Category Archives: Performers

by | August 27, 2016 · 6:00 am

Rebecca Clarke arrives

rebecca clarke

When Rebecca Clarke studied composition at the Royal College of Music she was Charles Villiers Stanford’s only female student.

In 1916 she left England for the United States, where she established herself as a composer and viola soloist. In 1919 she won second prize at the Berkshire Chamber Music Festival for her Sonata for viola and pianoforte, and in 1921 she again won second prize for her Trio for violin, cello and pianoforte.

Clarke returned to London in 1923 and toured Europe—and then the world—with the English Ensemble, an all-women piano quartet.

This according to “Clarke, Rebecca” by Aaron I. Cohen (International encyclopedia of women composers [New York: Books & Music, 1987] pp. 153–54); this encyclopedia is one of many resources included in RILM music encyclopedias, an ever-expanding full-text compilation of reference works.

Today is Clarke’s 130th birthday! Above, with her viola in 1919; below, the award-winning 1921 trio, which is widely considered her most important work.

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by | July 30, 2016 · 6:00 am

Buddy Guy arrives

 

George “Buddy” Guy started working as a sideman for Chess Records in 1959 and quickly became a much sought-after guitarist, working with the likes of Muddy Waters, Little Walter, and Howlin’ Wolf. During the 1970s he toured and recorded with Junior Wells, and although the duo was revered in blues circles—they even opened for The Rolling Stones on several occasions—their records were often badly distributed and sold poorly.

But during the 1980s Guy’s reputation grew steadily, and in 1985 he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. By the 1990s he had become an electric guitar icon, having been cited as a major influence by legendary rock guitarists including Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Eric Clapton.

This according to “Guy, George ‘Buddy’” by Yves Laberge (Encyclopedia of the blues II [2006] pp. 395–396); this encyclopedia is one of many resources included in RILM music encyclopedias, an ever-expanding full-text compilation of reference works.

Today is Guy’s 80th birthday! Above, in 2008 (photo licensed here); below, live in 2010.

BONUS: Stone crazy from 1961, ranked 78th in Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 greatest guitar songs of all time.

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by | July 29, 2016 · 6:00 am

Charlie Christian’s metric displacement

The solo guitar improvisations of Charlie Christian feature a rhythmic drive that is created to some extent by metric displacement.

Transcriptions of Christian’s solos illuminate ten different methods for creating metric displacement: metric displacement by contour, metric superimposition, metric displacement by phrase starting point, displaced motivic repetition, metric displacement by patterning, long sequences of eighth notes, long phrases of mixed texture, irregular phrase length, hypermetric displacement, and phrase ending peculiarities.

This according to “Metric displacement in the improvisation of Charlie Christian” by Clive G. Downs (Annual review of jazz studies XI [2000–2001] pp. 39–68).

Today is Christian’s 100th birthday! Below, Benny’s bugle, which opens (after the intro) with a solo by Christian that is fully transcribed and analyzed in the article.

BONUS: Up on Teddy’s hill, a jam session that begins with a 2¾-minute improvisation by Christian.

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by | May 26, 2016 · 6:00 am

Moondog makes it big

moondog

Louis T. Hardin, known to all as Moondog, was celebrated among New Yorkers for two decades as a mysterious and extravagantly clothed blind street performer; but he went on to win acclaim in Europe as an avant-garde composer, conducting orchestras before royalty.

From the late 1940s until the early 1970s Moondog stood like a sentinel on Avenue of the Americas near 54th Street. Rain or shine, he wore a homemade robe, sandals, a flowing cape, and a horned Viking helmet, and clutched a long homemade spear.

Most of the passers-by who dismissed him as “the Viking of Sixth Avenue” and offered him contributions for copies of his music and poetry were unaware that he had recorded his music on the CBS, Prestige, Epic, Angel, and Mars labels.

Although many New Yorkers assumed that he had died after he vanished from his customary post in 1974, Moondog had actually been invited to perform his music in West Germany and decided to stay.

In his later years he produced at least five albums in Europe, and regularly performed his compositions with chamber and symphony orchestras before tony audiences in German cities as well as in Paris and Stockholm.

This according to “Louis (Moondog) Hardin, 83, musician, dies” by Glenn Collins (The New York times CXLVIII/51,643 [12 September 1999] p. I:47).

Today would have been Moondog’s 100th birthday! Below, his 1971 album Moondog 2.

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by | May 21, 2016 · 6:00 am

Lydia Mendoza lived it

Lydia Mendoza

From the age of 12 through a career that spanned eight decades, Lydia Mendoza was a beacon to Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, showing them that no matter how humble their situation was they had a culture worth celebrating.

In a 2004 interview, asked what happened to make her the first Mexican-American singing star, she replied “Whether I was singing a bolero or a waltz or a polka it didn’t matter. When I sang, I sang it so I felt like I was living that song. Every song I ever sang I did with the feeling that I was living that song.”

This according to “Lydia motion” by Garth Cartwright (fRoots XXVI/9:261 [March 2005] pp. 30–35, 41).

Today would have been Mendoza’s 100th birthday! Above, the singer in 1948; below, performing in 1975.

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by | April 30, 2016 · 6:00 am

Reverend Gary Davis and Miss Gibson

 

One day Manny Greenhill, Reverend Gary Davis’s sometime manager, received a desperate call from Wurlitzer, one of Boston’s most staid and respected music stores.

A quavering voice explained that an elderly man, a minister of some sort, had seized the most expensive guitar in the store and refused to part with it.

The man had tried out several models, had chosen the top-of-the-line Gibson, and had been there for some time, talking to it, and playing and singing spirituals in a loud voice. No one dared to take it away from him. “He says he has no money, but he gave your name, Mr. Greenhill, as his manager. He is upsetting the other customers. What shall we do?”

Greenhill bought Davis the guitar, and the debt became a longstanding joke: Davis was always going to pay him back for Miss Gibson “on the next check.”

This according to “Remembering Reverend Gary Davis” by Eric von Schmidt and John Kruth (Sing out! LI/4 [winter 2008] pp. 66–75).

Today is Davis’s 120th birthday! Above and below, Davis and Miss Gibson in action.

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by | April 26, 2016 · 6:00 am

Ma Rainey’s “Prove it on me”

ma rainey prove it on me

Gertrude “Ma” Rainey’s Prove it on me blues affirms her independence from orthodox norms by boldly celebrating her lesbianism.

Rainey’s sexual involvement with women was no secret with both colleagues and audiences. The advertisement for the song (above, click to enlarge) shows her dressed as a man, obviously flirting with two women, while a policeman keeps an eye on her.

The song’s lyrics include:

They said I do it, ain’t nobody caught me / Sure got to prove it on me

Went out last night with a crowd of my friends / They must’ve been women, ‘cause I don’t like no men

It’s true I wear a collar and tie / Make the wind blow all the while

‘Cause they say I do it, ain’t nobody caught me / They sure got to prove it on me

This according to Blues legacies and black feminism: “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday by Angela Y. Davis (New York: Pantheon, 1998 p. 39)

Today is Rainey’s 130th birthday! Below, the 1928 recording.

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by | April 22, 2016 · 6:00 am

Yehudi Menuhin, conductor

 

By the late 1960s the legendary violinist Yehudi Menuhin was conducting regularly, and by the 1980s he had led most of the world’s great orchestras and had recorded with many of them. In the early 1990s he retired from playing the violin in public and concentrated on conducting.

While Menuhin mostly focused on standard repertory, he could surprise listeners with his adventurousness. For example, as part of his 80th-birthday celebration at the 1996 Lincoln Center Festival he conducted the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in a program of 14 new works composed in his honor. The composers were a strikingly diverse group that included Lukas Foss, Karel Husa, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Somei Satoh, David Del Tredici, Giya Kancheli, and John Tavener.

This according to “Sir Yehudi Menuhin, violinist, conductor, and supporter of charities, is dead at 82” by Allan Kozinn (The New York times CXLVIII/51,460 [13 March 1999] pp. A:1, 12).

Today would have been Menuhin’s 100th birthday! Below, conducting part of Elgar’s cello concerto.

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by | April 13, 2016 · 6:00 am

Al Green’s “Take me to the river”

Written and recorded by Al Green (guitarist Teenie Hodges gets a co-writing credit), Take me to the river straddles the line between sacred and secular—between sultry soul music and ecstatic gospel release. The sound is R&B with lashings of subtlety; it doesn’t sound like a band playing, it sounds like a lot of instruments humming.

Despite never being released as a single, Take me to the river was covered in turn by several other R&B musicians. Still, it took a band of CBGB-dwelling art school grads to fully realize the song’s potential.

Produced by Brian Eno, the Talking Heads version turns the original production inside out. In the original version, the strings, horns, organ, guitars, and Green’s wild-honey voice blend into a single swinging, winning thing, whereas the Heads/Eno version emphasizes open space and distinct sounds.

This according to “Take me to the river” by Tim De Lisle, an essay included in Lives of the great songs (London: Penguin, 1995 pp. 21–25; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 1995-20152).

Today is Green’s 70th birthday! Above, Green in 2010 (photo credit: Kingkingphoto&celebrity-photos.com, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0).

Below, the original recording, followed by the Talking Heads version.

BONUS: Talking Heads in Stop making sense (1984).

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by | March 28, 2016 · 6:00 am

Lady Gaga’s “Bad romance”

 

Performances by Lady Gaga, particularly her music video Bad romance, exemplify postmodern America’s preoccupation with spectacle. They expose how the gaze, as a public-driven or self-imposed zone of terror and destruction, inscribes potentialities of renewal, wherein the subject’s authenticity is reasserted through the very process of commodification, or a kind of singeing of the image.

Such crossings constitute what Baudrillard calls “a [postmodern] materialization of aesthetics where…art mime[s] its own disappearance”; they also expose the complex dystopias underpinning America’s bad romance with its own renewal.

This according to “Doing the Lady Gaga dance: Postmodern transaesthetics and the art of spectacle in Don DeLillo’s The body artist” by Pavlina Radia (Canadian review of American studies XLIV/2 [summer 2014] pp. 194–213).

Today is Lady Gaga’s 30th birthday! Below, the video in question.

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