by | October 21, 2017 · 6:00 am

Dizzy Gillespie, cultural ambassador

In early 1956 Dizzy Gillespie was playing with a small group in Washington, DC, when he received a call from Adam Clayton Powell, who asked him to stop by his office the next day.

Gillespie arrived to find a group of reporters waiting, and Powell made a statement to the press: “I’m going to propose to President Eisenhower that he send this man, who’s a great contributor to our music, on a State Department sponsored cultural mission to Africa, the Near East, the Middle East, and Asia.”

Although Gillespie had a stellar international reputation, the proposal was daring: the U.S. South was in wide disarray over segregation, and the suggestion that a black man should represent the nation abroad was bound to be highly controversial.

Nevertheless, in February of that year the State Department announced a ten-week tour of South Asia, the Near East, and the Balkans by Gillespie and a group of some 20 people—in Gillespie’s words, “an American assortment of blacks, whites, males, females, Jews, and Gentiles.” The U.S. government wanted to send a signal that bigotry was waning at home, and, again in Gillespie’s words,

“They [foreign audiences] could see it wasn’t as intense because we had white boys and I was the leader of the band. That was strange to them because they’d heard about blacks being lynched and burned, and here I come with half whites and blacks and a girl playing in the band. And everybody seemed to be getting along fine. So I didn’t try to hide anything. I said ‘Yeah…we have our problems but we’re still working on it. I’m the leader of this band, and those white guys are working for me.’ That’s a helluva thing.”

This according to “Jazz strategy: Dizzy, foreign policy, and government in 1956” by Scott Gac (Americana IV/1 [Spring 2005]).

Today is Gillespie’s 100th birthday! Above, playing for snakes on the tour in Karachi, Pakistan; below, clips from the tour’s European segment.

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by | October 19, 2017 · 6:00 am

Sweet & sour music

 

Two experiments investigated the influence of the harmonic content of background music on taste perception.

The participants evaluated samples of mixed fruit juice while listening to soundtracks that had either been harmonized with consonant or dissonant musical intervals. Each sample of juice was rated on three computer-based scales: One scale was anchored with the words sour and sweet, while the other two scales involved hedonic ratings of the music and of the juice.

Participants reliably associated the consonant soundtracks with sweetness and the dissonant soundtracks with sourness, rating the juices as tasting significantly sweeter in the consonant than in the dissonant music condition, irrespective of the melody or instrumentation involved. These results provide empirical support for the claim that the crossmodal correspondence between basic taste and a higher-level musical attribute (harmony in this case) can be used to modify the evaluation of the taste of a drink.

This according to “Striking a sour note: Assessing the influence of consonant and dissonant music on taste perception” by Charles Spence (above) and Qian Janice Wang (Multisensory research XXIX/1–3 [2016] pp. 195–208).

Another post about Professor Spence’s research is here. Below, some consonance and dissonance imaging.

More posts about synesthesia are here.

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by | October 16, 2017 · 6:00 am

Di goldene kale

Like most newcomers to America, Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe in the 1920s faced homesickness, deprivation, and language difficulty. Yiddish musicals helped them to come to terms with their environment by reminding them of home while highlighting the benefits of the New World.

Confronting the past with the present and fusing the folkloric songs, liturgical chants, dances, and theater styles of Jewish tradition with American rhythms and social topics, the genre helped to resolve onstage the conflicts in the lives of the new inhabitants. These comic and dramatic musical works chart the evolution of a community in its acculturation and eventual assimilation.

Di goldene kale (The golden bride) premiered at the 2000-seat Second Avenue Theater in New York on 9 February 1923, one of 14 Yiddish programs in the city that night. It ran for 18 weeks and was then performed throughout the U.S. and in venues in Europe and South America. The music is by Joseph Rumshinsky, the undisputed dean of Yiddish operetta composers in the U.S., who wrote the music for well over 100 such works.

Written and produced at a critical time of transition, between a law passed in May 1921 that greatly limited immigration from eastern Europe and another, in 1924, that reduced such immigration to a trickle, the work illuminates the period in which the arrival of some two million Russians and other east-Europeans in the U.S. had peaked.

A new edition and study of Di goldene kale (A-R Editions, 2017) provides multifaceted insights into the absorption, not only of Jews, but of every immigrant group, into the American mainstream

Below, excerpts from a 2016 production.

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by | October 14, 2017 · 6:00 am

The Old-Time Herald turns 30

October 2017 marks the 30th anniversary of the founding of The old-time herald!

Since the fall of 1987, when Alice Gerrard created, laid out, and hand-mailed the first issue, the magazine’s articles and interviews, news and reviews, festival guides, and discussions have become part of the glue that holds the old-time music community together.

Above, a cover from 1990; below, Ms. Gerrard performs in 2014.

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by | October 12, 2017 · 6:00 am

Pykini’s parrot

A lively musical culture existed in the second half of the 14th century at the court of Brabant during the reign of Wenceslas I, Duke of Luxembourg (above, right). This abundant musical activity makes it likely that a member of the court chapel, Nicolas de Picquigny, was Pykini, the composer of the much-admired four-voice virelai Plasanche or tost.

The text of Plasanche or tost mentions that the audience will listen with pleasure to the parrot (le papegay). Although parrots are often mentioned in such texts to evoke springtime, and some scholars have guessed that here it is a punning reference to a Pope, archival sources show that Wenceslas had chosen the parrot as his symbol, having had its image embroidered on numerous furnishings with the coats of arms of Brabant and Luxembourg.

The bird was a very appropriate mascot for this duke and poet, who welcomed poets from so many different linguistic regions to his court and was himself fluent in multiple languages. The virelai’s listeners would have had no doubt about the identity of this particular parrot.

This according to “Pykini’s parrot: Music at the court of Brabant” by Remco Sleiderink, an essay included in Musicology and archival research/Musicologie et recherches en archives/Musicologie en archiefonderzoek (Bruxelles/Brussel: Bibliotheca Regia Belgica, 1994, pp. 358–91).

Below, Plasanche or tost performed by The Early Music Consort of London.

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by | October 10, 2017 · 12:35 pm

RILM takes over Index to Printed Music

In May 2017 James Adrian Music Company (JAMC), owner of Index to Printed Music: Collections and Series (IPM), signed an agreement transferring ownership of IPM to Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM), effective 30 June 2018.

IPM combines index, bibliography, series, and names databases into a highly comprehensive resource for searching and identifying individual pieces of music printed in standard scholarly music editions. Currently the database includes 22,975 entries for individual volumes, an authority file with 25,889 personal names, 1133 entries for series and sets, and an index to 538,354 individual pieces of music. It provides superior access to this content for scholars, performers, teachers, and other researchers, including powerful searching capabilities for finding information on specific performing forces and repertoire. Many of the sets and series indexed in IPM are adding volumes continuously, and new editions appear on the market. Therefore, IPM grows every year to be as comprehensive and up-to-date as possible. IPM is curated by a team of experts and is available on EBSCOhost and via the EBSCO Discovery Service.

IPM is a natural addition to RILM’s suite of music resources. Since 2016 RILM has been expanding its resources for music researchers beyond its flagship publication, RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, adding RILM Abstracts with Full Text; RILM Music Encyclopedias; and, in partnership with Bärenreiter and J. B. Metzler, MGG Online. With the addition of IPM, RILM is entering the world of printed music. RILM’s authority lists—including names, work titles, publishers, and terms—as well as RILM’s proven database capabilities and subject expertise will contribute to the further development and enhancement of IPM.

The founder of the Index to Printed Music, Dr. George R. Hill, states: “We are pleased that with RILM’s acquisition of IPM, its continuation, properly supported by an established leader in providing databases related to music, is assured. Over the years, IPM has largely depended on a dedicated group of musicologists and librarians devoted to its survival and growth. They include Joseph M. Boonin, Garrett Bowles, Lenore Coral, Mary Wallace Davidson, Elizabeth A. Davis, Vincent Duckles, Paul Emmons, Robert A. Falck, Virginia S. Gifford, Irving Godt, Ruth B. Hilton, Barton Hudson, Richard E. Jones, Sterling Murray, Barbara A. Renton, John H. Roberts, Gordon S. Rowley, Norris L. Stephens, Susan T. Sommer, and Eric Western.”

Dr. Barbara Dobbs Mackenzie, the Director of RILM, adds, “IPM is an indispensable resource for anyone looking for scholarly, reliable editions of individual musical works. RILM is delighted to be able to take ownership of this resource, and to bring our experience to bear to ensure IPM’s reputation for accuracy and comprehensiveness, and to bring new digital capabilities to enhance the database and its search and discovery potential.”

James Adrian Music Company, Bergenfield, NJ, a non-profit entity, supports and guides the creation, development, and distribution of the several databases collectively known as IPM. Components of IPM include digital files for name authorities, series, bibliography of editions indexed, and, most centrally, the index to music contained in the various editions. By adhering to established standards for bibliographic scholarship, JAMC is committed to providing a reliable and useful tool for musicians and researchers throughout the world. A hallmark of IPM has been the accuracy of index data, gathered directly by an examination of the printed music itself, not from secondary sources.

Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM), New York, facilitates and disseminates music research worldwide. It is committed to the comprehensive and accurate representation of music scholarship in all countries and languages, and across all disciplinary and cultural boundaries. RILM’s flagship publication, RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, is a comprehensive international bibliography of writings on music covering publications from the early 19th century to the present. RILM Abstracts of Music Literature with Full Text includes the bibliography as well as full text articles from over 200 journals linked from the bibliographic records. RILM Music Encyclopedias is a full-text repository of over 40 seminal music encyclopedias. In partnership with the publisher Bärenreiter and J.B. Metzler, RILM publishes MGG Online, which comprises the 2nd edition of Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart along with new and substantially updated content. RILM is a joint project of the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres (IAML); International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM); and the International Musicological Society (IMS). RILM is housed at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. For further information, please visit http://www.rilm.org.

 

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by | · 6:00 am

Thelonious Monk’s syntactic dissonances

 

Thelonious Monk has long been celebrated for his playing as much as for his compositions, but his pianism continues to occasion critical unease; a defensiveness is detectable in discussions of his technique even today.

Considerations of Monk’s playing tend to avoid or finesse peculiarities that raised questions about his ability in the first place; these include the jarring dissonances that strike some listeners as mistakes. An examination of his dissonance usage suggests two analytic categories: timbral dissonance and syntactic dissonance.

Monk’s 1968 solo recording of ’Round midnight exemplifies his use of syntactic wrong-note dissonances. Neither errors nor merely facets of Monk’s tone, their significance is bound up with their wrongness: They make sense because they sound wrong in a meaningful way, as significations on musical norms.

This according to “The right mistakes: Confronting the old question of Thelonious Monk’s chops” by David Feurzeig (Jazz perspectives V/1 [April 2011] pp. 29–59).

Today is Monk’s 100th birthday! Above, in 1969; below, the recording in question.

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by | October 7, 2017 · 6:00 am

Opera theoriae artis

In 2016 Prešovská Univerzita launched the series Opera theoriae artis with Súčasné hudobnoestetické myslenie na Slovensku v kontexte metodologických problémov estetiky a muzikológie, edited by Slávka Kopčáková.

Slovak music is a living river of new problems for theoretical thinking and the search for methodological innovations whose divergent solutions enrich the quality of the reception of musical art in the time of globalization and changing listening habits. This volume is an essential contribution to the field of musical aesthetics, applying historical and contemporary theoretical music-aesthetic concepts to the study of Slovak music in the 20th and 21st centuries.

The second volume of the series, 25 rokov študijného odboru estetika v Prešove, edited by  Slávka Kopčáková and Lukáš Makky, presents the history and current activities of the aesthetics program at the Prešovská Univerzita in both Slovak and broader European contexts.

Below, a work by Ladislav Kupkovič, one of the composers discussed in the book.

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by | October 5, 2017 · 6:00 am

Typatune typology

In 1940 Alexander Rose (1901–85, above) received a U.S. Patent for his Typatune, a toy piano with a QWERTY typewriter keyboard. He seems to have been destined to create this curious invention both through his vocation as a court stenographer and his choice of a wife—one Clara Berger, daughter of Samuel Israel Berger, a noted maker of toy typewriters.

World War II may have caused a moratorium on the Typatune’s manufacture, as the toy did not appear on the market until shortly before Christmas 1945, when it was widely advertised.

The purchaser of a Typatune also received a spiral-bound booklet showing which keys to press to produce a number of popular melodies. Two models have been identified—one in a red rexine case and one in an off-white wooden case, both with a collapsing carry-handle. A later development was the addition of a hinged lid to protect the keyboard. All versions carry the label Made in Switzerland.

This according to “Neither one thing nor the other: Alexander Rose’s Typatune” by Arthur W.J.G.  Ord-Hume (The music box: An international journal of mechanical music CCVIII [summer 2017] pp. 48–50).

Below, a brief demonstration with an inside view.

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by | October 2, 2017 · 6:00 am

Bayadères and devadāsīs

 

In 19th-century Europe, the term bayadère—derived from the Portuguese bailadeira—referred to a Romantic concept of the Hindu devadāsī, a female temple dancer.

“Who has not heard of the bayadères,” gushed Victor Dandré, Anna Pavlova’s companion and manager, “so graceful and of such incomparable beauty, dancing sacred dances in temples and secular ones at feasts?”

In fact, Europeans had virtually no information on this subject at all, but that did not deter some of the most distinguished names in classical ballet from conjuring up their own images of devadāsīs and presenting them on the stage.

Thanks to travelers’ tales and other writings, India appeared to Europeans as a fabled land, steeped in mysteries, and abounding in stirring narratives of love, hate, devotion, and valor. At a time when the real devadāsīs were scorned at home, their image functioned as an icon of Indian dance in the West.

This according to “Devadasis in tights and ballet slippers, what?” by Mohan Khokar (Sruti 154 [July 1997] pp. 21–26); this periodical, along with many others, is covered in our new RILM Abstracts of Music Literature with Full Text collection.

Above and below, excerpts from what has proved to be the most enduring example, La bayadère by Ludwig Minkus and Marius Petipa.

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