Elise – Page 45

Paul Young | Sordid

Let’s first establish that we’re not referring to THAT Paul Young (the vocalist with the multiple 80s pop hits — also from the UK).

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, we’ve landed in trad/folk world. “Paul (Young) has been a busy member of the Northern folk scene for a number of years now,” (Aluinn Ceiligh Band’s website). “Formerly a member of the well-known group Black Beard’s Tea-Party, he joined Aluinn shortly after their formation in 2011 and has been playing with them ever since. He also runs his own York-based band The New Fox Band. As adept on melodeon as he is on fiddle, Paul also has a busy teaching practice.” Young’s own website flips the script, emphasizing his melodeon work over the fiddle. Overall, Young’s web presence is very slim indeed, aside from his extensive Youtube videos.

Regular contributor JB adds: “In addition to stellar technique, Young is a pretty gifted songwriter. All 30 tunes in the video are his original compositions, and while there are a few clunkers, most of the tunes manage to pull off a really difficult straddle: They sound sufficiently ‘trad-adjacent’ that they could be seamlessly mixed into a set with tunes that were written 200 years ago, but are also more harmonically adventurous than 95% of trad tunes.”

After starting in A minor, Young’s “Sordid” shifts to A major at 41:26, then back to minor at 41:42, alternating onward from there. (Our apologies for the oddly huge numbers on the timeslates, but this tune is merely a small part of a much larger compilation video featuring Young’s work).

Blood, Sweat + Tears | You’ve Made Me So Very Happy

Blood, Sweat and Tears, a jazz/rock 10-piece band from New York City, has curiously avoided a MotD debut to date — but that ends now! From Rolling Stone‘s 1969 review of Blood, Sweat & Tears’ eponymous second album by John Landau: “… a perfect example of the rock record that ‘tries harder.’ While at some points on the record the basic style of the group resembles rock and roll, more often the listener is being bombarded with non-rock arranging devices, non-rock solos, and non-rock material, all of which tells him that ‘something else’ is going. The obvious response is that we are hearing something new: rock being mixed with jazz, rock being mixed with soul, etc. Ultimately, someone at Columbia will come up with a name for it: ‘jazz-folk-soul-baroque-C&W-latin-show-tune-rock.’ And for once the hyphenated labeling would be appropriate because BS+T play hyphenated music: first they play folk, then they play jazz, then they play latin, etc. Styles exist in tangent on their record, but never merge into one.”

Landau continues his cutting criticisms of the band’s ambitious sound throughout the review. A criticism that can’t be made about the band, however, is that they were following any kind of well-established trend whatsoever. Instead, they seemed to be putting out feelers to see where the edges of stylistic possibility were — an exercise which can easily get awkward, and fast. But the very idea of the musical genre hyphenate was very much in the air during the late 1960s and early 1970s; in addition to jazz musicians adding rock elements to their sound, why shouldn’t a rock group work with some jazz elements? Perhaps further bolstering the band’s experimental nature: during its existence, no fewer than 160 musicians were part of the lineup!

“You’ve Made Me So Very Happy,”written by Brenda Holloway, Patrice Holloway, Frank Wilson and Motown head Berry Gordy, was initially released in 1967 by Brenda Holloway. Re-released by BS+T, “it became one of BS+T’s biggest hits, reaching number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States in April 1969,” (Billboard). “The song was kept from the number 1 spot by ‘Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In’ by The 5th Dimension.” The tune was later covered by Cher, Liza Minnelli, Lou Rawls, Sammy Davis Jr., Shirley Bassey, Gloria Estefan, and many others. After starting in Db major, a brief interlude (1:48-2:08) is in Gb major, followed by a multi-key instrumental journey of a bridge (2:08-2:48) and a return to the chorus (this time in D major). At 3:22, an outro with a much gentler groove and tempo ends the tune in G major.

Dan Hartman | The Love In Your Eyes

“During the ’70s, Dan Hartman was a member of the Edgar Winter Group and was also in Johnny Winter’s band for a time,” (AllMusic). “Hartman was also a session musician who supported artists as diverse as Ian Hunter, Stevie Wonder, Todd Rundgren, and Ronnie Montrose. After releasing one undistinguished solo pop/rock album in 1976, he hit the big time with the fine disco album, Instant Replay,” which featured a hit single of the same name.

“Its follow-up, Relight My Fire, wasn’t as successful and Hartman retreated to the studio, producing .38 Special, the Average White Band, and James Brown; he (wrote and) was behind the board for Brown’s comeback (and final) hit, “Living in America,” in 1986. Hartman had one more hit in 1985 with the pop-soul “I Can Dream About You.” Again, his follow-ups weren’t successful and he returned to producing. He was preparing a new album at the time of his death in March of 1994.” Hartman had lived with HIV for several years when he passed away.

Certainly, Hartman’s was an iceberg of a career: it seems that only the top fraction was visible, with the rest of his work submerged beneath the surface as he worked with other artists. Neil Sedaka, a friend and a one-time neighbor, spoke of Hartman after his passing: “I loved working with him. He played, sang, wrote, mixed, mastered … he did it all!” (DanHartman.com). “I would call him a genius. I think of him often and smile!”

“The Love In Your Eyes,” one of Hartman’s final singles released posthumously on 1995’s Keep the Fire Burnin’, starts in D minor. At 0:55, the chorus shifts to Eb major. The pattern continues from there, other than a brief bridge which provides additional variety from 2:50-3:12. Hartman’s material was known for varied textures and complex grooves, but this track features a broader harmonic vocabulary than most. Hartman’s writing, phrasing, and string-embellished arrangement on this track often conjure up a tenor version of soul legend Barry White. “Wrapped in warm romance, [the] tune has a retro-soul quality (Billboard) … it shows that he was still among the best writers and producers in pop music.”

Clifford Brown | Joy Spring

Clifford Brown was a “shortlived but massively influential hard-bop trumpeter – whose gleaming sound … remains clear in the work of Wynton Marsalis, Guy Barker and many others,” (The Guardian). “Brown was polished without sounding glib, his phrasing was immaculately shaped and packed with fresh ideas, and he sounded relaxed at any tempo.” Brown died in a car accident in 1956 at the age of only 25; he was “a genius whose impact on jazz could have been immense.”

It’s not surprising, then, that one of the most enduring standard ballads is “I Remember Clifford,” written as a memorial to Brown by tenor saxophonist Benny Golson (video below). The tune has been notably covered by dozens of artists, including Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers (Brown was a founding member), Donald Byrd, Ray Charles, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Quincy Jones, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Oscar Peterson, Sonny Rollins, and Arturo Sandoval.

The uptempo “Joy Spring,” written in 1954, borrows its title from Brown’s pet name for his wife, Emma Larue Anderson. After the intro, the buoyant melody begins at 0:11 in F major, moving up to Gb major for a re-statement. The B section of the AABA form starts in G major at 0:34 before pivoting all over the place; the final A section is in F major at 0:46.

Vanilla Fudge | You Keep Me Hangin’ On

“Released during the famous ‘summer of love’ in 1967, Vanilla Fudge’s (self-titled) debut offering was undoubtedly one of the more seminal psychedelic albums coming from America during the late sixties,” (ProgArchive). “The heavy, jam-oriented atmosphere … and the group’s original twist on well-known compositions grabbed the attention of fans and critics alike. Consisting solely of cover tunes and a few short interludes thrown in for good measure, Vanilla Fudge did not captivate listeners with original works of their own, but instead showed what they could do within the limits of famous pop songs from years past.

Musically, we’re dealing with psychedelic rock that isn’t too far away from what most bands in the genre were doing in 1966 and 1967. Although sidelong jams and increased experimentation hadn’t yet become the norm, heavy use of the Hammond organ and Beatles-influenced vocal melodies are plentiful here; Vanilla Fudge were also at the forefront of early hard rock, and some of the organ sections here clearly paved the way for heavy acts like Deep Purple and Uriah Heep.”

This live performance of “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” (1968) may have broken all known records for grandstanding by an entire group: every member of the band is thrashing about as if he’s the lead player. But once you get past the overwrought visuals, this cover of The Supremes’ 1966 single is a quite a new re-interpretation of the original. The tune is largely in E minor, but shifts to the closely related key of C major during the short bridge (1:28 – 1:50) before reverting to the original key.

The original:

Thomas Dolby | Radio Silence

“In popular culture, the term ‘renaissance man’ can often be overused or even misused, but in the case of Thomas Dolby, the term has a lot more validity than the casual fan could ever imagine,” (PopMatters).”His (2016) memoir, Speed of Sound: Breaking the Barriers Between Music and Technology, goes a long way in making a case for Dolby to adopt this title.

In the early ‘80s, Dolby was an inescapable fixture of MTV’s playlists, with his novelty techno-pop hit ‘She Blinded Me With Science’ ruling the video airwaves and pop charts.” Setting the scene for his later career, the UK native saw early gigs by “everyone from the Clash to Elvis Costello to XTC” as a teen. He later played keyboards with the Camera Club, Lene Lovich, Herbie Hancock, and George Clinton; co-wrote and produced the first platinum 12” hip hop single, “Magic’s Wand” by Whodini; was chosen by David Bowie as the keyboardist at the UK half of Live Aid; created original music for feature films produced by George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Ken Russell; and his keyboard work was a central feature of Foreigner’s smash hit album IV (most notably the single ‘Waiting for a Girl Like You’).

Illustrating Dolby’s bleeding-edge vantage point in terms of 1980s tech, “while riding his tour bus through the Nevada desert, (he was) forced to pull over and use a gas station phone booth as a primitive modem for uploading demo files to Michael Jackson.” Dolby was “an ‘80s pop culture Zelig, dropped into the zeitgeist with a bit of a deer-in-the-headlights attitude.” After retiring from the pop music business, he founded a company which was pivotal in the early days of the development of cell phone ringtones; served as the Music Director for TED Talks for over a decade; and is now a professor of Music for New Media at Johns Hopkins University.

“Radio Silence,” a track from The Golden Age of Wireless (1982), pivots around in terms of its tonality throughout. Meanwhile, the video treats us to a neighborhood tour of decades-old radios as we hear synthesis that was state-of-the-art for its time: retrofuturism sets Dolby’s stage here as usual. The harmonic shifts are perhaps the clearest during the outro, when the panoply of shiny synth textures has settled down a bit. 2:59 is in F# mixolydian, shifting at 3:12 to D mixolydian; the two keys alternate as the track fades.

Peter Mayer | John’s Garden

“Mountains and motorcycles; pigs, pubs, and planets; insight, hope and humor — such are the ingredients one finds in the songs of Peter Mayer,” (VolumeMusic). “Earthy and intimate, Mayer’s songs invite the listener to consider the deeper aspects of life. The standard lyrical dish of love lost and found is not on his menu; rather, it consists of an eclectic blend of thoughtful songs about the collective human journey. His welcoming voice and inventive guitar work along with his honest delivery provide the perfect vehicle for his down-home wisdom. Million Year Mind (2001) … offers an eclectic blend of thoughtful songs about the collective human journey.”

“John’s Garden” begins in F# minor, shifts to F# major for the chorus at 0:46, then reverts back into F# minor for the intro to the next verse. From 2:31 – 2:54, the bridge’s harmonic polarity flips over to A major before returning back to original key. As the tune unfolds, we learn that a different species entirely — not Farmer John — drives the narrative.

Kool + the Gang | Ladies Night

“Over nearly six decades, Kool & the Gang have released 25 albums and toured worldwide, playing Live Aid in 1985 and Glastonbury in 2011,” (New York Times). “Their 12 Top 10 singles are funk, disco, and pop classics, underpinning movies including Pulp Fiction and Legally Blonde: ‘Jungle Boogie,’ ‘Ladies Night,’ ‘Hollywood Swinging,’ the undeniable 1980 party anthem ‘Celebration.’ They are foundational for hip-hop and have been sampled over 1,800 times, according to the website WhoSampled, including memorable turns on Eric B. & Rakim’s ‘Don’t Sweat the Technique’ and Nas’s ‘N.Y. State of Mind.’ (Questlove played a three-hour-plus set of songs featuring the group’s samples during a 2020 livestream.)”

Released on a 1979 album of the same name, “Ladies Night” includes “a small detail at the end (of the track which) turned out to be crucial — Meekaaeel Muhammad, a member of the group’s songwriting team, fleshed out the chorus with a countermelodic ‘Come on, let’s go celebrate.’ It pointed to the band’s next hit: ‘Celebration.'” The earlier hit reached the top 10 in Finland, Switzerland, and the UK, top 20 in a dozen more countries, and rose as high as #8 in the US.

Built in C# minor overall, the track shifts to a more explicitly disco-centric A minor section at 1:28, then a C minor section featuring the previously referenced counter melody at 1:44, then returning to the original key for the next verse at 2:05. Later, there are restatements of the A minor (3:48) and C minor sections (4:05), with the final C minor section morphing into an extended outro lasting more than two minutes. Both the A minor and C minor sections are constructed entirely of a repeating i-ii-v progression.

Jacques Dutronc | Paris s’Éveille

“Jacques Dutronc might be a cool name to drop when discussing debonair Gallic musical greats, but there is a surprising dearth of material written about him outside the Francosphere,” (The Guardian). “In his home country he is a household name and the subject of countless biographies … The Parisian’s ascent to teen idol status wasn’t overnight. He burst through as a positively ancient 23-year-old … charting with the garage R&B of ‘Et Moi Et Moi Et Moi‘ in 1966. Hitherto, he’d been known as a fine session guitarist for other artists such as Eddy Mitchell, Micky Amline and Gene Vincent.

As a teenager, Dutronc, like so many others, was inspired by the burgeoning sound of rock’n’roll coming out of the US, and in 1959 he picked up the guitar for the first time … Just when it looked as if he might be on to a winning streak, Dutronc was called up for national service, and (his musical projects) El Toro and Les Cyclones fizzled out. Dutronc was impossibly handsome and suave, emoting in the boulevardier style to keep the mums on side, with just enough Dylanisms (shaggy fringe, chattery, circumlocutory rapping) to make him positively au courant … The hits kept coming, and in 1968 he scored another #1 with ‘Il Est Cinq Heures, Paris s’Éveille’ (It’s five o’clock, Paris is waking) … In France, Dutronc is as synonymous with (the 1960s) as les Beatles and la mini-jupe, while in territories elsewhere his cigar-chomping visage is the true embodiment of French pop at its most chic.”

“Paris s’Éveille” alternates between A minor for the verses and A major for the choruses. An agile flute darts around the edges of the vocal line, nearly constantly present but never upstaging the lyric.

Nicholas Ma | How Do You (Not) Write a Fugue?

“Nicholas Ma (b. 2001) is a pianist-composer living in Oakville, Ontario, Canada,” (Charleston International Music Competition). “He is in his third year as an undergraduate at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music and is pursuing a double major in Piano Performance and Composition … Starting piano at the age of 4, Nicholas has also obtained the ATCL Performance Diploma with the highest accolade, Distinction, from Trinity College London. More recently, Nicholas was the recipient of a Gold award from the 2021 Grand Maestro International Music Competition.”

When he’s not writing assignments for Counterpoint classes, Ma is working on his piano studies (see his interpretation of Sonetto 104 Del Petrarca, by Franz Liszt, below). Ma’s fugue, “How Do You (Not) Write a Fugue” (2023) traverses various keys of the moment, but one particularly clear modulation is actually announced in the lyrics. We won’t spoil the surprise with a timestamp! From Ma’s notes in the Youtube video description:

“In my first semester of tonal counterpoint class, our final assignment was to write a 4-voice fugue… so I said YOLO and wrote this meme fugue as the final assignment – with the lyrics being my revision notes from class haha. Huge shoutout to Prof. Nicole Biamonte for accepting this fugue as a valid assignment and not instantly dunking on my grades, especially with the “intentional parallel fifths” section. I later gathered four singers (with me playing the piano part) and played through this … It was incredible – the singers learnt and sung this fugue at this level with only two hours of rehearsal! I also have to shoutout my two inspirations for this fugue: the first being my favorite fugue to this day, Glenn Gould’s parodistic ‘So You Want to Write a Fugue?’ and Freddy Wickham’s self-explanatory ‘Ontological Fugue.’

I decided to go in the direction of these two pieces, but take a step further by adding theatrics, intentional “counterpoint error” sections, and slipping in familiar quotations (Art of Fugue, Double Violin Concerto, Christmas tunes). The piece can be summarized in three sections – The exposition (which introduces basic fugal techniques), the middle/”development” (where errors/fugal parodies are gradually introduced in a tongue-in-cheek manner), and the “recapitulation” (where the singers break the 4th wall, address the listener, and question the philosophy of compositional aesthetics and rules… yep it gets pretty off-the-rails haha).

Overall, I wanted a piece that could be appreciated by all levels – those that do not have much familiarity with fugal writing will gain something from it, and those that are experts in fugues will enjoy the humorous parodistic subversion of counterpoint expectations. (And of course the main reason, I needed to write a fugue for a tonal counterpoint class assignment).”