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.