Posts Tagged ‘bebop’
“Saint: A dead sinner revised and edited”*…
When eminent biologist and author Lewis Thomas was asked what message he would choose to send from Earth into outer space in the Voyager spacecraft, he answered, “I would send the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach.” After a pause, he added, “But that would be boasting.”
You can hardly find a more sanctioned and orthodox insider than Johann Sebastian Bach, at least as he is typically presented. He is commemorated as the sober bewigged Lutheran who labored for church authorities and nobility, offering up hundreds of cantatas, fugues, orchestral works, and other compositions for the glory of God. Yet the real-life Bach was very different from this cardboard figure. In fact, he provides a striking case study in how prickly dissidents in the history of classical music get transformed into conformist establishment figures by posterity…
Fighting, drinking, organ loft liaisons… and then there’s the music– the subversive practice of a canonical composer: “J.S. Bach the Rebel.”
* Ambrose Bierce
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As we interrogate our idols, we might send harmonic birthday greetings to John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie; he was born (in Cheraw, S.C.) on this date in 1917. A jazz pioneer– performer, bandleader, composer, and singer– he was a trumpet virtuoso and a style-setting improviser. His combination of musicianship, showmanship, and wit made him (with Charlie Parker) a leading popularizer of (the emerging new music) bebop. His beret and horn-rimmed spectacles, his scat singing, his bent horn, his pouched cheeks, and his light-hearted personality became emblematic of the form.
Written by LW
October 21, 2019 at 1:01 am
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged with Bach, Baroque, bebop, canon, culture, Dizzy Gillespie, history, jazz, music
Going out gracefully…
Twenty-four more valedictions at Buzzfeed’s “The Last Words Of 25 Famous Dead Writers.” And many more parting shots– like Oscar Wilde’s “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go”– at Wikiquote’s Famous Last Words.
As we rehearse our final scenes, we might spare a tuneful thought for trumpeter, bandleader, and composer Miles Dewey Davis III; he died on this date in 1991. Davis was a pioneer of a number of jazz forms– bebop, cool jazz, hard bop, modal jazz, and jazz fusion, among others– but was perhaps even more influential for the musicians he launched in his bands (an extraordinary roster that includes Bill Evans, Gerry Mulligan, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Elvin Jones, and Jack DeJohnette) and for the bands and musicians he influenced (and equally amazing list that includes Lalo Schifrin, Tangerine Dream, King Crimson, Steely Dan, Frank Zappa, Duane Allman, Radiohead, The Flaming Lips, Lydia Lunch, Jerry Garcia, and Prince).
Written by LW
September 28, 2011 at 1:01 am
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged with bebop, Cannonball Adderley, Chick Corea, cool jazz, Duane Allman, Dying is easy comedy is hard, dying words, Elvin Jones, Famous Last Words, Frank Zappa, George Bernard Shaw, Gerry Mulligan, hard bop, Herbie Hancock, Jack DeJohnette, jazz, jazz fusion, Jerry Garcia, John Coltrane, Keith Jarrett, King Crimson, Lalo Schifrin, Last Words, Lydia Lunch, Mikes Davis, Miles Dewey Davis III, modal jazz, music, Oscar Wilde, Prince, Radiohead, Steely Dan, Tangerine Dream, The Flaming Lips, Wayne Shorter