On this day in 1854, the great composer John Philip Sousa was born. I know that marches are not “hip” (whatever that word might mean). People will generally leave me alone as I listen to my old blues and country thinking that it might be super hip and they just don’t know any better. (They’re right!) But no one questions but that marches are strictly the domain of blue haired old ladies and incontinent old men who are always shouting about communism. They are wrong to think this, because marches are a beautiful if extremely constrained art form.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that “The Washington Post” march is one of the greatest compositions ever written. The thing about a march is it has to be technically perfect and yet still have a great deal of musical inspiration. Consider “HM Jollies” by Sousa’s British contemporary Kenneth J Alford. I think it is an amazing piece of music by a brilliant musical mind. Yet despite its use of three common melodies and having once been forced to memorize it, I never find the march floating through my head. But “The Washington Post” plagues me — at least once a week. I only just found out that it was written for the newspaper:

Sousa’s father was a trombonist in the Marine band. He started Sousa’s musical education early — when he was only six years old. When Sousa was 13 years old, he apparently was going to run away and play in a circus band. So his father apprenticed him with the Marine band. I didn’t know they did this. It would be right after the Civil War. Sousa stayed with the band until he was 21. After that, he worked in theatrical orchestras where his facility on many instruments was doubtless highly valued. While doing that work, he learned to conduct — a skill he would use for the rest of his life. In 1880, he rejoined the Marines as the head of the band. After leaving in 1892, he formed his own band which was hugely successful. During his life, it was generally considered that playing in Sousa’s band was the best that a wind player could attain. Many notable people came out of the band, including Meredith Willson, who played flute and piccolo.

What I didn’t know was that Sousa also wrote a number of successful operettas. Sadly, I cannot find any of them that are performed as operettas. They are all instrumentals. But here is a collection of pieces from The Bride Elect, which most tantalizingly originally had an libretto by Sousa himself. This is quite beautiful:

Happy birthday John Philip Sousa!

On this day in 1931, the great musician Ike Turner was born. He was a rock pioneer. He and his band, Kings of Rhythm, recorded what is arguably the first rock song in 1951, “Rocket 88.” It’s amazing song, complete with distorted guitar. It was written by Turner and Jackie Brenston, who sings the song. Turner’s piano on the introduction has been widely copied. Elvis would not show up in a recording studio for another two and a half years. I’m sure “Rocket 88” blew people’s mind at the time. It still swings relentlessly. And it doesn’t contain even a hint of the excesses that would come to dominate the art form later on. It is just good music that will always appeal.

Turner had a long career of incredible work. Sadly, about the only thing that people know about him is that he beat up Tina Turner. I will not minimize that, but few great artists were models of virtue. And I tend to think that part of the focus on this is racist — the angry black man archetype. But it is also due to the fact that people mostly focus on singers, and so think that Ike was just some hanger-on to Tina’s great talent. There is no doubt that Tiny is a fine singer, but the artistic debt runs exactly the other way.

Apparently, Turner decided very early on that he didn’t like to be on stage, so he stayed in the background. In fact, during the decade and a half with Tina Turner, he usually played with this back to the audience. But later in life — notably after becoming the poster child for spousal abuse — he started fronting his own band. And he was fantastic. But in general, people didn’t much care. Here he is doing “I Need A-Nuddin'” in 2002, five years before his death:

Happy birthday Ike Turner!

On this day in 1782, the great violinist Niccolò Paganini was born. His father played the mandolin semi-professionally to subsidize his poor living in trade. As a result of this, Paganini learned to play the mandolin at the age of five. At seven, he switched to violin and was quickly recognized as a great talent. By the age of 18, he was an established professional musician in court and as a freelancer. Wikipedia, usually reticent to editorialize, noted, “His fame as a violinist was matched only by his reputation as a gambler and womanizer.”

Since we don’t have recordings of Paganini, people tend to focus on him as a composer. I don’t see it. He does have a nice ear for melody. But when he isn’t over-exuberant, he is maudlin. What’s more, there isn’t much in the way of counterpoint in his work. He apparently wrote on guitar. I think if it hadn’t been for his great ability on the violin and viola, no one would have noticed his compositions. But many (greater) composers after him — most notably Liszt and Brahms — based works on his melodies.

Paganini is best remembered for how he affected the way the violin is played. It isn’t so much true that he was an innovator. Most of his techniques such as left-hand pizzicato and harmonics had been around for a long time. But he used them so much in his compositions and performances that they became normalized. He did, it seems, develop new methods of fingering, although I’m not sure how widely these have been used; Paganini had extremely long fingers — to the point where it is speculated that he might have suffered from Marfan syndrome.

Here is his most famous piece, Caprice No 24 in A minor. I will allow that it is a charming piece of music. And here is a wonderful version of it with the all the Illényi kids playing the hell out of it. And that is fitting for Paganini:

Happy birthday Niccolò Paganini!

On this day in 1838, the great composer Georges Bizet was born. Had he lived longer, he doubtless would have been hugely influential — especially with regard to opera. But he died suddenly and young. So he exists as a kind of idiosyncratic bit of musical genius in the second half of the 19th century. He is especially known for his great melodies and I think in this way (and many others), he is comparable to Mozart. Sadly, most of Bizet’s professional life was spent arranging and orchestrating the works of others — skills that also shine brightly in his own work.

Bizet’s focus was on composing for the human voice — both opera and song. But he was also a fine composer for orchestra. In fact, the only real success he had during his life was the suite he created based upon incidental music he wrote for the play L’Arlésienne by Alphonse Daudet. But that doesn’t mean the rest of his orchestral music wasn’t great. Take, for example, Petite Suite based upon his Jeux d’Enfants, which was a collection of a dozen piano duets. It is a wonderfully charming work:

Probably the biggest reason that Bizet did not have success as an opera composer during his life is because he worked with poor librettos. In particular, two of his later operas — Les Pêcheurs de Perles and La Jolie Fille de Perth — are great from a musical standpoint, but make weak drama. I don’t tend to think about that much; to me it is all about the music. But that wasn’t the case for the audiences at the time.

Bizet’s last composition is his greatest and his most renowned, Carmen. Sadly, the first performance of the opera did not go well. Ironically, it didn’t go well for the one of the reasons that it has become a classic: it is racy. It tells the story of Jose who is led astray by the seductress Carmen. And after abandoning everything in his life for her, she dumps him for a toreador. In a fit a jealousy, Jose stabs Carmen to death. Here is the last number from the opera, “C’est toi! – C’est moi!” There are no English subtitles, but it should be clear enough what’s going on. Let me just note that after the stabbing, there is a small fantasy sequence. Carmen wasn’t secretly in love with Jose; this is just his brief delusion. Regardless, this is beautiful production:

Happy birthday Georges Bizet!

On this day in 1917, the great jazz trumpet player Dizzy Gillespie was born. Actually, that kind of under-sells him. He was a whole lot more than that. He was probably the most important person in the development of bebop. And if you think of jazz, you probably think of bebop unless you are just really boring. The great thing about bebop is that it killed swing. I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with swing, but it was played out and yes, it was boring.

Bebop was distinct from swing in two primary ways. The first is obvious, even to modern (but careless) ears: it is highly syncopated. I especially like this. I’ve always had a great fascination with what I call “jagged” melodies. This has not endeared my music to others, but I love it. The second distinction is something that I’ve never been very creative about but which I admire as a listener: harmonic complexity. Swing stayed pretty much to standard chords like a 9th: C-E-G-Bb-D. But bebop composers and improvisers — led by Gillespie and Charlie Parker — played with this in a big way. They especially liked to flatten the 5th and 9th. And augment them. So you end up with things that sound quite dissonant and start to lose all standard harmonic structure. For example: C-E-Gb-Bb-Db, which is really just a Gb7 chord with a flatted 5th thrown in on the bass. The theory confuses me, but it sounds great.

Here is “Woody ‘n’ You,” which Gillespie wrote while working with Coleman Hawkins. It is the very dawn of bebop. It still sounds very swing-y. But it is more syncopated and it is introducing more harmonic complexity. But it isn’t making a full break with the past, and indeed, it is an homage to swing band leader Woody Herman.

But let’s jump ahead. Gillespie was also very important in the development of Afro-Cuban jazz. A great, early example of this is “Manteca” — originally recording in 1947, I don’t think any version was released until Afro in 1954. Anyway, here is a great live version from 1970. You also get to see some of his playing:

I’ve had a hard time finding video of Gillespie really letting fly as a performer. There are videos, but they are generally in hour long sets. So you will just have to make due with this performance of “One Note Samba” from a performance in Paris in 1965. It is just amazingly wonderful. But it doesn’t especially highlight Gillespie. Still, listen:

Happy birthday Dizzy Gillespie!

The great singer-songwriter Jane Siberry is 59 years old today. She is an amazing talent, but I have to admit that she has largely grown beyond me. At this point, I mostly listen to her first two albums. I admire her more recent work, but it is much more challenging. Most of the time, if I’m listening to popular music, I’m not really in the mood for being challenged.

I’ve seen her live a number of times. She is one of the very few musicians who I actually enjoyed live. In general, I don’t like live shows. But her shows in the early 1980s with her whole band were something really special. What’s more, they were actual shows and not just a bunch of her songs performed one after the other. She also made notable changes to songs done live so that it was actually worth going to the show and not just staying home with the album.

She never did become much of a star in the United States, but in Canada, she’s huge. I remember being at a conference my first year in graduate school and I shared a room with a Canadian scientist. I told him I was a fan of Siberry and Bruce Cockburn. He was shocked that I knew Cockburn and took it for granted that everyone knew Siberry, even though in the US, their reputations were exactly the opposite.

(Siberry used to have all of her albums online for free download. She seems to have stopped doing this. Let me state for the record that it was very nice of her to do that and it is her right to stop doing it at any point. But those links should not be broken! They should go to a page that explains what happened. It continues to bug me that the web is a publishing platform but people feel they have no obligation to maintain even the most basic standards of professionalism. Once a site is designed, that’s it. It’s like owning a house and thinking it never requires paint or other maintenance. Of course, I’m talking about professional websites — Siberry is selling her albums and shows and art on her website. I am not talking about, for example, me.)

I can’t find any of Jane Siberry’s first album online. So let’s just skip to her second album, No Borders Here. I wasn’t all that fond of the song “Mimi on the Beach” when I was younger. I thought it rather preachy. It’s grown a lot on me over the years. It’s basically a revenge fantasy. The title character is a selfish and superficial girl — the alpha in her group of beautiful jocks. She takes pleasure in abusing and using those in the out group. So the singer tracks down Mimi to gloat about her inevitable downfall. The song is almost eight minutes long. It was cut down to a three minute single that makes no sense whatsoever. So here’s the album track:

Here is the last (best) track off her third album The Speckless Sky, “The Taxi Ride.” I think it is self-explanatory:

And finally, from her album Dragon Dreams (when she was calling herself Issa for some reason), is “I Pick Up the Phone”:

Happy birthday Jane Siberry!

On this day in 1908, the great lyricist Johnny Burke was born. He was actually a fine musician who played piano professionally in many capacities. But when he went to work for Irving Berlin’s publishing company at the age of 18, he was paired with composer Harold Spina. The two of them worked very successfully writing songs for dance bands for ten years.

At that point, Burke moved to Hollywood, where he worked with a number of composers. His most productive collaboration, however, was with Jimmy Van Heusen. The two of them were nominated for three “best song” Academy Awards, winning for “Swinging on a Star.” Another notable song was “What’s New?” which he wrote with Bob Haggart. But my favorite of his songs is “Pennies from Heaven,” which he wrote with Arthur Johnston the first year he came to Hollywood.

Burke died of a heart attack just a few days after I was born. He was only 55 years old. But he had stopped doing songwriting. It was well into the rock era and there just wasn’t much call for the finely crafted songs that Burke wrote. I think we are all worse off, as much as I love many songs that came out of the new music.

Happy birthday Johnny Burke!