interesting bookend to Days Between is the Bob Weir collaboration with bassist Rob Wasserman and blues legend Willie Dixon, Eternity. A song with simple lyrics about big things. A surprisingly upbeat little shuffle whose musical tone strikes me more as being old timey instead of bluesy.
It’s hard for me to judge the next song, the Phil Lesh tune, Childhood’s End. It was only played eleven times by the Dead and it sounds under rehearsed by the band as well as suffering from Lesh’s limited voice. At some points the verse melody reminds me of Unbroken Chain. I certainly hear the potential in this song and feel that it would have benefited greatly from a focused studio performance.
Easy Answers first appeared on the Rob Wasserman record Trios where it featured Wasserman, Weir and Neil Young. The Dead’s version replace Neil Young’s distorted guitar with Garcia’s auto-wah sound and Vince Welnick’s synth horns. I would have the Dead version more closely follow the Trio’s version with Garcia dialing up his distorted sound and losing the faux horns (and don’t try overdubbing a real horn section either, didn’t you learn anything from Terrapin Station).
Wave To The Wind is another Lesh song that features instrumental sections reminiscent of Eyes Of The World but a vocal melody that just seems to meander. This would definitely fall into the filler category of the album.
Samba In The Rain. One of the two Vince Welnick songs in this collection. How do I put this kindly? It sucks. Enough said.
If The Shoe Fits is the third Phil Lesh song in the group. Lesh was never the most prolific of song writers so it’s ironic that he had three songs in the final years of the Dead. Sadly, none of these song are comparable to Unbroken Chain or Box Of Rain. At best, their quality level is more akin to something like Passenger from the album Terrapin Station. Not necessarily bad but let’s face it, no serious Deadhead thinks of Passenger when discussing their favorite Lesh tune.
Way To Go Home. A Welnick/Hunter/Bob Bralove collaboration. The song features a catchy chorus and a nice bluesy edge. Not too bad but still sounds slight to me. Disagree? Then start your own blog.
We finally come to the end with Lazy River Road. A Garcia/Hunter song that harkens back to the American Beauty era. A folk song that is present and ancient at the same time. Once again we hear from Garcia, the old soul. I’m reminded of the last time I saw the Dead. It was at MSG in NYC, sometime in 1994. They played Lazy River Road somewhere in the first set and I remember Garcia playing a solo that amazed me with how simple it was but beautiful in the way it danced around the melody and harmony of the song. It was the last time that Jerry blew my mind and reminded me how much their music meant to me. It’s a fitting place to end.
If this hypothetical album would have been made, it would have been interesting. It doesn’t have a obvious single like Touch Of Grey or Foolish Heart. Themes of mortality run through many of the songs and there is a general tone of world weariness. There is a sense that things were not alright and something was going to give. But they also had strong material with songs like Liberty, So Many Roads, Lazy River Road, Corrina and Eternity. They had a song that many Deadheads would consider their late period masterpiece, Days Between and songs like Childhood’s End and Easy Answers had enough potential to be worthwhile contributions to this final record. If it was done right, such a record would look at the end of the road unflinchingly as adults, giving their fans a sense of closure that they never really got.
As the “core four” of the remaining members of the Grateful Dead play their final shows this weekend, I want to talk about something that I’ve been curious about for some time now. It all starts in 1970 when the Dead released two albums that not only redefined their musical careers but are two of my favorite records, Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty.
The previous four albums were the very definition of psychedelia but on these two records, the band’s sound shifted from electric “space” music (one of the centerpieces of the band’s live sets was “Dark Star” for goodness sakes) to more acoustic textures and songcraft. The songs themselves reflected an innovative mix of rock with folk, bluegrass and country music. Garcia has commented that much of the sound of those albums came both from his pairing with lyricist Robert Hunter as well as the band’s friendship with Crosby, Stills and Nash. Jerry Garcia had said, “Hearing those guys sing and how nice they sounded together, we thought, ‘We can try that. Let’s work on it a little”.
So after putting out two remarkable records in one year, the Dead didn’t put out a studio record until 1973’s Wake Of The Flood. But the band was far from dormant during that time span. On the contrary, you can consider 1971 – 1972 to be a period of high artistic achievements. But many of the songs that were written in that time frame were never recorded in the studio but instead were released as part of the two live albums, Skull & Roses (officially titled The Grateful Dead after Warner Brothers refused to release it with the name the band wanted: Skull Fuck) and Europe 72. As a group these songs extend and further explore the world that we were first shown in Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty. Dead lyricist Robert Hunter has said that he wished that the songs from this period could have gotten the studio treatment as it would have made a great follow up album to American Beauty. The last record of the American Beauty Trilogy. This hypothetical studio album would include “Jack Straw,” “Brown Eyed Women,” “He’s Gone,” “Ramble On Rose,” “Tennessee Jed,” “Mr. Charlie,” “Bertha,” “Wharf Rat,” and “Playing in the Band.” Additionally, this very strong collection of tunes could have been easily supplemented by other new songs that the Dead were regularly playing live but subsequently appeared on the solo records of Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir (Garcia and Ace, respectively). In particular, I think “Loser” and “Sugaree” from Garcia and “Mexicali Blues” from Ace would have worked especially well in context with the other songs.
These songs highlight the amazing lyrical talents of Robert Hunter. Hunter and Garcia collaborated of a group of amazing songs that told the stories of cowboys, gamblers, outlaws, drifters, and other disreputable characters that took place in an America that seemed to be on the cusp of modernity but wasn’t quite there yet and wasn’t so sure that it wanted to be there either. The very idea of the music genre we refer to today as Americana can be traced to many of these songs. While being highly evocative of a time and a place they also exhibit a timelessness that is characteristic of the best of music and art.
I would love to hear that album.
The clip below is from the Dead’s Europe 1972 tour. While none of the songs from this particular show made the Europe 72 album, it’s a great bit of history and a fine performance. I always loved the sound balance between Garcia’s Fender Stratocaster and Weir’s Gibson ES-335 and you can hear it particularly well here during the China Cat => Know You Rider jam. You also get the legendary Ron “Pigpen” McKernan on his last tour with the band before his untimely demise at the age of 27. The original vinyl album also included a color booklet that contains photos from the tour. Among them were pictures of several band members playing with clown masks on. What was that all about? Go to about the 1:01 mark and see.
Grateful Dead 4-17-72 Tivolis Koncertsal Copenhagen Denmark
This past weekend, as part of the MakeMusicNewYork festival, I took part in a interesting “game” entitled Exquisite Corpses. The term refers to a artistic technique invented by the early 20th century surrealists in which players write in turn on a sheet of paper, fold it to conceal part of the writing, and then pass it to the next player for a further contribution. The concept of the musical version I took part was fairly simple. Musician #1 would start playing and after 5 minutes, be joined in an improvised duet with musician #2. After another 5 minutes, musician #1 would be replaced by musician #3. After another 5 minutes, musician #2 would be replaced by musician #4 and so on. The result would be a series of improvised duets between musicians from different backgrounds and create a chain of unique cross-genre musical dialogs. A host plays the role of traffic cop, directing when a player joins and exits from the performance. Playing my Chapman Stick guitar, I wound up replacing a cellist and playing my first duet with a electric ukelele player who was using several effect boxes to further mutate his sound. He in turn was replaced by a “human beat box”. I must admit that I found this second duet particularly fun. The overall effect of the entire performance can be inconsistent as some spontaneous duets can exhibit more chemistry than others. In many ways it reminded me of more than a few jam sessions I attended where sometimes the particular group of players that night would click and other times it would devolve into an endless E9th funk jam (see my earlier post: https://roymusicusa.com/2014/09/20/the-mother-of-all-funk-chords-a-brillant-video-from-kutiman/).
The game ended with a improvisation involving all the players. Below is a short clip of the improv.
Exquisite Corpses, with it’s rule based structure, reminded me of Terry Riley’s minimalist masterpiece, “In C”. The piece, written in 1964, is considered one of the first minimalist compositions. The landscape of contemporary classical music at that time was dominated by academic abstract pieces that often were atonal (as in not having a tonal center). Terry Riley was one of the first of a new wave of composers whose work was a reaction to all that. Riley, along with other composers like La Monte Young, Philip Glass and Steve Reich, composed music that did not shy away from having a consonant key center or a regular rhythmic pulse. The music featured the gradual transformation of musical phrases through additive repetition and the use of of process techniques that followed strict rules. All of those attributes were first laid out in “In C”.
The piece consists of 53 short, numbered musical phrases. Each phrase may be repeated an arbitrary number of times. Each player has control over which phrase he or she plays but the phrases must be played in their numbered order. The musicians are encouraged to play the phrases at different times, even if they are playing the same phrase. It is customary for one musician to play a C note in a steady eighth note rhythm, usually on a piano or a pitched percussion instrument like a marimba. This part is referred to as “The Pulse” and serves as the timekeeper of the ensemble, eliminating the need for a conductor. Due to the chance aspect of the compositions structure, the length of each performance is highly variable, as short as fifteen minutes and as long as several hours. The number of players involved can vary as well as the instrumentation. The musicians shape the performance with their individual choices in regards to the number of repetitions they play of specific phrases, their entry and exit into the ensemble and their choice of dnyamics. At the same time, the individual phrases are all predetermined in the score, relating it back to the Western tradition of classical music.
Below are video clips of several different performances of “In C”. They duration vary as well as the nature of each ensemble, attesting to the flexibility of the composition.
If you’re interested, below is the score of “In C”. Get a bunch of player together and give it a go (click on the image to view).
What attracts me to both these musical “games” is that they remind me that making music is often a product of community. It’s one of the many things that I love so much about being a musician.
It’s a depressing sign of one’s own mortality when you hear that yet another of your musical heroes has passed. Last week, Ornette Coleman, the alto saxophonist, composer and musical revolutionary passed away at the age of 85.
As I was getting into jazz in the early 70’s, I would often read about Ornette Coleman as one of the leading figures of the avant-garde, one the originators of “free jazz”. As I was initially interested in jazz for its “modern” tendencies, I was intrigued, but as the same time, hesitant to check him out. At that time, my jazz listening was limited to jazz-rock bands like Mahavishnu Orchestra, Larry Coryell’s Foreplay (not to be confused with a later smooth jazz band by the same name), Soft Machine and to Miles Davis records like “Bitches Brew” and “Jack Johnson” (all of which I plan to cover in future posts). Then, based on a review in Rolling Stone (during the early 70’s, RS would regularly review jazz records), I bought my first John Coltrane record, “Live In Seattle”. This is “late period” Coltrane and not for the faint of heart. Lots of shrieking saxophone. Lots of dissonance. Not something my 14 year old ears were ready to deal with. And Coltrane was also being cited as one of the leaders of the jazz avant-garde, along with Ornette Coleman. So if Coltrane sounded like one extended shriekfest, was Coleman’s music similarly difficult? My curiosity finally got the better of me and I bought the Ornette record “Twins” from Alexander’s Department Store on Fordham Road in the Bronx. “Twins” is actually a compilation album made up of studio outtakes from 1959 to 1961 for the classic early Ornette Coleman Quartet records “The Shape OF Jazz To Come”, “This Is Our Music”, “Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation” and “Ornette!”. These early records are the ones that really established a paradigm shift in what was possible in jazz and their importance to 20th century music cannot be understated.
I could immediately hear what was new and different about Coleman’s music but unlike the Coltrane record, I found it to be much more listenable. Even the more “out” pieces like “First Take”, which was literally a rehearsal take for the seminal recording “Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation”, had a melodic quality and a lightness that I found a welcome contrast to the later Coltrane records and to the other avant-garde jazz recordings of that time. As a composer as well as a alto saxophonist, Ornette’s melodies struck me as a cross between folk song and Charlie Parker bebop. Ornette’s alto playing was largely devoid of the saxophone sheiking nor did it strike me as atonal (lacking a tonal center or key) but seemed to exist on a separate plane from the rhythm section. What made Ornette Coleman’s music revolutionary was it’s approach to improvisation. With bebop, the chord changes of the tune was king. Ornette discarded a song’s preset chord chord progression, allowing the soloist and the rhythm section to individually create new chord changes spontaneously. The soloist playing can suggest a key center that the others are free to follow or not. The key can change at will. Every instrument can have it’s own tonal center. He wanted the musicians to play with him on multiple levels. As he said in a 1987 interview, ““I don’t want them to follow me, I want them to follow themselves, but to be with me.”
In the 1977, Coleman released the record ““Dancing in Your Head” which marked the beginning of Prime Time, Mr. Coleman’s first electric band. It was incredibly dense, angular and loud but sounded nothing like fusion. Some people (foolishly) accused Miles Davis of selling out when he went electric. I don’t think anyone would think that Prime Time was Ornette selling out. The concept of everyone playing on multiple levels was even more pronounced than the earlier acoustic quartet records.
In 1985 Mr. Coleman released the album, “Song X” with the guitarist Pat Metheny. I remember more than one Pat Metheny fan saying WTF. They were expecting something like The Pat Metheny Group’s “American Garage” and what they got was a different animal entirely. In 1988 he released “Virgin Beauty,” a Prime Time album with Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead joining Prime Time as a third guitarist on three tracks. As a Deadhead and a Ornette Coleman fan, I was really interested in hearing this collaboration between two of my musical heroes. “Virgin Beauty” is slicker than other Ornette’s Prime Time records and in my opinion, one of his most accessible. But Garcia only plays on three tracks and is really only noticeable on one of those, the tune “3 Wishes”. On that song, one can here some characteristic Jerry scalar runs as part of a mosaic that is sonically dominated by Coleman’s alto sax and a drum machine (?). I personally like the record but if you are coming to it for epic Jerry guitar playing, I think you will be disappointed. Check out the clip below and decide for yourself.
Ornette Coleman & Prime Time w/ Jerry Garcia – 3 Wishes
If you are looking for Ornette with Jerry magic, the clip below may be more with your mind in mind. On February 23, 1993 Coleman joined Garcia and The Dead at the Oakland Coliseum for “Space,” “The Other One,” “Stella Blue” and “Turn On Your Lovelight”. The clip below features “The Other One” from that night’s performance. Maybe I’m biased but I find it a much more interesting collaboration between Garcia and Ornette than those found on “Virgin Beauty”.
Grateful Dead w/Ornette Coleman – The Other One 2-23-93
Finally, the clip below is my favorite cut from the record that, for me, started it all, “Twins”. The melody is played in a loose sort of unison by Ornette on alto and his brother from another mother, Don Cherry, on pocket trumpet. It touches on bebop, blues and beyond and after all these years, still moves me in new ways every time I hear it .
What we have below is a video that illustrates a cool little musical puzzle from one the greatest musicians ever, J.S. Bach. It’s the first piece from Bach’s “Musical Offering”, a collection of keyboard canons and fugues, all based on a single theme. A canon is a compositional device in which a imitation of an melodic line is played, overlapping the original melodic line. An example of a canon that everyone knows is “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”. In the case of this “crab” cannon, we have a theme that was designed to be played forwards and backwards, simultaneously. The video first shows the 18 measure long theme being playing in the conventional manner. Then the theme is played backwards. Finally, using the visual image of a mobius strip, you see that the piece is made up of the theme being played front to back and then front again while the same theme is also being played back to front to back. This is an example of why music is just so cool: from a simple germ of an idea, you can get something of great complexity and beauty. Indeed, maybe the source of it’s beauty come from the fact that at it’s heart, it’s still a simple little melody.
“I mean, give me a guitar, give me a piano, give me a broom and string, I wouldn’t get bored anywhere.”
“I firmly believe if you want to be a guitar player, you better start on acoustic and then graduate to electric. Don’t think you’re going to be Townshend or Hendrix just because you can go wee wee wah wah, and all the electronic tricks of the trade. First you’ve got to know that fucker. And you go to bed with it. If there’s no babe around, you sleep with it. She’s just the right shape.”
“A gut-string classical Spanish guitar, a sweet, lovely little lady. The smell of it. Even now, to open a guitar case, when it’s an old wooden guitar, I could crawl in and close the lid.”
“Electric is anothere instrument. Yeah, it looks the same and you’ve got to make the same moves, but you have to learn how to tame the beast. Because it is a monster.”
“What is it that makes you want to write songs? In a way you want to stretch yourself into other people’s hearts. You want to plant yourself there, or at least get a resonance, where other people become a bigger instrument than the one you’re playing. It becomes almost an obsession to touch other people. To write a song that is remembered and taken to heart is a connection, a touching of bases. A thread that runs through all of us. A stab to the heart. Sometimes I think songwriting is about tightening the heartstrings as much as possible without bringing on a heart attack.”
“The thing about being a songwriter is,even if you been fucked over, you can find consolation in writing about it, and pour it out. Everything has something to do with something; nothing is divorced. It becomes an experience,a feeling or a conglomeration of experiences…”
“Music is a language that doesn’t speak in particular words. It speaks in emotions, and if it’s in the bones, it’s in the bones.”
“There’s something beautifully friendly and elevating about a bunch of guys playing music together. This wonderful little world that is unassailable. It’s really teamwork, one guy supporting the others, and it’s all for one purpose, and there’s no flies in the ointment, for a while. And nobody conducting, it’s all up to you. It’s really jazz__that’s the big secret. Rock and roll ain’t nothing but jazz with a hard backbeat.”
“But I’m not here just to make records and money. I’m here to say something and to touch other people, sometimes in a cry of desperation: “Do you know this feeling?”
“We were in Mississippi. We’d been playing this music, and it had all been very respectful, but then we were actually there sniffing it. You want to be a blues player, the next minute you fucking well are and you’re stuck right amongst them, and there’s Muddy Waters standing next to you. It happens so fast that you really can’t register all of the impressions that are coming at you. It comes later on, the flashbacks, because it’s all so much. It’s one thing to play a Muddy Waters song. It’s another thing to play with him.”
“And then I think we realized, like any young guys, that blues are not learned in a monastery. You’ve got to go out there and get your heart broke and then come back and then you can sing the blues.”
“To learn the blues, it takes a while, and you never stop. What did I learn? I learnt how to learn the blues, but I ain’t stopped.”
“You’re sitting with some guys, and you’re playing and you go, “Ooh, yeah!” That feeling is worth more than anything. There’s a certain moment when you realize that you’ve actually just left the planet for a bit and that nobody can touch you. You’re elevated because you’re with a bunch of guys that want to do the same thing as you. And when it works, baby, you’ve got wings. You know you’ve been somewhere most people will never get; you’ve been to a special place.”
“You Got The Silver” – Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood, Anaheim, CA. – 5/18/13
After dealing with various health issues during the past few years, the legendary B.B. King passed away last night at his home in Las Vegas. He was 89.
I was lucky enough to have seen B.B. King live numerous times. The first time was in the early 70’s when I saw a double bill of B.B. and James Cotton as part of the old Shaffer Festival concerts that were held at the Wollman Skating Ring in Central Park. I remember taking a date to see him at The Ritz (now known as Webster Hall) in the 80’s. She wasn’t particularly impressed seeing the blues legend. Needless to say, things didn’t last long with us. Even when his set lists became standardized routines, there would always be moments when he would just play the guitar and the world would be good. B.B. King was the blues singer-cum-entertainer par excellence but it was those times when it was just him playing the guitar that spoke to me the most.
His playing had incredible rhythmic drive that gave it a strong forward motion. There’s also a snap to his notes that gave everything he played a push. His playing always had a “less is more” quality but I loved how, within a simple line, there would be a sudden little burst of notes that seemed like curlicues within the bigger picture of the melody. And then there’s that incredible vibrato. It made the notes seem to flutter like hummingbird wings. Amazing.
The first clip is jazzy slow blues instrumental from a performance in Stockholm, Sweden, 1974. It begins with a brief interview before the music starts at the 1:20 mark. It starts with a chorus over a relatively straight I-IV-V chord progression (albeit played with more jazzy extended chords such as ninths and thirteenths) before going into a instrumental version of “I Need Your Love So Bad”, a tune B.B. recorded 1967. The chord progression is more sophisticated than a typical 12 bar blues. In fact, the tune is what is what is known as a 32 bar AABA form. This form is common in jazz tunes and the popular standard they were based on. The chorus form is made up of four sections of 8 bars each: the first 8 bar section (A), then repeated (A), followed by the 8 bar bridge (B) and then a repeat of the first section (A). As with this performance, this form works well when you have a string of solos because it allows for the contrast of the bridge (B) section to break up the monotony of the same A section being repeated over and over.
B.B. plays a full 32 bar chorus of exquisite beauty before having trumpet and tenor sax split a chorus with B.B. returning for the bridge and final A section and then taking us out. So cool. Also dig the matching green jackets everyone in the band had to wear.
B.B. King – Stockholm, Sweden 1974
The second clip feature a meeting of giants, B.B. King and T Bone Walker. It took place at (so I’m told) the Monterey Jazz Festival in September, 1967. They start off with an uptempo shuffle and while T-Bone is plugging in, B.B. is playing some real jazzy stuff, reminding us that he was influenced by Charlie Christian (jazz guitar pioneer who played w/ Benny Goodman and was one of the founding fathers of bebop) as well as T-Bone himself. When T-Bone begins playing, the energy levels spike considerably, with B.B. playing horn like stabs while T-Bone plays the type of riffs that people would say sounds like Chuck Berry but they would be getting it backwards. T-Bone Walker didn’t get it from Chuck Berry. Chuck Berry got it from T-Bone Walker.
They then go into the slow blues tune “Sweet Sixteen”. T-Bone plays the opening solo, followed a very cool chorus from B.B. that shows why he will be considered one the best. The short solo (starting at around the 2:57 mark) is worth studying as a lesson on how to play the blues. Check out the stinging tone of the opening notes, the immaculate intonation of his string bends that makes it seem like he’s literally squeezing out the notes and the overall fluidity of his playing. B.B. and T-Bone then take turns singing verses while the other plays musical fills, with B.B. and the band really belting it out at the end.
T-Bone Walker & BB King together,Monterey Jazz Festival, September 1967
I consider myself blessed to have actually seen many musical giants live. B.B. King, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Michael Brecker, Bill Monroe, Dizzy Gillespie, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Jerry Garcia, Frank Zappa and others who are no longer here. Having seen B.B. King play, I know that my life is richer for it.
The first thing I remember knowin’
Was a lonesome whistle blownin’
And a young’uns dream of growin’ up to ride
On a freight train leavin’ town
Not knowin’ where I’m bound
And no one could change my mind
But Mama tried
One and only rebel child
From a family meek and mild
My Mama seemed to know what lay in store
Spite all my Sunday learnin’
Toward the bad I kept on turnin’
Till Mama couldn’t hold me any more
And I turned twenty-one in prison
Doin’ life with out parole
No one could steer me right
But mama tried, Mama tried
Mama tried to raise me better
But her pleading I denied
That leaves only me to blame
Cause Mama tried
Dear old Daddy, rest his soul
Left my Mom a heavy load
She tried so very hard to fill his shoes
Workin’ hours without rest
Wanted me to have the best
She tried to raise me right
But I refused
And I turned twenty-one in prison
Doin’ life with out parole
No one could steer me right
But mama tried, Mama tried
Mama tried to raise me better
But her pleading I denied
That leaves only me to blame
Cause Mama tried
ManRoy Music 