jazz – Miscellaneous Details

Music at war

I’m familiar with the role drums have played during times of war, but not pianos.

When the pianos went to war
During the war, the U.S. government essentially shut down the production of musical instruments in order to divert vital resources such as iron, copper, brass, and other materials to the war effort. Yet the government also determined that the war effort ought to include entertainment that could lift soldiers’ spirits. But just any old piano wouldn’t do. They needed ones hearty enough to withstand the trying conditions out in the field—including being packed into a crate and dropped out of a plane.

From literal war, to a more symbolic musical clash.

The ‘implicit danger’ of a violin concerto
The concerto is the ultimate display of musical virtuosity – pitching a soloist against the orchestra as they alternate, compete and combine in a constantly changing dialogue. Those dynamics are crystallised in the word concerto itself, which has two, apparently contradictory, meanings: Competition and agreement.

And far from clashing and jarring, here are two genres working so well together you wonder why combining metal and jazz hasn’t been done before.

A funky mashup of Black Sabbath’s ‘War Pigs’, Metallica’s ‘Master of Puppets’ and Herb Alpert’s ‘Rise’
Video editor Bill McClintock has created a really funky mashup of “War Pigs” by Black Sabbath, “Master of Puppets” by Metallica and Herb Alpert‘s iconic instrumental “Rise”. It all sounds really good together, however what stands out, is Abraham Laboriel‘s phenomenal bassline punching through.

Mashup – War Puppets Rise to Heaven

There are plenty more where that came from.

All the music

You might think you have pretty eclectic musical tastes, but honestly, there’s just so much music out there. We can only scratch the surface. What we need is a map of it all.

Every noise at once
Every Noise at Once is an ongoing attempt at an algorithmically-generated, readability-adjusted scatter-plot of the musical genre-space, based on data tracked and analyzed for 3,385 genre-shaped distinctions by Spotify as of 2019-08-30. The calibration is fuzzy, but in general down is more organic, up is more mechanical and electric; left is denser and more atmospheric, right is spikier and bouncier.

3,385 genres? I only really listen to one now, but perhaps this will encourage me to broaden my horizons again.

Dive into Every Noise at Once, a musical map of genres you didn’t know existed
“I’m continually surprised to find that no matter how obscure some niche genre seems to me at first, there always turn out to be a hundred bands doing that and three more subgenres based on even subtler distinctions,” McDonald says. “The music just doesn’t stop! And some things I had never heard of turn out to make me as happy as things I’ve loved for decades. Australian hip-hop! German oi! Liquid funk, bachata, doomcore, jazz orchestra, warm drone!”

Some genres make more of an impact than others, of course. And the same could be said of some of the albums within those genres. Like this one, for instance.

Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue at 60: A new video essay celebrates the 60th anniversary of the iconic album
With the company of other legendary musicians, like John Coltrane and Bill Evans, Kind of Blue was recorded; the greatest selling jazz album of all time. Miles chose to take an interpretive dance approach to improvisation, developing ideas and using space to create his unique style. This new style of modal jazz pushed musicians to express themselves through melodic creativity.

Kind of Blue 60th anniversay

Or try this version.

Kind of Bloop
Kind of Bloop is a chiptune tribute to Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, a track-by-track 8-bit reinterpretation of the bestselling jazz album of all time.

A dazzling early-morning commute

Certainly more vibrant and kaleidoscopic than my sleepy 98 bus.

D A Pennebaker transformed documentary filmmaking. This is his first film
With its frenetic pace, early morning hues, avant-garde touches, and playful use of shapes and patterns, Pennebaker’s first short, Daybreak Express (1953), made for a precocious debut. The sounds of an eponymous Duke Ellington composition form the film’s clattering backbone, as Pennebaker crafts an urban mosaic from Manhattan’s soon-to-be demolished Third Avenue elevated train line. While more experimental than much of the work he would be celebrated for later, Pennebaker’s career-long knack for kinetic editing, adventurous storytelling and skilfully marrying music and images still permeates nearly every frame.

Daybreak Express

My son was playing a new piece of piano music following his lesson yesterday that really caught my attention. I didn’t recognise the title, ‘I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free’, but if you’re a TV viewer in the UK of a certain age, you’ll certainly recognise the tune.

Barry Norman “Film” theme tune

It reminds me little of the South Bank Show theme tune — wonderful music we’d hear each week that I didn’t fully appreciate had a life outside that TV programme.

It was written in 1963 by Billy Taylor and Dick Dallas and served as an anthem for the Civil Rights Movement in America in the 1960s. Here it is performed by the Billy Taylor Trio, after a wonderfully laid back intro.