Posts Tagged ‘music history’
Play on…
A selection of entries from Music History in GIFs…
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As we tap our toes, we might recall that it was on this date in 1946– on his 11th birthday– that Elvis Presley received his first guitar. Elvis had coveted a bicycle or a rifle, but his protective mother (“She never let me out of her sight,” Elvis later said) took him to the Tupelo Hardware Store and convinced him to accept a $7.75 Kay guitar instead. The rest is, as they say, history.
Cultural influences…
Javanese gamelan ensemble Sekar Melati playing Gang of Four’s “Not Great Men.”
From the invaluable WFMU, via the equally-nifty Dangerous Minds.
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As we covet covers, we might send thematically-varied birthday greetings to Jean Sibelius; he was born on this date in 1865. A composer known best for his symphonies– he was Mahler’s leading rival in the Late Romantic period– Sibelius also wrote prodigiously in other forms, often on themes that contributed to the development of the national identity of Finland, his native land. The Finnish 100 mark bill featured his image until it was taken out of circulation in 2002. Since 2011, Finland celebrates its Flag Day on this date– also known as the “Day of Finnish Music.”
Hear Sibelius’ “Valse Triste” here.
Just let me hear some of that rock and roll music…
… and not just any old way you choose it, but selected and explicated by that master of American music– both classical and popular– Leonard Bernstein:
Inside Pop – The Rock Revolution is a CBS News special, broadcast in April 1967. The show was hosted by Leonard Bernstein and is probably one of the first examples of pop music being examined as a “serious” art form. The film features many scenes shot in Los Angeles in late 1966, including interviews with Frank Zappa and Graham Nash, as well as the now-legendary Brian Wilson solo performance of “Surf’s Up.”
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As we tap our toes, we might recall that it was on this date in 1859 that Paul Morphy, an American chess prodigy who became the world’s leading grandmaster, just returned from a competitive tour of Europe, gave up the game. Morphy was so dominant that he’d taken to spotting his opponents– other masters and grand masters– a pawn and a move, or playing blindfolded… or both. After reviewing his games, Bobby Fischer considered Morphy so talented as to be “able to beat any player of any era if given time to study modern theory and ideas.” And Marcel Duchamp, who abandoned art to become a chess expert, found inspiration in Morphy’s open style and opportunistic strategy in crafting his theory of the endgame… which means that Morphy was indirectly a contributor to Duchamp’s friends and collaborators Samuel Beckett (whose Endgame is rooted in Duchamp’s thinking) and John Cage (with whom, in 1968, Duchamp played at a concert entitled “Reunion;” music was produced by a series of photoelectric cells underneath the chessboard).
Morphy’s retirement from chess (an amateur’s game in those days) came the day after he was hailed by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes as “the World Chess Champion” at a banquet in Morphy’s honor attended by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Louis Agassiz, Boston mayor Frederic W. Lincoln, Jr., Harvard president James Walker, and other luminaries. Morphy attempted then to start a law practice, but was side-tracked by the outbreak of the Civil War. Still, with the resources of a family fortune, he lived comfortably in New Orleans until his death in 1884 in the ancestral mansion– the site today of Brennan’s Restaurant (at which, your correspondent suspects, several readers have breakfasted).
Morphy at the board (source)
Slow news day…
Magnum photographer Martin Parr takes and collects photos of Boring…
BORING, Ore.—2000
..and photos that are boring…
A postcard from Martin Parr’s Collection: "Traveling on Beautiful Interstate 35," 2000
…and photos of the bored…
KOTKA, Finland—From the series "Bored Couples," 1991
See them all at Slate’s “Boring!” (photos, © Martin Parr / Magnum Photos)
As we meditate on the mundane, we might console ourselves that it was on this date in 1955– five months before Elvis Presley’s first appearance– that Ellas Otha Bates, better known as Bo Diddley, made his television debut on The Ed Sullivan Show… and introduced the mainstream American audience to the 4/4 wonder we would come to know as Rock and Roll. He performed his signature tune, “Bo Diddley”– which prefigured such classics as Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away” and the Stangeloves’ “I Want Candy,” among countless others. In the kinescope of the show (below), the studio audience can be heard clapping heartily along.
Diddley later recalled that Ed Sullivan had expected him to perform only a cover version of “Tennessee” Ernie Ford’s “Sixteen Tons” and was furious with him for opening with “Bo Diddley”– so furious that Sullivan banned him from future appearances on his show. But the damage was done: as George Thorogood told Rolling Stone: “[Chuck Berry’s] ‘Maybellene’ is a country song sped up… ‘Johnny B. Goode’ is blues sped up. But you listen to ‘Bo Diddley,’ and you say, ‘What in the Jesus is that?'”
Just let me hear some of that rock and roll music…
… and not just any old way you choose it, but selected and explicated by that master of American music– both classical and popular– Leonard Bernstein:
Inside Pop – The Rock Revolution is a CBS News special, broadcast in April 1967. The show was hosted by Leonard Bernstein and is probably one of the first examples of pop music being examined as a “serious” art form. The film features many scenes shot in Los Angeles in late 1966, including interviews with Frank Zappa and Graham Nash, as well as the now-legendary Brian Wilson solo performance of “Surf’s Up.”
As we tap our toes, we might recall that it was on this date in 1859 that Paul Morphy, an American chess prodigy who became the world’s leading grandmaster, just returned from a competitive tour of Europe, gave up the game. Morphy was so dominant that he’d taken to spotting his opponents– other masters and grand masters– a pawn and a move, or playing blindfolded… or both. After reviewing his games, Bobby Fischer considered Morphy so talented as to be “able to beat any player of any era if given time to study modern theory and ideas.” And Marcel Duchamp, who abandoned art to become a chess expert, found inspiration in Morphy’s open style and opportunistic strategy in crafting his theory of the endgame… which means that Morphy was indirectly a contributor to Duchamp’s friends and collaborators Samuel Beckett (whose Endgame is rooted in Duchamp’s thinking) and John Cage (with whom, in 1968, Duchamp played at a concert entitled “Reunion;” music was produced by a series of photoelectric cells underneath the chessboard).
Morphy’s retirement from chess (an amateur’s game in those days) came the day after he was hailed by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes as “the World Chess Champion” at a banquet in Morphy’s honor attended by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Louis Agassiz, Boston mayor Frederic W. Lincoln, Jr., Harvard president James Walker, and other luminaries. Morphy attempted then to start a law practice, but was side-tracked by the outbreak of the Civil War. Still, with the resources of a family fortune, he lived comfortably in New Orleans until his death in 1884 in the ancestral mansion– the site today of Brennan’s Restaurant (at which, your correspondent suspects, several readers have breakfasted).
Morphy at the board (source)
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