Spike Jones as ethnomusicologist? - 1

As I noted in a previous post, there weren't many opportunities in the middle of the Twentieth Century to hear we now call world music in the mainstream world of musical America. Some recordings of what was then call "ethnic" music could be found in the stores, or heard heard on the radio programs, of non-English language immigrant groups scattered around the country, particularly in large urban centers.

In my own experience growing up in Denver, Colorado in the 1950's, I was aware of Hispanic music playing on at least a couple of local am stations. But as for recordings of songs not North American in origin, I was dependent for international musical exposure on the occasional pop hit such as Eartha Kitt's "Uska Dara", which could legitimately be called "ethnic".

Another such piece from my childhood was the instrumental Skokiaan, which was introduced through American pop radio stations in 1954. Composed by Rhodesian musician August Musarurwa (d. 1968), the song refers, according to Wikipedia, to "an illegal self-made alcoholic beverage typically brewed over one day that may contain a dangerous ingredient, such as methylated spirits." (Such a subject brings to mind the hit song Tequila, by the Champs. which won the 1959 Grammy Award for Best Rhythm & Blues Recording. . . . Something here about strong drink and music?)

Here is a sample of Musarurwa's 1947 recording with the Bulawayo Sweet Rhythm Band:



(Click here to hear the complete recording.)

This attractive piece was quickly recorded by nearly twenty groups from around the world. I had purchased the 1954 release of Ray Anthony's "Skokiaan" on a 10" 78 rpm recording, and loved the energy and optimism of the solo saxophone's soaring over the band's accompaniment:



And the kid in me also absolutely adored the surprise element at the end of this version:



(You can hear the complete Ray Anthony version here.)

But not long hearing Anthony's Skokian for the firs time, I also discovered a rendition of this piece by master jazz comedian Spike Jones (see my earlier April Fool's Day entry on this amazing musician), and it is here that we return to the subject of today's entry: the explorations by a talented jazz musician, Spike Jones, of subjects outside the mainstream of American music as a source for his own witty creations. Here is the midportion of Jone's version of Skokiaan:



Given the delicacies of political correctness, I should probably keep my comments on this rendition to a minimum. While the Japanese-accented English commentary might be offensive to some, it is important to remember that more than any other Asian country, Japan has wholeheartedly incorporated western musical styles into its own vast repertoire. In college in the early '60's, when I was a fledgling folksinger playing, along with guitar, five-string banjo, and I remember learning to my amazement (and well, yes, envy) that one of banjo godfather Earl Scruggs' main disciples was a young Japanese man. Similarly, Japanese classical composers have produced countless instrumental and choral works in the western (as opposed to the classical Japanese) idiom, just as myriad groups have formed in Japan playing western-style jazz and rock. Suffice it to say here that while not imitating (other than the accent) in this piece, Jones is signaling to the fact that in 1953 western-style jazz was growing and beginning to thrive in Japan, as projected in the form of a hypothetical "cat" (as in "cool cat") named "Skokimoto" who is "the craziest cat we know, he can really make that be-bop flow, he's not a square but really cool", and adding, lest we be in doubt as to his authenticity, "in other words he's really not a schmoe." That is to say, he's the real thing.

In the next blog entry we'll examine two of Spike Jones' pieces that actually make use of non-mainland U.S. musical material, in the form of the "Hawaiian War Chant", and--both from Russia--the "Song of the Volga Boatman" and "Dark Eyes".

* * * * * * *

Just for the record, let me refer here--since I'm speaking of the "internationality" of the pop music of the 1950's in the U.S.--to another major hit song whose origins were from abroad: Volare ("Nel blu dipinto di blu"), by the Italian Domenico Modugno, which not only occupied number one position on the Billboard "Hot 100" chart for two months in August and September 1958, (as well as being Billboard's number-one single for the year), but which also received the Grammy Award in two categories in 1958: Record of the Year and Song of the Year. Sadly, we have no version of this song by the inimitable (and irreplaceable) Spike Jones.

Turkey and the boy: Istanbul (not Constantinople)

Some of the genres we now call world music did in fact exist here and there in America's musical consciousness under the rubric "ethnic" music when I was growing up in the 1950's, but in the mainstream world of musical America there was little of such offerings to be heard either on the radio or in the conventional concert venues.

But for the eleven-year-old that I was in 1953-54, two musical examples stand out that took my thoughts outside the United States: the songs "Istanbul (not Constantinople)" and "Uska Dara."

Before going into the background of the first song, let me just include the opening, from a 78 rpm recording I had by pianist Lou Busch, whose name on the record was Joe "Fingers" Carr (I found that name itself very catchy,) and his orchestra and chorus, which though dominated by a jazz approach, had a drum pattern that was distinctively exotic



To the musically ravenous pre-teen that I was (otherwise accustomed to the homespun stylings of Snooky Lanson, Perry Como, Doris Day, and the like that I heard on the pop AM radio of the time), the spectacularly shrill choral shout--"Istanbul!", followed by the downward cascading trumpet ending in a raunchy blare, was certainly an ear-catcher. Thereafter, the syncopated drumbeat under the melody continued to hold my interest until the chorus came in with its catchy (at least to my then immature mind) lyrics, as well as the chromatic wandering of the clarinet beginning with the lyric "Every gal in Constantinople lives in Istanbul, not Constantinople. . ." that added a vaguely oriental effect:



And to a young lad whose voice had still not changed, there was the irresistible and indisputably "groovy" effect of the very deep basso voice explaining "People just liked it better that way" in response to the chorus' question: "Why they changed it [New Amsterdam to New York] I can't say."

In the ensuing instrumental break, the band pursues an unmistakeably orientalist agenda both in instrumentation (somewhat shrill winds) and main melody--with its minor notes and chords and, in the second round (above the male du-du-du ostinato (repeated pattern), a return of the wandering chromatic clarinet:



And now a bit about the song itself. The lyrics make fun of the fact that the names Constantinople and Istanbul represent the same city in different historical periods, with the former version being founded (on the site of a Greek city previously named Byzantium) by the Roman Emperor Constantine a few hundred years BC, and assuming the name Istanbul. The central joke is "All the girls in Constantinople/live in Istanbul, not Constantinople/so if you've a date in Constantinople/she'll be waiting in Istanbul." Really cool for a kid who'd never had a date in his life. . . . .

Like many popular songs, this one was recorded by numerous artists, initially by the Canadian quartet The Four Lads in August, 1953, and peaked at number 10# on the Billboard Magazine Charts. (See the Wikipedia article for more detailed background, including a chronological list of "cover" versions of the original.)

I have no recollection how or why the Joe "Fingers" Carr record came into my possession (I still have the 10" 78 rpm record somewhere), but upon listening to the Four Lads version on YouTube, I find I much prefer the Carr recording.

Coming up: the most exotic "Uska Dara", by the inimitable and seductive Eartha Kitt.

A Poor Wayfaring Stranger in Indonesia

Originally, the composer Jody Diamond was featured in a blog entry which unforuntately was lost, I just discovered, apparently due to a technical mishap. I'll be reconstructing the blog, with an interview with Jody, along witha discussion of Indonesian gamelan music, which is the idiom in which the song is presented, in the near future. For the moment, here is the complete composition featured in our radio program: Jody's setting of the well-known Appalachian song in a composition for gamelan, "In That Bright World."



Here are the lyrics, which begin about 2:45 into the recording.

I'm just a pooor wayfaring stranger
A-trav'llin' through this world of woe
And there's no sickness, no toil or danger
In that bright world to which I go

I'm goin' there to see my father
I'm goin' there no more to roam
I'm just a-goin' over Jordan
I'm just a-goin' over home

I'm goin there to see my mother
She said she'd meet me when I come
I'm just a-goin' over Jordan
I'm just a-goin' over home

I'm goin' there to seek the spirit
Of the song that's in my soul
I'm just a-goin' over Jordan
I'm just a-goin' over home

The recording is on New World Records (no. 80698--their Website is here), and is used with permission of the composer.

Steve Reich' discusses "WTC 9/11" on NPR

photo by Wonge Bergmann, used with permission

As noted below, WTC 9/11", composer Steve Reich's original composition commemorating the events surrounding the attack on the World Trade Center ten years ago, was featured on Sunday's Weekend Edition of All Things Considered on NPR. As promised, here is the complete text of the feature, entitled "First Listen: Steve Reich, 'WTC 9/11'', by Anastasia Tsioulcas. As the writer notes, the initials WTC refer not only to the World Trade Center, but also to the composer Johann Sebastian Bach's major set of keyboard compositions, The Well-Tempered Clavier, as well as the conceptual phrase, "Beyond This World", which carries myriad spiritual connotations.

We are also fortunate to have on NPR a recorded narrative by the composer himself on the origins of the piece. (The streamed recording is also accompanied by an excellent article by Anastasia Tsioulcas that I had not seen before summarizing the interview below, but fortunately, there is only moderate duplication.)

Reich explains that the first movement draws from the official audio recordings of the New York City Fire Department and of the city's Air Traffic Controllers, as well as of his friends and neighbors. He says he followed one structural principle throughout--to extend the last syllable of the spoken phrase, and he speaks "of building up these textures of the memories, or the vapor trails of what people had said, and connect them harmonically."

The second movement draws on the spoken words of his friends and neighbors nine years after the event, captured on a digital recorder whose sonic clarity contrasts starkly with the gritty, grainy sounds of the official tapes during the emergency itself.

Regarding the third movement, he recalls reading an article in the paper after 9/11 about a group of women from Stern College, near the Medical Examiner's office at the New York University Hospital, keeping an extraordinary vigil over the bodies--and body parts--of the unidentified victims of 9/11. This vigil, part of the Jewish tradition, is called "shemira", ensures that a dead body not be left alone until it is buried, a practice connected with the belief, as Reich explains, that the soul hovers over the body of the deceased until it makes contact with the earth, at which time the soul is liberated. Since the process of identification could take up to seven months, these women continued going in shifts to observe shemira with the remains, while "not having the faintest idea" of who the dead were, in an act of extraordinary humanity and generosity.

When it came time for Reich to write "WTC 9/11", he recalled this article, and managed to find two of the women who had participated in the vigil, an experience which apparently enhanced the inspiration for the third movement.

In closing, he reflects on the urgency of the topic "that is not just reflecting back on an event which happened, like a pillar that stands by itself, it's just a marker for a bunch of events that preceded it and have continued to happen in an abundant sense."

09/11/11

Just in the car (simply moving it around the block on a sunny Sunday, in the ultimate mundane exercise on a day like today, a mere mile from the U.S. Capitol . . . ), listening to the Weekend Edition of All Things Considered on NPR, I chanced upon an interview with Steve Reich, a major American composer, who had been asked by David Harrington, leader of the Kronos Quartet (one of America's most unique and dynamic musical ensembles) to compose a special piece in honor of 9/11, after Reich had previously refused invitations from other sources ("but I simply couldn't say no to David . . . )

I'll try to find a link of the entire interview to post when possible.

But in the meantime, I felt fortunate to find the link for "WTC 9/11" itself.

The piece is composed, with the first movement in one of Reich's distinctive styles merging voices from the day itself, or later (sometimes looped or clipperd or elongated) with the strings of the Kronos. A subsequent movement now playing, typically Reichian struck (wood, metal) percussion; then piano The entire piece is available here on line on NPR's Website.

Enough for me to listen now (archived, so it can be streamed later at your convenience, to hear, when spoken words fail--or, on the other hand, overcome--and feelings fall or become too full . . . . )