Nina Simone

Nina Simone
Album: Anthology -- The Colpix Years
Song: When I Was A Young Girl

Feist
Album: Let It Die
Song: When I Was A Young Girl


Nina Simone is one of the most expressive artists I know.  I've spoken about my admiration for Fiona Apple, for her willingness to be fragile, to leave herself emotionally bare in performance.  Nina Simone has been there and back again repeatedly.  (Incidentally, I've done more than my fair share of performing over the years and I can attest to how brave and special artists like these are.)

Simone trained to be a classical musician, but when those plans went awry she started singing the blues and interpreting jazz and pop standards.  Gradually she increased her fan base, and by the 60s and early 70s she was featured at some of the world's biggest jazz and blues festivals.  She was known in particular for her captivating performances; exuberant one moment, emotionally ragged the next.  Only after her death in 2003 did the truth come out, that she had been diagnosed with severe bipolar disorder relatively early in her life, and it was a cross she bore throughout her career.

Some of my favorite YouTube moments are of her performances.



And if you really want to hear and see raw-nerved emotion on stage, check out her version of "Feelings".  In the hands of a lesser artist it would seem maudlin, perhaps even anti-musical.  But Simone's interpretation is electrifying, so in touch with the song's message that even seemingly given musical characteristics like intonation and timbre are subservient.  She's unafraid to sing off-key or to utter a hoarse, raspy whisper in place of a melodic line so long as it serves the needs of the song.  This is what it means to be a true musician.  If you read this blog regularly you know that I am unafraid of using superlatives; so much so, in fact, that I run the danger of making them meaningless.  But I can honestly say that I am more in awe of Nina Simone than any other performer I have featured.

But I am not here to discuss either of these songs.  The song that first made me fall in love with Simone is "When I Was A Young Girl".  Unfortunately, I was unable to find a live video performance of the song, but the audio version is still sublime.

Finally, we all know Feist.  She's awesome.  But you may not know that she can be downright vicious as a live performer.  Check out her interpretation of the song.  Great stuff.

On The Sly

Sly And The Family Stone
Album: Woodstock -- Music From The Original Soundtrack
Song: I Want To Take You Higher

I started to do a post on David Bowie, in particular his mid-70s hit "Fame".  Cos, well, it's awesome.  But as I was listening to it, as I was immersing myself in some of the best white boy funk ever written, I had a hankering for even funkier funk.  Some might even say the funkiest funk.

Sly and the Family Stone are an interesting band.  For example, it consisted of both black and white musicians, which was quite unusual for the late 60s. And Sylvester (Sly) Stone, the creative force and leader of the band, is a particularly fascinating guy.  He is credited with being a soul and funk innovator, but he was also very interested in psychadelic rock; listen to any of the band's records and you'll notice a delightful mish-mash of styles.  He oozed charisma.  He was also an inveterate coke and PCP user, the abuse of which -- not only by him but also by several other band members -- contributed to Sly and the Family Stone's demise in the early 70s.  Stone was known for carrying a violin case full of drugs wherever he went.  Heh.

This particular video is from Sly and the Family Stone's appearance at Woodstock.  They took the stage at 3:00 AM and played one of the most intense sets you'll ever see and hear.  Listen to the call and response section; Sly had completely energized the sea of concert-goers.  One of the greatest front men of all time.

This blog is called "A Joyful Noise."  This song embodies the idea.

Monk(ey) Shines

Thelonious Monk
Album: The Complete Blue Note Recordings
Song: Round Midnight

Thelonious Monk is my all-time favorite jazz artist.  I own half a dozen of his CDs and there isn't a bad song in the bunch.  He is credited with being one of the founders of bebop, but his style cannot easily be categorized -- his later recordings are vastly dissimilar to his earlier efforts.

He was also a crazy cat, even as jazz musicians go, known as much for his idiosyncratic behavior as for his compositions.  At times, Monk would get up from the piano while others were playing and dance in funky little circles.  His fashion sense was also much different from his peers, often including distinctive hats, sunglasses, and suits.

According to Wikipedia, "Round Midnight" is the most recorded jazz standard of all time.  Written in 1944, it has been covered by artists as diverse as Dizzy Gallespie, Miles Davis, and Ella Fitzgerald.  The melodic line

is one of the most famous in the genre, and features the angularity for which Monk was famous.  Our recording of the day is also entirely characteristic -- Monk's improvisational style is highly percussive and dramatic, with long pauses and abrupt stops and entrances, and his harmonic pallette is rich with chromaticism and dissonance.  He doesn't have the technique of an Ellington or a Tatum, but his playing is so musical and idiosyncratic that I never get tired of it.

   

Soundgarden: A Delicate Name For A Rugged Band

Soundgarden
Album: Superunknown
Song: Spoonman

Some people have vivid memories about where they were and what they were doing when they first heard that John Lennon had been murdered.  Others respond similarly to JFK's assassination or Elvis' death or the 9/11 bombings.  For me, it's Kurt Cobain's suicide.

I haven't posted any so-called "grunge" music yet, perhaps because as a genre it is still very well known and highly publicized via commercial radio, and my mission with this blog is to explore relatively unknown music.  But tonight just seems like a grunge night, and it's what I'm listening to as I write this, so what the heck.  However, instead of focusing on the two biggest grunge bands -- Nirvana and Pearl Jam -- I'm going to feature Soundgarden who, apart from being more adept musically than most of its peers, also wrote one of the most wicked hard rock songs ever, "Spoonman".

"Spoonman" is an homage to a formerly homeless man who played the spoons for spare change in downtown Seatlle.  (He is no longer homeless because of the royalties he receives for the song!)  This dude, whose playing is featured on the track, is one amazing rhythmic musician: cross rhythms, radical syncopations, free time signatures.  Great stuff.  And it's perhaps fitting, therefore, that Soundgarden's song is also metrically and rhythmically adventurous: the verses are in a highly syncopated 7/4 while the choruses are in 4/4, and it's the absence of the expected "final" beat in the verses that lends the song so much of its appeal.

By the way, I've had a special request for an old school jazz post, and I must admit that I look forward to featuring something a little lighter and cleaner than my recent offerings.  So, tomorrow I hit it up.  Don't miss it.



p.s. In this space I previously posted some HTML experiments.  Many thanks to Kris for providing excellent feedback and good advice.  You rock, sunshine.

Great Heron

Gil-Scott Heron
Album: I'm New Here
Song: I'm New Here

What more can be said about Gil-Scott Heron that hasn't been said already? The guy has been credited with kick-starting the hip-hop movement with his seminal, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" and he's made one good record after another ever since; this, despite horrendous personal setbacks.  He has been in and out of prison over the last decade on possession charges.  Others have been highly critical of the decision to convict him, partly due to the small quantity of illegal substance, and partly due to the fact that he was 61 years old when sentenced.*

In the years following his early forays into hip-hop he has been critical of much modern attempts at the genre, at one point saying


They need to study music. I played in several bands before I began my career as a poet. There’s a big difference between putting words over some music, and blending those same words into the music. There’s not a lot of humor. They use a lot of slang and colloquialisms, and you don’t really see inside the person. Instead, you just get a lot of posturing.


That's about right.  So much hip-hop falls into precisely that trap, which is why guys like MF DOOM, Mos Def and others are so precious: they are musicians who rap as opposed to rappers who (try to) make music.

Anyway.  Back to the good stuff.  His latest album, his first new studio album since the mid 90s, is killer.  The old man has aged pretty damn well.  Love the smoky delivery and the introspective lyrics.  This isn't the record of a revolutionary -- not any more -- but it is the record of a lifetime of experience.  The epitome of cool.



*Brief political aside, for which I apologize in advance.  The US is fucked up.  Locking up a 61 year old guy for having a party?  Jesus.  Well, at least it's comforting to know that Canada's heading down the same road with Rev Harper et al in power. Christ.

Jesus Hates A Mouth Breather

The Jesus Lizard
Album: Goat
Song: Mouth Breather

Lightning Bolt wouldn't exist without them.  'Nuff said.

Perhaps the greatest band of the American underground noise rock scene in the early 90s, and led by the inimitable Dave Yow, The Jesus Lizard spent a hell of a lot of time on my turntable back in the day.  Goat, produced by Steve Albini of Big Black* fame, is considered their best record and it features on many "Best Of" lists from the decade.

And how many hard rock tunes do you know of that spin in 6/8 time?



* Thanks, GC.

Just Hear Those Sleigh Bells Jingling

Sleigh Bells
Album: Treats
Song: Treats

I like chocolate.  Sweet, sticky, provides a slight buzz, all good things.  Nothing but chocolate, however, and I'd soon puke my guts up.  Sleigh Bells are musical chocolate.

The first time I listened to this track I was sure I was hearing the Next Big Thing in music.  Superficially, it's awesome.  The compressed drum sounds are appealingly edgy, and the simple barre chords in the guitar provide pop metal heft.  And then there're the vocals.  Light as air, sugary and sweet, the meringue after a heavy meal.

The second time I listened to this track I was not at all sure that I was hearing the Next Big Thing in music.  Superficially it was still awesome...but something didn't seem quite right.  Couldn't put my finger on it, but it was all starting to seem a bit treacly.

The third time I listened to this track I was sure than I wasn't hearing the Next Big Thing in music.  Superficially, it was as awesome as ever.  But dig even slightly deeper and it soon becomes obvious that this is a silly pop song and nothing more.  Its only true appeal is the synthesized drum sounds.  Which are, to be sure, fantabulistic.  The guitar line is boring as hell, however, and the entire song is just so square.  Square time signatures, square melodic lines, square structures, square square square.  Blech.

Now don't get me wrong.  "Square" isn't necessarily a bad thing.  Some genres lend themselves to squareness.  Country.  Folk.  Blues.  But this is the music of the average person, and we need to hear the voice of the average person to make it appealing.  Lyrics become more meaningful, story-telling and yarn-spinning become assets.  In an electronic genre, however, squareness is death.  Electronic music offers possibilities no other genre affords, and in my opinion the skill of the electronic musician is in his ability to explore these possibilities.  Sleigh Bells, electronica's Rhianna, just don't measure up.

But next road trip I'm definitely putting this tune on my mix CD.  A little chocolate always goes down sweet.