Friday Influences Thread - 01-11-13

Boy, this video has dated poorly...
vimeo.com/8575350

Oh well, the music is still good

I noted why it doesn't fit, but why does it? Why does it still feel right. Or better, not "still" feel right but rather, is THE right choice? Because...

- We return with some mild urgency (not contradicting the mood) to the opening note.

- It has a pertinent quality. I MEAN THIS.

I love that.

Exactly. They would frequently put non-chord tones on stressed beats. And sometimes move those stressed beats into a slightly less obvious spot. It opens up things and make you listen. Your listener's head's are on table, the default position, then... what?

They really knew how to get you interested but not for all the reasons they're usually cited for. It was usually the melody doing things simple but slightly outside. Always in the scale, but they'd shuffle the expectations to create an interesting unfolding of the idea.

Spot on, dude.

BTW, cash is tight with a Sweet 16 birthday and me traveling out of town for NAMM next weekend. But I WILL get that book. It's just so spendy. I want it though. Will get it.

I just received a phone call from an old... old friend. We've lost contact but his wife managed to track me down. He was still working but she asked if I'd like to go see Keane tomorrow at the Hollywood Palladium. He'd thought of me when they found themselves with an extra ticket. It's been 30 years.

Greg Stelly.

He was my self taught sound man when I was 19. (We spent a bunch of money and he learned it, he did!) He's 2 years older them me. He was my biggest supporter and true friend back then. Always saying that I had something to say, so say it.

Then I went on to "bigger things".

We lost touch. Funny how being an asshole, or at least a forgetful friend, can come back and remind you. I... am... BLOWN AWAY! Even as I find he may be battling the big C, even after feeling a bit guilty for having not kept up... here I find myself saying, "Yes! I'd love to go!". Damn right!

I really like Keanne. It's easy to poke holes in what they do. But really, I get what they do, and I like what they do. And I am looking forward to hugging Greg and having a beer with him, kicking him in the nuts if need be... and having a fucking great time.

THAT'S an inspiration!

I just saw these guys play live on tv... I didn't know they were actually good. Wow, their vocals and harmonies and playing were really well done. To bad all the live stuff on youtube is hand help phone stuff. Here's the album version. Cool tune from the Almost Alice soundtrack. Music inspired by Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. Cool...

I posted this on Mark Blackburn's thread at H.C. But since this song has influenced a couple of my own tunes, I thought it might be fitting to post it here as well.

I was talking to a jazz pianist friend last night who's in the process of putting out a live CD (which includes a song we wrote together called "Lonely Sky.") She'd had two solo gigs earlier in the day, and was set to play at the Waldorf Astoria that night.

I said, "The Waldorf? That means you'll be playing Cole Porter's piano!"

"It's true! Good old Cole Porter. But it's a hard piano to play. It has a very hard action."

Our conversation turned to her repertoire and I asked if she ever played "Poor Butterfly," a song that was written in 1917, but was later recorded by a lot of great jazz musicians.

"Yes," she said. "That's a beautiful song..."

I agreed. (I first heard it back in the 1970s when I used to go to second-hand stores looking for 78rpm recordings and found a 1940 version by The Benny Goodman Sextet).

I asked her if I was crazy for thinking that a lot of songs written after 1917 had borrowed or even stolen bits and pieces of "Poor Butterfly."

She said, no. She'd noticed that too. And if other songwriters hadn't borrowed snippets of the tune, a ton of them had probably copied the chords. Pretty amazing for a song written by two otherwise unknown songwriters.

Here's the Benny Goodman Sextet version.



The lyric tells the same basic story as in Puccini's opera, Madame Butterfly. In fact, it's said that the song incorporates one of Puccini's musical themes in the introductory verse.

"Poor Butterfly"

Verse.
There's a story told of a little Japanese
sitting demurely 'neath the cherry blossom trees.
Miss Butterfly her name,
a sweet little innocent child was she
till a fine young American from the sea,
to her garden came.

They met 'neath the cherry blossoms every day.
and he taught her how to love in the American way
To love with a soul was easy to learn.
And he sailed away with a promise to return.

Chorus.
Poor Butterfly, 'neath the blossoms waiting.
Poor Butterfly, for she loved him so.
The moments pass into hours, the hours pass into years.
And as she smiled through her tears, she murmured low:

The moon and I knew that he'd be faithful.
She knew he'd come to her by and by.
But if he n'er came back, she'd never sigh or cry,
she just would die, poor Butterfly.

Tony Bennett's gorgeous rendition.



Sonny Rollins, with J. J. Johnson, Horace Silver, Thelonious Monk and Art Blakey.

I used to have this LP. (I got a lot of free albums when I worked in radio.)

This was the closest they came to having a radio hit. A bit of Lovin' Spoonful, Mamas & Papas and The Beach Boys...



en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curt_Boettcher