Yes, we've reached Week 45 in our year-long Discography music discussion, which, even with my incredibly stunted Hoosier-driven sense of math, means we have less than two months left. It's difficult to believe, but in turn makes me cherish these weekly discussions all the more.
Bill Evans, Waltz for Debby
I know I've said this before, but when we began this journey almost a year ago it never occurred to me how much jazz music I would include, and thus, I guess, how important jazz is to me. That said, as I've admitted, I have a pretty pedestrian sense of the art form, best shown by my slavish devotion to Miles Davis and Bill Evans; not that they're not geniuses (a term I don't throw around lightly, by the way) but because I think they're more default settings. I've always liked Bill Evans, which makes the title of my favorite album of his, Everybody Digs Bill Evans, a nice fit. Over the years I've grown to love his music very deeply. As I've said many times, he seems to play notes that only he hears - or, to put it another way, he brings out notes on the piano that others can't find (which I think is probably true of all great musicians, no matter what instrument they play). This week I'd like to talk about another of my favorite pieces, Waltz for Debby. I'm including the version from his album of the same name, although it made its initial appearance in an embryonic form on his first album, New Jazz Conceptions. The Waltz for Debby album is drawn from a legendary live recording with his best trio from the Village Vanguard, made even more famous by the tragic death of bassist Scott LaFaro in a car wreck a week after the recording. The death of his friend crushed Evans and he went into seclusion for a while. You can buy either the Sunday at the Village Vanguard or the Waltz for Debby album, they're both drawn from the same session; essentially I guess it depends how much you love bass. The former, as an homage to his friend, was mastered by Evans to play up the bass slightly, and the latter is more like the original sound. They're both wonderful. For some reason this song always reminds me of Dave Kelley, although we've never talked about it, and, in fact, I'm not certain that he's ever heard it before. Evans wrote the song for his niece, and it appeared in a minute and eighteen second version on his first album, and then he expanded it on the later album - an approach I wish more artists would take (I guess they do in live recordings, but it's an interesting thought experiment because it would show how you've developed, both musically and intellectually/emotionally, over the years). Anyway, I know how Dave dotes on his niece (and his nephew, for that matter), and it sounds like the gift he would give her if he could.
Gary Beatrice
Johnny
Cash, I Hung My Head
I'm going to let your collective bad moods effect me one more time but I'm telling you that, in the immortal words of Elvis Costello, next week I Get Happy.
I am taking a risk listing an American Records era Johnny Cash song because I can't possibly write comments as insightful as Dave Mills did with Hurt. Ultimately, however, I could not go a year without recognizing I Hung My Head.
I'm going to let your collective bad moods effect me one more time but I'm telling you that, in the immortal words of Elvis Costello, next week I Get Happy.
I am taking a risk listing an American Records era Johnny Cash song because I can't possibly write comments as insightful as Dave Mills did with Hurt. Ultimately, however, I could not go a year without recognizing I Hung My Head.
Folsom Prison is classic Cash. One of my
favorites, one of everybody's favorites. But even though Cash shot a man just
to watch him die, and then he hangs his head to cry, his voice betrays that he
is still a man of defiance and swagger. Not so on l Hung My Head. Here when he
shoots down a lone rider, again for no apparent reason, he lives out his
remaining dies with horrifying guilt. I submit that this is what regret sounds
like.
Dave Wallace
Bruce
Springsteen - Land of Hopes & Dreams
And for my
last Bruce song, something more hopeful. The greatest
"late-period" Springsteen song (and a Top 5 all-time Bruce song for
me), Land of Hopes and Dreams captures much of the Springsteen
philosophy and mythology. His anthem about "saints and sinners"
provides much needed optimism about our future right now:
Leave
behind your sorrows
Let this
day be the last
Tomorrow
there’ll be sunshine
And all
this darkness past
Big wheels
roll through fields
Where
sunlight streams
Oh meet me
in a land of hope and dreams
Phillip Seiler
Sure on This Shining Night
I had a ninth grade biology teacher who allowed me and a few friends to lunch in his classroom rather than deal with the hell that is the High School cafeteria circa 1983. Mr. Phoebus had a turntable in his cabinets and would play classical music while we ate, chatted, and generally tried to pretend we were way more adult and sophisticated then we were. He had a preference for Pavarotti. My father also had some classical music that I had grown up listening to. I asked Mr. Phoebus if he liked the only name I could remember from my dad’s collection: James Galway. He responded he liked the flutist but that there was no substitute for the power of the human voice.
It took years before I understood what he said that day. And my song this week is one of the purest expressions of his truth. Sure on this Shining Night by Morten Lauridsen is a modern choral piece written in 2005. It has quickly become a staple of choral societies and High School choruses (thankfully, usually the select choirs.) The text is a James Agee poem which I include in its entirety.
“Sure on this shining night
Of star made shadows round,
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground.
The late year lies down the north.
All is healed, all is health.
High summer holds the earth.
Hearts all whole.
Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder wand'ring far
alone
Of shadows on the stars.” -Agee
It is a life goal to be part of a chorus that sings this stunningly beautiful piece.
I had a ninth grade biology teacher who allowed me and a few friends to lunch in his classroom rather than deal with the hell that is the High School cafeteria circa 1983. Mr. Phoebus had a turntable in his cabinets and would play classical music while we ate, chatted, and generally tried to pretend we were way more adult and sophisticated then we were. He had a preference for Pavarotti. My father also had some classical music that I had grown up listening to. I asked Mr. Phoebus if he liked the only name I could remember from my dad’s collection: James Galway. He responded he liked the flutist but that there was no substitute for the power of the human voice.
It took years before I understood what he said that day. And my song this week is one of the purest expressions of his truth. Sure on this Shining Night by Morten Lauridsen is a modern choral piece written in 2005. It has quickly become a staple of choral societies and High School choruses (thankfully, usually the select choirs.) The text is a James Agee poem which I include in its entirety.
“Sure on this shining night
Of star made shadows round,
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground.
The late year lies down the north.
All is healed, all is health.
High summer holds the earth.
Hearts all whole.
Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder wand'ring far
alone
Of shadows on the stars.” -Agee
It is a life goal to be part of a chorus that sings this stunningly beautiful piece.
Dave Kelley
"Ah, there's nothing wrong with her that a hundred dollars
wouldn't fix." Tom Waits
"They say I have never had any hits and am difficult to work
with like those are bad things." TW
I know we post about songs and not entire records, and being
a compliant eldest child I will stick to that format. Not before suggesting
that we would all profit greatly by sitting in a recliner in the dark with
multiple pours of your favorite hard liquor and listening to Tom Waits'
masterpiece "Rain Dogs" from beginning to end.
Waits voice is unique in many ways. His singing voice sounds
like he has been smoking unfiltered cigarettes, drinking Irish whiskey, and
gargling glass since he was three. His lyrics/poetry have their origins
in many areas of music but sound like no one else could possibly have written
them. To me he is part poet laureate of fever dreams, part resurrected
vaudeville singer, part the bard of desolation row, and part alien sent to fuck
with our minds.
I narrowed my selections this week to two songs off of
"Raindogs."
"Downtown Train" Tom Waits
Rod Stewart has recorded many awesome songs, but his cover of this
one both sucks and blows. The orifginal on the other hand is a
magnificent raw song about longing and desire.
Despite the fact that the singer is all decked out and
"shining like a new dime" he has not been successful in winning the
heart of th one he loves. He is dismissive of all of the other Brooklyn
girls he sees on the downtown train. "They're just thorns without
the rose." If only "I was the one, you chose to beyour only
one." The delivery definitely gives one the sense this is never
going to happen. No "Pretty Woman" moment here where the girl
turns and stops walking towards him.
"Time" Tom Waits
I find this to be one of the haunting and beautiful melodies in
music with great vocals and instrumentaton. I do not know what the lyrics
are about necessarily but still find them amazingly poetic.
"The things I can't remember,
tell the things I can't forget
that history puts a saint in every dream."
I heartily recommend a close listen.
Gary Scudder
Bill Evans, Waltz for Debby
I know I've said this before, but when we began this journey almost a year ago it never occurred to me how much jazz music I would include, and thus, I guess, how important jazz is to me. That said, as I've admitted, I have a pretty pedestrian sense of the art form, best shown by my slavish devotion to Miles Davis and Bill Evans; not that they're not geniuses (a term I don't throw around lightly, by the way) but because I think they're more default settings. I've always liked Bill Evans, which makes the title of my favorite album of his, Everybody Digs Bill Evans, a nice fit. Over the years I've grown to love his music very deeply. As I've said many times, he seems to play notes that only he hears - or, to put it another way, he brings out notes on the piano that others can't find (which I think is probably true of all great musicians, no matter what instrument they play). This week I'd like to talk about another of my favorite pieces, Waltz for Debby. I'm including the version from his album of the same name, although it made its initial appearance in an embryonic form on his first album, New Jazz Conceptions. The Waltz for Debby album is drawn from a legendary live recording with his best trio from the Village Vanguard, made even more famous by the tragic death of bassist Scott LaFaro in a car wreck a week after the recording. The death of his friend crushed Evans and he went into seclusion for a while. You can buy either the Sunday at the Village Vanguard or the Waltz for Debby album, they're both drawn from the same session; essentially I guess it depends how much you love bass. The former, as an homage to his friend, was mastered by Evans to play up the bass slightly, and the latter is more like the original sound. They're both wonderful. For some reason this song always reminds me of Dave Kelley, although we've never talked about it, and, in fact, I'm not certain that he's ever heard it before. Evans wrote the song for his niece, and it appeared in a minute and eighteen second version on his first album, and then he expanded it on the later album - an approach I wish more artists would take (I guess they do in live recordings, but it's an interesting thought experiment because it would show how you've developed, both musically and intellectually/emotionally, over the years). Anyway, I know how Dave dotes on his niece (and his nephew, for that matter), and it sounds like the gift he would give her if he could.
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