Elise – Page 69

Stevie Wonder | Summer Soft

AfroPunk praises Stevie Wonder’s “Summer Soft” from his legendary 1976 album Songs In the Key of Life: ‘“You’ve been fooled by April, and he’s gone. Winter is gone,’ sings Stevie Wonder atop spiraling instruments. If you could create a song that encompasses the calm excitement of watching nature at the park — or on Netflix — that song would be Stevie Wonder’s ‘Summer Soft.’ It’s a cathartic epic about life and loss, using the changing seasons as a metaphorical backdrop, with Wonder’s voice sounding more pained with every passing verse, but … the production blooms.”

The track was one of so many singularly strong tunes on this celebrated album. From Pitchfork‘s review: “Songs in the Key of Life was the culmination of a historic period of creativity for Stevie Wonder. Its ambition and scope were unprecedented, and he never approached its caliber or impact again. Stevie Wonder’s legacy ranks among the most powerful in pop music, though his story remains elusive. His songwriting and his voice echo through virtually all R&B-related sounds that have followed him … yet there is no major biography, no documentary, nothing that presents the full sweep of the most dominant and defining artist of the 1970s. And make no mistake—it was an era of superstar acts and chart-busting albums, but no one was as universally loved, respected, and honored as he was.”

After the tune starts in F# major, the first chorus (1:02) shifts to B minor, but then drifts back to the initial key for the next verse. At 2:17, a half-step modulation hits not at the start of a new section, but rather on the last note of the pre-chorus, transitioning to B minor — a pattern that’s repeated. Thereafter, the lid blows off as the tune winds up more and more, though it’s difficult to pinpoint a specific apogee of the energy. At 3:32, the tonality of the final chorus stabilizes, leading us to an instrumental outro; there’s a fade in volume (in high 1970s fashion), but no lag in energy.

Astrud Gilberto | Stay

From Astrud Gilberto’s site: “Known as ‘The Girl from Ipanema’ and often referred to as ‘The Queen of Bossa Nova,’ (Gilberto) is an artist with roots firmly planted in Brazilian music. Her music has become an interesting combination of the sensual rhythms of Brazil and American Pop and Jazz. Born in the Northeast of Brazil in the state of Bahia, one of three sisters of a German father and a Brazilian mother, Astrud grew up in Rio de Janeiro. She immigrated to the United States in the early 1960s,” and has lived in the US since then.

“Astrud was first introduced to the world at large in 1964 through ‘The Girl From Ipanema,’ the Grammy-winning recording with Stan Getz and her then-husband João Gilberto (the father of Bossa Nova).” Since then, she’s worked with Chet Baker, Michael Brecker, George Michael, Etienne Daho, and many other artists. In 1992, she received the Latin Jazz USA Award for Lifetime Achievement; in 2002, she was inducted to the International Latin Music Hall of Fame. She was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award by the Latin Recording Academy in 2008.

From a 1981 New York Times review: “(It’s) still very much the same – about 80 percent Brazilian, from the 1960s and 70s. And she is still puzzled by the fact that she is often characterized as a jazz singer. ‘What is a jazz singer? Somebody who improvises? But I don’t: I prefer simplicity. I’ve been told that my phrasing is jazz-influenced. My early albums were recorded for a jazz label, Verve. My first record was with Stan Getz. And I did an album with Gil Evans. So I guess that’s where the jazz idea comes from. But I’m not a pure jazz singer.’

Her 1967 tune “Stay,” recorded in English, modulates up by a half-step at 1:41 in the midst of a wonderful flute solo by Hubert Laws; the vocal returns at 1:46. The flute and vocal trade soloist status throughout the balance of the tune.

Brian David Gilbert (2Wins2) | Just One Day

For a guy who’s racked up five-million-plus views on a video entitled “I Read All 337 Books in Skyrim So You Don’t Have To” on the Youtube channel for the popular gaming site Polygon, Brian David Gilbert is orders of magnitude more musical than you’d have any right to expect. But then multiply that sentiment by many, many Polygon videos, combine it with an effortlessly musical one-man sendup of classic late 90s/early 2000s boy band cliches, and <scene>.

Members of the thankfully fictitious sibling boy band 2Winz² apparently focus on drive-by insults as much as they do on their latest single. The 2021 release “Just One Day” suggests that quartet member Dale’s days in 2W2 might be numbered — and not by his choice. The lyrics are not to be missed.

At 2:30, the much-maligned Dale earnestly dives into the bridge: his moment in the sun has arrived. By 2:43, a key change kicks in — but is rendered almost completely inaudible by thoughtless use of a blender, followed by an intra-band quarrel that shows Dale’s future with the group is in serious question.

Many thanks to first-time contributor Alex D. for this hilarious tune!

Phony Ppl | Why iii Love the Moon

Phony Ppl, a Brooklyn-based band with a neo-soul/hiphop focus, grew out of the school friendship of vocalist Elbie Thrie and keyboardist Aja Grant. “Thrie and Grant met in middle school,” Rolling Stone reports. “’We found out we lived two blocks from each other. It was the first time my parents would let me out of the house by myself, to go to Elbie’s: Oh, he’ll be okay. They’re playing music.‘ … A lot of our influences were us listening to new music that was actually super old music from the Sixties and Seventies.’”

Members of the band delved into music study at Juilliard, Manhattan School of Music, the School of Rock, and learning on the fly in musical theatre pit bands. Rolling Stone continues: “’Why iii Love the Moon,’ a hypnotic ballad on Yesterday’s Tomorrow (2015) combining vintage Earth, Wind and Fire with Kaya-style Bob Marley, that began as a voice memo … ‘Aja had the chords; I had the concept. We actually put the first time we played it on the record. That’s what you hear, us testing everything.’ Thrie smiles. ‘We tried to make it sound more shitty. But that’s the original tape.’”

After a dreamy intro, the track starts in earnest in Eb minor at 0:26. From 3:34 – 3:55, a trippy bridge shifts gears and airdrops us into B minor. The casually improvised percussion hints at the the tune’s homegrown origins as a voice memo. At 4:36, we’re suddenly back in Eb for the duration.

Franz Joseph Haydn | String Quartet in F major, Op. 50 #5, 3rd movement

From James MacKay’s paper “Another Look at Chromatic Third-Related Key Relationships in Late Haydn: Parallel Keys and Remote Modulation in Selected String Quartet Minuets” in the journal HAYDN: Online Journal of the Haydn Society of North America 8.2 (Fall 2018): ” … third-related shifts in Haydn’s instrumental music occur earlier than 1790, especially in his string quartet Minuet-Trio movements, often built around a parallel major-parallel minor pairing of keys and their relatives. For instance, in Haydn’s String Quartet in F major, Op.50 no. 5 (Der Traum), third movement, Haydn effects a chromatic third modulation in two stages: touching briefly upon the parallel key (f minor) in the trio, then moving immediately to its relative major, A-flat (i.e. flat III of F major).”

Haydn, who lived from 1732-1809, wrote this string quartet (one of his six “Prussian” quartets dedicated to King Frederick William II of Prussia) in 1787. A nephew of Frederick the Great, Frederick William was one of the most notable patrons of music in eighteenth-century Germany and also an avid amateur cellist, according to the classical record label Hyperion.

This performance is by the Festetics Quartet, known for performing on period instruments. The third movement of this complete four-movement video begins at the 11:43 mark. At 13:20, the shift to Ab major is complete (note: the tuning in this performance is a far cry from A440!)

Garbage | Breaking Up the Girl

“The voice and mind behind 90s alt-rock anthems ‘Happy When it Rains’, ‘Stupid Girl’ and ‘Supervixen’ hates talking about individual songs, or the meaning of lyrics, or what makes this or that tune a good single,” The Guardian reports.

Despite becoming a “tough-talking, smart-mouthed, big-boot-wearing icon to a generation,” Garbage frontwoman Shirley Manson, an Edinburgh native, has often had trouble with the business side of the music business. ‘When we first started out, we were signed to an indie label. We had a lot of freedom. Then we got sold like a commodity to a record label that did not give a flying fuck about our music or our career or us as people. And it was a nightmare. They had all these corporate expectations about us. We didn’t care if we weren’t the biggest band in the world! But to this record label, if you’re not the biggest band in the world, then you’re worthless. I just do not adhere to that principle.’ All the artists she loves, from Patti Smith to Siouxsie Sioux, ‘didn’t sell anything.'”

2001’s “Breaking Up the Girl” features plenty of the pristine, highly-produced wall-of-sound textures for which the band is famous. The video — which looks to have been shot in a computer chip manufacturer’s clean room with the aid of a robotic arm — is also standard fare for the band’s singularly stark visual aesthetic. At 2:33, the dense groove falls entirely away, clearing the stage for a whole-step modulation before rebuilding itself for a final iteration of the hook at 3:08.

Young Rascals | How Can I Be Sure

The Young Rascals’ “How Can I Be Sure” was a 1967 follow-up to “Groovin‘” and was influenced by The Beatles, for whom The Young Rascals opened their landmark 1965 Shea Stadium concert, the Montgomery News reports: “The only reason we were brave enough to do that (release a ballad in ¾ time as a single) was The Beatles did ‘Michelle’ and ‘Yesterday.’” remembers co-writer Felix Cavaliere.

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die puts the band in context with its era: “Though The Young Rascals started as a down-and-dirty garage-rock band with an R&B fringe, by 1967, bandleaders Felix Cavaliere, Eddie Brigati, and Gene Cornish—like the rest of their songwriting generation—were looking to push pop into the psychedelic era, while loading it up with some of the sophisticated elements that had charmed their parents decades earlier.”

The tune reached #4 on the US pop charts and #1 in Canada and is certainly a departure from the band’s harder-edged origins. According to Songfacts, “The Young Rascals’ original version didn’t hit in the UK and the first time it charted was in 1970 when a revival by Dusty Springfield scraped into the charts at #36. Two years later David Cassidy, who was at the time along with The Osmonds the most popular teen idol in the UK, went all the way to the top of the British singles chart with his cover.”

The tune flips back and forth between D major and D minor throughout and pivots to C major briefly at the end of the chorus (for the first time at 0:47 – 0:51).

Los Saviñón | Ciudad Hermosa

With music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, a composer known for his works Pippin, Working, and Wicked (among many others), “Beautiful City” was featured in Schwartz’s Godspell (1971). From the synopsis of the production on Schwartz’s site: “Based on the New Testament gospels, mostly St. Matthew, Godspell uses the parables and passion story of Jesus for an inventively theatrical and interactive show about the formation of a community.” To call the show a national phenomenon isn’t an overstatement. In an interview with Broadway World, Schwartz recalled: “I think there were … 10 productions running at the same time and they were like sit down in various cities. So, I spent about a year of my life traveling around the country working on productions of Godspell.”

JewSchool.com describes Schwartz’s apparent focus on “biblical- and religious-themed” work: “In addition to Godspell, he’s the songwriter behind Prince of Egypt (the animated musical retelling of the Exodus story) and Children of Eden (a musical rethinking of the first nine chapters of Genesis). He wrote the lyrics to Bernstein’s Mass … ” However, “the song is surprisingly humanistic. The rallying cry is to build ‘not a city of angels, but finally a city of man.’”

Mexican a cappella sextet Los Saviñón‘s web presence is long on music and short on descriptions, but here’s an excerpt from its bio, translated from Spanish: “We are an a cappella vocal group formed at the end of 2013. (We explore) popular music from different times and places, focusing mainly on a repertoire in Spanish. We have performed in important venues in Mexico City and in the interior of the republic.”

The group’s rendition of “Beautiful City,” arranged by David Pineda, includes the familiar key changes of some other renditions — but adds a few more for good measure. This effect is most noticeable towards the end of verse 1, which wraps up at 0:35. Recorded “en casa” (in the performers’ respective homes) at the start of the COVID pandemic (April 2020), the video demonstrates the resourcefulness and cohesion-at-a-distance which were required of so many musical ensembles during the worst of the pandemic.

Tower of Power | Get Yo’ Feet Back On the Ground

“A renowned horn-driven outfit, Tower of Power emerged in the late ’60s playing a dynamic blend of R&B, soul, funk, and AM pop,” according to AllMusic’s collective bio. “Along with the similarly inclined Chicago and Blood, Sweat & Tears, Tower of Power helped push the sound of brass-infused music into the rock era. Led by Detroit-born tenor saxophonist Emilio Castillo, the Oakland, California-based group scored hits like ‘You’re Still a Young Man’ and ‘What Is Hip?’ throughout the ’70s. They also became one of the most sought-after backing ensembles in pop, playing on recordings by Elton John, Santana, Bonnie Raitt, Aerosmith, Josh Groban, Huey Lewis, Little Feat, David Sanborn, Michelle Shocked, Paula Abdul, Aaron Neville, Aerosmith, Public Image Ltd., and many others.”

The band’s origins date back to 1967, Oakland, CA, and a different name, “The Motowns.” In an interview with American Highways, Castillo discussed his relationship to the funk sound that is the foundation of ToP: “Ever since I was a teenager, I have always liked to mess with the rhythm of the music. I used to make up these weird percolator kind of beats and dictate them to my brother, who was the drummer at the time, and make him learn them.” The same process applied to the bassist, guitarist, and keyboardist: “So it’s kind of like when it comes to music, I try to build a little building and make a fabric that breathes.”

From ToP’s self-titled third album (1973) comes “Get Yo’ Feet Back On the Ground.” This multi-tiered funk romp was not a single (unlike “What is Hip” and “So Very Hard to Go” from the same album), yet qualifies as far more than filler. A very late modulation shifts the key up a half-step at 4:26.

Edge of the World, feat. Yvonne Elliman (from “War Games”)

The 1983 film War Games targeted a teen demographic, but was well-reviewed as a thriller for general audiences. The film captured the Cold War zeitgeist of the US completely: nearly half of the country (100 million TV viewers) had just lived through the airing of the The Day After, a film about the dire consequences of nuclear war. From a review by the renowned film critic Roger Ebert: “Sooner or later, one of these self-satisfied, sublimely confident thinking machines is going to blow us all off the face of the planet. That is the message of War Games, a scary and intelligent new thriller … The movie stars Matthew Broderick as David, a bright high school senior who spends a lot of time locked in his bedroom with his home computer. He speaks computerese well enough to dial by telephone into the computer at his school and change his grades. But he’s ready for bigger game.”

David interacts with a supercomputer which just happens to belong to the United States Department of Defense; he unwillingly triggers it to play a “game” which leads DoD personnel to think that an actual nuclear attack on the US is underway. MovieThemeSong.com explains that the supercomputer “begins simulating endless nuclear war scenarios, every one ending with the result ‘WINNER: NONE.’ Eventually (it) comes to the film’s famous conclusion about nuclear war: The only winning move is not to play.”

The film’s score, written by busy film/TV composer Arthur B. Rubinstein (not to be confused with the noted classical pianist), included an instrumental closing credit entitled “Edge of the World.” This shorter version features vocalist Yvonne Elliman, perhaps most known for “If I Can’t Have You” from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack (1977). The video features scenes of the nascent romance between David and his classmate Jennifer (Ally Sheedy), complicated by the very real risk that their world might soon disappear. Modulations are more the rule than the exception on this short track, starting at 0:28.

Variety reports that Rubinstein, who died in 2018 at age 80, reflecting on his career, said: “In classical music and jazz there is a constant, living swirl of wonder and discovery — both sensual and intellectual. As a composer and conductor, I’ve always tried, in some way, to be part of that swirl.”