Variation 3

Rock Around the Clock is a blues-based song, written in 1952.  It was written by Max C. Freedman and James E. Myers, and performed and made famous by Bill Haley and His Comets in 1954 and became the No. 1 single in the US and the UK.  The song can be heard at the theme music for the television program Happy Days, and the original Bill Haley recording is on the 1973 American Graffitti soundtrack.

For Elvis Presley, look up the post "Thankyaverymuuhhch."

Peter Pan is the title character from a series of novels and short stories written by the Scottish writer J. M. Barrie, the most well-known one, Peter and Wendy, published in 1911.  It was made into a musical in 1954.  The 1954 musical featured Mary Martin as Peter, and she reprised the role in the 1960 film version of the musical.  The music was written by Mark "Moose" Charlap, with additional music from Jule Styne, and lyrics by Carolyn Leigh (with additional lyrics from Betty Comden and Adolph Green).

Buddy Holly was an American rock artist from Lubbock, TX.  Born Charles Hardin Holley in 1936, his career was cut short after a fatal airplane crash in 1959, but not before making an indelible mark in rock and roll and pop music history.  He is credited with innovating the rock sound and inspiring and influencing countless other musicians after him, including Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, and The Rolling Stones.  He released only three albums, but they have been enough to show his talents as a singer-songwriter, and many of his hits are still covered by other artists and given radio play today.  Buddy Holly and the Crickets are known for great rock hits: Peggy Sue, That'll Be the Day, Everyday, and Oh Boy (and many others.) 

Holly, "The Big Bopper" Richardson, Richie Valens, and the pilot of the small charter plane died en route from Clear Lake, IA (his last performance at the Surf Ballroom) to Moorehead, MN in the early morning hours of February 3, 1959.  We can only imagine what he could have offered the world had this tragic event been avoided, while not forgetting the lost talents of the other two musicians on board. 

On this somber note, Variation 3 comes to a quiet and pensive end.

Variation 2

Liberace Walter Valentino Liberace, or just Liberace (pronounced lib-er-ah-chee) had his debut at age 20 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.  He is one of the highest paid musicians and pianists of all time.  A West Allis, WI native, he made his film debut as a honky tonk pianist in South See Sinner in 1950.  His trademarks include a candle-lit candelabra and increasingly gaudy outfits (he was Elton John before Elton John was Elton John!).  He was a virtuoso in the truest sense of the word, taking already complicated piano rags and solos and adding even more flash and flare.  The candelabra idea came to him after watching the 1945 movie, A Song to Remember, based on the life of Chopin.

Prokofiev Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) is best known for his works Peter and the Wolf, Romeo and Juliet (the ballet), and the Lieutenant Kije suite. 

"Another time after a concert (Prokofiev) told a famous singer, who had just performed a few of his songs, that she did not understand anything about his music and had better stop singing it. He said it in the presence of a large group of startled onlookers and in such a boorish way that he brought the poor fat lady to tears. 'You see,' he continued reprimanding her, 'all of you women take refuge in tears instead of listening to what one has to say and learning how to correct your faults.'"

Nicolas Nabokov, (1951) from Old Friends and New Music

Toscanini  The Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957) began as a cello and composition student at Parma's Royal School of Music (Italy).  He graduated with honors and was noted for his photographic memory.  At age 19, while on tour with an Italian opera company, (he was playing cello in the orchestra ensemble) he was asked to fill in for the conductor.  The opera was the enormous Aida, and Toscanini conducted it from memory.  He continued to accumulate conducting experiences and by age 31, he was conducting Milan's Teatro alla Scala (the most distinguished opera ensemble in Italy).  After proving his world-class abilities, he was made director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in 1930.  He retired from the New York Phil in 1937, but then accepted a position directing the NBC Symphony, an ensemble of musicians of the highest caliber for weekly radio programs.  He retired completely at age 87 and died in his home in the Bronx a few years later, just shy of his 90th birthday.

Variation 1

Marilyn Monroe is better known as an actress and model, but she did do a fair amount of singing in her films.  Some of her more notable tunes are Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend from 1953's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and I Wanna Be Loved By You from the hilarious Some Like It Hot (1959).  On May 19, 1962, she sang Happy Birthday to President John F. Kennedy, ten days before his actual 45th birthday.  It was one of her last public appearances; she died almost three months later. 

Marlon Brando isn't a musician.  He did, however, have the starring role as Sky Masterson in the 1955 MGM movie-musical Guys and Dolls.  Frank Sinatra wanted the role of Sky, but instead got the role of Nathan Detroit.  The film was based on the 1950 Broadway production, with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser.  There was no vocal dubbing, so what you hear is really the actor's voice.

The King and I is a musical about a British governess hired to work for the King of Siam.  It is based on the novel Anna and the King of Siam (1944) which itself was derived from the written memoirs of Anna Leonowens, who was the governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in the 1860s.  The stage musical was an instant hit, winning three Tony Awards.  It was the fifth musical hit from the music and lyrics duo Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. 

THEME

Doris Day is an American actress and singer.  She made her start as a big band singer in 1939 and gained recognition in 1945 with the hit Sentimental Journey.  She has appeared in 39 films and released 29 albums.  As a big band singer, she has worked with Jimmy James, Bob Crosby (brother of Bing Crosby), and Les Brown.  She is now 87 years old and a strong supporter for animal rights.

Johnnie Ray was a popular singer throughout much of the 1950s.  He is noted for innovating the theatrical style of performance: crying, banging on the piano, falling to the floor, tearing at his hair, all done with strong emotion.  Two of his first big hits were Cry and The Little White Cloud That Cried.  This 2-sided record earned him the distinction of being the first pop singer to hit the 2-million-sold mark. As a kid, he'd lost hearing in his right ear and later lost much of the hearing in his left ear due to an operation.  Whether or not this influenced his performance style is unclear.

South Pacific is the 1949 Broadway musical, music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II.  The book was written by Hammerstein and Joshua Logan.  The plot, set in WWII, centers around an American nurse who falls in love with an expat French plantation owner.  The musical explores racial prejudice and the subject of interracial marriage.  Hit songs to come from this great musical include: Bali Ha'i, I'm Gonna Wash the Man Right Outta My Hair, Some Enchanted Evening, and Younger Than Springtime.  The show has won 10 Tony Awards, and the 2008 Broadway revival was a colossal success, earning the show another 7 Tony Awards.

Still crazy

Last night I got to see a living legend.  Live in concert.  Paul Simon at the iWireless Center (though, to me it's still the MARK) in Moline, IL.  Surprisingly, not sold out, but those people not in the empty seats sure missed a great show.  First of all, Simon sounds great.  His voice still carries its characteristic timbre and he maintains full vocal range, singing the high notes with ease.  His guitar playing is solid and more than once he took out a harmonica and played it flawlessly.  It's such a treat to see on stage a group of people who look like that are doing the very thing they were born to do, and Simon and his band members do just that.

Can I talk about the band for a moment?  WOW!  Such musicianship!  The band was an 8 piece (plus Paul), but every player contributed more than just one sound (except for maybe the drummer, but he was kept pretty busy throughout the show.)  The lead guitarist played a bari saxophone and whistles.  The tenor player played soprano sax and marimba.  The trumpet player was also the accordionist and auxiliary percussion. 

These guys have my dream job!

After an impressive half set from the opening Punch Brothers, the concert began with the welcoming strains of the accordion from The Boy in the Bubble (Graceland album.  I've discussed this album before.  Look for the post about Links and Paul Simon.)  Throughout the rest of the nearly 2-hour show, Simon played a well-balanced mix of old hits and new songs from his latest album So Beautiful or So What (that you are now hereby commanded to go out and listen to.  It's really good.  Go!  Listen!)  A smooth sounding 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, a sweet Still Crazy After All These Years, and a couple of covers from Bo Diddley and George Harrison.  I'm not an obsessive Paul Simon fan, but I've yet to hear something from him that I didn't like. 

I love his world music sound, and he pulls a lot from South African and Zydeco influences, and plays it well.  Before leaving the stage, he took a moment to personally introduce each band member, including the bassist, Bathiki Kumalo, who Simon introduced as his bassist from the Graceland album and friend of 25 years.  Kumalo is responsible for that famous bassline you hear on the You Can Call Me Al track.  He wrote the line and Paul had him play it forwards and backwards.  That's just awesome.

An Innocent Man

Well, apparently Billy Joel has taken up residence in my head.  For the past several weeks, lyrics from We Didn't Start the Fire keep floating in an out of my brain.  I think it's my mind's way of trying to memorize and make rhythmic sense of the barrage of historical headlines.  The video is great, incidentally, as it takes the viewer through four decades of iconic imagery. 

William Martin Joel, of the Bronx, NY, was born May 9, 1949 and began learning the piano at age 12.  In 1971, he signed a solo contract, but eventually moved to the west coast to evade fallout from a contractual dispute. There he performed in piano bars under the name Bill Martin.  However, his talent couldn't keep him hidden and a leak of a tape of the song Captain Jack in Philadelphia resulted in Columbia Records tracking him down and offering him a recording contract.  Piano Man was his first top 20 single and first gold album.  The rest is history, as the saying goes.  The video to We Didn't Start the Fire, incidentally, currently has over 7 million hits on YouTube, a trend that follows with many of his other videos from the 80s.  Fire also reached #1 in the Billboard singles charts in 1989. 

Like many great artists, listening to the current Billy Joel is just as good as listening to the vintage Billy Joel.  He has a very distinctive piano style, kind of like how you can usually pick out Elton John's piano playing.  Joel's style is 50s pop inspired,  with conventional chord progressions and driving rhythms. But his lyrics and powerful voice are what set him apart from other piano-playing songwriters.  Hopeful, optimistic, but always rooted in reality, which makes him come across, at times, as a bittersweet, sad sort of soul. 

I truly appreciate his creativity, as evidenced in his sometimes wild music videos (Pressure) and lyrics (Allentown).  And:  in the The Longest Time, a doo-wop styled song, (written in 1983, released in 1984) Joel is the only voice you hear.  He recorded 14 tracks, with himself on lead vocal and the backing vocals, then mixed them all together.  Nifty!

As far as I'm concerned, there are worse artists to have living in one's head, so I'll try not to complain too much.  But I just might start talking to you in song lyrics for a while...

Words, words, words

“The music is not in the notes,
but in the silence between.”

 “What's even worse than a flute? - Two flutes!”
  --- Maybe Mozart...

 Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. They teach you there’s a boundary line to music. But, man, there’s no boundary line to art.
--- Charlie Parker (Bird knows, man. Bird knows.)

Without Elvis, none of us could have made it.
--- Buddy Holly (This may not be entirely true, but it sounds good.)

Without music, life would be a mistake.
--- Friedrich Nietzsche (Good ol' Nietzsche.  Telling it like it is.)

Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.
--- Frank Zappa (This is how I feel much of the time.)

The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.
--- Hunter S. Thompson (Thompson sort of said this.  It wasn't originally penned about the music business, but it sums it up nicely.)

Wanna dance?

Before I continue analyzing Mozart's rondo movement of the Divertimento K 563, I'd like to take a moment to share some interesting things about Johann Strauss.  The Waltz King.  King of Waltzes!  Titan of three-four time!  In a deeply interesting book about Viennese musicians* I read about the Strauss empire.  We've all heard Strauss's name from time to time (and the waltzing Strauss is not to be confused with Richard Strauss, who is famous for an entirely different kind of musical contribution) but many of us don't know much more about this interesting person aside from his contribution to dance music.  Johann was born in Vienna in 1804, and though he wasn't the first composer to write dance music in 3/4 time, he was the one to make it wildly popular.  And he wrote a lot of them.  He was also a marketing genius, using many of the same techniques used by music promoters today.  He organized festivals and charged admission, he was careful to have sheet music available and pre-printed at each event so that it could be sold immediately (and then people could go home and play it themselves.) 

An interesting note about the waltz itself:  It was considered obscene and erotic by the chaste city population at the time of its introduction (early to mid 1800s).  Instead of daintily holding hands, the dancers would hold their arms around each other and whirl around until sometimes falling down from dizziness.  Because of this, waltzing was considered crude and vulgar.  Though the public outwardly claimed to find such performances repulsive, they inwardly enjoyed themselves too much, and so made the waltz a part of their society.

The Strauss empire included Johann Strauss (the Elder), and his sons, Joseph and Johann Jr. who only entered the profession due to the urgings of Strauss's wife, Anna (they eventually separated, but the care of the children was in her hands).  It was Anna who encouraged her sons to learn violin, piano and composing and they went on to make a name for themselves in the City of Music and the world. 

Ah-one-two-three!

*Vienna: A Guide to Its Music and Musicians.  Franz Endler.  Amadeus Press: Portland Oregan.  1989 translation.

City of Music

Guten Tag!

Before Nashville, New Orleans, Chicago or New York City, there was Vienna, Austria, the original Music City.  Vienna is the capital city of the Republic of Austria (pull out your globe, we're going to Eastern Europe!), and a hotspot for musicians, opera, and theatre since the 15th century. 

The list of heavy-hitting composers who have either come from or worked in Vienna is impressive:  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Gustav Mahler, Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, and Johannes Brahms.  The Classical style developed in Vienna.  At the end of the Romantic era, in the early 1900s, Arnold Schonberg began his "Second Viennese School."  Schonberg is now remembered by historians as spear-heading the atonal and twelve-tone serial music (to be explained another day, but you can safely assume that it doesn't sound anything like Brahms! {though Schonberg had a great respect for the music of Brahms})

Guest artists and composers to this Musical Oasis include: Carl Maria von Weber, Gioacchino Rossini, Antonio Vivaldi, Frederic Chopin, and Hector Berlioz.

Auf Wiedersehen!!

Make it stop!

Barney the Dinosaur's I Love You, song has been used by the U. S. in Guantanomo Bay's military detention camp to get information from the detainees.  Other songs used as torture devices:

The Real Slim Shady --Eminem

Enter Sandman --Metallica

We Are the Champions --Queen

Killing in the Name --Rage Against the Machine

Shoot to Thrill --AC/DC

Drrty --Christina Aguilera

Sesame Street opening theme song

The Meow Mix commercial theme song.  Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow! Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow!! 

Sorry to get these tunes stuck in your head.  Please come back.

> : )

*Source: Mental_floss magazine, Nov-Dec 2011, Vol 10, Issue 6