Pink Floyd’s Meddle

I put Meddle on for a listen tonight; a perfect album now that the world cup is in full-swing in Brazil: the 3rd track on the CD, Fearless includes a live recording of Liverpool fans singing You’ll Never Walk Alone (famously, after a loss, the fans serenaded their team with this song).

There are some other interesting tracks on the album (One of These Days, San Tropez), but the foundation of the recording is Echoes, which clocks in at over twenty-three minutes (and was the entire side two of the original album in 1971). This song never fails to put me into a lovely meditative mood.

It was their 1973 album, The Dark Side of the Moon, that first made Pink Floyd world-famous, but there is a special place in my heart for this album, the first record I ever purchased (well, I bought three albums that day, and I’d done my homework: Meddle, Led Zeppelin, and Santana: Abraxas).

 

  Echoes

Overhead the albatross hangs motionless upon the air
And deep beneath the rolling waves in labyrinths of coral caves
The echo of a distant tide
Comes willowing across the sand
And everything is green and submarine

And no one showed us to the land
And no one knows the where’s or why’s
But something stirs and something tries
And starts to climb towards the light

Strangers passing in the street
By chance two separate glances meet
And I am you and what I see is me
And do I take you by the hand
And lead you through the land
And help me understand the best I can
And no one calls us to move on
And no one forces down our eyes
No one speaks
And no one tries
No one flies around the sun

Cloudless every day you fall upon my waking eyes
Inviting and inciting me to rise
And through the window in the wall
Come streaming in on sunlight wings
A million bright ambassadors of morning

And no one sings me lullabies
And no one makes me close my eyes
So I throw the windows wide
And call to you across the sky.

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Steely Dan; Katie Lied

Steely Dan‘s exceptional album Katie Lied (their fourth, in 1975) was released during the second half of my high-school graduation year (it seems like another lifetime…). It was the second Dan album I’d heard (after their 1972 debut, Can’t Buy a Thrill; for some reason I’d missed Countdown to Ecstasy (arguably their best album) and Pretzel Logic). Katie Lied amazed me at the time and, through the years, I’ve learned to appreciate the album’s depths even more. Several notable musicians appear on the credits, including Rick Derringer and Larry Carlton on guitars, and Phil Wood on tenor sax. I just listened to the CD; the sound is a bit muddy, so I’ve decided to buy the remastered version (are you listening Santa?). Today, three of the songs caught my attention:

Black Friday. While Walter Becker and Donald Fagan were on Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz NPR show (the album was released in 2005), Fagan confirmed that the song’s meaning is steeped in the miasma of the great depression (some have suggested that it gazed into the future).

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Doctor Wu. According to Brian Sweet (from his 1994 book, Steely Dan: Reelin’ in the Years), Fagen said that the song is about a love/dope triangle involving a girl who is attracted to someone with a dangerous lifestyle. The dope habit is personified as Dr. Wu (Are you with me Doctor Wu?/Are you really just a shadow/of the man that I once knew?). The girl comes under the domination of someone else and the previous relationship is ended or altered. The album’s title is echoed in the lyrics:

I went searching for the song
You used to sing to me …
Katy lies;
You could see it in her eyes

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Your Gold Teeth II. Among other things, this song is an echo of my favourite Dan song (Your Gold Teeth, a seven-minute tribute to hard bop from Countdown to Ecstasy):

Who are these children
Who scheme and run wild?
Who speak with their wings
And the way that they smile?
What are the secrets
They trace in the sky?
And why do you tremble
Each time they ride by?

For me, the album assembles a cloud of nostalgia, but it brings new impressions each time I listen.

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Rain

While walking to work this morning, some rain dripped into my ear, and the slight discomfort reminded me of a poem by Sheldon Alan ‘Shel’ Silverstein (1930-1999), poet, singer-songwriter, musician, composer, cartoonist, screenwriter, and author of children’s books…

Rain

I opened my eyes
And looked up at the rain,
And it dripped in my head
And flowed into my brain,
And all that I hear as I lie in my bed
Is the slishity-slosh of the rain in my head.

I step very softly,
I walk very slow,
I can’t do a handstand —
I might overflow,
So pardon the wild crazy thing I just said —
I’m just not the same since there’s rain in my head.

I recall the poem from from Where the Sidewalk Ends, but it was apparently originally from an earlier collection, Hello Poetry. I scanned the contents of Hello Poetry and was surprised to discover that A Boy Named Sue was one of Silverstein’s works. For those unfamiliar, Johnny Cash recorded a live version of A Boy Named Sue (as a song, also apparently by Silverstein) at a concert in San Quentin Prison in 1969. A Boy Named Sue was Johnny Cash’s biggest hit on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at #2 for three weeks, denied the #1 spot by The Rolling Stones’ Honky Tonk Women.

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The Landfill Harmonic

There is a dump in Cateura, Paraguay that receives over fifteen-hundred tons of waste every day. The dump site is home to twenty-five hundred inhabitants, most of whom — children included — sort the garbage for the recycling industry.

An ecological technician, Favio Chavez, wanted to teach music to the children of the community; his only problem was the cost of instruments: a violin is worth more than a house in the area. Then he came up with a brilliant idea: he reworked recycled materials from the dump into instruments. The children have formed The Recycled Orchestra, and a documentary is being prepared, which will be called Landfill Harmonic, to be aired sometime this year.

For more information, check out their Facebook page

Also, check out the trailer video below

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Derek Amato’s Acquired Savant Syndrome

Derek Amato is one of about thirty people in the world with Acquired Savant Syndrome, which spontaneously bestows profound abilities to individuals who have suffered head trauma.

Derek dove into a shallow pool and ended up in the hospital with a severe concussion. As a consequence of the accident, he suffered a thirty-five percent loss in hearing, memory difficulties, and issues with over-stimulation of his mind. But he gained some qualities as well…

When Derek was released from the hospital he visited a friend who is a guitarist. Derek had dabbled in guitar playing, but was never proficient: he watched his friend play, but Derek’s hands began to twitch and he had a curious impulse to play the keyboard, which was also in the room. He sat at the keyboard and — even though he’d never had a piano lesson, couldn’t read music, and had never played the keyboard — he began to play a classical-type composition that he saw as flickering black and white squares in his mind. He played for hours into the night; apprehensive, but feeling as though a spiritual channel had arisen.

He has since been diagnosed with Acquired Musical Savant Syndrome (the only documented case known) and a form of Syneteshia, a neurological condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.

After absorbing the remarkable phenomenon of this story, it occurs to me that the human mind is a far more complex organ than we imagine.

Check out the video below for more on this intriguing story, including Derek playing some of his music:

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Dave Brubeck

Dave Brubeck, iconoclastic jazz composer and pianist, passed from this world earlier today.

He was inspired by the rise of West Coast jazz, but he became famous for his unconventional meters; in particular, for his 1959 album Time Out, a personal favorite of mine. The entire album is fantastic, but there are two pieces that stand out:

Blue Rondo à la Turk is the opening number on the album. The piece’s theme includes an unusual 9/8 rhythm (the theme contains three measures of 2+2+2+3 followed by one measure of 3+3+3).  Apparently, Brubeck first heard the rhythm performed by Turkish street musicians. When he asked about the rhythm, they replied that the rhythm, to them, was like the blues to him; hence the piece’s name. This piece is commonly — and erroneously — thought to be based on Mozart’s Rondo ala Turca.

The other stand-out piece on the album is Take Five, which was written by Paul Desmond, whose flowing, ethereal alto saxophone helped propel this album, and The Dave Brubeck Quartet (Brubeck, Desmond, Eugene Wright (b), and Joe Morello (d)),  into mainstream culture.

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I mourn Dave Brubeck’s passing, but will continue to revel within the genius of his musical vision.

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Shine On You Crazy Diamond

My initiation to Pink Floyd was in 1971, the days when music could only be purchased on 12 inch ‘records,’  which are now called vinyl. I hear that ‘vinyl’ has made a bit of a comeback: go figure. In 1971 I was barely into my teenage years, trying to be cool, and managed to scrape together enough change to purchase a record. I walked down to the music store (I did a lot more walking in those days: it probably took me forty minutes to walk there). There was an album, Meddle (by …the progressive rock band Pink Floyd), displayed in a rack by the entrance. The cover looked cool (apparently it’s a representation of an ear underwater, gathering ‘ripples’ of sound), so I bought it, took it home, and listened to it in my bedroom (my parents couldn’t stand my musical taste, so I’d found a way to beg and borrow old stereo equipment; for example, a friend of my Dad’s gave me a set of woofers, tweeters and associated equipment, and I built speaker enclosures out of particle board: I wish I still had the speakers; they sounded fantastic). Man, I loved that album! Especially the song Echoes, a twenty-three minute opus that took up the entire side two of the record. I’d never heard anything like it. I backtracked through their catalogue and found many more songs that I enjoyed, but Meddle was the album that seemed the most cohesive and lyrical (although I could have done without the song Seamus, but nothing is perfect…).

My friends didn’t enjoy Meddle nearly as much as I did, but when The Dark Side of the Moon was released in 1973, almost everybody agreed that Pink Floyd was pretty darn cool. And I kept buying their albums, but stopped after The Wall.

The Wall was released in 1979 and many point to this album as Pink Floyd’s crowning achievement. It was a fine album, with some glimmers of genius (e.g.: Comfortably Numb), but it has always felt a little too over-produced to me, and I would rank The Dark Side of the Moon as the nadir of the band’s achievements; it was created at just the right time, and spoke to the soul of the youth of that moment. Still, it is another album — Wish You Were Here (1975) — that I think contains the best music that Pink Floyd ever created (and at least two band members — Richard Wright and David Gilmore — have named it as their favorite Floyd album). I dearly wanted to go to the Wish You Were Here concert  when it came to Vancouver, but I couldn’t afford the $10.75 ticket, which seemed a small fortune in those days.

Much of the content of Wish you Were Here was inspired by Syd Barrett, who’d had a mental breakdown and left the band in the late 60s. The album is also an outlet for the band’s criticism of the music business, particularly the songs Welcome to the Machine and Have a Cigar (my least favourite track on the album, especially after I heard a disco version on the radio late one night; many years ago, but the memory haunts me).

For me, the Floyd piece that has aged the best is Shine On You Crazy Diamond, a nine part composition that is split in half to bookend the other songs on Wish You Were Here (Parts I-V start the album, and Parts VI – IX end the album). Shine On was surely inspired by Syd Barrett, who even showed up one day in the recording studio; ironically, the band members didn’t recognize him at first; he had gained a lot of weight, and shaved his head and eyebrows. When he was finally recognized, his old friends had difficulty communicating with him and it was the last time any of them saw Syd.

Roger Keith ‘Syd‘ Barrett passed from this world in 2006

Shine On you Crazy Diamond is a hauntingly beautiful piece; some of the opening sounds were produced by rubbing wet fingers on the rims of wine glasses filled with differing levels of liquid; somehow this, together with the circumstances of the recording session with Sid Barrett, helps to create a meditative mood that pervades my being and remains long after the song is over.

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Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun.

Shine on you crazy diamond.

Now there’s a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky.

Shine on you crazy diamond.

You were caught in the crossfire of childhood and stardom

Blown on the steel breeze.

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Come on you target for faraway laughter,

come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine!

You reached for the secret too soon, you cried for the moon

Shine on you crazy diamond.

Threatened by shadows at night, and exposed in the light.

Shine on you crazy diamond.

Well you wore out your welcome with random precision,

rode on the steel breeze.

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Come on you raver, you seer of visions,

come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!

 

Lyrics by Roger Waters

 

Autumn

I’m not sure what is is about autumn; but, for me, there is an enchantment that pervades the world. I was walking on our street and noticed the lovely yellow plumage of the trees in front of our condominium complex, which reminded me of Van Morrison’s song Moondance. Interestingly, as the song ran through my mind, it was the arrangement of leaves on the ground that brought  the romance of the season into focus…

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And all the leaves on the trees are falling

To the sound of the breezes that blow

And I’m trying to please to the calling

Of your heart-strings that play soft and low

You know the night’s magic

Seems to whisper and hush

And all the soft moonlight

Seems to shine, in your blush…

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(from Moonlight, by Van Morrison)

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Commuting with J.S. Bach

J.S. Bach’s Violin concertos kept me company on the way to work this morning; for the first time in years, I was sad that the commute wasn’t longer…

I’ve always enjoyed these concertos and, on this recording, the orchestra is inspired and the music pours with a flowing vivacity. There were two movements that were especially pleasurable:

• When the 3^rd movement (Allegro) of the D-minor Concerto (BWV 1043) first started, I thought the tempo was a bit fast, but it brought me to full consciousness and I thoroughly enjoyed the sprightly mood.
• The 2^nd movement (Adagio) of the Concerto in C (BWV 1064R) evoked a meditative walk through a field, with vestiges of morning mist swirling.

I usually like to listen to these concertos with my eyes closed, to fully appreciate the sounds as they roil over me, but that’s not viable while driving. I read somewhere that the pitch on this recording is ‘reduced’ because the ensemble is a period instrument orchestra and they were attempting to reproduce an authentic performance from the time-period. I can’t really notice a difference; I’m not that attuned to the nuances, I just know what I like.

I felt like Johann himself was in the passenger seat, talking to me; I’m not sure that what he was saying was what I heard, but it was awesome to have company on the drive to work.

Highly recommended.

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Art Blakey

Art Blakey began his musical career at church, where he learned to play the piano.

In his early teens he was the pianist in his jazz band until he was persuaded (purportedly at gun point by the owner of the club where they were playing)  to move from piano to drums (a young Erroll Garner — another jazz giant — took Blakey’s spot at the piano), thus  launching one of the great careers of jazz. And Blakey — in a similar manner to Miles Davis — was instrumental in further launching the careers of many young jazz stars.

In 1948, Blakey was influenced by the polyrhythmic drumming techniques he was introduced to while visiting western Africa, and these influences helped pave Blakey’s path from a bebop to a hard bop drumming style.

In 1954, Blakey, along with pianist Horace Silver, formed the first Jazz Messengers quintet (with Lou Donaldson (alto), Clifford Brown (trumpet), and Curley Russell (base)). It was The Jazz Messenger groups that cemented Blakey’s legendary status in the history of jazz.  Horace Silver left the group in 1956 and The Jazz Messengers were fully under Blakey’s control (for an example of Horace Silver’s oeuvre see, in particular, Song for my Father (1964), the inspiration for Steely Dan’s Rikki Don’t Lose that Number — specifically the base-line).

For me, the highlight of Blakey and The Jazz Messengers came in 1958 with Moanin’, one of my favorite songs. There are other gems on the Moanin’ album (including the lyrical Along Came Betty, and The Drum Thunder Suite, which shows off Blakey’s power and versatility), but Moanin’ is the song that blows me away: it begins calmly and the rhythm roils comfortably, but when Lee Morgan’s solo begins, it transports me to a higher reality. I could listen to the song over and over; and I’m not the only admirer, it’s a hard bop classic.

Art Blakey passed from this world in 1990, but his soulful, powerful drumming — infused with the funky-blues rhythm that helped formulate hard bop jazz —ensures that his spirit will live on as long as we remember, and listen to, his music.

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