In an age when spelling and punctuation are things only the "spelling police" care about (or so I gather), I find myself worrying about spelling and punctuation. I guess that makes me the Spelling Police. So, do I have back-pay coming? Anyway, you'll notice I use the correct punctuation for Beggars' Night, with the apostrophe after the s, since we're talking one or more beggars. "Beggar's Night," as it's often called, would consist of a single beggar. This is important. To a spelling/punctuation cop, I mean.
The photo shows kids trick-or-treating on Jupiter. That's what the surface of Jupiter looks like. Which is news to me--I didn't even know it had a surface. But photos never lie. Especially when I patch them together and add bubble effects. (Bubbles on Jupiter--gas bubbles?)
This is my final, day-late contribution to/for Halloween 2009. All four pieces were entered into my Noteworthy Composer software--nothing "live" is happening. I couldn't play a left hand like the first one if someone offered me Merv's entire discography, including lost sides. The left-hand pattern is from Dominic Frontiere's Outer Limits score: three parallel fifths by half steps (example: C-G-Ab-Eb-E-B). Great effect. Move it up and down by minor 3rds and add echo. Whether or not this left hand works with the right-hand chords I leave to your (hopefully kind) judgment.
More perfect-interval stuff for the second, and an extension of the Frontiere chord for the third, which sounds like the background to a lost Twilight Zone installment. The fourth number, which depicts a Japanese lady bug assault, is the kind of sound I love to come up with. The music itself is lost to time--I failed to save it. So I can't say for sure what patches I used (aside from birds chirping), but they were the right ones. If MAGIX didn't allow for track overlapping, my school of composition would be finished.
To the pieces: Beggars' Night on Jupiter, more
SLAYLIST
BEGGARS' NIGHT (Hartsfeld)
BEGGARS' NIGHT ON JUPITER (Hartsfeld)
BEGGARS' NIGHT IN THE LAND OF HARPS (Hartsfeld)
ATTACK OF THE LADY BUGS (Hartsfeld)
Lee
5 comments:
Thanks Lee.
Keep those great stuff commin' up!
Lee,
Thanks for all your Halloween musical shares.
I am also glad you are a member of the Spelling Police.
"Fellow member of the Spelling Police"
Lee,
This has nothing to do with "Beggars' Night on Jupiter," just a request that you and Buster could consider and maybe fill. I recently made the acquaintance of a piece of English exotica, "Lotus Land," from the time when every British composer seemed to be looking East (as in India) for answers to dilemmas of the West. The recording was a modern one by Kenny Burrell in an astonishing bolero-like arrangement by Gil Evans. After searching for the original (a violin and piano piece), I wondered if this wasn't one of those popular compositions that invited all sorts of arrangements back in the teens and twenties, maybe even thirties. If so, I thought I would ask you to find and share some. Like "Miserlou," which you have championed, "Lotus Land" is haunting and lovely and speaks to cultural values that now seem entirely absent. In any case, if you're stumped for ideas, I hope this one strikes your fancy. You'd be doing a long-time fan a big favor. Thanks.
I've put up a couple of versions, both links long-gone. One by Axel Stordahl, the other (much better version) by Andre Kostelanetz from his 1945 "Exotic Music" set. You're right--it's a masterpiece. Me, from 2007: "Cyril Scott's extraordinary 1905 composition Lotus Land sounds, at least in this version, like the dang blueprint for Quiet Village. Some concept, entirely, with a more conventional left-hand ostinato in place of Baxter's comparatively funky riff."
Problem is, as you know, most things that vintage aren't contenders for the exotica label. They should be, but....
The piece strikes me as remarkably advanced of its type, as the expression goes. It's kind of a contradiction, musically--it's both more abstract AND more pop than anything Satie or Debussy wrote. Clair de Lune and the Gymnopedies are hummable by comparison, yet they don't defy musical space in the same way. "Quiet Village" is "Lotus Land"-lite. It gets the reviews that ought to be going to the 1905 piece.
As you may know, three of the the exotica classics that showed up constantly on 78 from the 1920s on were In a Persian Market, Song of India, and Orientale. Lotus Land, I don't know about. A British standard more than a U.S. one, maybe--that's an angle I'll check.
The search begins.
Lee,
Your comments on exotica were very informative. I hope you pursue this theme/vein or whatever it's called.
I remember as a kid that my dad often played 78s of "In a Persian Market" and the like. Indeed, I remember it was common for great conductors and symphony orchestras to record these works as examples of semi-classical (as in semi-precious?) music. Something about temples comes to mind and a name like Ketelby (sic).
I remember he also played short Delius pieces that seemed to suggest a similar world where paradise was at least glimpsed. Do you remember hearing such music as a child and, if so, were you as inexplicably mesmerized by it? Your blog so often suggests music has always been a transport system to clestial places.
By the way, I love your choice of gospel music. Millie Pace was a good 'un. Oh, this longing for God! May it never cease and may it lead the way home.
Post a Comment