Running After My Hat

Ridiculous pursuits, matters solemn and less so

“You Didn’t Forget the Words, Did You?”

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[Video: a zebra teaches a little girl to scat-sing. Found it at Zooglobble, home of “kids’ music worth sharing.”
Warning: do not visit that site if you are even mildly distractable.]

My Dad taught me many things about music, especially jazz, even (I’m certain) in ways which I have yet to understand or even recognize. But on one point he was (I believe) mistaken:

We were watching Ella Fitzgerald on some variety-TV show; after pausing for a musical break by the band, all of a sudden she burst into this chain of nonsense syllables: Obba-dobba-DOO-dah, ba-dadda-da-doo-da-DOO… (or whatever). Her eyebrows waggled like Mexican jumping beans, and she smiled slyly. Dad burst out laughing. “She always does that,” he said, “when she forgets the words.”

Like I said, I think Dad was wrong about that (especially given how enthusiastically he welcomed instrumental improvisation). But singers who depart radically from the composed lyrics must brace themselves for the inevitable skepticism. Judges on televised singing competitions lose patience with contestants who forget the words to the songs they’re singing. I’ve seen such contestants (and woebegone karaoke’ers) freeze, lock up hopelessly, stuck in a loop of flickering blankness. They stammer, neurons misfiring; they’re like desperate smokers rummaging through a drawerful of out-of-gas cigarette lighters. Sometimes, you can see on their faces, they know it’s coming even before they get there: they take off at a wild dead run at a gap they know they won’t be able to cross — they gallop right up to the edge and leap, bursting out in something like charismatic glossolalia: Obba-dobba-DOO-dah…

Then their eyes dart from side to side as they smile, weakly, as though to convince the onlookers: I’m doing this on purpose, y’know. “Norwegian Wood” can always be improved by some good scat.

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The Absorbing and the Absorbed

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[Image: a Menger sponge overgrown with vines, found here. Wikipedia explains how
to construct a real Menger sponge, noting — without elaboration — that the resulting
object “simultaneously exhibits an infinite surface area and encloses zero volume.”*]

From whiskey river:

You know when you see something like a marvelous mountain against the blue sky, the vivid, bright, clear, unpolluted snow, the majesty of it drives all your thoughts, your concerns, your problems away. Have you noticed that? You say, “How beautiful it is,” and for two seconds perhaps, or for even a minute, you are absolutely silent. The grandeur of it drives away, for that second, the pettiness of ourselves. That immensity has taken us over. Like a child occupied with an intricate toy for an hour; he won’t talk, he won’t make any noise, he is completely absorbed in that. The toy has absorbed him. So the mountain absorbs you and therefore for the second, or the minute, you are absolutely quiet, which means there is no self. Now, without being absorbed by something — either a toy, a mountain, a face, or an idea — to be completely without the me in oneself, is the essence of beauty.

(Jiddu Krishnamurti, On Love and Loneliness [source])

…and:

… It’s 1500
in the book of Chinese watercolors: scholar-artist T’ang Yin
is asleep inside his mountain cottage, dreaming that a self of him,
that looks like him, is floating in the air above
the highest peaks, that looks like air we’d have
if lakes of milk gave off a vapor.
… From the Everfloating Void
above our world, a human image slowly drifts back down
and joins its earthly body once again, reenters
days and nights of wine shop, scandal, lawyers
— for such (in part) is the life of T’ang Yin.
He’s been dreaming. And now he’s going to set it down
on a wafer of unrolled rice paper. Writing:
Rain on the river. That’s all. That’s his poem.
He’s writing:

Rain on the river.

(Albert Goldbarth [source])

…and:

I’m for mystery, not interpretive answers… The answer is never the answer. What’s really interesting is the mystery. If you seek the mystery instead of the answer, you’ll always be seeking. I’ve never seen anybody really find the answer, but they think they have. So they stop thinking. But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.

(Ken Kesey [source])

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Midweek Music Break: Booker T. and the MGs, “Time Is Tight”

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When people think of music in the 1960s-’70s, of soul music, they think automatically of the Motown record label. But there was a heck of a lot going on further south then, too, down in Memphis: the home of Stax Records.

Originally Satellite Records, the company was forced to change its name in response to a complaint from another, older label by the same name. The renaming took the form of a quasi-acronym, derived from the names of its two owners: Jim Stewart and his sister Estelle Axton. Name aside, it carved out a niche for itself in a number of other respects:

  • The recording studio was located in a former movie theater, where the seats had been removed but the sloping floor remained intact. Wikipedia describes the resulting sound as “big, deep, yet raw,” and cites one music historian who who says that “because of the distinctive sound, soul music fans can tell often within the first few notes if a song was recorded at Stax.”
  • Stax’s stable of big-name performers tended to sound less slick than Motown’s: Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett (whose music was released on the Atlantic label, but recorded and produced at Stax), Isaac Hayes…
  • …and even their “house band,” who provided backing for the big names, made a name of its own — as Booker T. and the MGs.
In a recent post at The Barstool, as he calls it for short, RAMH blog-friend Froog mused on his selections as the top five favorite basslines in popular music. In a comment to that post, he mentions that a bassline can be thought of as being of one of two types:
  • Hooks are “quite simple bass figures that are one of the most prominent features of the song”; while
  • Chuggers are “often even simpler bass parts, [which] because of that very simplicity… drive the song forward powerfully.”

Froog’s top five, he says, all qualify as “hooks.” I’ll take his word for it — I’m not familiar with all five of the performers he highlights, let alone those performances. But I totally recognized the concept of the “chugger.” It’s not the word usually associated with the MGs, but yeah — that’s their bassline. The more conventional word for it, I think, is groove.

Interestingly, Wikipedia has an entry on groove:

Groove is the sense of propulsive rhythmic “feel” or sense of “swing” created by the interaction of the music played by a band’s rhythm section (drums, electric bass or double bass, guitar, and keyboards).

It goes on to include a comment by (presumably) a musician:

Steve Van Telejuice explains the “groove” as the point… in a song or performance when “even the people who can’t dance wanna feel like dancing” due to the effect of the music.

(This might be even more interesting — to say nothing of authoritative — if there were any reference to a “Steve Van Telejuice,” anywhere on the Web, other than in connection with this quote.)

By whatever (in)formal definition, it seems clear that the music of Booker T. and the MGs practically embodies the concept. The songs start with a bassline, and the melody of the organ and lead guitar twine around it. The bassline isn’t an afterthought, a complement to what we think of as “the song” — it’s practically the whole point.

Here’s “Time Is Tight,” from (among other sources) the soundtrack of the 1968 Jules Dassin film, Up Tight!:

The influence of the MGs went far beyond the Stax walls. The Beatles, among others, hugely admired the band’s sound. Wikipedia, again:

John Lennon was a huge Stax fan who fondly called the group, “Book a Table and the Maitre D’s.” Paul McCartney, like [MGs’ bass player Donald “Duck”] Dunn, played bass melodically, without straying from the rhythm or the groove… And as the story goes, after being locked away in the Memphis studio, when [Stax performers] embarked on the “Hit the Road, Stax!” tour of 1967, The Beatles sent limos to the airport and bent down to kiss [lead guitarist] Steve Cropper’s ring… Lennon was quoted as saying he always wanted to write an instrumental for the MGs.

Cropper (who co-wrote “In the Midnight Hour” and “Dock of the Bay”) and Dunn eventually would go on to appear in both “Blues Brothers” movies, and had otherwise successful solo songwriting and performing careers. (Drummer Al Jackson, Jr., was murdered in 1975.) As for Booker T. Jones himself, no worries — the guy is still going strong.

Want more? There’s a great post about Stax Records, including some photos I’ve seen nowhere else, at the excellent blog known as The Selvedge Yard. (Be sure to read the comments thread there, too.) And Steve Cropper mulls over his musical wanderings in a blog post at No Depression.

______________________

Update, 2012-01-14, 9:15ish a.m.: It’s not uncommon for me to be prevented, by one thing or the other, from replying promptly to comments here at RAMH. What is uncommon: not regretting that I can’t reply promptly. This is one of those rare comments threads which I have thoroughly enjoyed watching develop on its own. Thanks, folks.

Now to dive in myself…

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It’s Right in Front of You

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[Image: unretouched photograph of an anamorphically-painted building interior, by French artist George Rousse; I found it here. As suggested at that site, be sure to see the video about Rousse’s “Durham (NC) project.” And while you’re at it, check out the similar but sometimes entire city-sized work of Swiss artist Felice Varini. I couldn’t decide which artist’s work to feature here and finally flipped a coin.]

From whiskey river:

Flaws

I had been worrying once again
about sad lives
and almost perfect art, Van Gogh,

Kafka, so when that voice on the radio
sang about drinking
a toast to those who most survive

the lives they’ve led, I drank that toast
in the prayerless
sanctum of my room, I said it

out loud in a hush. Then I thought
of Dr. Williams
who toward the end apologized

to his wife for doing everything
he had loved to do.
He was speaking of course to death,

not to her, though death instructed him
how valuable she was.
I thought of a lamp the neighbor’s child

had broken, then pieced back together
with wires and glue.
And my friend, the good husband,

kissing the scars his wife brought home
after the mastectomy.
I drank that toast again, though silently.

The radio was playing something old
and bad
I once thought was good.

Flaws. Suddenly the act of trying
to say how it feels
to live a life, to say it flawlessly,

seemed more immense than ever. Then
I remembered
those Persian rug makers built them in,

the flaws, because only Allah was perfect.
What arrogance to think
that otherwise they wouldn’t be there!

I allowed myself to wonder
about the ethics
of repair, but just for a while.

Sleep, too, was on my mind
and I knew
the difficulty that lay ahead:

how hard I’d try when I couldn’t,
how it would come
if only I could find a way

to enter and drift without concern
for what it is.

(Stephen Dunn [source])

…and:

I keep following this sort of hidden river of my life, you know, whatever the topic or impulse which comes, I follow it along trustingly. And I don’t have any sense of its coming to a kind of crescendo, or of its petering out either. It is just going steadily along.

(William Stafford [source])

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Midweek Music Break: James & Bobby Purify, “I’m Your Puppet”

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So there was this front-page headline in the morning paper:

Music legend Robert Dickey dies at age 72

Er, I thought; Who?!? I mean, I hardly know every (well, possibly any) music legend in town. But I’ve been here for almost 20 years and couldn’t recall the name at all.

As it happens, Dickey — that’s him over there at the right, in an undated and uncredited file photo from the newspaper story — was the “Bobby” half of a late-1960s soul duo called James & Bobby Purify. More precisely: he was the first of three singers to play brother “Bobby” to James Purify, and turned over the role (and the pseudonym) to Ben Moore in 1971.

But before Dickey moved on, the pair recorded several hits, the biggest of which (#6 on Billboard’s “Hot 100”) was 1966’s “I’m Your Puppet.”

It’s not, y’know, a profound song. In fact, when I first read the article I couldn’t remember the song at all. (Hence, my second “Huh?” moment: the subhead, “I’m Your Puppet” sold millions in the late ’60s.) But then I hunted around online for an audio clip. And of course one listen — with that signature ding-ding-DING-ding-ding triangle, especially — was all it took to bring it back to me.

Dickey himself apparently didn’t care for the song (excerpt from the article (may be hidden behind a paywall for non-subscribers)):

“I didn’t even like it,” Dickey said in October 2000, when he was honored as part of “Follow That Dream: Florida’s Rock & Roll Legends” exhibition at the Museum of Florida History. “I hated it. It was originally intended to be the B-side. But things got changed… I sang it for 23 hours straight (in the studio), that’s why I hate it. And the last one, the last take was the one they decided to go with.”

Ha!

Here’s James & Bobby Purify, then, performing “I’m Your Puppet” on some unidentified television show; I think Dickey/”Bobby” is the one on the right:

Lyrics:

I’m Your Puppet
(by Spooner Oldham and Dan Penn; performed by James & Bobby Purify)

Pull the string and I’ll wink at you, I’m your puppet
I’ll do funny things if you want me to, I’m your puppet

I’ll be yours to have and to hold
Darling you’ve got full control of your puppet

Pull another string and I’ll kiss your lips, I’m your puppet
Snap your finger and I’ll turn you some flips, I’m your puppet

Your every wish is my command
All you gotta do is wiggle your little hand
I’m your puppet, I’m your puppet

I’m just a toy, just a funny boy
That makes you laugh when you’re blue
I’ll be wonderful, do just what I’m told
I’ll do anything for you
I’m your puppet, I’m your puppet

Pull them little strings and I’ll sing you a song, I’m your puppet
Make me do right or make me do wrong, I’m your puppet

Treat me good and I’ll do anything
I’m just a puppet and you hold my string, I’m your puppet
Yeah, I’m your puppet

Walking, talking, living, loving puppet
I’m hanging on a string girl, I’ll do anything now

I’m a walking, talking, living, loving puppet, and I love you…

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Midweek Music Break: Erik Satie

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Early in RAMH‘s history, a post here covered what I always think of as “thought music”: music to listen to while doing things other than music — specifically, things which require mental activity: writing, programming, art… — music, ideally, to stimulate thought.

One of my favorite classical composers of thought music is Erik Satie. (He was something of an oddball character, I gather; Wikipedia calls him “an eccentric,” which says pretty much the same thing.) Like many (most?) Baby Boomers, I first encountered him by way of the band called Blood, Sweat, & Tears. Although the group’s music sprang from a sort of raucous, literally brassy jazz-rock-blues core, their self-titled second album opened with a quiet flute/guitar/triangle piece, “Variations on a Theme by Erik Satie.” (The first section of that cut morphed into a second, all horns, which provided a springboard to the more characteristic “sound” of the rest of the album.) Here’s that take on Satie’s Trois Gymnopédies:

[Below, click Play button to begin Variations on a Theme by Erik Satie. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 2:29 long.

[audio:variationsonthemebyeriksatie_bloodsweatandtears.mp3|titles=’Variations on a Theme by Erik Satie’|artists=Blood Sweat & amp; Tears]

But Satie was a pianist, and composed almost exclusively for piano (including his original arrangement of the Gymnopédies). Among his other dream-state, not-quite-trance pieces are the ones he called the Gnossiennes.

No one, apparently, knows exactly what the word Gnossiennes means; Satie made it up, and never explained it. For some time Satie was involved in various sects ascribing to the tenets of gnosticism, and an association between the words seems obvious. But nobody knows. At any rate, like the Gymnopédies, these pieces share (almost? entirely?) no features in common with the works of, say, Bach, Beethoven, Wagner… Not only does the music not overpower; it doesn’t even assert itself — it makes no point and has no real discernible narrative arc. Yet it’s also strangely beautiful: moody, contemplative, and (yes) haunting.

The Gnossienne known collectively as #5 actually consists of six separate pieces, or sections. Here, Hungarian pianist Klara Kormendi gives Gnossienne #5 a thoughtful — thought-y — presentation.

[Below, click Play button to begin Satie: Gnossienne #5. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. Taken together, the six pieces in this clip are 14:31 long.

[audio:gnossienne_no5_1_satie_klarakormendi.mp3, gnossienne_no5_2_satie_klarakormendi.mp3, gnossienne_no5_3_satie_klarakormendi.mp3, gnossienne_no5_4_satie_klarakormendi.mp3, gnossienne_no5_5_satie_klarakormendi.mp3, gnossienne_no5_6_satie_klarakormendi.mp3|titles=’Satie: Gnossienne #5’|artists=Klara Kormendi]

I love working to this. And because of the unconventional structure, I find I can listen to it over and over for hours, with the individual tracks shuffled, without getting any sense of, like, I need to hear something else. It always sounds like “something else.”

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A Quirky Eclectic Christmas Mix (2011 ed.)

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[Image (click to enlarge) from xkcd, where its little pop-up title reads, “An ‘American tradition’ is anything that happened to a baby boomer twice” — ha!]

Today’s mid-week music break continues an annual series, with a couple of twists…

Once again, I’ve added ten songs to the bottom of the previous years’ entries. (And I continue to worry, probably needlessly, about the robustness of the little WordPress audio-player gadget I use.)

As before, these artists and numbers appear, back-to-back, in the following playlist:

— 2008: —

  1. Peter Robbins et al.: dialogue from A Charlie Brown Christmas
  2. Anonymous 4: Hodie Christus Natus Est
  3. Waverly Consort: Three Spanish Villancicos – Dadme Albcrecias
  4. Perry Como: Home for the Holidays
  5. Mannheim Steamroller: Joy to the World
  6. George Winston: The Holly and the Ivy
  7. Celtic Woman: O Holy Night
  8. John Denver and the Muppets: The Twelve Days of Christmas
  9. Al Hirt: Nutty Jingle Bells
  10. The Roches: Deck the Halls
    — 2009: —
  11. Charlotte Church: Mary’s Boy Child
  12. Madeleine Peyroux/k.d. lang: River
  13. George Winston: Variations on the Kanon
  14. Arthur Fiedler & The Boston Pops: The Toy Trumpet
  15. Eartha Kitt: Santa Baby
  16. Mannheim Steamroller: Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer
  17. Celtic Woman: The Wexford Carol
  18. The Brian Setzer Orchestra: Jingle Bells
  19. Jimmy Boyd: I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
  20. Cumberland Gap Reunion: Silent Night
    — 2010: —
  21. Sam Phillips: Cold Dark Night (lyrics)
  22. Elvis Presley: Blue Christmas
  23. Loreena McKennitt: God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen (may be my favorite addition to this year’s list…)
  24. The Chipmunks: The Chipmunk Song
  25. Frank Sinatra: Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
  26. London Philharmonic Orchestra: It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
  27. Tony Elman: Winter Creek
  28. Sara Groves: Toy Packaging (lyrics) (…and this may be my favorite for grins)
  29. Harry Belafonte: Mary’s Boy Child
  30. Ray Conniff Singers: Ring Christmas Bells
    — 2011: —
  31. Ralph Marterie and His Band: Dig That Crazy Santa  Claus
  32. Nat King Cole: The Christmas Song
  33. The Indigo Girls: It Really Is (A Wonderful Life) (lyrics)
  34. Johnny Mercer and the Pied Pipers: Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town
  35. Dean Martin: Baby It’s Cold Outside (also see the wonderful American Songwriter writeup on the story of this song’s composition [thanks, Jules!])
  36. Ferrante and Teicher: Sleigh Ride
  37. Bo Dollis & Wild Magnolias: Shakana Santa Shake It
  38. Neil Diamond: Silver Bells
  39. Taverner Consort, Choir, & Players (Andrew Parrott, conductor): Branle de l’Officiel (Ding! Dong! Merrily on High)
  40. George Winston: Carol of the Bells

(Note: The playlist goes automatically from start to finish, once you click the little Play button. To fast-forward to the next number, once a song is playing you’ll find a little fast-forward button to the right of its progress meter. And a fast-rewind to the left, for that matter.)

[audio:00_dialoguefromacharliebrownchristmas.mp3, 01_hodiechristusnatusest_anonymous4.mp3, 02_threespanishvillancicos_dadme_albricias_waverlyconsort.mp3, 03_homefortheholidays_perrycomo.mp3, 04_joytotheworld_mannheimsteamroller.mp3, 05_thehollyandtheivy_georgewinston.mp3, 06_oholynight_celticwoman.mp3, 07_12daysofchristmas_denvermuppets.mp3, 08_nuttyjinglebells_alhirt.mp3, 09_deckthehalls_theroches.mp3, 11_marysboychild_charlottechurch.mp3, 12_river_peyrouxlang.mp3, 13_variationsonthekanonbypachelbel_georgewinston.mp3, 14_thetoytrumpet_fiedler.mp3, 15_santababy_earthakitt.mp3,
16_rudolphtherednosedreindeer_mannheimsteamroller.mp3, 17_thewexfordcarol_celticwoman.mp3, 18_jinglebells_briansetzerorchestra.mp3, 19_isawmommykissingsantaclaus_jimmyboyd.mp3, 20_silentnight_cumberlandgapreunion.mp3, 21_colddarknight_samphillips.mp3, 22_bluechristmas_elvispresley.mp3, 23_godrestyemerrygentlemen_loreenamckennitt.mp3, 24_thechipmunksong_thechipmunks.mp3, 25_haveyourselfamerrylittlechristmas_franksinatra.mp3, 26_itcameuponamidnightclear_londonphilharmonicorchestra.mp3, 27_wintercreek_tonyelman.mp3, 28_toypackaging_saragroves.mp3, 29_marysboychild_harrybelafonte.mp3, 30_ringchristmasbells_rayconniffsingers.mp3, 31_digthatcrazysantaclaus_ralphmarterie.mp3, 32_thechristmassong_natkingcole.mp3, 33_itreallyis_indigogirls.mp3, 34_santaclausiscomintotown_johnnymercer.mp3, 35_babyitscoldoutside_deanmartin.mp3, 36_sleighride_ferranteandteicher.mp3, 37_shakanasantashakeit_bodolliswildmagnolias.mp3, 38_silverbells_neildiamond.mp3, 39_branledelofficiel_tavernerconsort.mp3, 40_carolofthebells_georgewinston.mp3|titles=’A Quirky/Eclectic Christmas Music Playlist’|artists=Various Artists]

This year, I thought I’d also give you the option of just listening to the current ten-song list, without having to fast-forward to it. And while I was at it, why not provide RAMH regulars the chance to use their secret right-bracket decoder rings, so they could listen to the playlist later without even visiting here? (Yeah, I know — this isn’t exactly the sort of thinking to encourage return visits…)

[2011 only

[audio:31_digthatcrazysantaclaus_ralphmarterie.mp3, 32_thechristmassong_natkingcole.mp3, 33_itreallyis_indigogirls.mp3, 34_santaclausiscomintotown_johnnymercer.mp3, 35_babyitscoldoutside_deanmartin.mp3, 36_sleighride_ferranteandteicher.mp3, 37_shakanasantashakeit_bodolliswildmagnolias.mp3, 38_silverbells_neildiamond.mp3, 39_branledelofficiel_tavernerconsort.mp3, 40_carolofthebells_georgewinston.mp3|titles=’A Quirky/Eclectic Christmas Music Playlist’|artists=Various Artists]

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How to Keep Your Pooch Happy

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Answer: roll the car window down sometimes.

(We do have a little nervousness about doing this, with reason; The Pooch gets so excited that she seems to lose her basic sense of or concern about where she is in 3D space. Which isn’t a prescription for keeping the windows rolled up — it’s a prescription for keeping hold of her collar. :))

 

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Everything Old Is New Again

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[Image: “Extrange shoes,” by user pepel at stock.xchng]

From whiskey river:

They miss the whisper that runs
any day in your mind,
“Who are you really, wanderer?”
and the answer you have to give
no matter how dark and cold
the world around you is:
“Maybe I’m a king.”

(William Stafford)

…and:

The people in the world, and the objects in it, and the world as a whole, are not absolute things, but on the contrary, are the phenomena of perception. If we were all alike: if we were millions of people saying do, re, mi, in unison, one poet would be enough. But we are not alone, and everything needs expounding all the time because, as people live and die, each one perceiving life and death for himself, and mostly by and in himself, there develops a curiosity about the perceptions of others. This is what makes it possible to go on saying new things about old things.

(Wallace Stevens)

…and (highlighted portion):

How It Adds Up

There was the day we swam in a river, a lake, and an ocean.
And the day I quit the job my father got me.
And the day I stood outside a door,
and listened to my girlfriend making love
to someone obviously not me, inside,

and I felt strange because I didn’t care.

There was the morning I was born,
and the year I was a loser,
and the night I was the winner of the prize
for which the audience applauded.

Then there was someone else I met,
whose face and voice I can’t forget,
and the memory of her
is like a jail I’m trapped inside,

or maybe she is something I just use
to hold my real life at a distance.

Happiness, Joe says, is a wild red flower
plucked from a river of lava
and held aloft on a tightrope
strung between two scrawny trees
above a canyon
in a manic-depressive windstorm.

Don’t drop it, Don’t drop it, Don’t drop it—,

And when you do, you will keep looking for it
everywhere, for years,
while right behind you,
the footprints you are leaving

will look like notes
of a crazy song.

(Tony Hoagland)

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