Rhapsody in Coup. Or, Give 'Em Money, That's (That's!!) What They Want

Have you heard the news? Brian Wilson will be finishing some unfinished Gershwin songs. Read the horrifying details here in this hype-filled ad for a--I mean, essay about a probable CD in the works: Brian Wilson to finish some George Gershwin songs.

Is Wilson's talent comparable to Gershwin's? No, not remotely. Wilson made some fabulous Top 40 singles that I love (and will always love) but every time he's tried to move "beyond" the pop song format, the results have been mediocre to unfortunate. Gershwin himself had enough trouble "extending" anything musically--Rhapsody in Blue, which was too quickly over with for Gershwin to ruin it with faux development and lame segues, is the single long work by George that works, and you can't convince me that having Ferde Grofe on hand for compositional advice didn't have something to do with that. Gershwin's subsequent approach to "serious" composition involved writing a mess of stuff and then having someone help him shape it into some kind of musical order. If it wasn't for Gershwin's extraordinary melodic gift, none of his larger pieces would have lasted.

Wilson's concept of composition is more all-over-the-place than Frank Zappa's, and just as pointless. Worse, unlike Gershwin and Bacharach, Wilson can't generate interesting melodic themes on short notice. Fast is not close to the speed at which he works.

But none of this is about music--it's about money. There are Gershwin fragments sitting out there not making anybody any dough, and we can't have that, and so it's time to fire up the hype machine and 1) draw cliched comparisons between Gershwin and Wilson, though stopping short of declaring them the same person, 2) prattle on about "American" music in the manner of Etude magazine, circa 1939, 3) treat Brian and George like the inventors of songwriting, vice practitioners of something zillions of others have done and continue to do (and, often, better), and 4) tie the whole "discussion" of art and music and America into $$ via CD releases. Hammer home the point that art equals $$. We once had a public that understood that art goes beyond product, but in our mass-mediated age, we only know product. There's no art beyond the jewel case.

Also, last time I checked, Wilson wasn't very coherent. He burned himself out with drugs, and--to put it as charitably as possible--a complete recovery has yet to happen. Why on earth is anyone handing him Gershwin songs to finish? A guy who needed six months to put together the banal Good Vibrations, an exercise in section-pasting that makes Stairway to Heaven sound like Bach? A guy who (apparently) had to have Gershwin's fragments recorded for him? For God's sake, even amateur musicians singing in churches or glee clubs are expected to look at a piece of music and know what's on it, and maybe even sight-sing their parts on the spot. Instrumentalists, including pianists, have to sight-read at a fairly advanced level if they hope to work. But Wilson had to have this stuff played for him, apparently. Good Lord.

Anyway, give 'em money. It's your job to do so, and it's what they want.


Lee

Halloween 2009, Part 6: That Hypnotizing Man, The Thing (From Another World), more!

Once again, Goodwill has been good to me. The latest trip yielded a number of gospel LPs, which I chose over more m.c. (musically correct) selections, including several in the jazz vein.

Non-gospel titles include J. Lawrence Cook's Piano Roll Rock 'N (sic) Roll, whose version of Rock Around the Clock I've been wanting to find for a while. It doesn't show up on eBay very often, and here it was at Goodwill for 99 cents. Also, a 1960 RCA Red Seal (and Living Stereo) recording of Symphonie Fantastique, which means I now can put up the Halloween-perfect Witches' Sabbath movement.

Best find of all, in the context of October, is 1978's The Spectacular World of Classic Film Scores, which includes The Thing (from Another World): Suite as taken from Dimitri Tiomkin's fabulous 1951 music. Sound quality is excellent--does digital recording go back to 1978? (He asked, too lazy to Google the subject.)

We'll be hearing this plus five other selections ripped from 78s in my out-of-control collection. That Hypnotizing Man features a marvelous tune, surprisingly jazzy singing (for 1912!), and lyrics that are, on one hand, clever but, on the other, apparently very difficult to sing. I feel for the vocalist. Will-0'-the-Wisp is from Edward MacDowell's Woodland Sketches, and it's 1) a mini-masterpiece, 2) beautifully performed, and 3) ripped from a very noisy copy. In the battle of noise vs. MAGIX, filtering was mostly victorious. And I have no idea what I just typed.

The 1941 (?) Dance Macabre features Lew White on organ and assisted by piano and xylophone. Just in case you thought you were hearing the Three Suns. The Mosquitoes' Parade is pure late-1920s in sound--which is odd, considering that it was written in 1900. I think it works beautifully as Halloween music, though it is also famous as a circus march and as an item on the Titanic's final-voyage playlist.

Finally, Venus and Back, recorded in 1954 on MGM by the Coronet Orchestra, described by Billbaord in a 1955 album review as "a British group of some 50 musicians." Fabulous side.

To the music: ZIP FILE NO LONGER AVAILABLE

SLAYLIST

THAT HYPNOTIZING MAN (Albert Von Tilzer)--Dolly Connolly (Mrs. Percy Wenrich), 1912.
WILL-O'-THE-WISP (MacDowell)--Myrtle C. Eaver, piano solo, 1927.
DANCE MACABRE (Saint-Saens)--Lew White, organ; Harry Breur, xylophone; Sam Praeger, piano, 1941(?).
THE MOSQUITOES' PARADE (Whitney)--London Novelty O., 1931.
VENUS AND BACK (Shaw)--The Coronet Orch., 1954.
THE THING (FROM ANOTHER WORLD): SUITE (Tiomkin)--National Philharmonic O., c. by Charles Gerhardt, 1978.


Lee

Halloween 2009, Part 5: Elgar, Satie, Gould, more!

You can't go wrong with today's playlist. Well, not unless you rob a bank to it, or something.

Anyway, Edward (Pomp and Circumstance) Elgar is the first composer we think of when it's time for Halloween background music, right? No? Well, maybe he should be. A few days ago, and for the first time in my life, I listened to the Fairies and Giants movement of his Wand of Youth Suite No. 1 (1908) and... wow. This should be the official theme song for the season.

In a gentler (but just as charming) vein is Erik Satie's Jack in the Box (1899), as orchestrated in 1926 by Darius Milhaud. Then the Hollywood Bowl Orch. with De Falla's Fire Dance (a.k.a. Ritual Dance of Fire) (1915) and Berlioz' magnificent March to the Scaffold from Fantastic Symphony (a.k.a. Symphonie Fantastique). For something written almost 180 years ago, the March is pretty amazingly modern-sounding. These two Hollywood Bowl Orch. tracks come straight from my 1928 Victrola label 78--I think the rips came out nicely.

We end with a 1941 Decca recording of Morton Gould playing his Deserted Ballroom. I ripped this from a muffled-sounding 10-inch LP, and I did what I could to give some illusion of treble.

To the sounds: ZIP FILE NO LONGER AVAILABLE

SLAYLIST

WAND OF YOUTH SUITE NO. 1: FAIRIES AND GIANTS (Elgar)--Howard Mitchell, c. National Symphony Orch. JACK IN THE BOX (Satie; Arr. Milhaud)--Maurice Abravanel, Utah Symphony Orch., 1968. FANTASTIC SYMPHONY--MARCH TO THE SCAFFOLD (Berlioz)--Hollywood Bowl Orch., c. Eugene Goossens, 1928. (From 12" 78) THE FIRE DANCE (De Falla)--Same, 1928. DESERTED BALLROOM (Gould)--Morton Gould, piano, 1941.


Lee

Halloween 2009, Part 4! Gould, Grofe, Rose, more!

"A deserted ballroom stands silhouetted in the moonlight. From a far off belfry, the sound of chimes. The ghosts of former dancers appear and do a frenzied swing dance. At the stroke of dawn, they disappear."

So reads the intro to Morton Gould's 1938 novelty Deserted Ballroom, which we'll be hearing in orchestral versions by Mantovani (1955) and Elliot Everett (early 1950s?). I'd meant to include Gould's own piano recording in this set, but... oops. I uploaded the wrong file. That can happen, especially when you have three mp3s under the same title.

We'll be hearing two other Gould miniatures composed around the same time--Robot and Mirage, as performed by Hal Herzon and His Orchestra (or Septet, maybe?). (Read Hal Herzon's 2003 Variety obituary here: Harold Stanford "Hal" Herzon.) The 1948 MGM record set mentioned in the obit (Morton Gould's Musical Fantasies) is something I don't have, but I do own a Herzon LP on the Shamrock label featuring Gould miniatures--it's the source for my rips of Robot and Mirage. None of the LP titles are credited to Gould, and no recording info is given, though the bikinied model whose images fill both sides of the jacket (Andrea Portera, it says) is very attractive. (Hey, cool--the man who photographed her is also the LP's producer.) Unless, like me, you recognize titles like Robot, Hillbilly, Crinoline and Lace, and Tropical as Gould compositions, you're bound to have no idea in creation what this LP is about. Maybe they figured Andrea would sell the LP. (Ha! Figure! Stop me before I pun again.)

Along with Gould, we have two Ferde Grofe tracks--the title music from 1950's Rocketship X-M and a 1963 piece commissioned by Andre Kostelanetz called Trick or Treat. David Rose wrote and recorded the marvelous Satan and the Polar Bear, and someone named Lee Hartsfeld wrote Junk Mail at the Deserted Manor and Toccatica--he's live on the Casio CTK-551, though the first track was resampled and sped up after he decided it dragged too much. Toccatica is a bossa nova version of Bach's famous Halloween piece. Very tongue-in-shriek.

I don't know who wrote Journey Into Space from Antoine de Treville's The Sound of a Thousand Strings LP, but he or she deserves credit for penning one of the most effective mood-music miniatures of all time. I got some nice sound out of a worn pressing (courtesy of the Crown label) that was pretty bad to start with. The original tapes would be wonderful to hear, if they're still anyplace.

To the sounds: ZIP FILE NO LONGER AVAILABLE

SLAYLIST

DESERTED BALLROOM (Morton Gould)--Mantovani and His Orch., 1955. TRICK OR TREAT--Andre Kostelanetz and His Orch., 1976. ROBOT (Gould)--Hal Herzon and His Orch. (Shamrock 1802) MIRAGE (Gould)--Hal Herzon and His Orch. (Shamrock 1802) SATAN AND THE POLAR BEAR (Rose)--David Rose and His O., 1957. JUNK MAIL AT THE DESERTED MANOR (Hartsfeld)--Lee Hartsfeld, 2009. TOCCATICA (Bach-Hartsfeld)--Lee Hartsfeld, 2009. DESERTED BALLROOM (Gould)--Elliot Everett and His O. JOURNEY INTO SPACE--Antoine De Treville and His Orch. ROCKETSHIP X-M MAIN TITLE (Grofe)--From soundtrack (Starlog LP).


Lee

Bluegrass Tommy presents... Sunday Bluegrass gospel, Part 2!

Click here to hear: Sunday Bluegrass gospel, Part 2

PLAYLIST

DRINKING FROM THE FOUNTAIN--Rusty York
THERE'S A LIGHT GUIDING ME--J.D. Jarvis
WHAT KIND OF MAN--J.D. Jarvis
RAILWAY TO HEAVEN--J.D. Jarvis
YOU GOT TO MOVE--J.D. Jarvis
LIGHTS AT HOME--J.D. Jarvis
NAME OF THE LORD--J.D. Jarvis
ALMOST HOME--J.D. Jarvis
YOU CAN'T MAKE ME DOUBT IT--J.D. Jarvis


Lee and Tommy