Probably the first time I noticed that you could do interesting things with jazz arrangements was while watching The Bob Newhart Show in syndication. The song is called, “Home to My Emily.” I still love those kinds of Don Sebesky horn arrangements. Not that he has anything to do with The Bob Newhart Show them. And I have to admit that the song doesn’t quite do what it used to for me.
It was written by the show’s co-creator Lorenzo Music along with his wife, Henrietta Music. He is probably best known as the voice of Carlton the doorman on Rhoda. He was also apparently the voice of the lead character on Garfield. I never saw it. But Garfield does stand out in my mind as a push back to the trend in comics of the time, which was to actually be funny.
For this week, I thought we would do television show theme songs that I admire. But not just any. I want to features songs that are of a distinct type. But I don’t have a name for it. They are, roughly speaking, jazz instrumentals. These are often some of the most memorable songs. Usually, they are well written, but it is mostly because we hear them so much.
Probably the most well known practitioner of this kind of art is Mike Post, who wrote the music for pretty much every show you can think of from the early 1980s. I may come back to him later this week. He’s actually not one of the my favorites, but he seemed like a good person to start with. And the show I picked is Hill Street Blues. Now this is an interesting show. My friend Will loved it. But I have never seen it. It must be good, though; it is where David Milch got his start (he wrote a very large number of the episodes).
And so we start another week of Morning Music. I’ve been reading, Gil Scott-Heron: Pieces of a Man. So I thought we ought to feature him. He was an amazing talent. He died far too young. And he spent far too much time otherwise engaged, releasing no work. Still he left the world a great deal of work: 13 studio albums.
Given that he isn’t that well known, I think we should start with his breakout song, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” off his first album, Small Talk at 125th and Lenox. I first heard it when I was in my very late teens, working graveyard as a baker. It blew my mind. For one thing, I had long been interested in a kind of chanting or talk singing. And I had long been told by people that you just couldn’t do that. Well, here was someone doing that and it was electrifying.
Note a couple of things about this. First, not all his work is like this. He was quite varied. Much of his music is very jazzy, as the song I’m going to feature tomorrow off his next album. Second, this is the original version. If you want to hear his recording of the song with a full band, it is on YouTube. I prefer this one:
Cover of “Gil Scott-Heron: Pieces of a Man” licensed under fair use.
Pieces of a Man
Today we listen to the title track of Pieces of a Man. Gil Scott-Heron wrote it with jazz composer Brian Jackson — who he would do some of his best work with.
The song is the perfect combination of music and lyrics. It sounds like a jazz standard with lots of major 7th chords. It is highly evocative, even as it tells a fairly concrete story about a man destroyed by his economic difficulties. In particular, it highlights the importance of having a paying job to a man’s self-esteem. “He was a good man and a strong man, yet he went to pieces.”
I especially like the line, “And for some unknown reason, he never turned my way.” I know that experience. Men of that generation did not like to cry. But this feeling was especially true when it came to crying in front of their sons. They felt like they had to be strong for their sons. Although as this song indicates (but it is not autobiographical), sons still saw their fathers as strong. Regardless, that’s such a wonderful way of rendering the scene — explaining exactly what was happening with very few words.
Jagged jigsaw pieces Tossed about the room, I saw my grandma sweeping With her old straw broom. But she didn’t know what she was doing. She could hardly understand, That she was really sweeping up Pieces of a man.
I saw my daddy meet the mailman. And I heard the mailman say, “Now don’t you take this letter to hard now Jimmy, Cause they’ve laid off nine others today.” But he didn’t know what he was saying. He could hardly understand That he was only talking to Pieces of a man.
I saw the thunder and heard the lightning, And felt the burden of his shame. And for some unknown reason, He never turned my way!
Pieces of that letter Were tossed about that room. And now I hear the sound of sirens Come knifing through the gloom. But they don’t know what they are doing. They could hardly understand That they’re only arresting Pieces of a man.
I saw him go to pieces! I saw him go to pieces! He was always such a good man! He was always such a strong, strong man! Yeah, I saw him go to pieces. I saw him go to pieces.
We will slide smoothly into Gil Scott-Heron’s third album, Free Will. I’m making no effort to stay away from his better known tunes, because none of his work that that well know. And even people who have heard these tunes may not know who did them. Today, I feature, “The Get Out of the Ghetto Blues.”
One thing that was interesting about the black power movement was how self-critical it was. In that way, it was exactly what conservatives like David Brooks and Paul Ryan claim the African American community should be. (In my work with a local Baptist church, I can assure you that this never went away.) But, of course, white America was terrified of black power. And, of course, we aren’t just talking bigots in small town Mississippi. We are talking northern white suburbanites — most of whom did not consider themselves racists.
“The Get Out of the Ghetto Blues” is very simple. It’s about self-empowerment — by way of hectoring. It also has an awesome guitar part by David Spinozza.
In 1973, Gil Scott-Heron released what I think is generally considered his masterpiece, Winter in America. And that’s saying something, considering the amazing quality of his work throughout his career. And I really think you should take eight minutes to love yourself by listening to “H²Ogate Blues.” Get it? It is an amazing musically accompanied rap. It is intense and insightful. But what it reminds me of is Bob Dylan’s “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35,” because it is so clear that the musicians are having such a great time. It can’t help but cheer you up, and you don’t even have to think of Nixon and Vietnam. Although “Just how blind, America?” still cuts like a new razor.
But instead, let’s do a song that wasn’t on the original release of Winter in America: “Winter in America.” I’m sure it was meant to be on it. It was on his next album. And it has been on reissues. It starts with the line, “From the Indians who welcomed the pilgrims.” And I’m sure to most people, the response will be, “Yes, it probably did feel like winter in America in 1973.” But I think Scott-Heron is still right. Nothing has changed. It’s just that we are more delusional than we used to be. We pretend that we aren’t at war because we use machines to prop up our empire. Americans may not be dying, but I think it is pretty clear that America is dying.
Forgive me. By definition, weeks only have seven days, and it is impossible to squeeze into that the whole career of someone as great as Gil Scott-Heron. So I’m just going to jump to his last album, I’m New Here. We’ll spend our last two days on it.
It is not even a half hour long, but it packs a punch. In one way, it is totally different from what he’d done before. There’s a lot more atmosphere. But fundamentally, it is another Gil Scott-Heron record — in many ways as good as anything he ever did.
Me And The Devil
What we’re going to listen to is a video of two works on that album. The first song is his amazing cover of Robert Johnson’s “Me and the Devil Blues.” I don’t really know what to say. You’ve got to hear it. It’s fantastic. And then, there is his song “Your Soul and Mine.” It is Scott-Heron reciting “The Vulture” off his first album, with atmospheric music underneath. “Standing in the ruins of another black man’s life…” The two songs go perfectly together:
I’m New Here is probably Gil Scott-Heron’s most personal album. Or at least it feels that way. A friend mentioned that it was interesting that he should fall into the very trap of drug addiction and jail that he preached against. But I noted that this is actually a misreading of his work. Any hectoring that he did was loving. His real attacks were against the system that destroyed people. The fact that the system, to some extent, destroyed him almost seems appropriate to me.
The good thing about it is that he was able to write from both sides of it. For example, “The Crutch” presents what I think of as a very knowing portrait of a heroin addict, even though that was not his drug of choice. But I want to share with you a very raw blues number, “New York Is Killing Me.” It is both personal and social. And it is eternal. I am apparently not the only one to think that, because there are a lot of derivative songs based on it. But here is the album cut:
Gil Scott-Heroin 1990
We come to the end of our week of Gil Scott-Heron, and as usual, I’ve chosen a live set for this Saturday. I had a hard time choosing. The truth is that there are kind of two Gil Scott-Herons. There’s the young firebrand. Then there is the older and wiser man. Being older and wiser myself, I identify much more with the latter. But it is often great to spend time with the firebrand. It doesn’t really matter. I love it all.
The big problem is that I can’t find any live performances that are really late. They are more in the late 1990s and early 2000s when he was struggling. These performances make me a bit sad, even though they are still very good. This is the third time I’m posting a live performance. They keep being taken down. It’s from 1990.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdqLAeyqVr8
Cover of “Gil Scott-Heron: Pieces of a Man” licensed under Fair Use.
Popcorn, Bottle, and Gil Scott-Heron
Many of you may know of my fondness for Gil Scott-Heron and his funky proto-rap. I remember the first time I heard him, I was working as a baker in my late teens. The one nice thing about that job was that I was alone and so I could listen to the local alternative radio station. And on came “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” It was a revelation, “The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal… The revolution will not make you look five pounds thinner because the revolution will not be televised.”
Earlier today, my friend (and sometimes writer for this site) Will sent me a link to Scott-Heron’s song “The Bottle” with a note, “Doesn’t the bass line sound like corn popping?” I had to admit that it did. But going back over a lot of his work, that’s more generally true. That’s part of what makes his work funky. There is no funk guitar, so it all comes down to the bass and the percussion. But the bass on “The Bottle” does sound more like a popcorn machine than any other song I’ve heard.
The song itself is deadly serious despite a really catchy tune and pleasant production. It’s about hopeless people who find their only solace in alcohol. It could be anything though. The bridge is slightly different each time, but the lyrics are:
Don’t you think it’s a crime The way, time after time Friends of mine In the bottle There’s people sure ‘nough In the bottle
But the song offers no solutions, and not even much in the way of context. Maybe in the three years between “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” and “The Bottle,” Scott-Heron had become a bit more cynical. I don’t actually think so. But it is certainly true that Small Talk at 125th and Lenox with “Revolution” and “Whitey on the Moon” is more strident than Winter in America. I prefer the former, but musically the latter is better.
Anyway, here is “The Bottle”:
Conclusion
Gil Scott-Heron was one of the rarest of things: an idiosyncratic artist who was incredibly skilled. Every time I’m forced to listen to some American Idol screetcher, I’m reminded of the authentic beauty of Gil Scott-Heron’s work. In a way, I think of him as our Jacques Brel. But his work is so much more relevant to my life. I wish he were still alive. He’d only be 68 as I write this. It would be a different thing if his last album was weak, but it was some of his strongest work. He had so much more to offer us.
But I am extremely grateful for the work that he did leave to us. And I recommend that you check him out. There is lots of his work on YouTube. And you can still buy his albums at Amazon or your local record store. Listening to Gil Scott-Heron is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself!
As I like to do when I highlight a particular artist, I end this week with a live set of said artist. This week, it has been Elvis Costello. And do I have a wonderful one: Elvis Costello at Woodstock 99. It will make up for my slighting the early albums at the same time that it is too early for him to perform stuff that I’m not intimately familiar with.
The second song is one that I had thought about using this week, “Mystery Dance.” When I first heard that song, I was still in my teens and I knew exactly what he was talking about. Sex really is an art, and it should not be attempted by two novices. So at the time, it made me feel normal. As an old man, it’s just hilarious, but in the kindest way.
There are lots of things to love about Elvis Costello. He’s got a great voice — capable of conveying any emotion (something I find distinctly lacking in the huge pop stars). Musically, he’s always interesting — never boring, but never too difficult (even on The Juliet Letters). But mostly, he’s just really smart. It’s nice to know what he has to say. I feel like I grew up with him. When he was angry, I was angry; when he started figuring out life, I started figuring out life. I really ought to get some of his newest albums to see if we are still growing together — or more likely, not growing together.
Today in our adventures with Elvis Costello, I’m going to highlight what I think is the first CD I ever owned: Spike. It’s certainly the case that I originally had Blood & Chocolate on vinyl. And yes, I know, I’ve completely neglected the first three albums. I think that’s because of something James said. I assure you, I could do Elvis Costello songs for the next several months and manage to write 500 words about each one of them. I’m still not 100% and today we’re doing Spike so get over it!
The thing about Spike is that I don’t think it is a very good album. But it has some of my favorite songs on it. It has “Let Him Dangle” and “Tramp the Dirt Down.” But I already highlighted both of those songs (along with the exquisite “Shipbuilding”) a year ago, Three Elvis Costello Political Songs. In that article, I say I that I hadn’t actively sought out his music after this album, but that’s not true; I followed him closely through All This Useless Beauty. But it is probably true that Spike was the album that kind of ended the romance.
The real standout song on the album is “God’s Comic.” Maybe I say that simply because I get it, unlike so many other of his songs. For example, on the same album is “Veronica,” a little pop annoyance he wrote with Paul McCartney. I really tried to figure out what that song was about, but it was only after I read an interview with Costello that I found out. How the hell was anyone supposed to get that from the song? And given what the song is about, why is it such an upbeat tune?
On the other hand, in “God’s Comic,” I’m in on the joke. I even get the final line that turns everything on its head. And I think this is a wonderful bit of sly writing:
So there he [God] was on a water-bed
Drinking a cola of a mystery brand
Reading an airport novelette
Listening to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Requiem
He said, before it had really begun
“I prefer the one about my son.”
Get it?! God is listening to Webber’s requiem mass, but God isn’t that into it. He prefers Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar. In addition to everything else, God has base tastes. It’s a brilliant song with lots of other great lines like, “Sometimes you confuse me with Santa Claus; it’s the big white beard I suppose.” And I was going to feature it today, but this week, I’m feeling a little down. And so we’ll listen to another song I quite like from the album, “Baby Plays Around.” It was written with Cait O’Riordan, the woman who did a better job than anyone else at putting up with his crap.
This week of Elvis Costello is truly random. It’s just whatever comes into my mind. Everyone seems to have a soundtrack for their lives, and Costello is certainly a big part of mine. One such song is off King of America, “Sleep of the Just.” I’d never heard that phrase before I heard it in the song, but it is so clear. As Oxford puts it, “A deep, untroubled sleep.” It is something I don’t ever recall having.
I have a vague memory of seeing Costello do the song live in San Jose around that time — 1986. I think it was the Blood & Chocolate tour. Nick Lowe opened for him. Costello did two sets: one on guitar and one (rather silly) on piano. And for an encore, he did “I Want You” with even more intensity than he performed it on the album.
Regardless, lyrically the song is opaque. There are some things that are fairly clear. There is a brother and sister. The brother is in the army and the sister is a pinup girl. The brother is ashamed to have his fellow soldiers ogling his sister. What’s so frustrating about the song is that he plays around with point of view in a most careless way. But I’ll still give it my own narrative.
The singer has a confrontation with a soldier in a bar. The guy’s a jerk, but nothing comes of it. The next day, the singer is on a bus (Tour bus?) and it breaks down, so he has to spend the night there. He meets and sleeps with a young woman. He imagines that she is the sister of the soldier. And the final verse is his imagining of what the sister is imagining. Or not. I’m more interested in it from a formal standpoint.
Costello couldn’t help but throw in a little reference to Madonna, although I think it’s awkward. I think he means it as in, “Is it immaterial, girl?” And not, “Is it immaterial girl?” It is, in fact, immaterial given that all women are some mother’s daughter. But ultimately, we all need, and I dare say deserve, the sleep of the just.
Afterword
For all you Costello fans, I just found this set of acoustic demos for the album: King Of America Demos.
I’m sorry to say that today is rather a bad day. I don’t write these articles in order, so I know what’s coming. But I thought I would present you with a song to get you ready for it. It’s Elvis Costello’s “I Want You” off Blood & Chocolate. It is a supremely creepy song. I remember doing this. After a relationship ends, tormenting yourself over it.
I remember a woman I knew thought one line was wrong, “Did you call his name out as he held you down.” She thought it should be “as I held you down.” True, that has a certain power, but it totally misses the point of song: the imagination of just what the absent lover is doing. And yet, still you want her. You want to protect her; you want to kill her; you just want her.
I am very glad to be past those times. I have certain expectations of people in my life. I am disappointed and lonely at times. But no one has the kind of power over me that Costello sings about. And it may be the height of hubris to say that no one ever will have that kind of power over me again. It isn’t that it couldn’t happen. But I just would not let it happen. I don’t have that kind of trust in human nature. But you can all laugh heartily at me if I ever allow it to happen. And as you doubtless already know, I would write about it here first.
“Bloodandcho” by Source. Licensed under Fair use of copyrighted material in the context of Blood & Chocolate”>Fair use via Wikipedia.
When I was in graduate school, a fellow student loaned me a copy of Almost Blue. I had avoided it because it was just an album of covers — and country covers at that. But I was blown away with how much I liked it. Some time later, I bought a re-issue of the album, that contained a whole bunch more songs. And there at number 18 was Costello’s version of Leon Payne’s song “Psycho.”
It is a perfect song. It tells a very compelling and complete story while maintaining the emotional core that all songs should have. It also has perhaps the best payoff line of any song I can think of. It reinforces the theme of the song while re-framing the plot. The interesting thing is that I have found no one covering the tune before Costello. He seems to have been alone in realizing what a great tune it is.
There is a live version (but I can’t embed it). So here is the album cut:
I was learning to play the bass guitar when I first heard Get Happy!! The bass playing on it is incredible. That would be Bruce Thomas. For whatever reason, he and Elvis Costello do not get along. I suspect that it is a personal thing. But it could be musical as well. Costello has talked about his tendency to rewrite in the studio. This causes problems for a bass player of Thomas’ brilliance. It is hard to get a bass part that really works, and it has got to be annoying to get something that works and have the song suddenly changed.
Regardless, I’ve always been particularly taken with the bass part on the song “Black & White World.” Even after all these years, I don’t really know what the song is about. It has various references to photography and cinema — and the difference between the fantasy and reality. But more than that, I can’t much say. Still, it is a fine song.
So I find myself down south staying with my sister for the Thanksgiving holiday, many days of writing ahead. Still, since I will be driving all Sunday, I realized that I hadn’t written Sunday’s posts when I got here. And it’s kind of hard to get work done here. It’s a little better now. But still, I was panicking. So as I think I mentioned, I decided to do a week of Elvis Costello. I don’t just have to get Sunday done; I also have to do Monday, because I’m sure I’m going to be a mess all Sunday night and probably all of Monday as well.
Costello does a great cover of the Rodgers and Hart classic “My Funny Valentine.” But I really don’t remember when I first heard it. I thought it had been on Get Happy!! But it wasn’t. According to the Elvis Costello Wiki, it was actually on, Taking Liberties — which until now I didn’t know was a compilation album. Regardless, the two albums came out at the same time, so I’m not totally insane.
Anyway, here he is performing the song live. It’s a great combination: three of my favorite songwriters working together (although not as writers — both Rodgers and Hart were dead by then anyway). After our week of Thanksgiving music, this should be pleasant.
[Under normal circumstances, I would write about the Whitman massacre. It provides a good opportunity to discuss violence that I disagree with, but at a distance to allow an honest discussion of the causes. Regardless, I really don’t like the whole missionary business. You know, if it were all about helping the poor and hoping by the example of your good works that you would convince them that your ways were the best, great. But that isn’t the way it works. And that certainly wasn’t the way it worked with the Whitmans. But I don’t have the time, so I’m going to reprint last year’s anniversary post, because it is about a very great man. -FM]
On this day in 1915, the great jazz composer and arranger Billy Strayhorn was born. He is best remembered for his work with Duke Ellington. Of course, he largely isn’t remembered at all. Even people who don’t like jazz at all know who Ellington was. But Strayhorn worked in the shadows, and he seemed to have liked it that way.
He was a phenomenon at an early age. While still in high school, he wrote a musical. He also formed his own trio that played on local radio every day. And he wrote a number of great songs, including “Lush Life.” Here he is in 1964, performing it live:
Strayhorn wanted to be a classical composer, but he had the wrong skin color. His introduction to Art Tatum — a classical composer in his own way — pushed Strayhorn into jazz. And at the age of 23, he met and began collaborating with Duke Ellington. It is hard to say where one starts and the other ends. Ellington said, “Billy Strayhorn was my right arm, my left arm, all the eyes in the back of my head, my brain waves in his head, and his in mine.” But being the established great man, Ellington took credit for much of Strayhorn’s work. Generally speaking, if you see a tune composed by Strayhorn and Ellington, it is Strayhorn’s. And Strayhorn is probably even more important as an arranger in creating what we now think of as the Duke Ellington sound.
That’s not to say that Ellington took advantage of the younger man. They had a symbiotic relationship. It is doubtful that Strayhorn would have accomplished so much without the protection and encouragement of Ellington. And Strayhorn got sole writing credit for the most famous song of the Duke Ellington orchestra, “Take the ‘A’ Train.” Here he is performing the song on piano with the orchestra. At the end, Ellington lists some of Strayhorn’s other compositions.
Sadly, in 1964 — at the same time he recorded “Lush Life” above, he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, which seemed to ended his career. He died three years later.
Okay, let’s end this week with some nice Thanksgiving-ish songs. I was going to just do the Mary Chapin Carpenter song “Thanksgiving Song.” It really isn’t bad. I wish there were more songs like it. You know what the real problem is: Elvis never released a Thanksgiving album. And because of that, I definitely won’t be doing this next year.
Starting tomorrow, I think I’m going to do a week of Elvis Costello. Certainly a week of California punk would better get rid of the sticky sweetness of this last week. But Costello is really easy for me — especially if I stick to the first 15 albums or so, which should be pretty easy given I only need six songs and a concert.
Anyway, here is a short set that Mary Chapin Carpenter did Paste Studio NYC! We had one major thing to be thankful for that day: Mitt Romney wasn’t going to be president.
Probably the first time I noticed that you could do interesting things with jazz arrangements was while watching The Bob Newhart Show in syndication. The song is called, “Home to My Emily.” I still love those kinds of Don Sebesky horn arrangements. Not that he has anything to do with The Bob Newhart Show them. And I have to admit that the song doesn’t quite do what it used to for me.
Many of you may know of my fondness for Gil Scott-Heron and his funky proto-rap. I remember the first time I heard him, I was working as a baker in my late teens. The one nice thing about that job was that I was alone and so I could listen to the local alternative radio station. And on came “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” It was a revelation, “The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal… The revolution will not make you look five pounds thinner because the revolution will not be televised.”
As I like to do when I highlight a particular artist, I end this week with a live set of said artist. This week, it has been Elvis Costello. And do I have a wonderful one: Elvis Costello at Woodstock 99. It will make up for my slighting the early albums at the same time that it is too early for him to perform stuff that I’m not intimately familiar with.
On this day in 1915, the great jazz composer and arranger 
Okay, let’s end this week with some nice Thanksgiving-ish songs. I was going to just do the Mary Chapin Carpenter song “
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