The Chill of Death is from Let My Children Hear Music, an album released by Charles Mingus in 1972, around the time P was discovering musical riches on the path that lay before him. I have included an excerpt from the most recent draft of P minor blue.
is a novel about the struggles of P and Cliff, an aimless boy and his reluctant father. It’s set within the political tensions of Montreal in the early 1970s where P is befriended by a reckless thief and lured into stealing a car. They crash and P’s life unfolds before him, revealing the complex relationship he has with Cliff. After surviving the crash P seeks independence from the thief and forgiveness from his father. He also plans to become a musician but is unwillingly drawn back into crime and arrested, and it’s up to Cliff to save him.
The weather in Montreal is cool with a threat of rain. Perfect for abating the feeling that I should head out to the jazz festival. I’ll make it out tomorrow on Chuck’s bike. Once the flat’s fixed. In the mean time I’ll continue my Charles Mingus search on youtube. There’s an incredible collection. This one in particular resonates.
Written in 1945, les feuilles mortes was a popular French song, with lyrics by Jacques Prévert, that was translated to English by Johnny Mercer a few years later. I found this nice a cappella version (I’m not sure who the singer is, but thanks to Jim Clark for the animated video). The English version sung by Nat King Cole became the title track to Robert Aldrich’s melodrama from 1956. (It stars Joan Crawford and Canada’s Lorne Greene. It’s not one of Aldrich’s best films but it’s worth checking out if you’re a fan of his work.)
There is so much to learn in this single performance. The way the melody is played by Miles Davis, the contrast between Miles and Cannonball Adderly’s improvisational styles, and the arrangement are good places to start. Phrasing, tone, color, use of space and time: this is a masterpiece in subtley and sophistication.
I’m including Peter Simms’ chart for the tune that oscillates between G major and E minor. It’s not in the key of the Cannonball version (they play in Bb major or G minor). Try to transpose the chart into the key of G minor: all notes up a minor 3rd or down a major 6th.
G = Bb, A = C, B = D, C = Eb, D = F, E = G, F# = A.
Am7 = Cm7, D7 = F7, …
Then, learn the melody and try to play it along with the recording. Then, try to pick out some of the notes from Miles Davis’ solo. His spacious approach is much more accessible than Adderly’s faster, bebop style.
Here’s a wonderful duet for thumb piano and synthesizer. Lead by Joe Zawinul (1932 – 2007), I love the flow of the groove between these two players.
I been listening to a lot of Jaco Pastorius lately and it’s led me back to my love of Weather Report. I love their early, more experimental music, but I also love the way Zawinul’s compositional approach evolved through the course of his collaborations with Wayne Shorter and into the Zawinul Syndicate: long rhythmic pieces flowing through time revealing trinkets of tunes and splashes of color and virtuosity.
No one is like him. He is missed.
When arranging a piece of music choosing the right instrumentation is key to shaping the sound. The original version of Caravan was born out of Juan Tizol’s concept of the Duke Ellington Orchestra’s sound, a big band. Compare the different arrangements, noticing the overall effects of instrument choice. Another aspect of the difference you may notice is how the players solo over the chord changes.
Now if you add lyrics to the melody and hear it arranged by Nat King Cole you’ve got something very different but the essence of the tune is not lost – I would say it’s enhanced.
CARAVAN lyrics
Night and stars a-bove that shine so bright
The myst-’ry of their fa-ding light
That shines up-on our ca-ra-van
Sleep up-on my shoulder as we creep
Across the sand so I may keep
The mem-’ry of our ca-ra-van
This is so ex-ci-ting
You are so in-vi-ting
Rest-ing in my arms
As I thrill to the ma-gic charms
Of you beside me here be-neath the blue
My dream of love is com-ing true
With-in our des-ert ca-ra-van!
The Glass Orchestra (a quartet I play with whose website is under construction) was invited to perform at IdeaCity, an annual three day conference that features a wide range of guest speakers and performers. This year’s focus is mostly from the perspective of women. It’s taking place at Koerner Hall in the conservatory (where I happen to teach guitar and lead mixed ensemble classes under the banner FUSIO). I wanted to mention a few of the extraordinary speakers I heard.
American documentary filmmaker Liz Canner talked about her new film Orgasm Inc. Here is her synopsis:
In the shocking and hilarious documentary ORGASM INC., filmmaker Liz Canner takes a job editing erotic videos for a drug trial for a pharmaceutical company. Her employer is developing what they hope will be the first Viagra drug for women that wins FDA approval to treat a new disease: Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD). Liz gains permission to film the company for her own documentary. Initially, she plans to create a movie about science and pleasure but she soon begins to suspect that her employer, along with a cadre of other medical companies, might be trying to take advantage of women (and potentially endanger their health) in pursuit of billion dollar profits. ORGASM INC. is a powerful look inside the medical industry and the marketing campaigns that are literally and figuratively reshaping our everyday lives around health, illness, desire — and that ultimate moment: orgasm.
Canadian journalist Diane Francis talked about the response she’s received from her article in the National Post, The Inconvenient Truth? Overpopulation,
where she wrote,
The intelligence behind this is the following:
• If only one children per female was born as of now, the world’s population would drop from its current 6.5 billion to 5.5 billion by 2050, according to a study done for scientific academy Vienna Institute of Demography.
• By 2075, there would be 3.43 billion humans on the planet. This would have immediate positive effects on the world’s forests, other species, the oceans, atmospheric quality and living standards.
• Doing nothing, by contrast, will result in an unsustainable population of 9 billion by 2050.
One of Canada’s literary treasures Margaret Atwood was a pleasure to listen to. She mentioned some of the topics she’s been asked to write about recently, all of which she declined, including the subject of death. But, although she didn’t want to write about it, she shared a number of humorous and insightful stories about death, including her plan to be buried with a toaster or a make-up kit as a way to give future archeologists something to think about when they discovered these things along with her bones.
Dr. Armstrong spoke about living architecture. I don’t quite understand what she does or her vision, but she presented a fascinating integration of science, architecture, and art that strives to reshape our sense of space, both external and internal, with the hope of creating a new and better world.
I’m working on a great book I recently got, A Portrait of Jaco. It’s a well-written and accurate collection of solos transcribed by Sean Malone that focuses on Jaco’s ability to improvise.
When I was starting to play music in Montreal Jaco was in everyone’s mind. Even if you didn’t like the music he was making, or it wasn’t your style (and half the musicians I was hanging around with were not into Weather Report), he was respected. I heard him with Pat Metheny on Bright Size Life, Joni Mitchell’s Heijira, and his solo record – the one with a closeup of him. All of these records became favorites – not to mention the Weather Report albums.
I had the great fortune to see him play a number of times with Weather Report. He was an incredibly dynamic personality on stage.
Today I found this interview and I thought I’d share it with you.
A friend of mine sent me the above polaroid by Andrei Tarkovsky, the great Russian filmmaker (1932 – 1986). She knew I was a fan of his work. I had never seen this or any of the other polaroids you’ll see if you click the link: Tarkovsky’s Polaroids. They’re wonderful. They capture the feeling of his films.
My favorite filmmaker, if I had to pick one, would have to be Andrei Tarkovsky. His films question the nature of what is being shown. Whether it’s the story, the characters, or the interconnection of images, all the elements are shaped like a poem “sculpted in time” drawing you into a metaphysical universe. The pacing of his films are exacting and profound.
In today’s digital world – where it’s hard to keep your focus on anything longer than a few minutes and watching snippets of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 on a cell phone is not considered sacrilegious, we have access to, what seems to be, almost everything, from the banal to the sublime. It’s an incredible but overwhelming time to be alive.
It’s hard not to have mixed feelings about where we’re going with all this, pornography for example – was the Marquis de Sade a prophet?, or is the internet morphing into a giant catalogue where all is viewed as a commodity?
But on a clearly more positive side, if you want to learn about say, Andrei Tarkovsky, all you have to do is type in a search engine: who is the greatest russian filmmaker? and you get 1,470,000 hits, and there’s a lot of great material on Tarkovsky to choose from.
If you have an interest in the nature of film, Sculpting in Time is a great book to read. Written by Andrei Tarkovsky it captures the essence of the film experience, from its creative conception through its production to its viewing. The poetry found in his films is also present in his writing about his art.
The one film I would recommend for anyone interested in Tarkovsky who has never seen any of his work is Andrei Rublev. The story is transcendent and it’s beautifully shot in black and white.
If you need color see The Mirror.
RHYTHM is a movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions. While RHYTHM most commonly applies to sound, such as music or spoken language, it may also refer to visual presentation, as “timed movement through space.”
Put in simple musical terms, RHYTHM is the flow of a composition through time. It is found in melody, harmony, structure, and texture.
One of my earliest influences as a guitar player was John McLaughlin. More than anything the rhythm in his music captivated me. I didn’t understand it but I felt it and wanted to figure out how it worked. Here’s a recent video of John McLaughlin and his group, Remember Shakti. I saw Shakti play five times when they were first together. Each concert was fabulous.
Indian music has had a place in my heart since I was a teenager. I went on to study South Indian music with Trichy Sankaran, who was teaching at York University when I was doing my undergraduate degree in jazz performance, and composition.