It's generally acknowledged that many classical composers have written some of their best music for ballet. It could also be argued that some of the greatest jazz is played when the musicians are aware that, in its essence, jazz is dance music (as Dizzy Gillespie put it, you don't have to be able to dance to play jazz, but it helps). Rhythm and blues, has always been associated with dance, and it's fitting that the great record producer who first coined the term, Jerry Wexler, was a key component of one of the greatest r&b recordings. According to the guitarist on the session, Steve Cropper, Wilson Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour" was altered (and improved) in the hopes of capturing the feel implied in a new dance that Wexler demonstrated for them - apparently he had seen it done in clubs in New York. Cropper used the term "delayed backbeat" to describe the wicked groove that resulted: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGVGFfj7POA&feature=related. Happy New Year!

Glenn Gould was also a fan of the iconoclastic free-jazz pianist Cecil Taylor (along with Arnold Schoenberg, as I mentioned yesterday). In fact, Gould was enamored by his music to such a degree that I keep coming back to Taylor's recordings to try to identify what it was that Gould liked so much. I do enjoy them, don't get me wrong, but they don't stay on my CD player for as long as, say, a McCoy Tyner album might. But I'm also left with the feeling that the deficiency is mine, not Taylor's, and that I still have some catching up to do in regards to hearing him properly.

I was fortunate enough to see Taylor at the Montreal Jazz Festival a few years back, and remember that a large segment of the audience didn't share my sentiment: A good quarter of the crowd walked out during the first tune. I don't know if this kind of reaction bothers Taylor or not (my guess is that it doesn't), but I do know that it hasn't stopped his pursuit of his very specific form of musical expression. He's been playing this way for over sixty years now, and whatever one thinks of the music, that fact alone commands respect: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP5L8tjnB6w&feature=related

A question: Would bebop, the chromatic and scientific approach to playing jazz that involves the memorization of specific, complex vocabulary patterns, have occurred to its early progenitors without the atonal (i.e. twelve-tone) music of Arnold Schoenberg? Conceptually, there is a very large amount of overlap between the two styles. Both involve the dictated use of notes in a specific order - through the use of tone rows in twelve-tone composition, and in bebop through the use of lines or licks committed to memory in every conceivable key. In both cases what is left for the artist to freely choose is placement, primarily. The twelve-tone composer can use the next tone as part of a melody (in other words horizontally) or harmonically, or as part of a chord (i.e. vertically). Of course, the rhythms are up to the writer as well. In jazz, the notes are also very largely (if not entirely) predetermined, and the same kinds of choices (placement and rhythm) are left to the performer.

Schoenberg's music has taken a lot of critical poundings over the years, and it continues to do so. It's not to everyone's taste, I think it's fair to say, but Glenn Gould was a great admirer (and interpreter) of Schoenberg's, and so my guess is that we'll eventually catch up with it. But I am convinced that Charlie Parker et al were greatly influenced by it as a concept, and I'm not sure that their discoveries would have happened without Schoenberg's. Here's one of his early twelve-tone works, with the score included: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrjg3jzP2uI. And here's Bill Evans' "Twelve Tone Tune", a tip of the cap from a jazz musician of unsurpassed learning: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB78xeZ8quk.

Arthur Lee's Love is one of those bands that sound better with the passing of time (like the Velvet Underground - and by the way, I was in a bookstore yesterday where music was being played and it seemed like almost every song I heard was a direct descendant of "After Hours". It then occurred to me that it would be hard to find a piece of alternative music that doesn't owe something to the Velvets). And while it's correct that Forever Changes (1967) should be remembered as a rock masterpiece and one of the greatest albums, it isn't correct to think that what came afterward was not worthwhile. The three records that followed (Four Sail and Out Here in 1969 and False Start in 1970) weren't as unified as Forever Changes - very few albums are - but they contained many brilliant songs that should've been better appreciated. In some ways, Lee's best songwriting can be found on these albums. Four Sail opens with an amazing song called "August" which features a virtuosic drum performance by George Suranovich, and the closing track, "Always See Your Face", speaks for itself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkWVrLfiJKs.

Integration is also important on a purely musical level. In fact, the more time I spend listening, the more I think that there might not be anything else. If we look for inspiration to come as something entirely new, we'll probably be disappointed. It's much better to think of music as the result of a massive number of synthesizing moments, with each new product a potential basis for further bonding. It's also apparent to me that the more grounded an artist is in her or his particular discipline, the more likely that artist is to be able to fashion it into something original. But the process is a slow one, requiring patience. As William Blake put it, "Eternity is in love with the productions of time." And so am I, when they sound like Joni Mitchell, Pat Metheny and Jaco Pastorius playing "In France They Kiss on Main Street": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7MCf7Ga3wc

I don't believe that I've written very much about the engine that drove the great Memphis label known as Stax-Volt, so I'll correct that today. Booker T. and the M.G.s, composed of Steve Cropper on guitar, Donald "Duck" Dunn on bass, Al Jackson on drums, and Booker T. Jones on organ, were for a time the most important band in America. Their music, based on principles of space, timing and less being more, may have had the longest-lasting influence of any sixties-based group; it can still be clearly heard in rock and r&b records today. And when they toured Europe in 1967, they planted seeds that bloomed there for years (they were a major influence on Bryan Ferry, Pete Townshend and many others). Unlike the Funk Brothers, which featured James Jamerson, the most virtuosic bassist in the history of rock or r&b, they were not built around a star player; rather it was the team concept that made their sound. Of course this requires another type of virtuosity - the ability to groove - and they had a ton of that (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bpS-cOBK6Q). The highest compliment I can think of for them? I'm not sure that any band has ever sent more people onto dance floors.

Another example of musical integration, and one appropriate for the day, came during Bing Crosby's Merrie Olde Christmas TV show from 1977, when he and David Bowie sang what has become known as "Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy". I remember thinking at the time that we were watching an instant classic, one that would be remembered for many years to come. The piece itself is a blend of the old and new, as "Peace on Earth" was written for the occasion. And the performance, by two great artists, can only leave us with the realization that both the modern and the traditional are necessary for the creation of good music. Happy holidays. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiXjbI3kRus)

It's no earth-shaker to say that Motown is the greatest pop and/or r&b record label. If you look at the list of artists they produced, and the number and variety of hit records they made, or more simply, if you listen to the quality of the writing, the arranging, the singing and the playing that these recordings contain, it's hard to find a candidate around which you could build an argument to the contrary. (I'll be writing about two that could be considered as challengers, Atlantic and Stax-Volt, in the days ahead.) No, the unbelievable success, both artistically and commercially, that the label achieved is a given; what has to be explored is how they did it and what the story can teach us.

A good place to start for anyone who wishes to do so is the film, Standing in the Shadows of Motown (2002), which tells the story of the label from the perspective of the musicians. The central cast of whom were known as the Funk Brothers, accomplished jazz musicians playing in clubs around the Detroit area who were recruited by label founder Berry Gordy to form a session band which could record in a number of styles at a rapid rate, with a high level of quality and, perhaps most importantly, with the capability of making on-the-spot creative contributions to the songs. And the plan worked. Because of them, the interaction that is heard on the records is at a level much higher than that heard on any other pop or r&b recordings (right up to and including the present, to my ears). Their ability to process information and to play with rhythmic power as well as high degrees of sensitivity and subtlety came from their jazz backgrounds, where these qualities are expected.

A few days ago, I wrote that many of the best bands were racially integrated, which the Funk Brothers were as well, and proudly so. And yesterday, in writing about the Foundations, I mentioned that they were integrated in terms of both race and age. Motown could be considered as having gone even a further step, in a way, by integrating high-level jazz musicianship with equally excellent pop/r&b songwriting, singing and performing. The results sound like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz-UvQYAmbg.

I've always felt that the Foundations' 1968 hit "Build Me Up Buttercup" is one of the most beautifully constructed pop songs - and the fact that David Johansen, who has impeccable taste, covered it on his 1982 Live It Up concert album kind of clinches it for me. It could be argued that the writers were trying to emulate the Motown sound, but my response to that would be "Great!" (I'm a huge Motown fan). The song contains all kinds of interesting harmonic ideas - including secondary dominant chords and chords taken from the family of subdominant minor - that give it forward motion, and perhaps the most sought-after of compositional qualities: inevitability. The group, formed in London in 1967, was integrated not only racially but also in terms of age: the range went from 18 to 38. They had an interesting career, with a lot of good records (including another smash, "Baby, Now That I've Found You" from 1967), but for me, this one's alone at the top. It's one of my very favourite records. Here's the best-sounding link I could find (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bhrVXStJIM), but the person who put it up used a picture of the Temptations by accident - so here's a shot of the real group: http://www.amazon.com/Very-Best-Foundations/dp/B000R02JSO

I think it would be a fair statement to say that a very considerable percentage of the greatest rock groups were racially integrated. I've written about a couple of them already - Sly and the Family Stone and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, specifically - and I'll continue with some others in the days ahead. For today, I'll just mention the Del-Vikings (what a name! and nobody's sure of its origin either), the doo-wop quintet formed in Pittsburgh who created what some have called the greatest rock and roll record, "Come Go with Me" in 1957. I'm not sure I would go quite that far, but I do know this: I can't listen to it without smiling (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1eU_lDQaVM), which brings to mind the philosopher, Herbert Spencer saying that music was the highest of the arts because, more than any other, it "ministers to human welfare".

I suppose that one of the big reasons that I still appreciate punk rock so much is that as a teenager, when I was just discovering my interest in music, it was a form that allowed my friends and me to participate. It's a bit like folk in that way: if you want to play, you can. (Of course, participation is the point of music in general, and one of the reasons that I write this blog is to help me to formulate my ideas on the experience of listening to music and how we can make that enterprise as active as possible.) Folk and punk also share the fact that they have goals outside of the aesthetic: beauty is not really the aim, it's rather more about argument and the consequent changing of minds.

The Clash, in many ways, were the best embodiment of these ideals, as they wrote about their times from a street-level perpective that still seems entirely relevant. "(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais" would be the song that I would select as their most representative, both lyrically and musically, as the song mixes punk with a reggae/ska beat to tell a story of attending a reggae concert and being left alone with one's thoughts, in the middle of a large crowd. (The Clash, like one of their models, Mott the Hoople, had as one of their primary subjects the rock and roll experience itself.) This song, even more than the cover of Junior Murvin's "Police and Thieves" on their first album, pointed the way that they (and the rest of the punk world) were to go in the years ahead, a journey which would culminate in their all-embracing masterpiece, Sandanista!, only two years later. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTnijX0TH-w)

One of the most insightful observations that I've ever heard regarding the purpose and/or use of high tempos in music came from a composer with whom I had the good fortune of studying a few years back. He was talking about the fact that Glenn Gould, being the iconoclast that he was, was much discussed for his vast departures from the standard tempos of well-known pieces. But he felt that his recordings were very helpful in understanding the forms or structures holding them together, because "a high tempo is like altitude; it allows you to see more of the terrain." I've never thought of tempo the same way since. Here's a short excerpt from the 1981 version of the Goldberg Variations: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpx6hJZ0-9o&feature=related

Even though the Everly Brothers had a great deal of success, especially in their early years, I still don't think that their importance is fully appreciated by modern rock fans. Born in Kentucky and into a family of musicians, they became famous with a string of big hits starting with 1957's "Bye Bye Love" and which continued to about 1965. They had multiple ups and downs along the way, including a split that lasted about ten years, but when they did perform their consistency was remarkable, and those early hits still sound amazing. Their influence as vocalists is easy to hear when you listen to the Beatles, the Beach Boys, E.L.O. or Queen - in fact any band that features harmony singing. Their comeback album, EB 84, was either vastly underappreciated (Robert Christgau gave it a C+, for example) or overlooked, which I've never been able to understand, because I hear it as brilliant. It features three splendid originals by Don Everly, as well as great songs written specifically for them by Paul McCartney ("On the Wings of a Nightingale": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_c5BsTfI4g&feature=related) and Jeff Lynne ("The Story of Me": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnyORL72xNc), among many other great tracks. You have to hear it.

Have I mentioned how much I like Jonny Greenwood as a musician? And that I'm a huge Radiohead fan? And that I'm really looking forward to their next album release? I thought so. Well, today I heard a new piece by Mr. Greenwood - part of the soundtrack he wrote for a Japanese film called Norwegian Wood - which confirmed further why I hold the three opinions listed above. It's a short work for solo guitar that is part traditional and part other-worldly, like a lot of Radiohead's music. I haven't gotten very far with analyzing it yet - that'll take a while - but I'm quite sure that it's another example of the use of asymmetrical formal concepts giving their music the rare (make that extremely rare) quality of sounding different with every listen. And the title, "Don't Read What Hasn't Been Baptized by Time", might be as beautiful as the music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-O9pC3f4OU.

I've been seeing Albert King on PBS a lot recently, playing with Stevie Ray Vaughan for the television series known as In Session (1983), and it's just great. Albert King is rarely given the respect that he deserves by the media (although that's not the case among musicians), so I'll make a simple statement here. No blues guitarist has been more influential on the generation of blues-rockers to follow. His time-feel, vocabulary, attack and pitch control have been studied and emulated by Hendrix, Clapton, Vaughan and many, many others. I'm not saying that B.B. (no relation) and Robert Johnson weren't as important - they were - but not more. And it's astonishing to realize that, like Hendrix, he was left-handed and played a right-handed guitar upside down. But unlike Hendrix, he didn't re-string it! You can see it clearly in this video from the show mentioned above: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Odemgv5eLok&feature=related. And here's "Born Under a Bad Sign", from the album of the same name recorded with the formidable Booker T. and the M.G.'s in 1967: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-f3XipcBqA&feature=related.

The ever-increasing role of technology in music has made the redefinition of sounds from the past in a new context a relatively commonplace event. Hip hop, mashup, and IDM (intelligent dance music) have all employed this approach to very creative effect. Stereolab, the collagist pop group from London, have been contributing to the concept for quite some time now, and their music has evolved into something of real interest. (By the way, I'd have to put their name among the very best I've ever heard. It's both cool and accurate. An interesting question could be raised here: Does having a good band name matter? Case in point for the negative: the Beatles.) In fact their best songs achieve the effect of sounding something like several older ones played simultaneously while overlapping with new material to create grooves that are somehow both busy and clear. A good example is "Three Women" from their 2008 album, Chemical Chords (which is another great name). Like many of their songs, it's sung in French, which adds a further layer of interest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRNGhqe4OiQ.

Further to yesterday's post, when I acknowledged having some reservations about the prevalence of the electronic approach in a lot of current popular music, what I was referring to is the following: Without instrumental expertise, the possibility of engaging in improvisation for the purpose of exploring the structure of a piece of music becomes limited. This ultimately affects the composition process itself, because an important avenue for ideas and learning is cut off. Improvising on a serious level is simply not possible without considerable time spent both in learning an instrument and in the study of music theory. My guess is that, like the best drummers recognize that it's crucial for them to learn piano, the best electronic musicians will do likewise with a variety of acoustic instruments.

New technology has widened the number of possible approaches available to musical composition. It's become possible to write, record and perform music without the use of anything even close to a traditional musical instrument. As an instrumentalist, I have mixed feelings about this, as you may have guessed. I'll get to my reservations tomorrow, but first, I should say that I do find the music of many electronic artists intriguing and diverse, rife with unusual and beautiful textures, settings and rhythms. And I listen to quite a bit of it. In fact, I've probably listened to the Mancunian duo known as Autechre (members: Sean Booth and Rob Brown) as much as any other active recording artist over the last couple of years, which is a realization that surprises me. Paradoxically, it's the human quality of their work that maintains my interest. (Thematically, I think that there's some overlap with Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times and its consideration of the effects of mechanization on human life.) My album of choice from their repertoire is Quaristice from 2008, and it's also the one that I would recommend to a listener new to their music. Here's a link for the opening track, "Altibzz": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3ZyEGTIsvE. By the way, most of their titles, and their name as well, are, like the ones above, part way between language and science fiction, and it's interesting to note the condensed, poetic quality that can be contained in "words" that aren't, strictly speaking, part of a language. Their music, I think you'll find, is equally thought-provoking in this way.

A while back, I promised to write a post on Bruckner, and here it is (finally).

After re-listening to most of his symphonies, one of the qualities that I found most apparent in the music is the fact that it is seldom easy to pinpoint the thematic relationships between the sections, even though there's no doubt that they do exist. Let me put it another way: I had a composition teacher once who liked to differentiate between music that is "agglutinative" (in the sense of something that is glued together) versus the more desirable "integrative" (in which the ideas seem to emanate naturally one from the other). Bruckner's music is certainly of the latter type, but work is required on the part of the listener to hear the precise manners in which the musical materials are related. Personally, I enjoy this type of listening, and one of the great challenges in regard to 19th century classical music is trying to find exactly how the obvious and the unexpected (i.e. the qualities mentioned in Ezra Pound's dictum on the nature of art) blend together in complex, large-scale structures. Here are the links to the second movement of Symphony No. 1 with which to give it a try: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsEofrBCTc0&NR=1 (part one) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVB5_9YBBRc&feature=related (part two).

Just as Neil Young has inspired innumerable younger rockers, he himself had similar experiences with music from before his time. One of these is very memorably documented in Heart of Gold, the 2006 concert film directed by Jonathan Demme, when Young tells the story of being away from home for a long stretch for the first time during his teenage years, and spending all of his money listening to Ian Tyson's "Four Strong Winds" on a restaurant jukebox. I'm not sure but I think this must be the version that he's referring to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjfTDPhMdTk. It's interesting to compare his studio version (from 1978's Comes a Time) to the original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfZes9fFmXc&feature=related, and also to note that both have a wistful, difficult-to-describe quality that can also be found throughout the amazing body of work that Young has written in the forty years (and change) of his career. Obviously that jukebox money was well spent.

One of the coolest tributes to another artist that I've ever seen was done by Wilco when they backed up Neil Young at Montreal's Bell Centre in December of 2008. And as opposed to simply covering one of his songs, which would have been fine but a much more obvious way of doing it, they chose from their own repertoire the songs that seemed to be the most clearly influenced by the great songwriter. Among them were some of the best songs from what I consider to be their greatest album, Sky Blue Sky (2007), including "Hate it Here" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkIgSMOJeOs) and "You Are My Face" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0O89XxpLOg). Give them a listen and I think you'll hear what I mean right away. Then, if you haven't already, listen to the whole album.

(I should also mention that the next time I saw them, in February of this year, they did a rousing medley of "Mr. Soul" and "Broken Arrow", which can also be heard on YouTube. I won't link it though, because I've yet to find one that sounds very good. Please let me know if you do.)

One of the reasons that I enjoy writing this blog is because so many musical experiences have been opened up for me over the years by things I've read that I'd like to try to do some small thing to reciprocate. Reading something about a piece of music gives us a reference point with which we can either agree or disagree, but either way it gets the thinking going, so it's useful. And of course, musical concepts grow with both listening and thinking (I keep coming back to what Keith Jarrett said about his music being more influenced by non-musical ideas than musical ones). Criticism, whether it's done by professional critics or by a friend in a cafe, is what keeps music alive. If we stop talking about it, we'll stop thinking about it - and then listening to it would be next - a horrifying prospect. Let's not let that happen. Let's keep talking, writing and thinking about music, and not let anything stop us. Yeah!

OK, the following song ("Flowers on the Wall" by the Statler Brothers) is a good example, because it's one that took on a lot more resonance for me because of something I read in a non-fiction piece by Kurt Vonnegut in his collection of essays called Palm Sunday (1981). He called it both one of the most accurate portrayals of the results of divorce and an example of great American art. I agree and would add that it's also beautifully composed and sung: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBZNTW2BIaQ&feature=related)

The subjects of Stephen Sondheim's musicals are almost always surprising. One example would be the fairy tale setting of Into the Woods (1987) which gradually transforms into a story of modern family life. And then there's Assassins (1990), which is as disturbing as its title. Sunday in the Park with George (1984), about the pointillist painter Georges Seurat, must be considered among the most unlikely concepts to make it to Broadway, although Sweeney Todd (1979) would surely be in the running. Company (1970) however, at first anyway, doesn't seem unusual in this regard, but after seeing it we realize that its subject matter is daring as well, because it's about the psychological complexity and essential loneliness of upper middle class people, the very people that are in the audience. Here's the opening to a version starring the great Broadway actor Raul Esparza, with its title song that is pure Sondheim: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJsd_Cvk_rw

I saw a very interesting piece on Stephen Sondheim's new book, Finishing the Hat, last night and it reminded me of how great he is both as a composer and a lyricist. Seeing a first-rate production of one of his musicals is an unforgettable experience, and one is often left with the feeling that appreciation for his work is going to grow with time, even though he's already regarded as one of the greatest artists in the history of musical theater. One reason for his eminence is the fact that he's not afraid to explore emotions that most writers would avoid. In Sweeney Todd (1979), it's the degree to which people can be motivated by revenge, for example. In the next few days, I'm going to write a couple of posts on the great composer (who turned eighty this year) in this space, and I'll also be writing about one of the interesting comments that he made in the interview mentioned above in my Shakespeare blog (linked on the right) later today. Here's "My Friends", from Tim Burton's film version of Sweeney Todd, which brilliantly evokes the cross purposes of the two central characters, in both lyrics and music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whhAMSSexQ8

Of all the great albums released in the early days of punk (i.e. mid to late seventies), the most surprising was the Damned's third album, Machine Gun Etiquette (1979). The group, which seemed to be finished after a disastrous second album (ironically titled Music for Pleasure) and the departure of Brian James (their guitarist and primary songwriter), reformed with Captain Sensible moving from the bass to the guitar, Algy Ward taking the bass duties, and the entire band contributing to the songwriting. I clearly remember not expecting it to be any good at all. I was shocked and delighted to find that it wasn't good - it was great. It's still one of my favourite punk albums. What else could it be, with absolutely amazings songs such as "Love Song", "Melody Lee", the epic "Plan 9 Channel 7" and the sublime "Smash it Up (Parts 1 and 2)" (link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux1Za8Wmz_s). It also features a blistering version of the MC5's "Looking at You", which showed their knowledge and taste. In other words, they had finally found material that was a match for Dave Vanian's splendid singing and their powerhouse rhythm section. And on guitar, Sensible instantly proved himself to be a brilliant rock and roll six-stringer. Thirty years later, they're still out there (occasionally) which almost certainly would not have been the case without this record.

Another interesting moment in the DVD called, Keith Jarrett: The Art of Improvisation is when, after a soundcheck, both members of the Standards Trio rhythm section (Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette) sit down at separate pianos (apparently Jarrett likes to choose one at the last minute) and begin improvising together. The fact that every member of the trio is a multi-instrumentalist isn't a big surprise, but the way that Peacock described the importance of the piano in an interview segment was: He got to the essence of the instrument by saying that it's vital for a bassist, for any musician really, to play the piano because "it provides context", which is a very cool way of saying harmony ("setting" is another good one). It reminded me of the fact that notes only have meaning in relation to other notes, and that these relationships can become increasingly complex and interesting when we take the time to listen with this in mind. (It also explains why perfect pitch is of no importance in the making of music - it's entirely based on relative pitch, i.e. hearing the notes in context.) I once had a teacher who said that Gary Peacock was his favourite bassist because "every note he plays is a surprise and yet somehow just right". I suppose a lifetime of intense harmonic study had something to do with it. Here he is in another great trio, with Paul Bley and Paul Motian, playing "Don't You Know" from their 1999 album, Not Two Not One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RidEEFURoAs

I mentioned Merle Haggard the other day (in a post on Gram Parsons) and it occurred to me that I once saw him on television talking about how difficult it was for older artists to get their material heard these days in an increasingly superficial mass-media culture. And it's really too bad because many popular music artists continue to grow and explore well past the age that people wrongly consider the prime years (i.e. the twenties and thirties). Music, like everything else, should be judged on merit, quality, substance, intention. People who dismiss the work of older artists for no reason other than prejudice are either wrong or trying to sell something that can't be bought.

This brings me to today's subject: Ian Hunter's Man Overboard (2009) is a masterpiece that should be heard by everyone who cares about rock and roll, and "Arms and Legs" is one of the most powerful love songs he's written (which is saying a lot): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNd4R0yNPm4

I was very pleased to find the video linked below on YouTube. It's one of my all-time favourite performances: Keith Jarrett's Standards Trio, with Jack DeJohnette and Gary Peacock, doing a live version of "Green Dolphin Street". The players, both individually and collectively, are probably the best in the world, and have been for some time, in fact. The song, originally written for a 1947 movie of the same name, is now widely considered as one of the most productive vehicles that an improvisor can play. It contains a lot, in other words, and in the hands of great jazz musicians it begins to yield up musical ideas the way a prism refracts light. It's a perfect song, in my opinion, and this version is probably the best one I've heard: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCSQbxzJyoU

Probably the most interesting moment in the excellent DVD entitled, Keith Jarrett: The Art of Improvisation (2005), is the following exchange between the subject and the director, Mike Dibb:

"How important are other things than music in influencing the way you think?"

"More important than music."

"Like writing, philosophy."

"More important than music."

"Really?"

"Yes. You know, one of the biggest fallacies in art circles, and in music circles maybe when people talk about it, is that music comes from music. It's like saying babies come from babies. It's not true. That isn't what happens. Music is the result of a process the musician is going through, especially if he's creating it on the spot."

I found this simply astonishing, and I've been thinking about it at length since seeing the video the other day. As I mentioned above, it's thought-provoking to say the least. We find out shortly thereafter that one of Jarrett's biggest extra-musical inspirations is the philosophy of George Gurdjieff, and that he recorded an album of Gurdjieff's music called Sacred Hymns in 1980. Here is the only link that I could find for one of the tracks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYNyZ1iKbOA. And here's a link to one of Jarrett's clavichord improvisations from his 1986 recording, Book of Ways: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5RfzrztvaA&feature=related. More on Jarrett in posts to come.

The more time that you spend with a particular form of artistic expression - music in this case - the more likely it is that you'll eventually come to a conclusion something like this one: Art doesn't improve over time, as opposed to science or medicine for example, and we can't say with any certainty that today's musicians are creating music that is more advanced, or that contains more emotional impact than, say, Bach did. And the more that we listen to earlier music, the more apparent this truth becomes. Artists of any time period are faced with the same problem (or challenge, if you prefer): to convert their experiences into something lasting. So while it is true that artists as individuals improve with time, in terms of technical proficiency and so on, art itself doesn't. That's my opinion, anyway, and to illustrate the point, here is one of the greatest of country songs: Don Gibson's "Oh Lonesome Me", recorded in 1958 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ6JVkLcibM).

The Flying Burrito Brothers' The Gilded Palace of Sin (1969) contains two consecutive oddly-named tracks ("Hot Burrito #1" and "Hot Burrito #2") written by Gram Parsons and the bassist, Chris Ethridge, that were probably one of the high points of Parsons' short, great career. The two songs are different in almost every way despite the titles, and they still strike me as the kind of work that widens the conceptual possibilities of a style of music. As Dylan had done for both folk and rock, Parsons did for the combination of rock and country.

I was hoping to be able to provide links to both tunes, but it seems like full versions are not available at the moment, due to copyright issues or something. This video, apparently part of a documentary that I haven't seen yet, is the best that I can do at the moment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-od3vmRaLHE, but really, the whole album is a must-listen.

After his work on the Byrds' classic, Sweetheart of the Rodeo, Gram Parsons left the group and took Chris Hillman with him. Together they formed the songwriting team that was at the center of one of my favourite groups of all time, The Flying Burrito Brothers. Their first album, the sublimely-named, The Gilded Palace of Sin (1969) is a perfectly proportioned blend of country, rock, soul and fun. Because Parsons' singing, writing and performing is based on a kind of naive exuberance, the listener can't help but feel a part of things and root for him. This song and video, "Christine's Tune" with Hillman and then Parsons alternating lead vocal duties and then combining to provide an Everly Brothers-influenced harmony, is a good example. It's the album's first track and features some psychedelic pedal steel from the virtuosic Sneaky Pete Kleinow: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BITiY8M_oDo. More on this record tomorrow.

The Byrds' sixth album, Sweetheart of the Rodeo (1968) was the first country-rock album and probably one of the most important recordings in popular music. The driving force behind its sound was the band's newest member, Gram Parsons, a twenty-one year-old Harvard theology student from central Florida, who gave up university life when he heard country music (Merle Haggard, according to the legend). After moving to Los Angeles, he formed the International Submarine Band, with whom he recorded one album, Safe at Home (1968). Then came the Byrds, who followed his influence into making the ground-breaking recording mentioned above. Parsons wrote two songs for the record (the rest were covers): "Hickory Wind" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VX-GdOTw9A) and "One Hundred Years from Now" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_9AXakWgxQ&feature=related). More on the short, brilliant career of GP tomorrow.

Duke Ellington is a musician that should be listened to for many reasons. But one aspect of his artistry that gets too little attention, in my opinion, is his piano playing. His approach to the instrument is unique - he treats it like a miniature version of his orchestra (or band, if you prefer), and plays it in a way that reflects his composing and arranging skills, as opposed to most pianists who are thinking primarily as improvisers.

Ellington's music always makes me think of the contrast between the words theory and practice. Music theory is a well-named discipline: it deals with ideas about how music works, but it results in questions more often than answers, and to put it simply, there is much more to learn than is already known. Ellington's music is based on the concept of practice - the fact that he wrote and arranged vast quantities of music over a period of six decades - and that he was always looking for the most specific and beautiful way of solving each musical challenge. There's a freedom and originality in his music that distinguishes it from virtually everything else. Here's "In a Sentimental Mood" from the essential recording Duke Ellington & John Coltrane (1962), which I think will better illustrate what I'm trying to say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCQfTNOC5aE

Charlie Parker is usually given most, if not all, of the credit for the development of bebop - the complex, chromatic, almost scientific approach to jazz improvisation that has been the music's center ever since. He certainly deserves his share, but the other musicians who were there at the breakthrough jam sessions at Minton's Playhouse in Harlem in 1941, especially Dizzy Gillespie and the guitarist, Charlie Christian, deserve some as well. At the very least, they seem to have been at the same place, stylistically, at the same moment. In fact, Christian may have arrived there first. Proving this contention would require more knowledge in the fields of musicology and history than I have at my disposal, but one thing is for sure: Charlie Christian is among the most important and accomplished musicians in jazz, as well as the first great electric guitarist. Some would even argue that he still hasn't been surpassed on the instrument. And we're left to wonder what he could have done had he lived past the age of twenty-five. Here's "Stompin' at the Savoy", recorded at Minton's: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x52x5hjpD5k

Yesterday was the second time that I've mentioned Wes Montgomery in passing, and it occurred to me that since he is among the most important of jazz guitarists and one of my favourite musicians I had better dedicate a post to him, pronto. To the guitar, he occupies the same sort of position that Sonny Rollins or John Coltrane does in terms of the saxophone: Although none of these names were there at the very beginning of either jazz or bebop, as was the case for Charlie Christian and Charlie Parker, they stand shoulder to shoulder with any musician in jazz.

Montgomery's playing is striking in many regards - his soloing in octaves, his seemingly infinite vocabulary, the logic of his solo constructions, his thrilling interaction with his bands - but perhaps above all is his unique way of playing and placing swing eighth notes. I use the word "placing" because of his amazing ability to play behind the beat, and to make not only his own but every member of the band's contributions sound larger, heavier and more beautiful. Perhaps the best place to hear these qualities is the album called, Smokin' at the Half Note from 1965 with the Wynton Kelly trio. To give you an idea of its importance, Pat Metheny once called it the album that taught him how to play, and he certainly wasn't alone in that experience. Montgomery has probably had a larger influence on later jazz guitarists than anyone. Here is "If You Could See Me Now", the track that contains what Metheny called his "favourite jazz guitar solo of all time": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvf7DWerPy4

One of the coolest things about the guitar is that there isn't only one right way to play it. It seems like anything goes: all kinds of postures, a variety of fretting hand techniques, and even more ways of striking the strings. Two of the greatest guitarists in jazz, Django Reinhardt and Wes Montgomery, for example, had inimitable styles - due to a technical limitation in the case of the former (an injury to two fingers on his fretting hand), and a technical decision in the case of the latter (Montgomery played with his thumb - apparently so that he could practice late at night without waking his children). For a small, relatively primitive instrument (a piece of wood with strings on it) it has produced an astonishing variety of music, and a big reason for that is the seemingly endless ways guitarists find to play it.

One of my favourite guitarists is Lindsey Buckingham, primarily because of his virtuosic right hand technique. And it was a highly memorable concert experience a few years back - 2007, it was - when I got to see him in the relatively intimate setting of Montreal's Metropolis. (Usually, with Fleetwood Mac, he plays in much larger venues.) And I remember wondering, after he had walked out on the stage, by himself, and played the title track from Under the Skin (2006), about how someone could do something like that. It was one of those moments that inspires late night practice sessions for other guitarists. It did for me anyway. Maybe this clip will do the same for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoYMvwhMf_A&feature=related

Rhyme can be important to lyrics in all kinds of ways - everything from humour to ease of memorization to providing formal restrictions that paradoxically lead to creativity. But today I'd like to write about a song lyric that deliberately doesn't rhyme. "Moonlight in Vermont", by Karl Suessdorf and John Blackburn, had always puzzled me because of how its words flow perfectly without the use of any of the various types of rhyme (Wikipedia lists about fifteen, by the way). And so I took another look at the lyrics, and then I realized that there was indeed a form to them which I hadn't noticed before - the three verses are all haikus. Have a look:

Pennies in a stream

Falling leaves, a sycamore

Moonlight in Vermont

Icy finger-waves

Ski trails on a mountainside

Snowlight in Vermont

Telegraph cables, they sing down the highway

And travel each bend in the road

People who meet in this romantic setting

Are so hypnotized by the lovely...

Ev'ning summer breeze

Warbling of a meadowlark

Moonlight in Vermont

Telegraph cables, how they sing down the highway

And they travel each bend in the road

People who meet in this romantic setting

Are so hypnotized by the lovely...

Ev'ning summer breeze

The warbling of a meadowlark

Moonlight in Vermont

Why the haiku form is so powerful is another interesting question, but that'll be for another day. For now, here is Frank Sinatra's version from Come Fly with Me (1958), with a glistening arrangement by Billy May: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbrPen0tqxM.

And here is an instrumental version by the great Nat King Cole trio, from which Bill Evans fans will be able to clearly hear the influence that Cole had on Evans' playing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKB_RpYvDNM&feature=related

Lou Reed's Ecstasy (2000) is another album that, for some reason, I didn't get around to hearing until very recently. My loss. It's a tremendous album, with some of the most trenchant lyrical content that the great New York poet has ever written. Listening to it made me wonder if any rock and roller has ever considered the experience as completely as Reed has over the course of his career - which has now achieved a height in terms of importance that can be summarized thus: No serious rock musician or fan can be ignorant of his work.

The album's title track is notable for its mood, its ambiguous lyrics, its beautiful guitar figure and the playing of the great jazz percussionist Don Alias. Have a listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIg8KUMW8TA

Another song that's notable for its honesty is Leonard Cohen's "The Land of Plenty", the last track on his highly recommended Ten New Songs from 2001. The lyrics deal with the uncertainty that people may feel when they find themselves on a public stage, particularly after some years and self-knowledge have entered into the equation, and the prevailing feeling of day-to-day life is self-doubt. In this case, the message that the narrator feels he's been selected to convey transcends his reticence. It raises an interesting proposition to consider: Are human beings at their best only when they're at their most idealistic?

Here's a link to the song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHMxKgNbATo), a masterpiece in 6/8 time, without a note out of place.

I've mentioned several times that honesty is one of the main things that I look for in an artist, and I was reminded of that again recently when I finally got around to listening to Ian Hunter's dazzling 2009 release, Man Overboard. I guess I had been listening to so much Mott the Hoople as I followed their surprise reunion via the internet that I ended up putting off hearing his latest album. Well, I was wrong to do so - it's great, one of his best, and it'll be in heavy rotation on my CD player for the foreseeable future. OK, now back to the point about honesty. The first track is called "The Great Escape" and it tells a vivid story, about running away from a fight with a thug, that is rare in its candor - most rock singers refer to themselves as if they're comic book characters (or something) who never back down from anything. Well, that's quite simply not the the way things really are, no matter how much some might pretend otherwise, and to put it simply, violence is the lowest form of human behaviour. Hunter's truthfulness has always set him apart, and it's always been at the center of his songwriting power. Man Overboard shows that he's continuing to prove it into his seventies. Lyrics: http://lyrics.wikia.com/Ian_Hunter:The_Great_Escape. Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoA2OJf5aRQ

I can't verify the following story - I heard it from a recording engineer some years back - but it does have a ring of truth to it, so here it is. Apparently when the great Montreal-born rock singer Michel Pagliaro was recording his biggest English-language hits in London in the seventies, he had to do all of the backing vocals himself. The reason was that his singing was so perfectly in tune that even the slightest variation in pitch from any other singer would have been clearly audible. As I mentioned above, I can't be sure if the story is true, but I do know that Pag is one of the great singers in rock and roll. Here's "Lovin' You Ain't Easy", from 1971: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3BTGK6yfcw. Let me know what you think - do all the voices belong to Pag?

I don't know about you, but I'm anxiously anticipating the new Radiohead album. It could be out soon, or in several months - no one knows (probably not even them). The only thing that we do know is that they're in the studio, which is cool. So while we're waiting, I thought that I would write something about their last official release, "These Are My Twisted Words", the free download single from August of 2009. Musically, the song is an experiment in texture, overlapping rhythms, and the magnetic pulls exerted by the use of harmonic pedals (i.e. a tone repeated throughout a progression), and for me anyway, it's one of their most interesting and beautiful pieces. The lyrics are very sparse (there are only eleven lines, and they don't begin until just before the song's midway point), but they're suggestive of a larger hidden structure, somewhat similar to the leafless tree branches in the accompanying artwork by Stanley Donwood and Thom Yorke (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/These_Are_My_Twisted_Words). So give it a listen (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0Rvz-z5Kqw) and repeat as necessary, while we wait.

I'm always amazed at what a great song was produced by the one-time-only collaboration of Queen and David Bowie. "Under Pressure" (1981) must be considered as one of the most dazzling pop music singles ever. Its lyrical content, reminiscent thematically of Nick Lowe's "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding", sneaks up on the listener through the use of short phrases, tenuously connected, with little or no narrative, but with a mood of high drama and urgency. And the personalities of the singers, Bowie, Mercury and later in the song, the drummer Roger Taylor (who as a vocalist is almost as technically gifted as Mercury was, and who wrote the tune, called "Feel Like", that was the seed for the one in question) come through very distinctively on their own and at other points combine to powerful effect. The song's through-composed nature reminds me, a long-time Queen fan, of some of their greatest early songs, "My Fairy King" from their self-named first album (1973) for example. And most importantly, the song's charged atmosphere seems like the result of genuine sentiment: an honest wish for some good in the world. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtrEN-YKLBM)

"Family Affair", the number one hit from 1971 for Sly and the Family Stone, is a song that gets covered a lot, and every time I hear it done, I want to hear the original again right away. I do admire the taste shown by anyone who would do one of their tunes, but on this one Sly's lead vocal performance (as well as the second vocal by his sister, Rose) is so distinctive and informed by so much musical and life experience that I'm surprised that anyone would take it on. Lyrically, the song is a powerful discussion of where the fault lines appear in lives put under extreme pressure: the home life.

Imagine a time when a number one hit could generate this amount of feeling and empathy without resorting to sentimentality (by which I mean unoriginal and/or dishonest thinking). And if you think I'm just being nostalgic, have a look at the current Billboard charts. Anyway, here's a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YZpbYqOw4o&feature=related

It's easy to see now that Sly and the Family Stone was one of the most important groups of all time. In some ways, in fact, they might be at the top of the list. Their attitude was to synthesize all the disparate elements that had come before them, not only the musical ones, but also in terms of race, gender and outlook, and to provide a model of what an intelligent, inclusive, fun-loving society might look like in the future. It could be argued that philosophically speaking, no one tops them. It could also be argued that very little of today's pop music, rock and roll or r&b hasn't been influenced by them. The song that exemplifies all of this best is probably "Everyday People", from Stand!, their masterpiece from 1969 (link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hcgoLojOVo). Tomorrow, another of their great succession of singles, but one of a considerably different tone.

I'm always amazed by how the blues, a seemingly simple form, can produce so much music of complete originality. Reduced to its basics, it contains three chords and a five-note scale. But that's not it at all, of course. The blues is a concept: a study in contrasts in terms of harmony, rhythm, tone, emotional content and attitude - all of it held together by its deceptively straightforward form. And, as I've mentioned before, the restrictions that an artist places on him or herself actually (paradoxically) lead to freedom. Robert Frost once said that writing free-verse poetry (i.e. without restrictions) was like "playing tennis without a net". And the same can be done in music.

Of all the artists that have explored the blues form, very few have gone as far as Eric Clapton. In the days ahead, I'm going to re-listen to several of his great albums from the past as well as his brand new one called, Clapton (2010), and write about the experience in this space shortly. For now, here's the opening track, a version of Melvin Jackson's "Travelin' Alone", with a melody that led to me writing the first sentence above: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xgaWpQojMI

Steely Dan's Walter Becker is best known for his compositional skills. He has worked in tandem with Donald Fagen for over forty years in what would have to be considered one of the very greatest of songwriting teams. And just as Fagen has released sparkling solo albums (three, actually), so has Becker (with two). The first of the two albums has not received as much attention as it deserved, in my opinion, so I'll be writing about it today.

11 Tracks of Whack (1994), co-produced with Fagen, is one of my favourite records. The opening track (of twelve, despite the title), "Down in the Bottom", sets the mood and the subject matter for the rest of the record: the attempted suburban escape of drug addicts and others bearing emotional scars from earlier, faster lives. It features a powerful vocal performance by Becker, who is hugely under-rated as a vocalist. The strength of his singing comes from his deep musical experience rather than his timbre, so it requires thoughtful listening to fully appreciate - he's a bit like Wilco's Jeff Tweedy in that respect, in fact - and this song is a good place to do it: the melody is beautifully contoured and he lays it out perfectly. Becker's guitar skills are on display here as well, and they're prodigious; he's equally at home in jazz and blues, and he crosses from one to the other freely, often in the same line. The album is filled with great playing, singing, grooves, melodies and lyrics. You should hear it. Here's an interesting track ("Medical Science") that's available only on the Japanese release: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAhh2IKdd5I

I have one other thing to say in my brief defense of the Rolling Stones: At times, it may not be clear why they are so famous. Other groups have singers who dance around, and wild-looking guitarists, and they play concerts and make recordings as well. And of course, in our time fame itself has become an art form, as the media and technology work together to make Warhol's famous prediction look like a statement of fact. But the reality is this: the Rolling Stones aren't famous for their life-styles or their clothes, or any other peripheral matters (that have been emulated countless times); the Rolling Stones are famous because they can play like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtnxvpIEg8w

To this day very few groups have ever done a version of a Beatles song and come out on top. In my opinion, it's been done precisely once, by the Rolling Stones with their version of Lennon and McCartney's "I Wanna Be Your Man" from 1963. I very much like the Beatles' version as well, but the Stones made it sound like the perfect fusion of their blues and r&b roots (of the twenty-four songs on their first two albums, four were originals) and their own distinctive sound. It's clear that it was an important moment in their development as songwriters, in that it gave them the confidence of knowing that their education could make songs written anywhere (even right in front of them) sound like the real deal. The following video features Lennon telling the song's story, excerpts from both versions, and Keith's Beatlesque headshake tribute: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8QEX3_aVig

I mentioned yesterday that the Rolling Stones were fed by American music - rock and roll, r&b and the blues - and that they returned the favour by breathing life into each of them. (In fact a strong case could be made that American music was treated with more reverence and scholarship by English bands in the sixties than by their American counterparts.) But I didn't mention the relationship that the Stones had with country music, and how many of their greatest songs were from the genre. And it's not a coincidence that their classic period - from 1968 to 1972, when they released four straight masterpieces (Beggars' Banquet, Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main Street) - was also the time during which they were most involved with country, both in terms of composition and the integration of its rhythms and sounds into their rock and roll. Consider this list: "Factory Girl", "Salt of the Earth", "Dear Doctor", "Country Honk", "You Got the Silver", "Dead Flowers", "Wild Horses", "Sweet Virginia", "Torn and Frayed". And then there's my favourite Stones country song, "Faraway Eyes" from 1978's Some Girls, with its beautifully sung chorus, its unforgettable truck-driving narrator and his girl with "well, you know what kinda eyes she got": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDnZBvCetQM

It may sound somewhat strange, but one of the greatest things about the Rolling Stones is that their music doesn't always work. By that I mean that their musical concept, based as it is on the idea of freedom - which for them has always been embodied by an imaginative America, and particularly the sound of its blues, r&b and rock and roll - has a poly-rhythmic, open quality that is unpredictable in terms of results. But this is a good thing: at their best, their multi-faceted rhythms are awesomely compelling, and even when they aren't, the music is still very interesting. They understand that it's possible to over-rehearse rock and roll music, and that one of its most powerful qualities is that some moments will come once and never again. For an example, here is one of their greatest songs - "Gimme Shelter" - which has an intro that has never sounded exactly like the one on the recorded version (from 1969's Let it Bleed), whether played by them or anyone else, a second time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhBpUJcpiCg&feature=related

One of the best music critics writing today is Alex Ross, the classical music critic at the New Yorker. I've mentioned him before because of his splendid article on Radiohead ("The Searchers"), from which I learned a lot about their unique working process. I also enjoyed The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, his 2007 book that lives up to its title, and I continue to enjoy his blog - here's a link: http://www.therestisnoise.com/noise/. But yesterday, while having a look at NPR's excellent music site (http://www.npr.org/music/), I found an interview with Ross regarding his just-released book (Listen to This, which I will look forward to reading soon) wherein he answered a question regarding music that he doesn't care for, with this: "I respect Anton Bruckner and The Rolling Stones — to make a weird duo — but I can't say that I love either of them. I try not to dismiss things too quickly, but the 'blech' reaction is hard to ignore once it kicks in." This surprised me, and I've decided to take it as a challenge. And since I've learned a great deal from his writings, I'll try to reciprocate in writing a defense of the Stones, starting tomorrow, and after some research and listening, Bruckner in a couple of weeks. By the way, here's one last link - to the interview in question: http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2010/11/08/131169818/get-to-know-a-critic-alex-ross-of-the-new-yorker.

Hoagy Carmichael was one of the most sophisticated composers of popular music. He should be ranked with people like Strayhorn, Ellington, Porter and Gershwin. And it's interesting to note that of that group, he is the only one to have made multiple recordings as a vocalist. Although there are vocal recordings of the others out there (try to hear Strayhorn singing "Lush Life", if you can - but it isn't easy to find), they were incidental to their main work. Carmichael, on the other hand, considered it a central part of his art, and it's fascinating to listen to. His version of "Skylark", for example, is probably my favourite, and that's saying something, because it has been recorded beautifully numerous times, but his unadorned, unaffected treatment seems to reveal information about the song's structure and origin, which of course only its composer could do. Unfortunately, I can't find it on YouTube, but here's a good recording of his wonderful "Memphis in June" instead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZnwIMw8emc

The terms "verse" and "chorus" don't have the same meaning in jazz as they do in rock. In rock, the chorus is a repeated big moment, which often makes use of the title in the lyric, and which usually contains the most memorable and energetic melody (i.e. the hook). The verse is a repeated section that leads to the chorus, and the bridge is a section that usually appears just once (but sometimes more), and is neither the verse nor the chorus. In jazz, via the broadway tradition, a verse is a written introduction with lyrics that permits a connection from a conversation to full-blown singing. The chorus is the main body of the song, often repeated many times for the purpose of improvisation. The term "refrain" is a synonym for chorus, by the way, and you can hear a reference to that term, and to the verse, in Cole Porter's "De-Lovely", where the chorus (or refrain, if you prefer) starts with the lyric, "The night is young...". Here's a link to Sarah Vaughan's version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PREOtMaDvI&feature=related

OK, now I'd like to return to yesterday's subject, Chet Baker: As a singer, he was among the most poignant interpreters of a lyric, and as a trumpeter, he displayed a deeper respect for the words of songs than do most improvisers. One of the ways that this is evident is in the fact that his recorded versions of standards would often include the verse, rather than a short intro and statement of the melody before repeated choruses of soloing. In this version of Gershwin's "But Not for Me", the opening trumpet melody is actually the verse of the song, which very few jazz musicians would have included. Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_f_mMJAezM.

The deep connection between music and language is an interesting avenue of thought and study. In the past I've written a few times about the relationship between literature and music, specifically how the best rock bands are always the ones that are the most well-read. And it happens in jazz too. Chet Baker, as both trumpeter and vocalist, was an artist who allowed his work to be informed by both sides of the equation. His playing has a vocal quality, and his singing is reminiscent of his trumpet-playing. In fact, his vocal improvising is hard to distinguish from his instrumental work. You can hear it clearly on "Do It the Hard Way", where his vocal solo is every bit as sophisticated as the one that follows it - by the excellent Kenny Drew on piano. Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VWOO4U0ABs. More on Chet tomorrow.

Leonard Feather, the jazz musician and writer, had wonderful descriptive abilities. What he wrote in regard to the great trumpeter Chet Baker's singing has always stuck with me: It's "like being sweet-talked by the void." Here is a link to Baker's performance of "I Get Along Without You Very Well (Except Sometimes)", that I think illustrates the uncanniness of both that description, and Baker's uniquely beautiful vocal style: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgbPHTBiAVQ&feature=fvst. More on him and the song's composer (Hoagy Carmichael) in posts to come.

I was listening to one of the most underrated of Rolling Stones albums today, Black and Blue from 1976, and was struck once again by how well they play, and by how Charlie Watts is always at the center of it. The album is really varied in terms of genre - there's disco ("Hot Stuff"), reggae (Eric Donaldson's "Cherry Oh Baby"), funk ("Hey Negrita"), swing ("Melody"), rock and roll ("Hand of Fate" and "Crazy Mama") and perhaps the greatest ballad that the band ever recorded, "Memory Motel" - a song that describes the emotional effects of touring with great acuity. (It's interesting that another candidate for the honour of best Stones ballad also uses m-based alliteration, "Moonlight Mile".) And throughout all of it is Watts' brilliant sound and time-feel (the former is the result of the latter, by the way). Here's "Memory Motel": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7so3BNXUE0I. Check out the beautiful playing of Billy Preston on keyboards, Richards' great vocal contributions, and the drum entry.

The multi-instrumentalist Toots Thielemans, one of the greatest artists in jazz, is eighty-eight years of age and continues to record and concertize. He began his career as a guitarist, and in 1959 Hamburg, the young John Lennon and George Harrison often went to hear his noon-time shows with the George Shearing Quintet, but he's perhaps better known for his harmonica playing and whistling. In fact, he is usually considered to be the greatest harmonica player in jazz. He's also a great composer, and one of his songs, "Bluesette", has reached iconic status as one of the most creative and challenging blues-based pieces in the jazz standard repertoire. Here's a really fine version of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKnG_9q4crA. By the way, Thielemans is performing tonight in Sint-Niklaas, in his native Belgium.

James Jamerson, the virtuosic Motown bassist, probably did more for the success of the label than anyone. There are several reasons for this, the most vital being that music is usually "polarized" in nature, by that I mean that the melody or soprano voice (on top) and the bass line (on the bottom) are the two most active parts in the majority of music. The inner voices, the alto and tenor, have their moments certainly, but for the most part their role is to fill in the middle in the most sonorous way possible. Ergo, the two most important musicians on most pop records are the singer and the bassist. Now Motown's singers have become among the most famous in history (Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye, etc.), but the musicians who played on the records didn't. There was an attempt at redressing the situation with the 2002 film, Standing in the Shadows of Motown (which took its title from a 1989 book about Jamerson's life and work), and it did to a large degree - it's a great movie, by the way - but it came too late for many of the musicians, and particularly the most accomplished and most important artist on the label's roster. I'll be writing more on him in the days ahead, but for now here's a good example of his brilliance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JmVrkRcTgo

Stevie Wonder's music is fascinating in many ways. The aspect that I'm concerned with today is the process with which he layers rhythms one on top of the other during the recording process. The best place to hear it is "Superstition", from Talking Book (1972), where he overdubbed clavinet and Moog bass parts over his original drum track. (In fact, he played everything on it but the trumpet and saxophone parts, which he wrote.) His drumming on the track, while clearly the work of a great musician (the groove is massive), is also clearly not the work of a professional drummer, in the sense that it is utterly free of memorized patterns and/or vocabulary that a studio musician relies on. The end result is one of the greatest recordings in r&b history (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8HlHpACXyw&feature=related), and one of the most influential, because it was at this point that the music began to be centered around producers and arrangers as opposed to bands and their leaders. It's somewhat ironic, because Wonder learned much of his craft from a band - the brilliant Motown hit-makers that called themselves the Funk Brothers. But that's for another day.

I've always thought it was cool that only one Led Zeppelin song features a singer from outside the band: "The Battle of Evermore" from IV (1971) is a duet sung by Robert Plant and Sandy Denny, the great folk-rock singer who had a prolific career as a solo artist and with Fairport Convention. The song was written quickly according to Page, who said that its composition began with the first time that he tried a mandolin. Moments like this one are the reason for the thinking that some musicians follow, where the belief is that the sound will lead the player, not the other way around. It certainly worked in this case. It's a rich, dramatic cut that combines the blues with Tolkien (and other folk-tale elements), and without the use of electric guitars or drums is not out of place on an album that includes "When the Levee Breaks" (for example). A lot of the credit has to go to Plant and Denny, who create an other-worldly atmosphere with their vocals. Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTuzVZsKAhY

McCoy Tyner's first album as a leader, Inception (1962), hasn't lost any of its freshness in its almost fifty years of existence. It displays all of the qualities that he has become famous for: the astonishing range of his touch (from a snowflake landing to thunder), his unique harmonic approach (based on the sound of fourths, which has since become an integral part of modern jazz), and his brilliant compositional skills (the album features four wonderful originals, each thoughtfully arranged). The two standards, "There Is No Greater Love" and "Speak Low", are among the most frequently covered in jazz, but for me, the versions here are definitive. The rhythm section of Art Davis on bass and Elvin Jones on drums is as good as they come. In fact, to fully appreciate the group, I would recommend listening to this track ("Effendi": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLulnx8QT24) three times - with the attention on each musician once. Players like these deserve it.

McCoy Tyner was twenty-one when he joined John Coltrane's quartet in 1960. He was to become the perfect pianist for the group, and one of the most influential and distinctive in jazz history. His iconic contribution to Coltrane and to jazz, although not his only one, was the concept of organizing chord voicings in fourths, as opposed to thirds which had been the norm before him. This gave his sound a modern, muscular and brash quality that supported both Coltrane's playing, which was primarily based on elaborate chord substitutions, and Elvin Jones' poly-rhythmic drumming. Like other musical pioneers, his ideas have been emulated by so many musicians that appreciating their importance by listening to the original recordings takes some effort. The best way to do this is to listen to other records in the same genre and from the same time before listening to the pioneering one. To compare a recording from 1960 to one made in 2010 is not going to work in this regard, in other words, because the later one has the advantage of being able to use everything that came before it, including perhaps even the one in question.

One of the albums that best captures Tyner's importance to the Classic Quartet is 1961's My Favorite Things. Here are the links (parts one and two) for the title track: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQsvMf8X0FY&feature=related / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt9iLDmaQwk&feature=related . You can either check out other small group jazz recordings from approximately the same era, or you can trust me: There aren't any that sound like this one. (Tomorrow, one of Tyner's recordings as a leader.)

I think I'll continue on the topic of great jazz albums for a couple of days, and today, I'll write about the only recording that the incomparable John Coltrane, as a leader, did with a singer: John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman (1963). Knowing what we do about Coltrane - that he was constantly searching for the essence of music - it's interesting to listen to him in this context, as well as to try to figure out what led him to the experience and what he took from it. His quartet at the time, which included McCoy Tyner on piano, Elvin Jones on drums, and Jimmy Garrison on bass is often considered the greatest small group in jazz history. Their adventurousness and skill is at such a level that listeners can occasionally be overwhelmed with the music's intensity. I haven't met many people that saw the group live (they were around from 1962 to 1965), but one memorable description of the experience stayed with me: Seeing the group at close quarters in a small Montreal club, said a musician acquaintance, was like "standing up in a roller coaster". I didn't doubt it a bit: I've listened to a lot of their music and it's on its own in terms of intensity. (Here's a link to a live version of "My Favorite Things", for a sample: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PpuR98N40I .)

But today's topic, the album mentioned above, shows a very different side to their playing, as they support Hartman's inspired singing and extrapolate from the melodies. And what melodies they are: "They Say It's Wonderful", "Autumn Serenade", "Dedicated to You", "My One and Only Love", and the byzantine Billy Strayhorn masterpiece, "Lush Life", all songs of extraordinary beauty, were recorded on the first take (!). Only Rodgers and Hart's "You Are Too Beautiful" needed a second. I've always considered it a shame that it was their only recording together, but it could be looked at another way: It couldn't have been topped. And it still hasn't. Here's "Lush Life": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d6_LUDa_Zw .

Herbie Hancock's Maiden Voyage (1965) is often considered among the very best recordings in jazz history, and you'd get no argument from me. On every level, the album is wonderful. Its central concept, the relationship between the forces that govern the seas and those that govern music, seems to have inspired everyone involved. The album's five pieces, all written by Hancock, have become jazz standards, covered by musicians everywhere, each one unique and timeless. The quintet was composed of the some of the greatest musicians in jazz (then and now): Hancock on piano, George Coleman on saxophone, Tony Williams on drums, Ron Carter on bass, Freddie Hubbard on trumpet. The recording engineer, Rudy Van Gelder, found the essence of their sounds both individually and collectively. Here's a link to the title track, with its lurching rhythm taking us into the waves: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwmRQ0PBtXU

In mentioning Bill Evans in yesterday's post, I didn't give the names of the other musicians in his longest-lasting trio. Eddie Gomez, on bass, was with Evans from 1966 to 1978, and Marty Morell was his drummer from 1968 to 1975. In looking for a recording to link, I came across one I hadn't heard for a long time: a version of the Evans original entitled "Very Early" from the album, Montreux II (1970). It's in 3/4 time (also known as waltz time) and it features a very adventurous solo from Gomez, as well as the usual glistening brilliance of Evans. Also of note are Morell's numerous ideas in support. It's a great example of three musicians who can process internal and external information at high speeds in the moment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnZWcc5CUik

And here is the opening cut from the first album recorded in Switzerland, Bill Evans at the Montreux Jazz Festival from 1968. "One for Helen" was written for Evans' manager, Helen Keane, who was both a pioneer in her field and a loyal friend to Evans in his difficult final years. The drummer on this album was the great Jack DeJohnette; it was, unfortunately, the only Evans recording on which he appeared - he wasn't in the trio for long, but you'd never know it from this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LNUQXE3SlA

Yesterday, I mentioned that serious jazz musicians rehearse very little, which is true. But I want to be clear what I mean by that. By "rehearse", I mean playing with other musicians, which is not the same thing as "practice", which is done individually. Jazz musicians practice constantly. (The term they use for it is "woodshedding", as in, "I'm going back to the shed". It comes from the structure in Charlie Parker's Kansas City backyard that became legendary for the heavy practice hours that it hosted.) But everything that is practiced, from ear training to memorizing vocabulary to the detailed study of the history of both style and instrument - is done so that they don't have to rehearse. Bill Evans, the piano giant and one of the hardest-working musicians ever, once said that in the ten or so years that he played with one of his trios, they'd had about four rehearsals. But when the gig started, they "got it together very quickly on the bandstand". For evidence of the results, listen to any of his records.

One of the more challenging aspects of learning how to play jazz is that it requires someone to build a repertoire of techniques and vocabulary, but at the same time to learn how to interact with other musicians, and their conceptual ideas regarding harmony and rhythm, etc. It's a journey both inward and outward, in other words. One way that jazz musicians practice on their own (which is how nearly all their work is done - most serious jazz musicians rehearse very little) is with the use of play-along CDs. These are recordings of rhythm sections (bass and drums, with piano or guitar) playing the backing tracks for songs, but which leave room for the user to play the melody and to improvise through many repetitions (or choruses, as they're known) of the piece. These help to bridge the gap between the personal, introspective aspects of jazz with the collective ones which require paying close attention to outside information. (The best-known provider of these recordings is Jamey Aebersold. Here's a link to his Wikipedia page, if you want to know more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamey_Aebersold.)

The reason that I'm bringing this up is a very interesting project that has been put together by the great guitarist, Pat Metheny, which was certainly inspired by devices such as the player-piano, but which may also have a debt to play-along recordings. It is known as the Orchestrion project, and you can read and view about its nature, much better than I could explain it, here: http://www.patmetheny.com/orchestrioninfo/ . It strikes me as a very interesting development in the combination of human and technological elements in music, because it permits the musician to improvise, and to create the setting for it, simultaneously. As a concept, its potential is limitless; check it out.

With retrospect, it's clear that George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh is one of the pivotal moments in rock history. It's not only because this was the first benefit concert of such a size, with such a cast of musicians, but that it provided another way forward for rock and roll: altruism. And with each passing year, it's become not only common for rockers to be involved in causes - it's almost expected.

Anyone who hasn't seen the film of the concert has something great to look forward to. From Harrison's down-to-earth explanation of the reasons for his involvement to the backstage shots of the legendary musicians preparing to go on - from Ravi Shankar's fascinating performance of "Bangla Dhun" (with Harrison kindly asking the crowd to recognize the seriousness of the performers) to the mighty rock and roll show to follow: it's a delight not to be missed. It's hard to believe that Harrison has been gone for almost nine years, and watching him in this footage as he fills the spotlight as a performer, musician and great man is an emotional experience. We were lucky to have him, and his legacy is gigantic. Thanks. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqogkD7nCQc&feature=related)

Eddie Cochran's "Something Else" is one of the all-time great story-songs. It features a narrator who is deeply impressed with two things: a girl and a car. In the end, we find that he has compromised on one (the latter), but not the other. Without hitting us over the head, the song asks the listener to consider the nature of compromise - where it matters and where it doesn't. Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW34W67ZYG0, and lyrics:

A look a-there, here she comes

There comes that girl again

Wanted to date her since I don't know when

But she don't notice me when I pass

She goes with all the guys from outta my class

But that can't stop me from a-thinkin' to myself

She's sure fine lookin' man, she's something else

Hey, look a-there, across the street

There's a car made just for me

To own that car would be a luxury

But my dollar can't afford the gas

A brand new convertible is outa my class

But that can't stop me from a—thinkin' to myself

That car's fine lookin' man, it's something else

Hey, look a—here, just wait and see

Worked hard and saved my dough

I'll buy that car that I been wanting so

Get me that girl and we'll go ridin' around

We'll look real sharp with the flight top down

I keep right on a-dreamin' and a-thinkin' to myself

When it all comes true man, wow, that's something else

Look a-there, what's all this

Never thought I'd do this before

But here I am a-knockin' on her door

My car's out front and it's all mine

Just a forty-one Ford, not a fifty-nine

I got that girl an' I'm a-thinkin' to myself

She's sure fine lookin' man, wow, she's something else

I mentioned yesterday that I feel that McCartney is primarily a narrative-driven songwriter, influenced by Chuck Berry and Cochran, and that Lennon was more concerned with the emotional content (from humour to despair) found in the work of Presley. Abbey Road, which contains their final work together, is a place where this divergence is pretty clear. Here's the list of the Lennon songs: "I Want You (She's So Heavy)", "Come Together", and "Because". And here are McCartney's: "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", "Oh! Darling", and the side-two medley that begins with "You Never Give Me Your Money" and ends with "The End" - with the exception of "Polythene Pam", which was Lennon's.

Lennon was influenced by Presley in terms of performing style as well. His stage demeanor - feet apart, head up high, humourous expression - is clearly an extension of Elvis'. One could do worse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU5xxh5UX4U

Other than having played bass for two of the most famous of English rock groups, Paul McCartney and Sid Vicious don't have a lot in common. But there is one other thing: Eddie Cochran, the great rock and roll singer and guitarist who died at the age of twenty-one in a traffic accident in England (and for which the taxi driver was found criminally responsible). In his short career he accomplished a lot, and his influence on rock has been profound. Musicians as disparate as the two bassists mentioned above have covered, and learned from his songs. To them add Marc Bolan (from T. Rex), Pete Townshend and the rest of the Who (whose version of "Summertime Blues" on Live at Leeds has become almost as iconic as the original), Led Zeppelin, the New York Dolls, the Stones, the Beach Boys, and many more. An impressive list, to say the least. By the way, it was seeing Nowhere Boy that brought him to mind: the film shows (correctly) that the song that the fifteen-year-old McCartney played when first introduced to Lennon on June 29, 1957 was Cochran's "Twenty Flight Rock". I'm going to write about the influence of Cochran and Elvis Presley on McCartney and Lennon, respectively, tomorrow. For the moment, here's a link (and the lyrics) for "Summertime Blues": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeWC59FJqGc

I'm gonna raise a fuss, I'm gonna raise a holler

About a workin' all summer just to try to earn a dollar

Every time I call my baby, and try to get a date

My boss says, "No dice son, you gotta work late"

Sometimes I wonder what I'm a gonna do

But there ain't no cure for the summertime blues

Well my mom and pop told me, "Son you gotta make some money,

If you want to use the car to go ridin' next Sunday"

Well I didn't go to work, told the boss I was sick

"Well you can't use the car 'cause you didn't work a lick"

Sometimes I wonder what I'm a gonna do

But there ain't no cure for the summertime blues

I'm gonna take two weeks, gonna have a fine vacation

I'm gonna take my problem to the United Nations

Well I called my congressman and he said Quote:

"I'd like to help you son but you're too young to vote"

Sometimes I wonder what I'm a gonna do

But there ain't no cure for the summertime blues

The role of the bass in a band, in music in general, is crucial. The bass part is similar to a planet - in that it exerts a gravitational pull on the other parts, which can perhaps leap or even occasionally fly, but not escape. In fact, one of the elements that gives music its powerful emotional force is the gravitational or magnetic attraction between the bass and the rest of the instrumentation. Therefore, it is not a surprise that, like Motown with James Jamerson, the best player in the Beatles was the bassist. Ringo Starr once called Paul McCartney the most melodic of bass players, which is succinct and true; his playing always has a singing quality (cf. Duke Ellington who used to ask his band, after they had played something new, if everyone liked their parts). It was an irreplaceable element of the Beatles' music, in whatever style they explored. The two most notable tracks on Starr's recent release, Y Not (2010), both feature McCartney: one as a singer and the other as a bassist. On the former, "Walk with You", it is interesting to hear him in a duet with Ringo. The Beatles rarely used this device, in the sense where more than one singer can be clearly identified as singing from their own personality. Usually, there was a lead vocal performance with the identity of the singer easy to hear, and the others providing backing with the singers much harder to pinpoint. It was amazing, and I don't know how they did it. But on this track, it's clearly Ringo and Paul singing together (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c68v6WIZeRI). The other track is called "Peace Dream", and it's a wonderful treat to hear the great rhythm section together again. Also, check out the very cool references to Lennon and Harrison, via both lyrical and guitar allusions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE7ju4lU2W0

John Lennon's first solo album, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970) is usually considered to be his best. I'm not entirely sure about that, but it is a very powerful record. On the musical side, Ringo Starr's drumming is a big reason. His listening ability is what sets him apart from the pack. Like the r&b guitarist Steve Cropper, his technical prowess is not based on velocity or the number of notes, but rather feel and placement. Only great listeners can do it. An analogy could be drawn to the world of team sports, where there are certain players who are concerned with personal statistics and getting attention, and there are others who play only to benefit the team and who have the ability to make those around them perform better. If Starr were an athlete, he would be of the latter type. I'll be writing about some of his solo work tomorrow.

Lennon's instrumental contributions are equally brilliant. It's very interesting to hear him away from the other Beatles, and to be able to clearly distinguish his style and touch. For example, his guitar sound contains a very cool fifties reference through the use of tremolo. A good tune on which to hear it is "Hold On": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLOTD7wrbtQ&feature=related. (Note the Sesame Street reference.)

One aspect of his writing that has always interested me is how much he gets out of chords. Many of his most beautiful melodies come from very spare harmonic settings. He doesn't change chords just for the sake of it, in other words. His melodies, therefore, have the quality of being necessary, called for. This also is the result of advanced listening. Lyrically, the album was at the beginning of a long run of ultra-honest writing. In fact it could be argued that the most telling characteristic of his solo career was its honesty, which some found off-putting at times with its renderings of emotional and marital intimacy as well as his uncompromising political views. Fair enough, he wasn't asking for our permission anyway. But I remember something one of my teachers said once. An artist must do two things: 1. Be honest. 2. Develop the technical means to communicate that honesty. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkybcZ_stAk&feature=related

I'll be returning to post-Beatle solo music tomorrow - I'm still catching up on my listening. But today, since I mentioned the rhyming of "rock show" and "Concertgebouw" in yesterday's post, I wanted to give a couple of examples of the use of what some poets and songwriters call "forced" or "contrived" rhyme. In poetry it's used mainly in light verse, for the purpose of humour - think of Ogden Nash, In fact, here's a link to "The Eel": http://www.ogdennash.org/poems/the_eel.htm.

And a song that is known for it is Queen's "I'm in Love with My Car", which features lines such as, "Told my girl I'd have to forget her/ Rather buy me a new carburretor". As in the poem above, liberties are taken with spelling and pronunciation - that's the point, actually. Give it a listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQTu9vx-laY, and when you do, notice Brian May's rendering of automotive sounds with the use of guitar overdubs. The song is a lot of fun in every way. I'm sure the Beach Boys, who no doubt inspired it, would approve.

OK, I listened to some more post-Beatle solo music today, and really enjoyed it. I wonder if these albums will be more and more appreciated as the years pass, because I can't think of any reason that they shouldn't be. Much of their solo work suffered by comparison with the Beatles output, but what doesn't? There are very few rock groups that don't sound sound diminished when played right after them, so to compare the albums of the individuals to albums made by all four is unrealistic. The two albums that I listened to today were pure delights, and nobody will convince me otherwise. (I'm referring here to the surprisingly poor reviews these recordings got at the time.)

George Harrison's self-titled 1979 album, his first for his Dark Horse label, features his beautiful legato singing on ten well played and well produced tracks. Here's a link to the remastered version of "Blow Away": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaA7TVenPXA&feature=related (And check out the early video. By the way, the promotional clips that the Beatles did for such tracks as "Rain" and "Paperback Writer" are often credited with starting music videos. Here's a link to the latter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sH3TvSxT288&feature=related)

Venus and Mars (1975), the fourth album by Paul McCartney and Wings was great to hear again as well. I'll always love "Rock Show" for its great rhyme of the title with "Concertgebouw", and for mentioning Jimmy Page. More songs should do that. "Listen to What the Man Said" ranks with his best singles - and he's had a few good ones, you'll agree. Here's a link to another remastered version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw1lmCS11A8&feature=related