Mahler and “Truthiness”

From biography.com comes this missive on Mahler and Truthiness – “An uncanny face off between the fake news anchor and the 19th-century composer.”

 

 

 

Who’s in YOUR Choir?

Intriguing post in Choralnet the other day pointing out some famous faces who’s sung in their high school and/or college choirs. If you’ve got an entry to the list (and there are doubtless hundreds!) add ’em to the comments below!

Amy Adams, actress

Marcus Allen, football player

James Belushi, actor

Terry Bradshaw, football player

Sandra Bullock, actress

Beyoncé, singer

Kristin Chenoweth, singer

Jamie Foxx, actor

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, neurosurgeon & CNN medical advisor

Tommie Harris, football player

Chris Hatfield, astronaut

Ashton Kutcher, actor

Sugar Ray Leonard, boxer

Joe Montana, football player

Danica Patrick, race car driver

Julie Payette, astronaut

Walter Payton, football player

Brad Pitt, actor

Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, U.S. Army

Usher, singer

Wild About Harry: Belafonte @ Berklee

A celebration of Harry Belafonte’s life and music at Berklee.

Great love fest and concert last night for the ever-dignified and charismatic Harry Belafonte, the “High School drop out getting an Honorary Degree from Berklee.”  At the age of 87, Belafonte stopped singing in public a few years ago,though you could spot him in the finale at least mouthing the words to “We Are the World,” the 1980s megahit for African famine relief that Belafonte brought in to being.

Moments before awarded Harry Belafonte his honorary doctorate, Berklee President Roger Brown speaks about his remarkable career.

That’s just one of an incredible list of accomplishments recited by Berklee president Roger Brown before conferring an honorary Doctor of Music to the singer, songwriter, and activist, who noted that “Belafonte” literally translates as “fountain of beautiful things.”  The tone and feel-good vibe of the event (not to mention some incredible performances by Berklee students) is nicely summarized in today’s Boston Globe:

No artist has worked harder on behalf of truth and social justice than Belafonte. He bailed out Martin Luther King Jr. from a Birmingham, Ala., jail; was John F. Kennedy’s cultural ambassador to the Peace Corps; and helped raise more than $50 million for humanitarian aid in Africa by organizing the recording of “We Are the World.”

That is how the current generation of Berklee College of Music students knows the singer, said Larry Watson, the professor who produced the show, introducing a rousing encore of the song. But to an earlier generation — long before Michael Jackson crowned himself the King of Pop — Belafonte was the “King of Calypso.” He was the first recording artist to sell a million copies of a single album, and he had enduring hits with “Matilda” and “The Banana Boat Song” (that’s “Day O” to fans of “Beetlejuice” or “The Muppet Show”), both of which were part of the program presented by four dozen or so colorfully attired students.

When it came time for Belafonte to speak, he was his usual poignant, gripping, and humorous self,  recalling the first time he went onstage to sing at a jazz club in New York.   The great jazz pianist Al Haig had agreed to let him work up a short set of standards, beginning with “Pennies from Heaven.”   But, when the moment came, Belafonte recalled,  “Up jumped Max Roach to sit behind the drums. And then Tommy Potter picked up a bass.  Charlie Parker sat down with his sax. So I looked around at my backup band.  And I haven’t looked back since.”

Parting shot from Belafonte: “After this, I’m going home and smoking a joint.”

Macca Joins The Choir

With all of the hoopla and remembrances this month about the 50th Anniversary of the “Beatles Invasion” of the US, I’ve been thinking about Paul McCartney’s post-Beatle, post-Wings, career as a budding classical composer.  Which,  it should be remembered, tended to veer towards choral works like the Liverpool Oratorio and the symphonic poem Standing Stone, featuring the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and New York Choral Artists.

The American premiere of Standing Stone was my first brush with Beatlemania, when I produced the live broadcast from Carnegie Hall for NPR…which the Fleet Street-inspired PR folks for McCartney hyperbolically declared the live web/broadcast as “The Single Largest Classical Music Event in History.”  (Remember, this was 1997, folks, when a “Web Cast” was a totally new phenomenon!).

But I digress.  Here’s the Macca quote, which I think is such a nice summation of why people can be freaky about singing in a choir:

As it happened, Standing Stone turned out to be the first of many shows I produced for NPR involving McCartney.  One of the most successful I think was another choral program: A Garland for Linda, a “choral song cycle” written as memorial for Linda McCartney/benefit for The Garland Appeal breast cancer research fund.

The 2000 Garland, which featured contributions not only from Macca but such leading UK composers as John Tavener, Judith Bingham, David Matthews, (not to be confused with Dave Matthews),  John Rutter, Roxanna Panufnik, Michael Berkeley, and Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, was in turn inspired by the 1953 Garland for the Queen, featuring contributions from such composers as Benjamin Britten, Herbert Howells, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gerald Finzi, and Arnold Bax.  And there was an even earlier precedent, according to the British music blog The Land of Lost Content:

The Garland was commissioned by the Arts Council of Great Britain, to celebrate the Coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth in 1953. One wonders if that ‘quango’ would be active in anything so ‘establishment’ in our age? The ten poets and ten composers were bidden to create settings for mixed voices. The idea was to craft a 20th century ‘replica’ of the famous The Triumphs of Oriana (1601) which was presented to Queen Elizabeth I. The present series of songs is not a parody of the earlier cycle but it is certainly influenced by it. The madrigal is a creative inspiration for both of these composite pieces.

The Garland program was a live broadcast from the cavernous Riverside Church on New York’s Upper East Side, featuring conductor Helen Cha-Pyo leading the excellent Riverside Choir. NPR’s Susan Stamberg and WNYC’s John Schaefer were the hosts…and we actually broadcast from the 3rd level “side aisle”  on the right side of the church (click here for your handy glossary of cathedral architecture).   The playlist for the complete program is here.…and posted below.  It reminds me that someday I need to dig up the piece that I don’t think was ever recorded: the USA premiere of Peter Broadbent‘s arrangement of Four Songs for Chorus by Lennon & McCartney:

For No One; Here, There and Everywhere; And I Love Her; Good Day Sunshine

Don’t think it ever appeared on a recording.  Peter was really the driving force behind the entire project, as I recall.

The Garland project actually turned out to yield a broadcast, a Bob Edwards interview on NPR’s Morning Edition, and even a CD, as we recorded a benefit concert at the Supper Club in NYC that featured a performance by the rather impromptuly-assembled Loma Mar Quartet  of string-quartet arrangements of a few of the pieces.  Alas, no chart action on Billboard, however…

November Numerology: JFK and the meaning of 11/22

November Numerology: JFK and the meaning of 11/22

Think piece I wrote for WCRB Classical New England for this rather remarkable day on the calendar…

Born on Jan. 6th

So, out of morbid curiosity upon becoming a semi-centurion (and not, the dreaded AARP mailing hasn’t shown up yet!), I wondered what other music types were born on Twelfth Night: This is what I found, mostly thanks to the so-called “intelligence aggegator” NNBD.com:

Maurice Abravanel

Conductor

6-Jan-1903

22-Sept.-1993

Music Director, Utah Symphony 1947-1979

Syd Barrett

Singer, songwriter, guitarist

6-Jan-1946

7-Jul-2006

Pink Floyd

Max Bruch

Composer

6-Jan-1838

2-Oct-1920

Kol Nidrei

Earl Kim

Composer

6-Jan-1915

19-Nov-1998

Violin Concerto

Van McCoy

Musician

6-Jan-1940

6-Jul-1979

The Hustle

Johnny O’Keefe

Musician

6-Jan-1935

6-Oct-1978

King of Australian rock and roll

Earl Scruggs

Musician

6-Jan-1924

Bluegrass banjo pioneer

Don Sickler

trumpet, arranger, composer, record producer

6-Jan-1944

Nightwatch

Alan Stivell

Musician

06-Jan-1944

Breton/Celtic harpist

Alex Turner

Singer

6-Jan-1986

Lead singer, Arctic Monkeys

Jack Varney

Banjoist, Guitarist

6-Jan-1918

Aussie Jazz pioneer

Kim Wilson

Harmonica, bass, vocals

6-Jan-1951

Fabulous Thunderbirds

Malcolm Young

Guitarist

6-Jan-1953

Rhythm guitar for AC/DC

Beyond music, a few other famous names jumped out at me, including (so some sources claim) the Benjamin that It’s All About:

Gilbert Arenas	Basketball	6-Jan-1982		Washington Wizards
Rowan Atkinson	Actor	6-Jan-1955		Blackadder, Mr. Bean

John DeLorean

Business

6-Jan-1925

19-Mar-2005

Automobile designer and entepreneur

E. L. Doctorow

Author

6-Jan-1931

Ragtime, The Book of Daniel

Benjamin Franklin

Diplomat

6-Jan-1706

17-Apr-1790

American founding father

Khalil Gibran

Poet

6-Jan-1883

10-Apr-1931

The Prophet

Louis Harris	Business	6-Jan-1921		Pollster, Louis Harris and Associates
Lou Holtz	Football	6-Jan-1937		Head Coach, South Carolina, 1999-2004
Victor Horta	Architect	6-Jan-1861	9-Sep-1947	Art Nouveau architect
Joan of Arc	Religion	6-Jan-1412	30-May-1431	Visionary burned at the stake

Nigella Lawson

Chef

6-Jan-1960

UK’s domestic goddess

Anthony Minghella	Film Director	6-Jan-1954		The English Patient
Tom Mix	Actor	6-Jan-1880	12-Oct-1940	Old-time silent movie cowboy
Sun Myung Moon	Religion	6-Jan-1920		Head Moonie

Sam Rayburn

Politician

6-Jan-1882

16-Nov-1961

Speaker of the US House, 1940-61

King Richard II	Royalty	6-Jan-1367	14-Feb-1400	King of England 1377-99
Carl Sandburg	Author	6-Jan-1878	22-Jul-1967	Illinois poet, Lincoln biographer

John Singleton

Film Director

6-Jan-1968

Boyz N the Hood

Charles “Cane” Sumner

Politician

6-Jan-1811

11-Mar-1874

Anti-slavery Senator from Massachusetts

Danny Thomas

Actor

6-Jan-1914

6-Feb-1991

Make Room For Daddy

Alan Watts

Philosopher

6-Jan-1915

16-Nov-1973

Zen beat counterculture sage

Bob Wise

Politician

6-Jan-1948

Governor of West Virginia, 2001-05

Cleveland Rocks!

Disclaimer: This is posted by a card-carrying member of Red Sox Nation, now smarting over a 3-1 deficit in the ALCS…

Monday was a good night for Cleveland at the Jake and at the Ken Cen, where yours truly got the chance to see the fabled Cleveland Orchestra up close and personal. Not that they’ve been strangers here…their press dept. helpfully pointed out that the orchestra has played 57 times in DC, including 43 times in the Kennedy Center’s 36-year history.

And they are still as good as advertised: In his excellent NPR Listener’s Encyclopedia of Classical Music my old friend Ted Libbey writes: “The Cleveland Orchestra is very nearly in a league of its own, a crack ensemble with an esprit de corps matched by only a handful of orchestras in the world. Its recordings are the discographic gold standard. ” Hard to argue with that assessment, on disc or in person. Monday night the orchestra had plenty of virtuosity on display, to go with usual crack ensemble playing and spot-on intonation. And, unusually, pride of place to the viola section, who were seated opposite the first violins, with the cellos and second violins filling in the middle around conductor Franz Welser-Most.

On the program: Mozart’s Symphony No. 28. Not a symphony you hear all that much, but with some absolutely propulsive outer movements with some feverish fiddling. You want a “discographic gold standard?” The October ’65 recording made by George Szell and the Clevelanders (reissued on CD in 2006) is still amazing. Clarity, balance, and speed – with no sacrifice in precision. When critics talk about Szell’s ability with Mozart as “chamber music for symphony orchestra,” they’re talking about recordings like this.

But the Mozart was merely a warm-up for what came next: The Guide to Strange Places by John Adams. I’ve blogged about Adams before and doubtless will again, and while I didn’t love everything about the piece (at 24 mins I think it’s about five minutes too long), it’s pretty damn cool, with cascading blocks of sound moving through, over, and around the orchestra. Or, in the words of the New York Times: “a jarringly turbulent piece, channeling its energy into shifts of clashing colors, both visual and emotive.” And a visual treat to watch the internal ballet of the stand-sharers in the violin section turning the pages for their stand partners as carefully-
and quickly- as they would for any virtuoso pianist.

But what really grabbed me was not so much a “Strange Place” but a location thoroughly familiar to us hardy Harpers Ferry residents. Adams’ inventive scoring includes a Doppler-effect freight-train rumbling through the brass and percussion sections….a sound I hear routinely as long freighters go rumbling into the night through the Harpers Ferry Gap.

Adams absolutely nailed the sound. Despite the fact that nearly everything Adams has written is available on CD, you can only hear this snippet of the Guide on Adam’s extremely well-done website.

Strange but true footnote: This piece represents a connection between the Pulitzer Prize- winning composer and the 2nd president of the US beside the fact that both were born in Massachusetts: The “Guide to Strange Places” was commissioned and first performed by the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic at the Concertgebouw. And before he succeeded George Washington, the “other” John Adams was the first US ambassador to the Netherlands, where his efforts at diplomacy are seen as so significant that he recently merited a three-part series on Radio Netherlands called Adams in Amsterdam. And then I found out there’s a John Adams Institute in Amsterdam…“an independent, nonprofit foundation dedicated to furthering a longstanding tradition: cultural exchange between the USA and the Netherlands. Founded in 1987, the John Adams Institute continues to expose the best and brightest American writers and thinkers to audiences in The Netherlands.

Back to the concert…the Clevelanders closed out with a performance of Tchaikovsky’s “Pathetique” Symphony (No. 6) that was everything as advertised. Ted Libbey again:

It is still fashionable for critics to dismiss Tchaikovsky as one of two things: a superficial manipulator or a self-absorbed boderline hysteric wallowing in his own emotions. He was neither…He managed to create worlds of feeling in his symphonies. Tchaikovsky biographer David Brown calls the Pathetique “The most truly original symphony to be composed in the 70 years since Beethoven’s 9th.”

As the first truly tragic symphony, concerned with loss, isolation, and despair, it projects a negative image of Beethoven’s triumphant aspiration, in place of spiritual transcendence, it seeks annihilation. This marks a fundamental turning point in the history of the symphony. Psychologically, the Pathetique symphony marks the beginning of modernism.
The Clevelanders did not disappoint. And the Kennedy Center audience behaved…no applause at the end of the third movement, to my surprise.

Lots of applause at the end, and no encore either. Now they’re off to Carnegie Hall and the Musikverein. And I’ll have more on Adams in a bit.

Postscript: The Washington Post review of this concert can be found here. Don’t know how the reviewer got the impression was a U.S. Premiere, however, since DC’s own National Symphony Orchestra played it on their East Coast Tour three years ago.

The Madonna Model or the Radiohead Revolution?

So Madonna has given Warner Brothers the boot in favor of concert promoter Live Nation, while at the same time Radiohead has devised a pay-what-you’d-like scheme for their latest self-produced, self-distributed release, thumbing their noses at long-time label EMI. All in the space of a few days. The blogosphere – and the mainstream media, for that matter, are all a-twitter.

Have we reached, then, the Tipping Point? Is it curtains for certain for the much-lambasted Record Industry?

Frankly, I think the tipping has already happened. And I’m also not persuaded that the record industry’s days are over …. so long as they don’t think of themselves solely as purveyors of recorded, um “product” as Billboard magazine terms it.

One of the things I’ve discovered in plying the classical, jazz, folk, etc. waters over the years is that these minority formats tend to be the canaries-in-the-coal-mine for the bigger genres. Long before it was a gleam in Thom Yorke or Trent Reznor‘s eye, the excellent classically-oriented Magnatune label was offering the pay-what-you-think-its-worth option. And for some serious artists with serious credentials, too, many of whom had recorded for the so-called “major” labels. The Economist introduced me (and, it turns out, a whole of folks) to the Magnatune concept more than two years ago:

From a listener’s point of view, the firm’s website is enticing. You can legally listen, free of charge and with high sound quality, to full albums by any of the 200 or so artists who have signed to the label. (Your correspondent was immediately hooked by a song called Making Me Nervous by a one-man electro-pop band from Ottawa called Brad Sucks.) Music streamed is free, but to download it to your computer or burn CDs, you have to pay. Just how much is a matter of choice—Magnatune allows you to decide what the music is worth, and to pay as little as $5 for an album or as much as $18. Once paid for, the music is not locked up using digital-rights management software, so you are not prevented from making copies.…

Magnatune was born out of the simple reality that is known to any classical musician: You don’t make your money from record sales. There are possibly a half-dozen living classical musicians you have a positive income stream from their recordings: Yo-Yo Ma, James Galway, Renee Fleming, Placido Domingo, Van Cliburn, and… Andrea Bocelli? Go ahead, name another.

Same is true in jazz. I’ll bet the only artists that actually get any meaningful income from records are Dave Brubeck (thanks to the perennial popularity of Time Out, released in 1959) and maybe Diana Krall.

And even in larger the pop-music sea, that’s not and never has been where the money is — for 90% of the artists, that is. Even in the best of times working with a label was a deal-with-the-devil cost-of-doing-business proposition: You signed with a major because of the potential they represented to promote, market, and, if you got lucky, actually to move mass quantities of your physical “product” into the hands of your fans. Can’t do that selling your self-produced record out of the back of your trunk and running handbills off on a mimeo machine in the back room.

Hmmm…but in the iTunes world you suddenly don’t have to worry about having the supply to meet the demand, do you? Thus a big-name well-established act like Radiohead, with a carefully-cultivated image-conscious fan base, doesn’t really have much more use for EMI. No wonder the label’s new prez Terry Hands said it was a “wake up call,” according to a leaked internal e-mail:

The recorded music industry… has for too long been dependent on how many CDs can be sold,” Hands wrote. “Rather than embracing digitalization and the opportunities it brings for promotion of product and distribution through multiple channels, the industry has stuck its head in the sand.”

Hands warned that more artists could follow Radiohead’s lead and take their careers into their own hands. “Why should [superstar acts] subsidize their label’s new talent roster – or for that matter their record company’s excessive expenditures and advances?” asked Hands.

Why indeed? And that’s where the Madonna / Live Nation model is so interesting — it’s part of a larger chess match within the music industry:

Madonna’s deal to abandon Warner Music for concert promoter Live Nation signals more than just a tectonic shift in the music distribution business: It shows how far Live Nation is willing to go to break the hammerlock Barry Diller‘s Ticketmaster has on online concert ticket sales.

The core benefit to Live Nation of the $120 million recording and touring contract with the pop superstar is the opportunity to tap into concert, recording, merchandising and other lucrative revenue streams. But don’t discount the role that lowly ticket fees play.

Ticket buyers may be annoyed by the $5 or more in fees tacked on to every ticket ordered online or over the phone, but they’ve proven to be a gold mine for Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster’s revenues jumped 14 percent to $1.1 billion in 2006 and generated almost a 25 percent operating profit margin.

Thus, To these eyes the “three-CD deal” (with up to $50 million in “advance payments”) is really a “signing bonus” for Madonna, in order to cash in on where the REAL money will be made. I think Digital Music News editor Paul Resnikoff gets it right:

“…You can’t download a live concert – at least the real, in-the-flesh experience. Maybe you can hop onto BitTorrent and grab some amazing concert footage. Or even purchase a live performance album release. But what is your girlfriend (or boyfriend, bff, sibling, spouse, child, etc.) going to get more excited about – a video download, or a real ticket to a real show?One can be duplicated, viewed on-demand, and buried within a massive iTunes library. The other is a one-time, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Labels are now specialized in producing assets that can be reproduced instantly and infinitely. They are also specialized in an asset that is increasingly generating excitement for other assets they do not control.

Live Nation makes its money off of something that can never be duplicated. And that is why they can afford the elephantine deal terms to lure Madonna.

And even, if they don’t get all of the $120 million back out of Madonna (who will be 60 when the deal ends!), what’s the value to Live Nation if they can break Ticketmaster’s hammerlock on sales??? I’d say……Priceless.

So after reading all this, there IS a next logical step for the much-maligned record companies….what if Ticketmaster, for example, went out and bought EMI, a well-oiled production, distribution, and marketing machine?

Michael Jackson (The Beer Hunter) 1942-2007

In Himmel gibt’s kein Bier
So, trink das Bier hier ist

“In Heaven, there is no Beer, so drink the Beer’s that’s Here.”

Somehow those words from an old German beer-drinking song came to mind when I read of the passing of the “other” Michael Jackson (“My name is Michael Jackson but I don’t sing, don’t drink Pepsi, and but write about beer”). Oh man, did he ever. The World Guide to Beer or, really, any of his books, are as good a reference as you can find when the subject is suds. Check out the elegant appreciation in today’s Guardian (nobody writes a good obit like the Brits), and the the amazing out, er…pouring from fans around the world on the Beer Hunter blogsite.

Fireworks on the Radio – A Capitol Fourth

One of my summertime rituals during my days at the downtown network was to produce the radio version of A Capitol Fourth, the annual music, dance, and fireworks extravaganza originating from the West Lawn of the Capitol building and broadcast around the world. And, in truth, it was an event I produced with a certain amount of heart-in-mouth trepidation, owing to its typically all-over-the-map lineup of “star” performers (some “ripped from the headlines,” some Aging Artists You Gotta Respect), resulting in a musical event that veered between the sublime and the ridiculous, and usually settled on the purely kitschy. (I was somewhat cheered to see those concerns echoed by critic Tim Page the other day.)

Besides the, er, music mix, there’s the fun – and terror – of it being an absolutely live event. And, this being DC in midsummer, thunderstorms are always a distinct possibility. Live or not, however, props to the folks at Jerry Colbert’s Capital Concerts, who have been doing the show for 25 years and really know their stuff. Anyway, it was an odd sensation to hear.

So admittedly not my preferred bottle of Moxie, but the show gets huge numbers and it’s as American as…well, fireworks over the Washington Monument. So this year, I got to listen to the show unspool on the radio in real time. Random notes:

*Ain’t live great? What an antidote to the dipped-in-formaldehyde sound of perfection that usually emerges from public radio. Nice to hear people out of breath and stumble over lines from time to time – it somehow makes the event seem a lot more real and immediate.

*That said, as a master of this somewhat peculiar hosting idiom Tony Danza (VERY short of breath and TelePrompTer-challenged) can’t hold a candle to Barry Bostwick.

*Hayden Panettiere (a/k/a this year’s “We gotta have a breakout TV star on the show”) may be pretty and talented, but she sure can’t sing.

*Little Richard, on the other hand, still rocks the house. Close your eyes and you can still hear him in a Macon, Georgia juke joint. By my ears the biggest ovation of the night. (Full disclosure: at a tender age my eyes’n’ears were permanently warped by watching L.R. co-host the Mike Douglas Show some decades ago – a riveting week of live television if there ever was one!)

*So, too, can Yolanda Adams. THOSE are pipes, Hayden!

*And Leonard Bernstein. Despite some rather stilted introductions from Tony D. and conductor Erich Kunzel, the National Symphony Orchestra got the chance to stretch out a bit with a 50th-anniversary performance of a suite from West Side Story. A great thing to hear on the Fourth, and makes you marvel at Lenny’s genius all over again. Call it pop, call it Broadway, call it classical – it’s music that will last and last, and that’s what matters.

*But Tell Tchaikovsky the News: We Gotta Go! (See Live concert, above). Despite the fact that they even went to the trouble to bring in the Choral Arts Society to back up the NSO for the Grand Finale, we were treated to what had to have been the World’s Shortest Performance of the 1812 Overture, an already-in-progress performance that gave us about the last 2 minutes of the whole shebang. And then the bim bam boom of the fireworks drowned the whole thing out, and it was a wrap.

At the end of his preview/rant about the Capitol 4th, Tim Page wrote,

“..My guess is that after you’ve watched A Capitol Fourth, you’ll want to play some music.”
A little snarky, perhaps, but not far off the mark…my reward for keeping the radio dial on 90.9 through the rest of the night was hearing, at about 11:00 pm, a performance of the Second Symphony by American maverick Charles Ives. Brilliant, deep, evocative, cheeky, and utterly American. Don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed it so much. And I’m sure Ives would’ve been tapping his foot to the Capitol Fourth, for that matter.