Issue 72

Not all bankruptcies are alike. The two forms generally seen in business are Chapter 7 and Chapter 11; the “chapter” part refers to the section of the Federal Bankruptcy Code in which each type is defined.

Chapter 7 is, plain and simple, liquidation. The assets of the company are sold off in order to pay off creditors, whose status is prioritized by the nature of the debt—secured, or unsecured. Chapter 7 is, metaphorically if not numerically, the last chapter. Stick a fork in the company; it’s done.

Chapter 11 is reorganization, also sometimes poetically referred to as rehabilitation. In a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, proposals are made for restructuring the debt, again prioritized by whether the debt is secured or unsecured. Creditors are free to voice concerns and objections, and in the case of a company with sizable debt and a substantial number of creditors, things can get very ugly indeed. In the worst case, where no plan can be agreed upon by creditors and the court, Chapter 7 is the next step.

Industry News has looked at the tumbling Jenga that was Gibson Brands several times, most recently, here.  As we’ve seen in numerous other cases, the company was burdened with enormous debt allied to profligate an ill-advised acquisition and diversification. The heart of the company, Gibson Guitar, had occasional missteps, but was still a strong and valuable brand.

Gibson Brands filed Chapter 11 in May of this year, and emerged from that bankruptcy at the end of October— pretty quickly as such things go. For a while, a fight between major creditors made it seem as though there would be no resolution, but ultimately, a plan proposed by KKR was accepted by the Court. Longtime CEO Henry Juszkiewicz was jettisoned, and his stake in the company voided. The new company will be structured soon with a new CEO; Nat Zilkha, a former rock guitarist and head of Alternative Credit at KKR will be on the board of the new company.

As bankruptcies go, this is a happy ending.

Chapter 7 filings are seldom happy endings; rarely does any creditor receive enough of what they’re owed to make them happy. In the case of Thiel Audio, it’s just the last stop in a long string of indignities for a once-storied audiophile speaker brand. Back in Copper #51, Industry News looked at the shutdown of Thiel and pontificated, “…gone. All gone.”

That was premature: now, with the filing of Chapter 7, it could be said that Thiel is going, going…

The actual bankruptcy filing can be read here, and is alternately horrifying and fascinating. Assets are listed as about a half mil in furnishings and artwork, along with several hundred thousand in inventory. Both numbers seem, to be charitable, hard to believe. The biggest creditor is Chinese speaker OEM Meiloon, owed $1.6 million; industry insiders who have worked with Meiloon have expressed astonishment at that number, given the company’s normally-tight terms.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. One hopes the Thiel name won’t be added to the likes of Acoustic Research, Advent, and other once-great brands, as a brand name misapplied to cheap accessories sold at Best Buy or Amazon.

A classic recording of Mozart’s six so-called Haydn Quartets has been reissued as part of a box set, and that’s just one of a handful of 2018 releases focused on Mozart’s writing for string quartet.

Mozart’s quartets numbers 14-19 were published together in 1785 and dedicated to Haydn at Mozart’s dad’s urging (Leopold always had a nose for how to further his son’s career). There are good reasons Haydn is known as the father of the string quartet: he invented many techniques to allow four bowed stringed instruments to produce an orchestral range of textures and colors, plus established the four-movement structure (modeled on the symphony) as the genre’s standard. Mozart grabbed those ideas and ran with them.

This 1957 recording by the Juilliard Quartet has now been released as part of an 11-disc set from Sony called Juilliard String Quartet: The Complete Epic Recordings 1956-66. YouTube offers only the original LPs (with surprisingly good rendering of the sound, actually), but you can hear the digital remastering on Spotify:

The Juilliard represents state-of-the-art quartet playing from that time. But keep in mind that this was before the science — or religion, depending on your view — of historically informed performance existed at all, and long before it stretched so far forward in time as to include the late 18^th century. The relentless vibrato sounds old fashioned, but once you get used to it, the dramatic intelligence of the interpretation is completely captivating, not to mention that the ensemble playing is so perfect that it’s difficult to believe. Here’s Quartet No. 14 in G major, K. 387:

Another interesting re-release this year is Mozart: The Complete String Quartets by the Leipzig Quartet on DG Gold. The 8-disc set includes all 23 quartets, as well as all four of the first violinists from the Leipzig’s past 18 years. The collection is part of the quartet’s 30^th anniversary celebration.

It’s always nice to be reminded of Mozart’s early quartets, which are considered “easy” and therefore don’t get as much professional attention as Nos. 14-23. The Leipzig’s opening of Quartet No. 8 in F major, KV. 168, shows an immediate contrast with the playing style of the Juilliard. Besides the reduced vibrato, there’s a freedom, almost a wildness that keeps each player a separate entity. I’d say it has less to do with performance practice research and more to do with the general 21^st century focus on the individual, both in the arts and in every other aspect of life. Whatever the cause, I find the energy effective if not authentic.

The lickety-split pace of the fugal last movement (Allegro) of Quartet No. 13 in D minor is faster than normal. At times it seems rushed, with the Leipzig barely holding it together. Still, there’s a good argument for this tempo: in the Classical period, fourth movements of symphonies and quartets often functioned as fiery showpieces meant to leave the audience gasping.

Hopping south from Leipzig to Vienna, we have the Alban Berg Quartett—and yes, that’s the correct spelling— which recently put out a 7-CD set called Mozart Chamber Music: The Last String Quartets (Warner Classics). Besides Quartets Nos. 14-23, the collection includes a disc of re-released performances with Alfred Brendel (both piano quartets and Mozart’s own arrangement of his Piano Concerto No. 12 in A) and the String Quintets Nos. 3 and 4.

Sometimes I find the Berg’s touch to be too light and filmy, but it works well here in Mozart’s Quartet No. 19 in C major, the “Dissonant,” so-called for the swampy harmonies of the first movement’s slow introduction and definitely not for this buoyant and very tonal closing Allegro. The tempo is restrained, letting each phrase have a distinctive shape. Between repetitions of the galant rondo refrain, the quartet is not afraid to claw at the contrasting material.

The filminess I mentioned is on display in the Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-flat major. This second-movement larghetto contains such exquisite writing, and I badly want the violin, viola, and cello to play with as fluid a hand as Brendel does. But the strings’ tone is transparent and thready while Brendel spins out more opaque strands of gold.

Although Haydn is rightly given credit for letting the four instruments of a string quartet enjoy passages of equal voicing, rather than casting the first violin as a monarch served by three accompanists, Mozart offered plenty of moments of contrapuntal splendor in his chamber music.

The two string quintets are rarely played, but reward exploring with an ear to the inner voices: that extra viola is there for a reason! Markus Wolf, the guest violist, stands out in this opening Allegro of the Quintet No. 4 in G minor, K. 516 (quite a late work in the Mozart catalogue). I’m still not crazy about the quartet’s tone overall, but I admire the forward motion and sense of conversation in this performance:

Speaking of the Piano Quartets, there’s a new recording of both of them with the Alexander String Quartet and pianist Joyce Yang on the Alexander’s indie label, Foghorn Classics, distributed by Naxos. The recording is called Apotheosis, Vol. 2. (Apparently, they had planned a Vol. 1 of the quartets, but it has not been released.)

An interesting aspect of the piano quartets versus string quartets is their structure: while — thanks to Haydn – string quartets borrowed the symphony’s four-movement anatomy, both of Mozart’s piano quartets take their formation from sonatas, having three movements. The result is that there is more focus on the contrasting dramatic role of the second movement, a slow between two fasts. How an ensemble handles that responsibility is a good test of its emotional understanding of the work.

“Understated” is the most succinct word I can think of for the Alexander with Yang playing that Larghetto from the Piano Quartet No. 2. Overall, it works. They don’t milk the texture for too much angst, yet there’s just the right amount of longing in Yang’s leaping lines, even if it’s not as pleasurably painful as the Brendel interpretation. My biggest complaint is with the cellist, Sandy Wilson, who, as the quartet’s foundation, should have a much more solid and confident sense of rhythm.

The Lord was walking through the Garden. He was knitting what would one day be known as a Rubik’s Cube when He came across Adam and Eve. Both of them were covering their private parts with leaves and stuff.

“Good morning my children. Who said you were naked? Wait..I know this one… “

The Lord bowed His head and Eve became pregnant. The Lord knew the Devil was the problem but Eve was standing next to Him…so Ka-Blam-O.

The birth of the Blues. Why me.

For a few columns I’ve been talking about the early blues influences but so far they have been guys with guitars playing in the fields of the southern deltas. I tried to trace paths back from early blues recordings into the days that spawned minstrel shows and vaudeville to smell into how this idiom developed.

In the early 1800’s weekend plantation entertainment allowed by slave owners and practiced by slaves started showing up around the Southern plantations. At the corner of Orleans and Rampart in New Orleans, in what came to be known as Congo Square, there was a field that on weekend nights turned into a gathering of slaves cutting loose with music and dance, religious chants, and drumming. This gathering of souls became a tourist attraction of sorts. Not that the white population understood any of it, but at the very least the practice was condoned as a way to let these poor people let off steam.

The tourist attraction of these events was not lost on white entrepreneurs and by the 1840’s that uniquely American spectacle called minstrel shows began to appear. Exclusively performed by white actors in blackface, these shows toured the country with song and comedy routines designed for white audiences and portrayed the blacks as bumpkins and idiots to be laughed at and derided. The minstrel shows robbed black creativity and solidified derisive stereotypes that persisted for another 150 years.

In 1885 two white Boston businessmen took the minstrel concept and evolved shows into what they called Vaudeville. Benjamin Keith and Edward Albee initiated productions that when in town could provide “wholesome family fun” all day and into the night that one could attend as long as he wanted for two bits. By the mid 1890’s the vaudeville circuit had exploded across America with grand productions in major theaters and became a major entertainment force.

At this time the white producers of these touring extravaganzas began bringing on black performers, realizing they could exploit not only the entertainment spawned by black minstrels but could pay them less than their white counterparts. Much less.

As shameful a period in American history as this all represents, the practice of hiring black performers began freeing some from the suffocating abject poverty that kept families nailed to impoverished shacks in the poorest parts of towns and cities and relegated to doing white folks’ laundry and cleaning their houses. Black touring companies working on shoestring budgets with cardboard sets and raggedy costumes sprang up all over the country and now gave black audiences an escape from the drudgery of their lives and even in the poor condition of the show the semblance of glamor held out a hope that maybe another life was possible.

Into this stew was born Bessie Smith, somewhere late in the 1890’s. Birth certificates weren’t issued to African-Americans at that time since their social status was just above that of pets. By estimate Bessie was born about 1897 in Chattanooga (one of my favorite city names) to William and Laura Smith as one of 8 children. Bessie herself later described the shack where they lived in Blue Goose Hollow as ‘tight quarters for two adults, let alone 2 adults and 8 children.”

Bessie’s parents passed away when she was young, and the oldest girl, Viola, had to take on the burden of raising the family. Viola became a hard, embittered woman who treated the kids very strictly as possibly punishment for her lot in life. One of Bessie’s stories from that period talked of her being locked up in the family outhouse all night whenever she misbehaved.

Naturally escape from this poverty and oppression became a dream for these kids, especially Bessie and her older brother Clarence. Clarence worked as a handyman but dreamed of becoming a performer in a touring company. Bessie and her younger brother Andrew began street performing, singing and dancing for pennies. Bessie was remembered by neighbors as having more talent as a performer, dancing and clowning, than for her singing ability. But this was around 1905 and the art of blues singing was just developing.

In 1911 Clarence got an opportunity and he escaped. Without telling Viola, and more importantly Bessie, Clarence jumped through the night and joined a traveling troupe as a comedian and master of ceremonies. Viola was enraged because he provided income for the family. But Bessie was heart-broken because she worshipped her older brother and thought they’d leave together. But after all, Bessie was only 14.

However Clarence returned to Chattanooga a year later with the Stokes Company. He convinced The Stokes to audition Bessie and they hired the now 15 year old as a dancer. Bye bye Viola and Chattanooga.

Included in the Stokes company was a dancing and singing duo, Will and Gertrude Rainey. Gertrude Rainey was 10 years older than Bessie, and she took a liking to the young dancer and what developed was a mother/daughter relationship that would last for the remainder of Bessie’s life.

Most importantly, Gertrude ‘Ma’ Rainey was an influential pioneer of the blues idiom. In 1902 Rainey was a young performer in a tent show and a young girl from town came to sing using a style she had never heard before. The girl sang about a ‘man who had left her’ and Rainey was enthralled. She learned the song from the visitor and incorporated it into her act.

Audiences loved the song and the style Ma used. She was asked what kind of song it was and one day she replied “It’s the Blues.” Ma didn’t invent the style, but she has been credited with naming it.

Many stories revolve around the relationship between Ma and Bessie, some claiming Ma taught Bessie how to sing, and one incredible yarn where it was rumored Ma had Bessie kidnapped and brought to her to teach. Both women disclaimed the kidnapping rumor, considering it pretty hilarious but entirely untrue. Also false was any vocal training Ma Rainey may have given Bessie. Ma certainly taught Bessie the wiles and ways of surviving the show circuit, as any ‘mother’ would. But by the time Bessie had spent a few months with the troupe, she had heard enough of Ma’s songs and had built her own style that in 1913 Bessie was on her own and playing the ‘81’ club in Atlanta. By 1914, at the age of 17, she was a star.

Smith spent the next years traveling the circuit and by 1918 had her own band and started appearing as a headliner. She tried to get in on the fledgling recording action that was developing by 1920. ‘Race’ records were becoming popular with both white and black audiences, and there are some references to Bessie recording for Columbia as early as 1921. But if those sessions happened, the recordings were lost. But in 1923 a producer named Frank Walker, who Bessie called ‘the only white man I ever trusted’, penned a tune called ‘Down Hearted Blues’, gave it to Bessie, and brought her into Columbia’s Columbus Ave. studios to begin her recording career. The life of Bessie Smith, The Empress of the Blues, was about to get a serious kick in the pants.

Next: Bessie Smith Part 2. The world, at least in America, was at her feet.

If you grew up in the 80’s, as I did, then you remember this song being IMPOSSIBLE to escape. “Take On Me” from Norway’s a-ha was EVERYWHERE. If it wasn’t being played on the radio, then the video was guaranteed to be playing on MTV. It’s one of those songs that just IS. The band went on to sell over 55 million records in total, worldwide, holds a Guinness World Record for their Brazilian show that attracted 198,000 fans (for comparisons sake, Guns & Roses’ attendance was a “mere” 60,000 in the same city), and penned one of the greatest Bond Themes of all time, 1987’s “The Living Daylights.” If you don’t recall that one, well…I have attached it for your listening pleasure. A-ha has had an enviable career and is still going to this day.

A-ha began their career in their native Norway but quickly de-camped to London to try and make a real go of it. They moved there without a name, until singer Morten Harket saw the title of a song called “a-ha” in one of the other bloke’s lyric books. By all accounts it was a bloody awful song, but a great band name. They went with it, wanting to have something that would be easy to say in any language. That’s f’ing BRILLIANT!

The members of the band are as follows:

Pal Waaktaar – drum machine/guitar/vocals

Magne Furuholmen – synth bass/keys/vocals

Morten Harket – vocals

The song itself started as a completely different tune, called “The Juicy Fruit Song,” that MF and PW had written in their previous band, Bridges. MH had heard that take and was convinced that there was something to it. The first version recorded by a-ha was named “Lesson One,” which didn’t quite do it, so the track was re-arranged, re-performed, and re-recorded a total of three times before becoming the smash hit that we now know it as. The final version, with production from Alan Tarney, was the third iteration and was released with the ground-breaking, Steve Barron directed, video that I have also attached. If you haven’t seen THAT then I don’t know where you have been. The technique of “roto-scoping” had never been seen in any prior music video, and it went on to win 6 MTV Video Music Awards, doubling Michal Jackson’s take for “Thriller.” No mean feat. Between that and the following years “Sledgehammer,” from Peter Gabriel, no other artists have received more awards for a music video.

TO THE TRACK!

We begin with one of the most recognizable drum loops of all time. The minute it fires up, you know EXACTLY what it is. One of the things that I love about this drum-machine part is that it has been well thought out. There are subtle uses of an open hi-hat sound to build the tension in the choruses, and there’s a 1/2 time feel in the post-choruses, right before the big note. The little clicks and pops, weird glitch sounds, the bass-drum dropping out, and drum fills all give it a “live” feel that was pioneered by bands such as New Order. This wasn’t just one loop repeated for 4 minutes; there is clearly a lot of thought happening behind the choices, exactly the way a drummer would’ve approached it. Cymbal hits and a quick, snatched, open hi-hat sound randomly occurring mean that it never becomes mundane and is driving the song the same way that an organic drum part would have. Well done Pal!

Magne’s (“Mags” to his friends) unleashes the robots on the bass-line. I’d love to know what synth this is. There was rampant use of Oberheims at this time and it’s quite possible that is what is employed here. It’s fantastic, sits perfectly in the mix, and proceeds to dance along with counter-melodies, little runs, and the 4X4 feel of the choruses. Paired with the syncopation of the drum track, it is a beautiful example of the “tetris-ing” of tracks, as I like to call it. James Jamerson would be proud.

The main synth track is everything: Lush analogue pads; a lead that is INDELIBLE, once heard you can never forget it; the weird, and absolutely cheesey, bouncing bit that wraps around the “flute” track; the bells!?! Come on. This is Synth Pop of the finest caliber. And this song has a BRIDGE! And a phenomenal one at that. We are taken to a new place with this strange, panning, clicking, key sound, and then, with a “SWOOSH!”, back to the chorus, a final verse, and then the last chorus, with some of the most haunting, and impossible, vocals in the genre. The closest you were going to get to this would be Jimmy Somerville from Bronski Beat, another personal fav.

And now…one of my favorite little secrets that I have discovered in doing this segment. Pal Wakaktaar’s acoustic guitar part is a revelation! Swishing through the choruses, melding in with the drum track to become an, almost, additional hat track, except in key. This is true masterful arrangement. The stop/go’s in the last chorus ramp up the drama and feel in support of Morten’s vocals. Brilliant. But, there’s also the Andy Summers-esque palm mutes in the conclusion of the bridge. So simple. So effective. And when you pull them out of the mix, they really are missing. The job they are doing, as is often the case with “ear candy” tracks like that, are “felt” more than “heard.” As I said before, a masterful arrangement. Kudos, lads.

The vocals. What can one say? I remember the first time I heard it, my mind was scrambled. There was just NO way. I had heard high-voiced singers prior, of course, Jon Anderson of Yes, Rush’s Geddy Lee, and the prior-mentioned Somerville. But, none of them had done this! Harket holds the World Record for the longest note held in a live show. During a performance of “Summer Moved On” he belted a ridiculously high note for a total of 20.2 seconds. Go ahead, try it. In fact, try to sing along to the song. You probably can’t. Not many can. The entire thing is so EASY for him. You can hear it in the track. It’s performance, no struggle, just a bloke singing. The background voices are so dope! I love the whole thing. The a capella version of this is one that I just love to sit and listen to. Even the weird little scats, and his laugh, at the start. His little pulse-breaths, in between the lyrics, are just endearing and ad a level of humanity to a song that could have, quite easily, just been an anemic, sterile, piece of synth-pop piffle. This isn’t. It’s a legit SONG, with careful construction and brilliant choices being made throughout. With different instrumentation, it could easily be a Stax/Volt jam from back in the day. That’s real song writing for you. And one of the reasons that it has stood the test of time. Which it has.

The Radio Show Audio:

The band is still going and recently went viral with an acoustic version of the song filmed live for an MTV show. I have also attached that. This version is so much more poignant than you ever imagined it to be, and that’s the mark of a well written song. A-ha is a real band, of this you should have no doubt. Hunting High And Low is one of my favorite albums of the time, and I wore my tape down to transparency listening to it. In fact, I am going to go crank “Blue Sky” right now! Maybe you should do the same.

It’s impossible to be in a bad mood when listening to this song. It’s also a guaranteed floor-filler at any high school reunion. And that’s a beautiful thing.

Until next time,

cjh

The Award Winning Music Video:

The Bond Theme:

The Live Performance:

James Taylor turned 70 this year. Before the Boston-born and North Carolina-bred songwriter struck out on his own, he sang and played guitar with a New York-based band called the Flying Machine. They only lasted a year. But, seventeen studio albums later, Taylor’s solo career is still going strong.

Taylor went to London in 1967 to change gears in hopes of overcoming heroin addiction. Among the many musicians he came in contact with were the Beatles, who had the foresight to sign him as the first non-British artist with their own label, Apple Records. He only made one album for Apple, James Taylor (1968), but it’s an excellent debut.

“The Blues Is Just a Bad Dream” is a microcosm of James Taylor as an artist. The first 50 seconds are given over to a lush instrumental, heavy on the cello (Taylor’s own instrument growing up) and a disturbingly breathy flute – there’s his mushy side on unapologetic display. But then the track takes a hard-left turn, becoming what we now think of as classic James Taylor – that is, a new folk song, mellow and bathed in melancholy.

He doesn’t mess with the traditional 12-bar blues format or harmonies, but takes them as is. He gives no hint of irony about using this style. It’s a straight-up love-gone-bad song, just like the blues should be. Nor does Taylor try to change his singing style to match a more expected sound for the blues. This, I think, is an important and consistent point about him: he is always himself, and when he borrows, he remains himself. Not for nothing, Taylor manages some admirable acoustic blues guitar playing on this track.

As impressive as that debut was, its sales were poor. But Taylor got another chance to make it big with his second album, Sweet Baby James (1970), his first for Warner Brothers. It garnered his first top-10 hit, “Fire and Rain,” and was also his first collaboration with Carole King, who plays piano and sings backup vocals on some tracks.

The charming “Blossom” is a little-appreciated song from Sweet Baby James, featuring typical Taylor wordsmithing. Its first line, “Blossom, smile some sunshine down my way,” carried on a quirkily jumping melody line that helps to stave off sentimentality. The arrangement is delivered with offhanded mastery by some top-notch session musicians, including Russ Kunkel on drums and John London on bass.

Never one to stop moving, and despite the continuing challenges of drug addiction, Taylor released six more solo albums between 1971 and 1977. Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon (1971) is familiar enough that I’ll head straight for the 1972 album, One Man Dog. An overlooked gem is “Little David,” a new song in the style of a spiritual that opens with percussive noises not usually associated with Taylor. The African-tinged percussion is mainly by Bobbye Hall, with an assist by Kunkel.

Next came Walking Man (1974), which was not as successful as the previous three albums. There’s a lot of darkness in this collection; Taylor’s easy-going, folky sound is replaced on some tracks by earnest contemplation that probably alarmed the more casual fan. The producer is guitarist David Spinozza, who also played on the album and brought along close friends Paul and Linda McCartney as session musicians. Spinozza gave some songs a diffuse sound, appropriate to Taylor’s mood, as you can hear in “Migration”:

In 1977, Taylor made his Columbia Records debut with the very popular JT. That album produced big hits like “Handy Man” and “Your Smiling Face,” plus some tracks featuring his then-wife Carly Simon. “Chanson Français” is a fun forgotten track you might want to check out, if only to chuckle at Taylor’s twangy French.

The next Columbia release was called Flag (1979), a highlight of which is “I Will Not Lie for You.” The opening is striking for its overdubbed a cappella duet. When the song gets rolling, its country-rock texture leans more heavily toward the rock side, thanks to those Kunkel drums again, plus the guitar of longtime Taylor collaborator Danny Kortchmar.

At this point Taylor finally slowed his pace, and he has averaged one studio album every three to six years since then. His popularity was waning until New Moon Shine (1991) and the even more successful Hourglass (1997). “Gaia,” from the latter album, shows how the middle-aged songwriter was turning toward some Eastern influences, both in his music and his philosophy.

Versions of other people’s songs have peppered Taylor’s albums since the start of his career. His 2008 album is devoted entirely to them. There are a lot of fun tracks on Covers, including Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne” and George Jones’ hit “Why Baby Why?” But one of the most interesting experiments is “Get a Job,” originally recorded in 1957 by the Philadelphia doo-wop group The Silhouettes.

This track wasn’t on the regular release, but appeared in a four-song album extension, called Other Covers, which was sold only on the QVC shopping network. Just like in “The Blues Is Just a Bad Dream” on Taylor’s first album, this is an example of him taking on a genre that other artists might try to adapt their voices for. But James Taylor always sounds like James Taylor, and the discord between his sensitive, straightforward delivery and the typical doo-wop melodic tropes is kind of fascinating.

Before This World (2015) is Taylor’s most recent studio album. The jewel here is “Before This World / Jolly Springtime,” a two-section duet with Sting that borrows from two different styles of English folk music. The modal melody of “Before the World” renders the song heartbreakingly lonesome. A syncopated, searching instrumental segue featuring guitar and the always-cherished cello opens into a more hopeful tune, “Jolly Springtime.” But this is James Taylor, so the joy is always tempered, and the tempo is never too fast.

I wouldn’t normally give a “Rack Filler” CD a moment’s thought, but here I am actually recommending one! 40 Most Beautiful Arias is pretty much exactly what it says on the box, and at $12 from Amazon for over 2 hours of achingly beautiful music on a 2-disc set, it is a pretty good deal. It is also available for streaming on Qobuz, TIDAL, Spotify, Apple Music, and others. It sets out its stall straight out of the gate with Plácido Domingo in the prime of youth fairly belting out the iconic “Nessun Dorma,” and doesn’t let up from there.

Many people can’t stand opera, and to be fair, you can see where they’re coming from. Hour after hour of tedious recitative, all in Italian, interspersed with the occasional aria, and all sung by strangled and warbling voices seemingly intent on shattering glass. But oh, those arias! An operatic aria’s prime objective is to be the ultimate expression of the musical concept of melody, and melody lies at the fundamental core of music itself. The finest operatic arias ascend to some of the loftiest, most soaring peaks that the medium of music has ever attained. The power of the human voice at its loudest, purest, and at the same time at its most expressive, is arguably at its zenith here. You may not have a clue what they’re singing, but opera singers leave you in little doubt what they’re singing about. In many ways, it can actually be a benefit that they are singing in a foreign language. Taking all that into consideration, an album of just the arias can be very appealing indeed, and this particular one is a keeper.

These opera arias are collected from the Warner Classics catalog, and it is pretty much stacked from beginning to end with major international names, including the aforementioned Plácido Domingo, Thomas Hampson, Cecilia Bartoli, José Carreras, Barbara Hendricks, Luciano Pavarotti, Roberto Alagna, Angela Gheorghiu, Marilyn Horne, Karita Mattila, Jennifer Larmore (whose “Ombra mai fu” is heartbreakingly beautiful), and many others. Even those of you who never listen to opera are bound to recognize many of these iconic tunes (even if only from British Airways commercials), and it will be all you can do to stop yourself from humming along with them!

The recordings themselves range from good enough to very good.  Nothing really stands out as being either very bad or truly exceptional. But whoever has selected 40 arias from the catalog to cram onto two discs has mostly done a very creditable job. With one exception though, which might make you leap from your listening chair and scream at your loudspeakers in frustration. The famous duet from Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers suddenly stops half way through – an absolutely unforgivable sin. If you want to know what it’s supposed to sound like, here it is on YouTube, sung by the impossibly talented hunks Jonas Kaufmann and Dmitri Hvorostovsky [who, so very sadly, passed away last year]:

A lot of people find opera to be too heavy going for them, and that is fine. But a lot of those same people do enjoy the occasional signature aria when they hear one, usually out of context. This album is for those listeners. It is not designed to make an opera fan out of you, but it is an album you’ll still want to play from time to time, just to make you feel good – not to mention impressing your future in-laws. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve spun it up. Enjoy!

I was trying to figure out when and where I first tried my hand at writing lyrics. The first time that I can still remember, they were written on the wall behind Stuart Marmelstein’s parents store on a starlit evening in 7th grade. They weren’t great, but you know, back then, it was a beginning. When I found out, upon his death, that David Bowie’s lyric writing method was sort of haphazard, I kicked myself for giving up.

Bob Dylan has said people don’t often give him credit for his music — it’s all about his lyrics. Why not? He has so much to say that’s worth hearing. (Though personally I rate his music even higher.) There are certain (a very few) lyricists I admire for their words as much as their music. John Lennon, Joni Mitchell — all the obvious ones. But generally, I think what Brian Eno told me about his lyric comprehension applies to me, too: Meaning Myopia. If they sound right, my ears hear them as part of the music, and that’s enough. Most opera falls into this category. Think about Philip Glass and Robert Wilson’s words for “Einstein on the Beach”:

One two three four

One two three four

One two three four five six

One two three four five six seven eight

And then it repeats. (Obviously — it IS Philip Glass, after all). It’s not quite Mitchell’s “Hejira”, or the Fab’s “Strawberry Fields Forever”, but in the context, it works beautifully. But some lyrics are poetry as well as lyrical. Which brings me back to Rosanne Cash’s album Black Cadillac; and in particular the song, “The World Unseen”:

I’m the sparrow on the roof

I’m the list of everyone I have to lose

I’m the rainbow in the dirt

I am who I was and how much I can hurt

So I will look for you

In stories of the kings

Westward leading, still proceeding

To the world unseen

I’m the mirror in the hall

From your empty room I can hear it fall

Now that we must live apart

I have a lock of hair and one-half of my heart

So I will look for you

Between the grooves of songs we sing

Westward leading, still proceeding

To the world unseen

There are no gifts that will be found

Wrapped in winter, laid beneath the ground

You must be somewhere in the stars

‘Cause from a distance comes the sound of your guitar

And I will look for you in Memphis and the miles between

I will look for you in morphine and in dreams

I will look for you in the rhythm of my bloodstream

Westward leading, still proceeding

To the world unseen

On the night we recorded the song, virtually as you hear it on the record, I got home near midnight and I awoke my wife to repeat the last chorus to her, I was so moved by what we had done.

As with taste in music, who can say what makes something make sense to one person, yet the same words can be meaningless to another? I look back on the most lyric-intensive time of my life with only a few items, besides Rosanne’s album, having made much difference to me. With most of the people we worked with in those years, while their lyrics may have great meaning to them, for me it was a case of my suffering from Meaning Myopia.

I’ve written about the bridge to “We Do What We Can” before. A few of Bill Bottrell’s songs mattered to me — in particular one tune that no one heard called “If I May Be So Bold”. For most people, David Baerwald’s lyrics are what his music is about. For me, as long as he sang about what he talked about, I was good. It’s the sound of the music that matters here – it’s a very rare artist who writes lyrics that convey meaning while writing mediocre music; more common is the reverse.

But even more rare is someone like Rosanne, where it all comes together.

I’ve just seen a documentary about a food writer. It was inspiring, it made me think—about what critics can accomplish, for instance. We can always direct you to a nice restaurant, a good movie, or a terrific new album. But occasionally, we can redefine the whole meaning of critic. That’s what Jonathan Gold did in Los Angeles. He pointed people toward exciting cuisines in strip malls, immigrant mom-and-pop storefronts, and food trucks. He ended up getting the first-ever Pulitzer Prize for food writing.

The film isn’t really about food, though it offers some mouth-watering Southern Thai dishes I’d never heard of. No, it’s about people. It’s specifically about the way Los Angeles, a decentralized, unplanned collection of small towns, made diversity not only possible but delicious. Human beings can be endlessly fascinating, and that’s especially true when you’re tasting, looking at, or listening to what they create. Through his food writing, Gold “discovered” and celebrated entire communities. That’s pretty cool.

Watching that film—twice!—was a welcome break. My schedule got hectic last week because it’s Program Notes Season. I’ve been turning out notes for years, and lately things have heated up again; I’m glad I enjoy writing. More than that, I enjoy the research you have to do if you’re going to bring anything fresh to the table. (Freshness matters, especially with music written centuries ago.) My investigations this time led to some exquisite sounds I had known very little about.

Basically, I discovered Armenian folk and traditional music. First, I wrote liner notes for a new album of Armenian dances and folksongs from recorder virtuosa Nina Stern and her band, Rose of the Compass. Right after that, I organized program notes for an all-Armenian concert in which they joined forces with singers from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

To give you a taste of what they did, here is Kamancha by Sayat-Nova (1712-92), a great Armenian ashugh, or poet/composer. The performance features Stern, Ara Dinkjian (oud), and Shane Shanahan (percussion), all of whom joined her in the recording and CSJD concert:

I can’t resist providing a link to another complete track, Aparani Bar, new for the recording and also performed at CSJD. A folk dance in joyfully irregular meter,  its roots lie in maqāmāt, an Arabic tradition of improvisation on a mode (cf. raga). Ara begins with an accompaniment figure, after which kanun player Tamer Pinarbaşi enters with a gradually expanding improvisation; oud and recorder re-enter with the infectious refrain. The CD will be released in January.

Most of the music on the cathedral program was composed or arranged by a single person, Komitas (Gomidas) Vartabed (1869–1935), a monk and ethnomusicologist who collected hundreds of Armenian songs, dances, and devotional chants. Early in the 20th century, his touring choirs brought Armenian music to audiences all over Europe and the Middle East. Today, his music is carried forward by groups like Nina’s—skilled musicians, some with Levantine ancestry and some without—and intrepid conductors like Kent Tritle. I wish he would make a Komitas recording. In the meantime, we have YouTube performances from various Armenian choirs. Here is “Yergrakordzi Yerku,” a plowing song that Komitas once explored in a distinguished scholarly article:

Some of this work’s intricate modal play (e.g., highly chromatic descending five-note scales, each one slightly different!) gets lost in the general fervor. But they’re giving you the big picture. Allow me to assist: Komitas was a Romantic. As such, he revered peasant life, so he essentially sacralized these all-important communal plowing songs:

The general intimation . . . is a commanding call, tender, coaxing, self-sacrificing, affectionate and loving. It is as if the peasant had concentrated his entire spirit in just one refrain, prepared to sacrifice his whole life for the beloved buffalo and his fellow ploughworker.

Yes, this music was sung to oxen. More to the point, it was sung by a community, one close to the natural world, utterly dependent on each other and on their livestock. Their deliberate, sustained, effortful song evokes emotions linked with survival itself. Understand that, and you’ll understand Komitas, you’ll appreciate Armenian song, and you’ll grasp something more about a big chunk of the Romantic movement.

Lately I’ve been watching Civilizations, the public-television series that revisits Sir Kenneth Clark’s venerable attempt to bring Art to the masses. It’s got a new bunch of talking heads—Simon Schama chief among them, but also Harvard’s Maya Jasanoff, who could explain anything to me and I’d find it fascinating. When they get around to Romanticism, they frame it in terms of cosmopolitan urban discontent. City dwellers who could afford it increasingly turned to nature, to rural life, woods and streams, as a restorative for (and refuge from) city life.

Not that Chopin and Schumann were tree-huggers. We know what happened to Chopin when he ventured away from those Parisian salons to the comparative wilderness of Majorca. But think of the little hut Mahler built for himself in the woods near his summer home. Think of Beethoven’s fondness for the countryside. Think of Richard Strauss’s famous memoir of a hiking trip: Eine Alpensinfonie.

Here’s another escape scenario that 19th- and early-20th-century artists visited on us: exoticism. They were like, let’s go somewhere uncivilized, full of sexually available women, and men with big swords and well-defined abs. Because, you know, non-Western cultures have more fun!

The lure of the non-Western was significant among French Romantics, but it was based in prurient fantasy. Gauguin discovered the sad truth when he sailed for Tahiti, thinking he’d find himself an uncivilized paradise. It turned out badly. For their part, French composers gradually moved away from the exotic: whereas Saint-Saëns had freely appropriated Middle Eastern motifs, Debussy occupied himself with inventing music far less dependent on orientalisms.

What’s this got to do with Komitas, or with Jonathan Gold? Okay: were the “uncorrupted” folksongs Komitas discovered in tiny mountain villages more attractive because they sounded so exotic (i.e., strange), as they surely must have? And Gold, sitting down with Ruth Reichl to a nice plate of Oaxacan chapulín? Was that all about creating community? Maybe, just maybe, they also got some hipster joy from eating crispy little critters.

Bartók searched for “pure” folk expression too, in Transylvania. And although he didn’t do fieldwork, Stravinsky poked around in the published ethno literature while creating Petrushka, Rite, and Les Noces. He was no Komitas, but he was onto something: a few years later it morphed into Modernism. By the end of the century, everything was connected, mixed up, combined, and recombined. Which shell had the pea under it?

Speaking of searchers: you know Norway’s Morten Lindberg, engineering genius behind enterprising audiophile label 2L (Lindberg Lyd). One of his latest offerings is a Pure Audio Blu-ray/SACD package (2L-146-SABD) of two symphonic works by Henning Sommerro. The sound is, of course, better than first-rate. It glistens. It thumps. It sings. I was somewhat less enchanted by the music itself, so exuberant, so generous and open, so naïve. Sommerro began by playing in rock and folk groups, then moved into theatre and film work. He grew up in the Nordmøre district, home to a strong folk-music tradition; he studied the organ in Trondheim, then went on for conservatory training. He’s got Big Ears. His six-movement Ujamaa (Swahili for brotherhood) is a sort of travelogue—Gulliver’s Further Travels?

Feel free to guess which continent he’s depicting. I’m reminded of The Lion King, of Grofé’s Grand Canyon Suite, and of many, many movie soundtracks. The other selection, The Iceberg, is more individualistic: using poetry in three languages, it offers meditations on explorer Fridtjof Nansen and his oft-neglected wife Eva Sars.

Comparisons between Sommerro and Komitas—or any other Romantic Nationalist—seem pointless. So much has changed. This music sounds as if it wants to reach a wider audience, but it probably won’t travel well outside the Baltic. It’s frankly commercial, “universalist,” and yet perhaps Norwegian. (How would I know?) In his new collection of essays on storytelling, Philip Pullman asks, “Should we refrain from telling stories that originated elsewhere, [because] we don’t have the right to annex the experience of others?” This is what academics call appropriation, and some consider it a mortal sin. Yet Pullman answers his own question like this:

A culture that never encounters any others becomes first inward-looking, and then stagnant, and then rotten. We are responsible for bringing fresh streams of story into our own cultures from all over the world, and welcoming experience from every quarter, and offering our own experience in return.

Which I think Sommerro is attempting to do. Whether he’s entirely successful is another matter. You may prefer to enjoy his music mostly as ear candy. These performances, by the Trondheim SO, Choir, and soloists, seem to express Sommerro’s aesthetic perfectly.

It makes a nice dessert, even if it’s not chocolate-covered chapulín.

ps: I don’t know how Ye Olde Editor came up with the graphic for this piece, but it’s terrific. You’re looking at a still life with Armenian instruments—the t’ar, a figure-eight-shaped lute, k’amanch’a, a spike fiddle, and duduk, a double-reed wind instrument that produces a soft, slightly nasal sound. You can hear it echoed in the way Nina Stern plays her chalumeau. Oh, and we’re also looking at pomegranates, I think. Nice!

[Ye Olde Editor was far away in South America. All credit must go to Ye Far Younger Associate Editor Maggie McFalls. Respect!–Ed.]  [Good to know. Thank you, Maggie. —LS]

Although The Beatles were my “jumping off point” in my rock ‘n’ roll dreams, they did not give me the roadmap to anything other than a dream. I needed to find a path, but I really wasn’t looking for it.

I was flailing around, trying different instruments. Maybe I could be a songwriter, or a drummer, or a bass player, or a singer, or a guitar player. I joined up with anyone and everyone. All the kids in my neighborhood seemed to be doing the same thing. Bands came and went, sometimes in the same day. Within a couple of years, through trial and error (some of it painful, as far as ego was concerned), the answers began to come into focus.

I decided that the guitar would be my instrument, but I still didn’t quite know where to find the inspiration to develop my skills.

Then, one day, it just hit me. It hit me through a song that I was asked to learn, while I was playing bass guitar in one of the local bands. I was just 15 years old when this event happened. I was asked to learn a song called “Born in Chicago,” by The Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Their newly released debut album was coveted by most of my friends. When I put the album on my record player, the first notes of “Born In Chicago” poured out of the speakers, and the sound and style of the guitar playing went straight to my heart.

The band’s guitarist, Mike Bloomfield, thus became my guitar hero. I wanted, no, I needed, to learn how to play like he did. It was magical, it was life affirming, and I not only wanted to play like him, but shortly thereafter wanted to know how he got to where he was. What did he know, and where did he learn that from? I kept reading about him and started making notes on his inspiration. What were his building blocks? I knew that if I could discover his foundation, then those pillars would soon become mine.

I did.

While I will never stop learning, the framework for all blues music began with Robert Johnson and Elmore James. One can never play this music without knowing that. Certainly, one can always learn to play the notes, but the secret to the blues is how you play them. That can never be faked, and anyone who has ever gone on to blues stardom knows this:

Technique is good when understanding structure, but that alone will never connect.

This is why, when watching YouTube videos of 8-year-old whiz-kid violin players, or singers, or piano players, you can easily marvel at their knowledge. It looks amazing and, perhaps, in some quarters, it transcends style in some people’s minds. It is, however, a false artistry, as it has no emotional foundation. It is like a Fugazi diamond. To the naked eye it looks stunning, but it isn’t real, it’s fake.

Blues is about “feel,” and feel only comes from the passion that one has to express the notes (whether it’s guitar, piano, organ, harmonica, sax, or vocals) that emanates from pain. It took me 20 years to figure that one out. Once I did, every note I now play, when I play the blues, comes from that place, and it is always…Real.

It took me 30 years to understand how to play just one note by BB King, and that feel can never be faked.

Before rap music became, in the words of Chuck D from Public Enemy, “The CNN of the Street,” the blues had been doing it for decades.

It’s not about technique, it’s about the feel that lies beneath the notes. That authenticity can never be faked.

In the end, Fake Blues is Fake News.

As a kid growing up in Glasgow, Scotland in the 1950s, it was not at all unusual to receive a whack if you did something wrong. Today discipline, as it was euphemistically called then, would be known as child abuse.

Albert.

It was autumn and that meant chestnut time. No, this wasn’t the kind you eat, these were horse chestnuts that you used for Conkers, a kids game. A hole was punched in the center of the nut, then a string was passed through it, knotted at one end. The object of the game was to hit your opponent’s Conker while preserving your own, intact. As the nuts often broke, having a good supply was essential.

Chestnuts fall to the ground but as kids were always foraging for them, so it was more industrious to throw sticks at the ones still on the trees. Albert and I decided to go to Queens Park and look for Conkers. There were many chestnut trees in the park and we picked up a few heavy sticks on the way and started to throw them at the branches. We were doing quite well when we heard a voice yelling,

“Stop what you are doing!”

We looked round to see the ‘Parkie’ (park-keeper) approaching. Now Albert was a wee hard kid. He was unusual for a Glasgow Jewish boy. Most of us kept a low profile and avoided conflict but Albert seemed to thrive on it.

“Fuck off,” he replied.

This did not sit well with the Parkie, who grabbed Albert by the scruff of his neck and frog-marched him to the exit on Victoria Road. As luck would have it, a policeman was standing nearby and the Parkie, explaining the reason, passed him over to the cop. Again he was frog-marched down the street to a blue police box. The police box (as Doctor Who fans will know) was a roughly 6-foot square box that contained a telephone and some shelves for policemen to fill in reports. It was sometimes used to hold prisoners until the Black Maria (police van) came to take them away. The officer pushed Albert inside. I had followed, and stood outside listening to Albert grunting and whimpering as the “Polis” as we called them, beat the shit out of him. A few minutes later he was ejected, bloodied, bruised and still swearing at the cop.

Percy.

The rabbi was pummeling me, my father was hitting me, and everyone was yelling. Crosshill Synagogue was in a converted row house in Glasgow. Although my family was not religious, we were members and I attended Hebrew school as a child. Like most of the adherents, we pretended to be Orthodox while there. The sanctuary was a floor-through, with the Ark at the front and the women’s section at the back. Rabbi Dryan, the congregation’s leader, was from somewhere in Central Europe. He was a sweet man, but had a fiery temper. He taught the Hebrew school.

It was Simchat Torah (celebration of the Torah) and after services we all traipsed upstairs for refreshments. The room was set up with rows of long tables with drinks, fruit, and cakes laid out in the center. I sat down. To my right was the rabbi, to my left, Percy Rosenthal (a close friend of my father), and to his left, my father. My cousin Clifford was sitting opposite me. In my right hand was a half-eaten orange.

I was in conversation with Clifford when Percy reached over, took the orange out of my hand, squished it in the Rabbi’s ear, and replaced it in my hand. In that instant, several thoughts flashed through my brain: this was audacious, no one will ever believe it wasn’t me, and now I’m truly fucked. The rabbi turned round, his ear dripping with juice. He saw the orange in my hand, and started swearing and hitting me. A moment later, my father joined in. My cousin was laughing his head off and all that I could think of was, Percy Rosenthal, you’re my hero.

Mr. Farquhar.

Mr. Farquhar was my English teacher when I was around 14 years old. He was a good teacher with a big interest in the classics. He introduced me to The Odyssey by Homer, and Oedipus by Sophocles—as well as Dostoevsky, and George Orwell. Good as he was, he failed to understand my humor; being a smartass, I often interjected a snide comment in the midst of his teachings. This usually ended with my getting called out to receive “six of the best on the Lochgelly Tawse”—or as we called it, the Belt.

An article by the BBC described it thus:

“Based in Lochgelly, Fife, John J. Dick Leather Goods were the teacher’s preferred suppliers at the height of the tawse’s reign of terror. 

“The Lochgelly Tawse was made by cutting 2-foot-long strips of leather from pre-tanned and pre-curried hides. The leather would then be dressed and cut halfway up the middle to form the tails. 

“The particular design of the tails provided the searing nip when it struck the student’s hand.

“However, the Lochgelly method was preferable in that the tails were ‘edged’ in order to prevent drawing blood.”

It hurt like hell and sometimes if the teacher aimed badly, it would hit your wrist, which swelled up like a balloon. I got the belt so regularly from Mr. Farquhar that one day, I went to class early and asked him to give me the belt before the class started.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because you’re going to give it to me later, so why don’t we get it over with and get on with the class.”

He shrugged, and gave me six of the best. Later on in the class, because I was cheeky, the bastard gave me six more.

So much for that plan.

Mr. McTavish.

Mr. McTavish was a sadistic bastard. His method of discipline was worse than all the teachers put together. He didn’t own a belt. If you didn’t behave he would send you next door to borrow one. This meant enduring the snickers and derision of the pupils in both my own class and the one next door. After the punishment was over you had to return it to the nearby teacher.

“Don’t forget to thank him,” McTavish would instruct you.

No one ever got the belt twice in his class.

Rabbi Dryan.

Hebrew School started an hour after regular school ended. The classes were held at the back of the room in the women’s section. Rabbi Dryan disciplined the class with a wooden coat hanger. A wallop from that, and you saw stars for about five minuets. Blessed with a sarcastic tongue, it wasn’t long before I became his subject. I, along with the other students, took this in our stride, but once I went too far and he started to pummel me. He hit me so hard that his coat hanger broke in two. I came home with bruises on my shoulder and complained to my father. He was unimpressed.

“You probably deserved it,” he said. Thus was the attitude of parents in Scotland in the early sixties.