Something Like Something/Adventures in Rhythm: Preaching Blues

Johnny Cash and the Carter Family, 1960.

 Charlie Patton, 1929.

Mexico City: Scenes/ Adventures in Rhythm—Folkloric Violins

Last night I went to the Ballet Folklorico for the first time. The violins were out of tune there too, just like they are everywhere else I've heard in Mexico. Throughout the two-hour performance I kept trying to decide if this was done to be "authentic," or if for some reason in Mexico any two given violins are incapable of being in tune with one another. I could not decide.

One expert offers an explanation:

"Stanford (1984)...stresses the devastating effect the inclusion of the trumpet initially had on traditional ensembles, particularly in causing the role of the violin to atrophy. According to Stanford, the violin players in the first modern mariachi groups (after the inclusion of the trumpet) subsequently viewed their instrument as less important, and began to play out of tune and with less care. In small mariachi ensembles, the violin was retained only to complete the overall visual image."

Adventures in Rhythm: Music for Maniacs

For other fans of weird music: enjoy Music for Maniacs. You can download things there and learn things like the fact that Neil Young and Rick James were in a band together in 1966 (but didn't make very weird music) and who Frank Pahl is (hint: he makes weird music).

Adventures in Rhythm/Something Like Something: Blind Preaching

Blind Willie Johnson, 1927.



Revered Gary Davis, ca. 1956.

Adventures in Rhythm / Something like Something: Dramatic Walls

Glenn Gould playing "Lord Salisbury's Pavan and Galliard," by Orlando Gibbons, filmed 1974.

El Camarón de la Isla singing a Seguiriyas, filmed ca. 1980 (?).

Adventures in Rhythm: The National Ear

If you walk around in Mexico City with your ears open, you will discover a great divide in popular musical tastes. The music that you hear on buses, in markets, at gas stations, or anywhere that working-class Mexicans are playing their tunes is usually going to fall into one of two categories. On the one side are cumbia and salsa, two Afro-Caribbean styles that are usually played when people want to dance or think about dancing. On the other side are banda and norteño, both native Mexican styles that initially sound kind of like "mariachi" music played with drums and synthesized trumpets.

You might compare this divide to the country/hip-hop dichotomy in the US. A Mexican friend of mine told me that he doesn't remember so many people listening to banda and norteño until a few years ago, when it exploded in popularity, as a kind of nationalistic expression. A non-Mexican friend told me she was driving with a Mexican couple in their car when some banda came on the radio. "Ugh, change that naco stuff," one of them said, naco being Mexican slang to describe someone low-class or with low-class tastes. Wikipedia says that norteño exploded in popularity starting in the '90s as the Mexican-American population took off.

I don't really know about all that, but this music video kind of sums up the whole situation. It's about a Mexican dude who used to be into cumbia and then switched to banda, with an outfit to match. It's called "Traiter." It's a cumbia, but there's a nice little example of banda at the beginning, and the very end.

Adventures in Rhythm: Oh Captain, My Captain. Captain Beefheart Is Dead.

With the above words my good friend JWR in Connecticut informed me that one of the most creative musicians of the last fifty years died today.

It's strange because during the past six months I've been going through a bit of a personal Beefheart revival, after not listening to his music for years. In April, for Vice magazine's 'fine art' issue, I proposed interviewing Don Van Vliet, who devoted himself to painting since he gave up music and being Captain Beefheart in the early 1980s, but one or more of the editors didn't like the idea. Or they just realized that it would have been impossible since Van Vliet lived somewhere in the Mojave Desert and virtually never granted interviews. When he did he conducted them by fax.

In the meantime I satisfied myself by finding live performances of Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band on YouTube. Among the best of these was a set of performances taped for French television in 1980 (one of which was featured on this blog recently), just before he stopped making music.

There are two funny things about these performances. One was that the Captain is much thinner than he was during his 1960s blues-ringleader days. Later I read that he just wanted to 'try out' being fat for awhile.

The other is that, as much as you have to thank French television for putting on so original an artist well after the height of his fame (whatever that means), you realize that they didn't really get it—in the way that I think the French have never exactly gotten American rock and roll. At the beginning of each song, a title appears on screen, and beneath that, in parentheses, "Van Vliet"—as if "Safe as Milk" was an old jazz standard composed by some Tin Pan Alley scratcher. After two songs, you kind of expect something other than "Van Vliet" to show up under the title of the next song, but I don't think Captain Beefheart ever felt compelled to do covers. The French station titles one song "Bat Chain Pullet," which clearly makes no sense, since the song is called "Bat Chain Puller."

But the best thing about these performances is that Beefheart has thrown off the warped blues trappings of his 60s and 70s bands, and actually sounds more unique than before. Even more you realize he never queued his musicians. The violent stops and starts no longer sound random—though they never were—and are now simply shocking.

So long, shiny beast of thought.

Adventures in Rhythm: Your Hat's Too Small

Charlie Winston's "Like a Hobo": "Like a Virgin" for the hipster generation?

Adventures in Rhythm: Paco Solo

 

El Camarón de Isla accompanies Paco de Lucía with his knuckles.

Adventures in Rhythm: Julian Bream Accompanies Himself

You missed that cue!

Spanish Lesson/Adventures in Rhythm: Rasguenda las Cuerdas

In an attempt to improve my Spanish I started listening to a lot of flamenco. This turned out to be not very productive: Flamenco is usually sung in a gypsy argot with an intense Andalusian accent, where the S's are dropped and the vowel at the end of a word always sounds like 'oowwww'. It's like trying to learn English by listening to delta blues.

Anyway this clip features some great flamenco singing, dancing and guitar playing (I think it's a tangos) in a festive setting—although in Arabic instead of Spanish. But it's also notable for a couple of cross-cultural connections. The melody here comes from an old Spanish/Moorish song (there's some debate about this), of which there are versions in Spanish and Arabic. Part of it was used by the Gipsy Kings in their more famous song, 'Viento del Arena.' (The Gipsy Kings are in fact Spanish gypsies, but from families that were displaced to southern France during the Spanish Civil War.)

The beautiful young woman who sings and dances here is Lole Montoya, later the singer for Lole y Manuel, the duet that inaugurated the flamenco nuevo movement of the 1970s. Quentin Tarantino used one of their songs, 'Tu Mira,' in his more famous Kill Bill 2.

(By the way, if anyone knows more about the song behind this and 'Viento del Arena,' please tell me. I know nothing. Also, there's definitely some Michael Jackson stuff going on in her dancing.)

Adventures in Rhythm: With a Different Meaning

How did I never notice that the Rolling Stones stole the hook for "Under My Thumb"...


from the Four Tops' "Same Old Song"?






Keith's miming is all original though.

Adventures in Rhythm: The Nicholas Brothers

Forty years before Michael Jackson, these guys could knock your crystal-studded socks off: The Nicholas Brothers with Cab Calloway in Stormy Weather from 1943.

Adventures in Rhythm: King Curtis

The funkiest use of tuxedos in history. Wait until they go into the blues changes at 4:10.