Robbie Robertson's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", the third track on The Band (1969), may be his greatest song. And that's saying a lot. The song is the first-person story of a Confederate soldier who has lost family members and his livelihood, who has endured tremendous suffering and starvation, and who then must face the task of rebuilding everything, including his sense of belonging to a country that he's not sure he understands. It's a remarkable achievement, because every word (and every note) sounds genuine, as though the song were written in the 1860's, rather than a century later. It's interesting that the note of confrontational celebration in the chorus, when "all the bells were ringing" and so forth, was not one in which Lincoln indulged. When news of the formal Confederate surrender came to him, he ordered the band to play "Dixie", saying "I've always considered it one of the finest tunes I've ever heard".

The Band's self-titled second album is generally acknowledged as a rock masterpiece. I certainly agree, and today and tomorrow, I'd like to discuss two of its songs. Let's start with the final track. "King Harvest (Is Surely Come)" is a rock and roll song in the best sense of the word - because it mixes many styles, including blues, country, and r&b into something completely new. And it's full of surprises - from its intro to its unusual structure that juxtaposes different measure lengths and moods, to its use of two lead singers, to Levon Helm's brilliant drumming - it all combines into exceptionally dramatic music. And then there's the lyrics.

The song tells the first-person story of a bewildered, destitute farmer who turns everywhere for help, without getting any. The chronology of the song (or lack of it) mirrors his sense of bafflement, and suggests the way that one's past can be looked at from so many angles that the order of events may become confused. It also brilliantly examines the way a mind can jump around when it's under duress - and lines that treat the beauty and mystery of nature ("The smell of the leaves from the magnolia trees in the meadow...") are followed abruptly with references to time spent on skid row. Like the greatest artistic events, it's hard to pin down and it keeps adding meaning, but it isn't vague - as a matter of fact, if any rock song could be used to illustrate Stanislavsky's great dictum, that "generality is the enemy of all art", it's this one.

It's certainly not an original opinion to consider Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz (1978) as the greatest rock concert film. It has been done. But the challenge that we have, when we have a great work in front of us, is to try to understand how it got that way. OK, Scorsese had a head-start, I guess you could say, with the occasion that was presented to him: the final concert of one of the most accomplished and important rock groups ever - with guest appearances by Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison and many others, in an elegant setting worthy of the company (one of my favourite moments is when Ronnie Hawkins walks out on stage, looks around, and turns to Robertson and says, 'Big time, Robbie!'"). But the simple fact is that Scorsese and his crew of filmmakers did their work so well as to be almost invisible. Until you start to think about it, that is. First, the quality of the sound recording is exceptional - and of course, The Band have a lot to do with this. The opening number of the movie is actually the final encore, a cover of the Motown hit, "Don't Do It", and it demonstrates the relaxed, powerful, deep-groove playing that can only be honed in settings where pleasing the crowd might be necessary for survival (The Beatles had similar experiences, by the way). Second, the camera work is simply astonishing - it seems like there's magic in every shot, and something to be learned there, too. There are some amazing moments in the segments shot on the soundstage, as well, where chair-lift type devices were used to create camera movements that I'm not sure I've seen elsewhere. The version of "The Weight", done with The Staples Singers needs to be watched several times to be properly appreciated. Actually, you could say this about the entire film.

It seems evident to me that had Scorsese not directed films, that he would have been a musician - it's so deeply entwined in his work. And it's interesting to try to understand what lessons he learned from it, and how he applied them to his films. I had a teacher who once said, "In twenty-five years, everyone in the world will be studying music". I hope he was right.

Before writing about my favourite concert film tomorrow, I wanted to write a short post about the great musical taste of its director, Martin Scorsese. It seems like music has been a major source of inspiration for his remarkable career, and he has used it to great effect in all of his movies (the ones I've seen anyway). Here are a few that come to mind immediately: 1. The undervalued The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), which features a compelling Peter Gabriel soundtrack. 2. The recent psychological thriller, Shutter Island (2010), where the music is astonishing throughout, with a soundtrack that includes compositions by Penderecki, Cage, Ligeti, Brian Eno and others, but one scene in particualar is rendered unforgettable by the use of Mahler's Quartet for Strings and Piano in A Minor. 3. The crime story, The Departed (2006) which, like so many of his films, makes memorable use of thoughtful rock selections, but which earned my eternal gratitude for bringing "Sail On, Sailor", one of my favourite Beach Boys' songs, back to my attention. Of course, I haven't even mentioned his brilliant music documentaries or concert films yet. That'll be tomorrow.

The jazz singer Mark Murphy has released thirty-eight albums over the course of a recording career that began in 1956. His adventurous phrasing and improvising have led to him being called the Bobby Fischer of jazz. His two most recent albums - Once to Every Heart (2005) and Love Is What Stays (2007) - are probably his two best. (For me, this is the mark of a great artist: the fact that there is improvement throughout a career. It's a testament to the work ethic of jazz musicians that this happens more frequently in jazz than in other styles - in my opinion, anyway.) All of his recordings are worth hearing in fact, but it's in concert where his artistry really shines - it's like watching a singing conductor. He gives the band cues for entries and when they should be tacet, he controls rhythms and tempos, all while singing in a unique, highly evolved style. You can get a sample on his website: Check out "Empty Faces" in the video section. But see him live if you get the chance.

"Goodbye Pork Pie Hat", as I mentioned yesterday, was Charles Mingus' musical elegy to the great Lester Young. Its brilliance comes from its combination of the familiar and the unexpected (Ezra Pound's formula for art), because it is a twelve-bar blues that contains extremely unusual chord changes. This prevents improvisers from playing stock phrases (i.e. their vocabulary) in a rote manner - in other words, it forces them to play like Lester Young (i.e. right). Suggested listening: Mingus Ah Um (1959), Joni Mitchell's Mingus (1979), anything that features Lester Young.

Here are some of the subjects that I'll be writing about in the days ahead: one of Stevie Wonder's masterpieces from the seventies, one of Little Feat's brilliant albums, The Band, Mark Murphy and more.

Yesterday, I mentioned that Brad Mehldau's flame-throwing version of John Coltrane's "Countdown" was an appropriate tribute for the song's writer. This put me in mind of another tribute to a very different, but equally important sax player. "Goodbye Porkpie Hat" was written by the jazz bassist, composer and bandleader Charles Mingus, according to legend, on the very night that Lester Young died. Young, one of the most influential musicians in jazz history, was known for his thoughtful, melodic style. Someone once said of him, "If you don't play like Lester, you're wrong." I've always taken this as a reference to the fact that his measured, melodic style was actually improvised (he once said that he tried to not be a "repeater pencil") because a lot of jazz isn't. In fact, it relies on thoroughly memorized lines or licks known as vocabulary, which can be played over standard chord patterns that make up most of the repertoire. Memorized vocabulary is as crucial to jazz playing as verbal vocabulary is to conversation, and acquiring it to the point where it can be summoned at a moment's notice (to quote another Coltrane title) is an undertaking that requires many years of work. But any type of vocabulary, in language or music, can become repetitive or boring with overuse. Lester Young didn't like to be boring in either of these ways, and his playing is known for its constant inventiveness, as was his language: He was the originator of what was then called hipster style, and he's credited with adding many words and expressions to the language. "Cool" is one of them. Tomorrow, I'll discuss Mingus' tribute. For today, I'm going to suggest you type Lester Young Billie Holiday Fine and Mellow into YouTube, and watch the great singer transfixed by her longtime collaborator's solo - he's second. Some writers have called it the greatest chorus of blues in jazz history. It was the last time the two played together. (You can read more on this 1957 TV special - it was called The Sound of Jazz - at Wikipedia.)