instrumental

Silly Wizard | Finlay M. MacRae

“Silly Wizard were pioneers in developing the modern Scottish folk group blueprint, popularizing Scottish music around the world through playing traditional music with a never-before-heard energy, spirit, and spontaneity and introducing original songs and tunes written from within the tradition,” (Hands Up for Trad).

“Formed in 1972 by guitarists Gordon Jones, Bob Thomas, and Bill Watkins and named after a character who shared their Edinburgh flat, Silly Wizard began playing at the capital’s Triangle Folk Club. Soon after singer Chris Pritchard replaced Bill Watkins, they added a teenager who would go on to play a crucial part in the band’s image as well as their music, Johnny Cunningham. A tremendously exciting, virtuosic fiddler, who was still at school and often had to be picked up from and returned to the school gates after overnight drives from gigs, Johnny energised the band’s live performances and helped to generate a new young following for folk music.

… Booked to play an opening twenty-minute spot in front of an audience of thousands at Philadelphia Folk Festival in 1979, Silly Wizard, now in its classic five-piece line-up (Bob Thomas having left), won a standing ovation and almost instantly created a huge demand in the US for a brand of folk music that could be as passionate in the low gears as it could be rousingly intense at full tilt and was always presented with wit and an infectious sense of fun.”

Originally released in 1983, “Finlay M. MacRae” initially features a mid-tempo waltz feel in A minor. At 1:34, a penny whistle joins the accordion, bringing a more sprightly tempo and a transition to a 4/4 feel. 2:17 brings a return to a focus on the accordion and a shift upward to B minor. A close listen also reveals many fast-firing repeating notes in the accordion melody, using sequential flicks of multiple fingers — some fancy playing indeed!

Sure Fire Soul Ensemble | El Niño

“The nine players strong big band with the name that couldn’t possibly be more programmatic,” (Delrohsen) … “Even though their music has never been stuck in 60s/70s nostalgia and incorporates younger ideas like Hip Hop grooves or modern styles of guitar shredding, the overall vibe – no matter if the tune is smooth and soulful or a little more dirty and edgy – is one that makes you expect to see the ghosts of Charles Bradley and James Brown come down to join into the jam while Freddie Hubbard blows his horn at any given moment … ”

The band “continues the journey of broadening (its) sound with new influences and ideas, while maintaining their addictive easy accessibility. This is music for the soul, for good times – and to turn bad times around.”

Starting in D minor, “El Niño” (2019) at times covers its metric tracks a bit when it comes to “finding one,” including the moment the horn section makes its first entrance. But other sections have a groove that’s completely straightforward. At 1:52, an unprepared key change lifts us up to Eb minor in time for a tenor sax feature. After a percussion break clears the air, we return to D minor to close out the tune.

Snarky Puppy + Metropole Orkest | The Curtain

“Jazz has developed virtually since its inception through a close but often uneasy relationship between recorded media and live performance,” (UCLA Ethnomusicology Review). “Think of the ‘classic’ recordings that are celebrated as paragons of jazz artistry, but also of the common admonishment that any true experience of jazz is a live one, in which musicians and audience members commune with one another in a unique, never-to-be-repeated musical and social event. If recent trends are any indication, however, many jazz musicians do not view these modes of performance as irreconcilable … Snarky Puppy, led by bassist and composer Michael League … tour(s) the world extensively, introducing audiences to their exciting genre-b(l)ending style … They also invite an audience into the recording session, which sits among the musicians and listens through headphones. In this way, Snarky Puppy cultivates the intimacy and energy of live performance, but also retains the advantages of an outfitted recording studio.

Sylva … finds the band in the Netherlands to work with the Metropole Orkest, conducted by Jules Buckley … The theme of Sylva (2015) is the forest. … The album’s high point is ‘The Curtain.’ … this tune was the most challenging for the band, with sections featuring odd meters, multiple key changes, and forms with an odd number of bars … Jay Jennings’ flugelhorn solo is outstanding, his lyrical playing bolstered by the tasteful interactivity of the rhythm section and some beautifully building orchestral background figures. A new groove introduces League’s similarly impressive bass solo (well-deserved accolades for his roles as leader and composer mean he is sometimes overlooked as a stellar bassist) and a funky, virtuosic organ solo by Cory Henry. The musicians look on wistfully during Bill Laurance’s lovely, Chopin-esque piano cadenza, before joining him for a closing waltz.”

The piece begins with a strings feature in G minor, joined by building percussion at 0:51 and then going on to persist through various moods and meters. At 3:22, we hit uneven harmonic ground as the flugelhorn solo builds. The full instrumentation of the Metropole is then put through its paces until the 7:54 mark, where a calmer feeling prevails, along with a shift to F minor. By the ending, the piece has shifted back to a softer-spoken feel in G (major, minor, etc.).

Herb Alpert + the Tijuana Brass | A Taste of Honey

Well, the Tijuana Brass weren’t really from Tijuana, just some L.A. studio musicians to play along with Herb Alpert. And those bass drum kicks that launch the in-tempo sections of “A Taste of Honey” weren’t really part of the arrangement, meant instead to be a tape-splice marker. Nonetheless, the single achieved very real success, reaching #7 on Billboard in 1965. The single was taken from the album Whipped Cream and Other Delights, released on Alpert’s own label A&M, featuring the most famous album cover of the 20th century (ed. note: perhaps I’m biased in that opinion).

“A Taste of Honey” was written by Bobby Scott and Ric Marlow.for the Broadway version of a British play of the same name, later made into a movie. There are many cover versions, including a vocal version by the Beatles recorded in 1963. There’s a half-step upwards modulation up at 2:12.

As of this writing, Herb Alpert is still playing. Below, we’re including the same tune, performed this month at the Hollywood Bowl.

Ludwig van Beethoven | Piano Sonata #9 in E Major, Op. 14 #1, second movement

“The first sonata of Beethoven’s Op. 14 makes a lyrical counterpoint to its predecessor, the Pathetique,” (BBC). “Along with the second in G, it was astutely dedicated to Baroness Josefa von Braun, whose husband was court theatre director in Vienna and thus provided the key to the composer’s orchestral ambitions. It was the Baron who allotted Beethoven the date and venue for the premiere of his First Symphony in 1800.

The E major Sonata is one of the best documented in Beethoven’s sketchbooks, which date its composition to 1798-9. Two years later he was persuaded to rearrange it for string quartet, transposing it to the key of F major.”

Beginning in E minor, the tonality shifts briefly several times throughout, but perhaps most strongly 1:31 to C major. At 2:42, there is a return to the original key.

Frank Zappa | What’s New in Baltimore?

” … This looming existential dread and the small, conservative California towns in which he was raised were a powerful force against which Zappa reacted, with his music that constantly defied convention and conformity,” (Baltimore Sun). “As his former percussionist Ruth Underwood says in an interview, ‘he was a walking mass of contradictions but he was consistent in those contradictions.’ He was a wild man with a psychedelic imagination who eschewed drug use, and an anti-establishment artist with a keen sense of business acumen.

… a complicated man, an exacting artist and a wholly singular visionary. His bandmates assert that he was a demanding songwriter and bandleader, constantly striving for perfection, rare to dole out compliments. If the outsize legacy of his work bears any consistency, it’s in the purest expression of his vision, whatever that might have been. Zappa repeatedly states that he made the music that he wanted, needed, to hear … “

Zappa’s album Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention, was released in 1985. Its title was a reaction to efforts by groups such as the Parents Music Resource Center urging the US Congress to advance legislation labeling pop and rock albums featuring controversial lyrics. The initial E minor section of “What’s New in Baltimore” alternates with an E major section, first heard from 0:16 – 0:26. At 0:52, a chaotic extended multi-key midsection launches. The 2:00 mark brings us to a relatively straightforward guitar solo section in E major, written over only two chords; for a change, all mallet instruments are banned during this passage, which turns out to also be an extended outro.

Nickel Creek | Scotch and Chocolate

“These are not veterans of bluegrass – these were three young people who drove their string machines like race cars … they have an appeal for the average ear just short of a confection – but never too sweet,” (Americana Highways). “They have the skill to play impressively and rollick in a bluegrass-commercial flavor that’s tasty … Their recordings are well-made and the group possesses a pearl of musical wisdom to perform with agility, passion, and creative beauty.

… Nickel Creek manages to balance these genres with each performance. It’s obvious the trio could play adeptly alongside such traditional mainstay contemporaries as the classic English ensembles Pentangle, Fairport Convention, Curved Air, the Acoustic Strawbs, Steeleye Span, Dando Shaft, Amazing Blondel and the Incredible String Band.”

After a soft-spoken, meandering intro, “Scotch and Chocolate” (2005) solidly settles into A major at 0:51. At 2:05, with the tempo now at a gallop, D major takes center stage for the balance of the track. This performance is from the COVID-cancelled series Live From Here, the more music-centric successor to A Prairie Home Companion. The series was hosted by Nickel Creek’s mandolinist, Chris Thile.

Lyle Mays | Alaskan Suite: Ascent

From All About Jazz, May 2001, via LyleMays.com

” … Extremely thoughtful, intelligent, articulate, insightful and thoughtful in nature, yet with energy, soul and a quirky sense of humor … In listening to Mays, you hear the strains and references to the contrapuntal music tradition of Europe but used in the unconventional context of high energy, real-time improvisation. All the traditional techniques far older than the jazz idiom, with which he is most closely associated, are continuously reworked, re-invented and used to great effect in the PMG (hey, long hair is still long hair).

The similarity in the reference both to the design and creation of structure and form in the abstract, from the ground up, is clear. And this is what Mays is all about… creation of structure: the new from the old and back again … Though an integral part of the Pat Metheny Group as a player for over a generation, Lyle Mays’ focus remains primarily on composition and arranging. Sifting for what’s new and unusual and presenting it in ever more creative ways … May’s first record (Lyle Mays, 1986) remains a testament to creativity and nuance in the pursuit of evocation of mood and imagery. The casting of impressionists Bill Frisell, Billy Drews, and others was almost as much a part of the compositional process for this music as the scores themselves.”

“Alaskan Suite: Ascent” from Mays’ debut album flies its colorful melodic banners over frequently shifting harmonic terrain. Beginning in G minor, the track shifts to D minor (0:27), A minor (0:55), and back to G minor (1:16). But the change to Db minor at 1:44 is more noticeable, followed by Bb minor (1:57). At 2:10, another step down to A minor feels like the gentlest of shifts after all the change we’ve already experienced. At 2:58, the storm has passed and piece finally settles into Eb (major, minor, other Eb scales too …), cycling again through the anthemic melody at 3:33 and repeating onward to the end; more voices join the texture with each repetition.

Charles-Marie Widor | Toccata (from Symphony for Organ #5)

Charles-Marie Jean Albert Widor (1844 – 1937) was a French organist, composer and teacher,” (Regent Classic Organs). “He was born in Lyon, to a family of organ builders, and initially studied music there. In 1863 he moved to Brussels to study organ technique with Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens and composition with François-Joseph Fétis. After this term of study Widor moved to Paris, where he lived for the rest of his life.

Widor wrote music for a wide variety of instruments and ensembles and composed four operas and a ballet. He is probably most notable for his works for the organ which include ten Organ Symphonies, three Symphonies for orchestra with organ, Suite Latine, Trois Nouvelles Pièces, and six arrangements of works by Bach. Many would say that the ten organ symphonies are his most significant contribution to the organ repertoire.

The most famous of the ten organ symphonies is Symphony for Organ No. 5 in F minor, Op. 42, No. 1. This was composed by Widor in 1879, with numerous revisions published by the composer in later years. The full symphony lasts for about 35 minutes. The first movement of the 5th Symphony is a set of variations on a theme … which starts gently and has a number of points with dramatic dynamic contrast.”

Beginning in F major, the Symphony’s first movement, Allegro, features many passing keys of the moment, but there is a clear, sustained shift to D major at 2:29.

Mike Stern | Wherever You Are

“(Mike Stern’s) virtuoso performances and excellent writing are a source of musical joy and his consistently superb standards serve as a model, followed by generations of young guitarists around the world,” (JazzIs). “On Is What It Is, Stern continues the path established by its predecessors, presenting a set of his excellent compositions performed by a superb group of musicians, which includes saxophonists Michael Brecker and Bob Malach, keyboardist Jim Beard, bassist Will Lee and drummer Dennis Chambers and Ben Perowsky. As usual, the compositions move between atmospheric ballads to up-tempo energetic excursions, performed with finesse and passion.”

“Is What It Is was nominated for Best Contemporary Jazz Performance in the 37th Annual Grammy Awards,” (Jazz Rock Fusion Guitar). “Mike Stern is one of the more creative fusion guitarists, playing with the power of rock but often taking sophisticated improvisations. Reviewer Ries van Schelven writes … ‘This is, in my opinion, Stern’s best solo album … the acoustic masterpiece ‘Wherever You Are’ features Harvie Swartz on the upright acoustic bass … the phrasing is breathtaking.'”

The ballad, which follows an AABA form, begins in A minor. At 0:33, it shifts via a common tone modulation to the B section — first in G# minor, but then shifting through other tonalities, led by an almost constantly falling bass line (sometimes diatonic steps; at others, inching downwards with inversion-enabled chromatic steps). 0:57 brings the final A section with a return to A minor. The bridge (1:20-1:52) features the same melodic shape and falling bass line as the A section, but is built around a completely different family of chords, perching on several different tonalities but never really coming to rest. The bridge connects back to another A section via an octave common tone jump after a long rubato leads to a grand pause. Stern’s solo section (2:15 – 4:28) features harmonies that are by now familiar, but only a whispered texture from the piano and strings supports the guitar line.