It All Has To Do With It

On my birthday I bought myself a new CD (with my parents' money, it should be admitted) of tenor saxophonist John Coltrane's suite A Love Supreme. I have heard from numerous sources that this is one of the best jazz albums there is, and I figured it would be a good place to jump into Coltrane's oeuvre (as it is considered his masterpiece) and into the area of modern jazz in general (a field which I am not terribly well acquainted with). The album is in four parts, features four musicians, and is a little over half an hour long. In the first 24 hours after I purchased it, I listened to it three times. Now I try to keep my music reviews objective, to be informative about the qualities of the music rather than just give a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down," because other people with different musical sensibilities than mine may like music that I dislike and vice versa. In the case of A Love Supreme, however, I am pretty much inclined to say that anyone who dislikes this music is a complete philistine. I'm not even sure how or where to begin to talk about something this phenomenal.

According to Coltrane's own liner notes, he had a profound religious experience in 1957 which finally manifested itself seven years later in the highly spiritual and swiftly written music for A Love Supreme (the album was in fact dedicated to God). In 1965, with McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums, at one of the definitive sessions in jazz history, the suite was put on record. It is a work of undeniable genius and the session was intangibly magical. Brilliant improvisation from all four participants becomes practically an expectation as you listen.

At various points, A Love Supreme is deceptively accessible or stupefyingly complex, so powerfully swung that you want to dance or so multirhythmic that the room spins, based on straightforward scales or on bizarrely uprooted chromatic scales. An incredible variety of textures is present throughout: solo bass, solo drums, lilting accompaniment supporting a careening Coltrane solo, all-out no-holds-barred polyphonic chaos from all musicians, delicate interweaving between two or more musicians, even a brief multi-tracked septet at the very climax.

It is the most thematic piece of non-classical music I have ever heard--so thematic, in fact, that I question labeling it as non-classical. Part 1, "Acknowledgment," opens with a forceful and distinctive bass line (covered by disjointed, atonal piano chords) that is utilized everywhere: first intermingled to brilliant effect in Coltrane's opening solo, then sequenced obviously and almost randomly on the sax through what seems like every key, then appearing in Coltrane's brief, weird chant of "a love su-preme, a love su-preme." This theme and others from the acidic Part 1 reappear in the more frenetic and thrashing Part 3, "Pursuance" (aptly titled for what amounts to a musical chase), which appears after the well-juxtaposed, more relaxed, and more "traditional" (if that's possible) Part 2, "Resolution," which sounds more like a jam tune but is also incredibly thematic, featuring a "head" which falls through various strange chords but resolves logically. After the agony of Part 3 comes the gentle, seemingly pulseless, minor pentatonic Part 4, "Psalm," in which Coltrane "reads" a religious poem he wrote (included in the liner notes) by playing its ebb and flow on his saxophone, with its recurring, plangent "Thank you God" theme.

This album is fabulous and deserves many repeated listenings. I am chomping at the bit to hear more Coltrane as well as the Turtle Island String Quartet's recent Grammy-winning cover of this album.

Safe is Not a Compliment

Last night on PBS there was a show about Russian conductor Valery Gergiev, head of the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg (formerly the legendary Kirov) as well as principal conductor for the London Symphony Orchestra and others. I was pleasantly surprised to realize that he also conducted the orchestra for the Metropolitan Opera's staging of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, featuring the stellar Renée Fleming, which my dad and I saw in the spring of last year. Now I wish I'd been paying more attention to the orchestration.

Gergiev is a perpetually grizzled and sweaty conductor of fifty-five and a virtual rock-star of the modern classical music world. His schedule is insane: he conducts nearly a gig a day (though I suspect that the intelligentsia do not refer to classical music concerts as "gigs"), indicating that he is constantly in high demand, and he dedicates fantastic amounts of energy to each. The stereotype of the wild-haired maestro who looks like he's about to give himself an aneurysm from his furious baton-waving is fully expressed in the person of Valery Gergiev. He grits his teeth and swings his huge hands to and fro, with his distinctive bangs quivering below his bald scalp, then squints and forms his mouth into a cooing shape as he delicately guides the orchestra into a more placid section, as if in rapture at the divine beauty of the sounds he is indirectly creating.



I know too little about twentieth-century classical music, or even about the idiosyncrasies of individual conductors, to say "Oh, well, he's better than Salonen but inferior to Bernstein" with any kind of authority, but even I could tell that Gergiev's music was fantastic--and I'm not just going off of the fact that he was considered enough of a legend to be featured on "Great Performances." This was some great classical music. His performers raved about his ability to hear anything, to labor patiently at minutiae, to connect with the orchestra and the audience. Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, a piece with which I have (surprisingly) a passing familiarity, was shown at various stages of development under Gergiev's Fearless Leadership, from first rehearsal to performance, and it was apparent that the work had gelled marvelously in his hands. Even with my old TV's decidedly sub-perfect sound quality, I felt my spine tingling as they moved through the famous, dramatic, explosively arrhythmic sections.

Perhaps most interesting to me, being as I am a non-classical musician and a member of the Great Unwashed, were Gergiev's more generally applicable comments about music. "Modern orchestras are generally very good," he said, and I am paraphrasing, "but that is not the same as interesting." (An analysis which could easily be applied to many bluegrass or rock bands.) "They can play well enough that everyone agrees they are very good--but that is playing safely, and safe is not always a compliment."

Newgrass, part 1

Here are a few old reviews of newgrass albums, updated slightly to reflect more current opinions and experiences (i.e. I have seen all of these people perform live since writing the original reviews). Newgrass, in case the term confuses you, is basically modernized bluegrass, characterized by extreme instrumental virtuosity, twisting of old bluegrass forms and licks, and jazz-influenced scales, time signatures, and so forth. It is one of my favorite styles of music and one of the ones that I spend the most time listening to and trying to play. The three albums I will take a look at in this post are Fork in the Road by the Infamous Stringdusters, Blind Man Walking by Cadillac Sky, and 3D by Casey Driessen.

The Infamous Stringdusters are composed of six incredibly skilled bluegrass musicians who have been playing with each other in various lineups for a long time and have been touring in this format for almost two years. Dobro player Andy Hall and fiddle player Jeremy Garrett, son of Glenn Garrett (former member of the Grasshoppers turned Christian musician), provide most of the songwriting and somewhat nasal but tightly harmonized vocals. Hall strikes me as the best all-around musician in the band, composing several of the band's better songs, such as the instrumental "No Destination," and contributing some stellar dobro work. The best instrumentalist is probably mandolinist Jesse Cobb, whose insane solos were somewhat toned down for Fork in the Road compared with those when I saw them live. As a fiddler myself, I listen with a far more critical ear to Garrett's playing, and though he is inarguably very good, and very well-versed in the idiom of bluegrass and jazz, he seems to keep coming back to a few of the same ideas until they seem gimmicky, such as off-rhythm triplets, syncopation a half-beat shy of the measure's beginning, and a lot of parallel fifth action. Not that there are any weak members in the band: all the members have excellent bluegrass credentials and several have excellent bluegrass DNA.

The thing that I fear cripples otherwise brilliant progressive bluegrass bands such as Nickel Creek or the Yonder Mountain String Band is the dearth of songwriting ability, except to write cerebral and inaccessible songs which have little in common with a simple, solid bluegrass song. The Stringdusters' songs hold their own quite well in the bluegrass canon, balancing catchiness with musical integrity. Sometimes they can't quite restrain themselves and go off into Happy Jazz Land on tunes such as John Mayer's chord-change-laden "3x5" (who'da thunk it?) or the seven-and-a-third-minute jam aptly titled "Moon Man," but usually they can find ways to express their musical musings within the constraints of a more straightforward tune such as "Letter from Prison" or the jumping opener, "No More to Leave You Behind." All in all, this is a really good record, sitting in a comfy place between the traditionalism of Open Road and the decadence of the Grateful Dead.

Cadillac Sky is a five-piece bluegrass band out of Forth Worth, Texas, considered by many respectable musicians I know to be the hottest thing in bluegrass today. Their mandolin player, Bryan Simpson, is also their lead vocalist and writes most of their songs. (Perhaps I only noticed after learning this, but it sure seems like there are a lot of mandolin breaks.) They are a very tight unit, though the places they choose to take their tightness are not necessarily the same places I would take it if I ran the world. The majority of the songs on this record have occasional religious tones, and several are definitely gospel songs, which may be explained in part by the fact that they are signed to Skaggs Family Records, which is also the label for Cherryholmes, Mountain Heart, and, well, Ricky Skaggs, and which is not exactly renowned as a Mecca of pantheism. I love gospel, but except for "Sinners Welcome," which is really freakin' cool, the in-your-face religiosity of the lyrics, almost on the level of Christian rock, interferes somewhat with my enjoyment of the music. Even the straighter bluegrassy tunes seem to be leaning a bit towards the kneeslapping, single-idea, grotesquely unpoetic lyrics of modern country (cf. "Mountain Man" or "Can't Trust the Weatherman"). The words are probably the one place I take issue with this band.

Instrumentally, they're on a par with the Stringdusters, though they delve much more rarely into the sideways scales and counterintuitive chord progressions of jazz. That's not to say, however, that they don't make use of opportunities to show their dexterity and ability. Their fiddler, Ross Holmes, is not only extremely skillful but wonderfully tasteful, and his breaks and fills are very enjoyable to listen for. (When I saw these guys live he went a bit crazier.) The singing is good, though the harmonies revolve primarily around Simpson, or sometimes guitarist Mike Jump, as the leader of the homophony. As I said, they are very tight, and their arrangements make a terrific use of rhythm to syncopate things unexpectedly and continually draw the listeners in. Their melodies are good, especially on the opener, "Born Lonesome" (which is the best tune on the record IMO), or the amusingly-titled instrumental "Neighborhood Bully's Long Look in the Mirror" (which is based off of a lick I swear I made up independently six months before hearing this record), but do not lend themselves to casual listening--you need to work to listen to Cadillac Sky, and you will probably find it rewarding.

Casey Driessen is a fiddle player who graduated from Berklee School of Music in Boston, toured off and on with Tim O'Brien, which is who I heard him with briefly about a year and a half ago, and then started doing his own thing. His cover of Bill Monroe's classic, dark, grinding bluegrass tune "Jerusalem Ridge," with at least four and possibly five fiddle tracks laid over each other, appears on this CD and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Country Instrumental Performance. Now I have heard a lot of cool things in my 16 illustrious years, and it would be hyperbole to say that Casey Driessen's "Jerusalem Ridge" is the coolest thing I've ever heard, but it isn't very much hyperbole. It is five minutes and forty seconds of complete and utter dark, grinding, jazzy, grassy, grooving, chopping, chocolatey goodness. Not to detract from the rest of the album, cause it's a great album, but "Jerusalem Ridge" is definitely the standout. Driessen plays 5-string fiddles and uses a lot of different mutes to get his desired sound. It's often electrified and usually has a drum kit of some sort, giving him a very modern and original sound which combines howling Appalachian fiddle tunes with sort of African and Latin influences. But electrified.

Driessen appears on Homespun Tapes' Chops and Grooves DVD with Darol Anger (of the Turtle Island String Quartet, among other endeavors) and Rushad Eggleston (of Crooked Still), and his chopping and grooving is often in evidence on 3D, especially on "Jerusalem Ridge" and "Footsteps So Near." He is extemely progressive, but his sound is easier to listen to (for me) than Cadillac Sky or even the Infamous Stringdusters. The caliber of musicians he gets for this record is amazing: Jerry Douglas, Bela Fleck, Darrell Scott, Tim O'Brien, and Victor Krauss. Sometimes he goes off, understandably, into Happy Jazz Land, but more often than not he has a terrifically dark and distinctive "Afro-Celt" sound going on. The quality and difficulty of his fiddle playing is almost secondary to the manner in which he composes and arranges things. Knowing the way "Jerusalem Ridge" is "supposed" to sound gives one an even greater appreciation for his incredible achievement with it; I am also partial to the fiddle-and-voice (Driessen's voice won't land him the position of rock-band frontman, but it's on the notes, well-phrased, and has a nice gravelly timbre) solo "Footsteps So Near," adapted, stunningly, from a waltz of the same name. "Sugarfoot Rag/Freedom Jazz Dance" is also very cool. So is "Sally in the Garden." Actually, it's all very cool. Basically you should just stop reading this blog and go buy this record.

This is just the beginning. Some other newgrass albums which I hope to review at a later date are Crooked Still's Shaken By a Low Sound, Yonder Mountain String Band's Town by Town, and Tim O'Brien and Darrell Scott's Real Time. Also, if I ever have any money to buy more music, I will probably purchase and end up reviewing Punch by Punch Brothers, The Road That Never Ends by Mountain Heart, and the Sparrow Quartet's first album--which apparently came out yesterday. Wow.

And, for the sake of objectivity, not to mention humor:

Bill Monroe: What do you boys call that music you play?
Courtney Johnson (original banjo player for NGR): Newgrass.
Bill Monroe: Yeah, I hate that.

Everybody Likes Free Stuff

Now that the Semester from Hell has come to a close, culminating in a successful-feeling AP Music Theory exam this morning, I hope to be able to get back to blogging more regularly. For starters, here are some things I found on the Internet in my quest for free music, all downloadable from the artists themselves.

Gangstagrass (Various Artists): More or less what it sounds like. The brainchild of New York producer Rench, Gangstagrass is a hip-hop album using old (read "free") bluegrass tracks as its background samples. It appeals to a decidedly niche market, the strange people such as myself who profess admiration for both 1920's stringband music and underground rap. I was hooked from the intro, which samples the gorgeous and ghostly "Dark Was the Night" from 20's streetcorner evangelist and slide guitarist (and, in my opinion, co-founder of American music) Blind Willie Johnson. The two styles blend more fluidly than you might expect, though they do occasionally clash or sound strained. Highlights include "Who Ridin" (sampling a slowed-down version of Jerry Douglas' "Choctaw Hayride"!!), "Steels Gonna Be the Death of Me," and "On the Run." The track "Showin Me Love" should give you an idea of what the album sounds like.

Golden Opportunities Mixtape (Okkervil River): I've heard the name of Austin indie rock outfit Okkervil River tossed around for a while, but never taken the time to hear any of their music. Luckily, they put a freely downloadable album on their website a few months ago, consisting mostly of covers but nonetheless allowing me to get a flavor for the band. The first couple of songs I listened to were not inspiring, but after listening a bit more I have come around to liking these guys a bit more. Their instrumentation is mellow and acoustic, their lead singer's voice is very distinctive--which can be very good or very bad depending on whether or not you like his voice, with its sort of plaintive, wobbling yelp--and their songs are of the variegated and tuneful singer-songwriter type. This is a very unpolished (intentionally, let it be noted) and unusual band which will require a few more listenings to adjudge.

The Slip (Nine Inch Nails): I know little about this band other than Johnny Cash's cover of their fantastic song "Hurt" (a brilliant video which you need to watch RIGHT NOW if you haven't already) which is why I decided to look for some of their music. Imagine my amazement to discover yet more free stuff: their new downloadable album The Slip. Being by no means a connoisseur of industrial rock--in fact generally disliking the little industrial rock I have heard, considering it to be the ultimate case of noise masquerading as music--I have little to which I can compare this album. It is an odd combination of good, solid, straight-up (yet exceptionally dissonant) rock with severe distortion and deep, growling electronica. My chief complaint against much modern rock, including most industrial rock, is that it sounds too square and Wagnerian, but this album has drive and groove and rhythmic interest. NIN is worth another listen as well.

I also just got back from a road trip to my sister's graduation, during which I listened to lots and lots of music. Some fresh album reviews should be up soon.