Stu's Blog

Purists may not know what to do with this. Try listening and smiling

This was another musical moment that opened an entirely new world to me. Ten years before the first time I heard Holdsworth, I first heard John McLaughlin. Frankly, I didn’t understand anything he was saying. I came up listening to Wes, Miles, Parker, Train, Dizzy, Joe Pass, Benson, and others. Then I discovered Hendrix, Clapton, Beck, and Page. But when I first heard McLaughlin, he was doing something so radically different that I just altogether missed it at first. Eventually he got through to me and became the dominant voice on the guitar. Here is the title cut from his 1969 album by the same name, Extrapolation.

John McLaughlin, Brian Odgers, Tony Oxley, John Surman playing the title cut to the 1969 album Extrapolation.

This was one of those musical moments that opened up a whole new world to me. Bill Bruford probably became best known for his work with King Crimson. He was also the original drummer for Yes, and played for Genesis and UK. The first time I heard One Of A Kind, I was struck by two things in particular: 1. the entire album was like an intricate musical concept statement, 2. Alan Holdsworth. All the players were and are exceptional, but Holdsworth was doing something truly unique. He has always had an instantly recognizable style. He plays lines that no one else ever thought of and very few can execute. His tone, picking style, composition, chords, legato touch, high speed, accuracy, tremendous creativity, plethora of ideas, are all part of the package and unique to his artistry. He is, for me, one of those few primary voices that speak deep mysteries in musical form. This is the album that introduced me to him. Here is the song “Sahara Of Snow” from Bill Bruford’s 1979 album One Of A Kind.

Bill Bruford, Allan Holdsworth, Jeff Berlin, Dave Stewart playing “Sahara Of Snow.”

Slovak violist Lukáš Kmit performs with great poise!

This is very cool…

See more of the artist’s work: http://csismn.com

Just for fun, a couple more. Thanks to Matt for pointing me to the brass ensemble. Now that’s what I mean by teamwork!

Three of the most influential sax players in the history of Jazz (in my opinion anyway) and while everybody probably knows who Bird and Trane are, Cannonball is perhaps not quite in the upper stratosphere of the collective jazz conscience. That’s too bad because he was one of the greatest. Perhaps he didn’t have quite as hot a group as Trane or Bird. He didn’t compose as much, and eventually we forget the players and only remember the composers, but he could play! I saw him once as a young teenager way too many years ago. I was spellbound. I heard him on the radio again yesterday. His playing is still like magic. They all went too quickly. There are a number of clips on youtube (what isn’t on youtube?) – check here to see them. Most of his recordings are from the 60′s but there are a few that are later. Here’s one from the 70′s. By 75 he was gone.

The next two are just audio from Black Messiah. See this for more info. By now, Cannonball had moved out of hard bop and into early fusion, just like Miles. His pianist is George Duke.

I love listening to virtuosos. I also enjoy listening to different performers play a piece of music. The “Flight of the Bumblebee,” composed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, is from his opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan, composed in 1899–1900. My dad played trumpet and violin and could play it on both. I thought that was pretty cool. It is a flashy piece, though not nearly as difficult to play as it might sound. But there are those who can play it and those who can make it sing. The piece is meant to be played very fast, and typically, the faster you go the more exciting it sounds. I have several versions to compare. They are all interesting in different ways and for different reasons. All of the musicians are extremely talented if not outright virtuosos. Listen for is how well they bring to life the image of an actual bee in flight. Also listen to how cleanly it is played, how dynamics are used, and whether there is something particularly creative about the artist’s performance. The pair of clips towards the end are interesting in that one is from the 1996 movie Shine based on the life of David Helfgott, a brilliant pianist who suffered a mental breakdown. The last clip is Helfgott playing the piece. Some of the performances take the piece pretty far afield. I was impressed with the beatbox version. My favorite is probably Wynton, but then I love pretty much everything he does.

A ten-piece outfit from Long Beach and San Diego, the Rabbinical School Dropouts play Jewish soul music (klezmer) combined with an avant-garde jazz twist. Music critics have described them as: an “esoteric space klezmer ensemble,” “psycho klez,” “Frank Zappa and Dr. Seuss intersect[ing] … [with] Woody Allen and Howard Stern”, and “[avant-garde pioneer] Sun Ra and Frank Zappa at Woody Harrelson’s backyard BBQ.”^{young Perlman perfomance. I attended a few Bar Mitzvahs in my youth. I also attended a couple of Zappa concerts long ago. I’ve always been a fan of Dr. Seuss and even kind of enjoy Sun Ra a little bit. So I was ready for the Rabbinical School Dropouts.here and here.}