Category: music

“Rockin’ Chair”

February 28, 2025 • 1:30 pm

I got no news today, so I’ll put up some music. This happens one of my favorite jazz solos, and I don’t think I’ve posted it before but came across it on YouTube. It’s a smoking trumpet piece played by Roy Eldridge (1911-1989), nicknamed “Little Jazz” because of his stature. Here he plays with the Gene Krupa Orchestra, and later he played with Artie Shaw’s band.  Unable to form his own big band, Eldredge later confined himself, like Charlie Parker, to small groups.

This rendition of “Rockin’ Chair” is smoking, one of the best trumpet pieces I know. Wikipedia singles it out:

One of Eldridge’s best known recorded solos is on a rendition of Hoagy Carmichael‘s tune, “Rockin’ Chair”, arranged by Benny Carter as something like a concerto for Eldridge. Jazz historian Gunther Schuller referred to Eldridge’s solo on “Rockin’ Chair” as “a strong and at times tremendously moving performance”, although he disapproved of the “opening and closing cadenzas, the latter unforgivably aping the corniest of operatic cadenza traditions.” Critic and author Dave Oliphant describes Eldridge’s unique tone on “Rockin’ Chair” as “a raspy, buzzy tone, which enormously heightens his playing’s intensity, emotionally and dynamically” and writes that it “was also meant to hurt a little, to be disturbing, to express unfathomable stress.”

If you want to hear a very different (but also good) rendition, go here to hear a duo with Louis Armstrong and trombonist Jack Teagarden. This one has vocals.

Beyoncé wins Grammy for album of the year, despite her so-so music

February 23, 2025 • 11:40 am

Beyoncê (real name Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter) is wildly popular, but it’s a popularity I find baffling. I have listened to a fair amount of her music, trying to understand the key to her musical fame—perhaps the use of catchy tunes or inventive lyrics—but I have come up dry. It is, as modern rock and pop tends to be, formulaic and trite. But most such music vanishes without a trace, yet forgettable songs like hers get Grammys. 35 of them!

Take, for example, song below, “Texas Hold Em”, the flagship song of her recent Grammy-winning album, “Cowboy Carter.”  As Wikipedia notes:

Music critics praised “Texas Hold ‘Em” for its playful tone, authentic sound, Beyoncé’s vocal performance, and its celebration of the Black roots of country music. Country artists and country radio managers also praised the song for elevating the accessibility of country music for a wider audience. It ignited discussions on Black musicians’ place within country music, boosted the listenership of Black country artists and country radio in general, and increased the popularity of Western wear and culture. It was nominated for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Country Song at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards.

I am stymied. The “playful tone” involves rhyming words like “Texas” and “Lexus”, and it is not in any sense authentic country music: it just uses country tropes and a country rhythm to convey essentially meaningless sentiments. I suspect the vocal performance is autotuned. The only part I like is the banjo introduction.

The song is a failed attempt to meld two genres, but the critics love. love, love it.  As for igniting interest in black country music, well, this is not black country music (see Charlie Pride for that); it is standard pop music striving to be countrified. It’s like putting a drop of Cointreau in a cocktail and calling it French.

But listen for yourself. Is this a song for the ages? I don’t think so.

Here are the lyrics, and—please forgive me—they seem so incompetent and ham-handed that I laughed when I read them. The first verse, with its risible rhyming of “Texas” and “Lexus”, is especially rich. Likewise rhyming “panic” and “dramatic.” I’ve put the dumbest lines in bold:
Lyrics
This ain’t Texas (woo), ain’t no hold ’em (hey)So lay your cards down, down, down, downSo park your Lexus (woo) and throw your keys up (hey)Stick around, ’round, ’round, ’round, ’round (stick around)And I’ll be damned if I can’t slow dance with youCome pour some sugar on me, honey tooIt’s a real life boogie and a real life hoedownDon’t be a bitch, come take it to the floor now, woo, huh (woo)
There’s a tornado (there’s a tornado) in my city (in my city)Hit the basement (hit the basement), that shit ain’t pretty (shit ain’t pretty)Rugged whiskey (rugged whiskey) ’cause we survivin’ (’cause we survivin’)Off red cup kisses, sweet redemption, passin’ time, yeah
Ooh, one step to the rightWe headin’ to the dive bar we always thought was niceOoh, run me to the leftThen spin me in the middle, boy, I can’t read your mind
This ain’t Texas (woo), ain’t no hold ’em (hey)So lay your cards down, down, down, downSo park your Lexus (woo) and throw your keys up (hey)Stick around, ’round, ’round, ’round, ’round (stick around)And I’ll be damned if I can’t slow dance with youCome pour some sugar on me, honey tooIt’s a real life boogie and a real life hoedownDon’t be a bitch, come take it to the floor now (woo)
And I’ll be damned if I cannot dance with youCome pour some liquor on me, honey tooIt’s a real life boogie and a real life hoedownDon’t be a bitch, come take it to the floor now (woo)
Woo-hooWoo-hooWoo-hoo
There’s a heatwave (there’s a heatwave) coming at us (coming at us)Too hot to think straight (too hot to think straight)Too cold to panic (cold to panic)All of the problems just feel dramatic (just feel dramatic)And now we’re runnin’ to the first spot that we find, yeah
Ooh, one step to the rightWe headed to the dive bar we always thought was niceOoh, you run to the leftJust work me in the middle, boy, I can’t read your mind
This ain’t Texas (woo), ain’t no hold ’em (hey)So lay your cards down, down, down, down, ohSo park your Lexus (hey), throw your keys up (hey)Stick around, ’round, ’round, ’round, ’round (stick around)And I’ll be damned if I cannot dance with youCome pour some sugar on me, honey, tooIt’s a real life boogie and a real life hoedownDon’t be a bitch, come take it to the floor now (woo)
And I’ll be damned if I cannot dance with youCome pour some liquor on me honey, tooIt’s a real life boogie and a real life hoedownDon’t be a-, come take it to the floor now, ooh
Take it to the floor now, oohHoops, spurs, bootsTo the floor now, oohTuck, back, oops (ooh, ooh, ooh)ShootCome take it to the floor now, oohAnd I’ll be damned if I cannot dance with youBaby, pour that sugar and liquor on me tooFurs, spurs, bootsSolargenic, photogenic, shoot
Unlike some of the hard-to-understand songs of, say, Steely Dan, these are just a bunch of fragmentary thoughts strung together, and one sense there’s no message beneath them. Now some of her songs, like “Lemonade”, do tell a story (in that case, the unfaithfulness of her partner), but I find the music lame.  And while words can be lame in a song that’s nevertheless good, it is good because of the music.

But is there a greater meaning here?  A site purporting to give this “meaning” resorts almost completely to simply reiterating what Texas tropes appear in the lyrics. For example (lyrics in bold; dodo’s interpretation in plain text):

“There’s a tornado (There’s a tornado) in my city (In my city)
In the basement (In the basement), that shit ain’t pretty (Shit ain’t pretty)
Rugged whiskey (Rugged whiskey) ’cause we survivin’ (‘Cause we survivin’)
Off red cup kisses, sweet redemption, passin’ time, yeah”

Texas has more tornadoes passing through it than any other US state, and here, Beyoncé regales the listener with a tale of how a twister has forced her and her partner underground.

She subsequently paints a visceral picture of a crude, sparse setting, as they resolve to get through the violent weather with the help of country music’s No. 1 – or perhaps more accurately, No. 7 – painkiller: some good old Jack Daniels whiskey.

Beyoncé throws in another country trope by referencing the red solo cups that regularly pop up in Friday night anthems by the likes of Luke Combs, Morgan Wallen and more.

“Ooh, one step to the right
We headin’ to the dive bar we always thought was nice
Ooh, run me to the left
Then spin me in the middle, boy, I can’t read your mind”

Here, Beyoncé details some of the moves as she guides her hesitant partner through the dance in their local dive, putting him at ease. She again underlines her hopes that he’ll open up to her more, as she frustratedly highlights how she can’t read his mind.

Well, isn’t that special?  I wanted to listen to this song again, for the fourth or fifth time, before I posted this, but I find I can’t bear to hear it again. If any reader wants to tell me why this is such a great song, I’ll be glad to hear it—but I doubt I’ll agree.

I’m not alone in my criticism here; just read the Washington Post‘s article, “Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ isn’t a country album. It’s worse.”

This is an album that posits its lack of ideas as big ideas. Only in its final seconds, when Beyoncé sings about how “old ideas are buried here,” does “Cowboy Carter” start to feel less like an extravagant awards telecast, and more like a clear-eyed comment on the state of the nation — a grand, sprawling, overcrowded place with nowhere else to go.

Freddie deBoer  gives us what I think is the main reason why Beyoncé is so lauded (his piece is largely about Kendrick Lamar, but the lessons apply). The bolding is mine:

We’re left in this bizarre space where no one is willing to flourish, to succeed, without simultaneously calling themselves an underdog, their talents unrecognized and their tastes disrespected. This is planet “Nobody believed in me!,” and facts never get in the way.

Thus, to pick a paradigmatic example, we still get a thousand thinkpieces a year arguing that Beyonce is terribly mistreated and overlooked – Beyonce, a billionaire with the most Grammys in history, every other kind of award that humanity has to bestow, influence in every sphere of human achievement, multiple films and books about her genius, every material, social, artistic, and cultural laurel we as a society can give. Look how fucking long this list of awards is! The only human being on earth who enjoys a combination of celebration and wealth and access and privilege and power that equals that of Beyonce is Taylor Swift, and both are constantly referred to as disrespected and marginalized underdogs in our most prestigious publications. Beyonce has thirty-five Grammys. What would be enough? Seventy? Seven hundred? Honey, the whole point is that nothing could ever be good enough for her. Indeed, the evidence that Beyonce is an immensely lauded human being is so vast that this kind of talk inspires an admonition I get a lot in my career – you’re right, but we don’t talk about that.

. . . . The idea that your moral value is determined by what you do has given way to the assumption that your moral value is determined by what you like. If you’re an aging dad who likes Sabrina Carpenter, you must be an open-minded and discerning feminist. And if you’re a white person who likes Kendrick Lamar, well, you must have all the right attitudes about race.

And so it is with Beyoncé. Calling her mediocre, as I just did, is just asking for vilification.

 

h/t: Greg Mayer for the deBoer reference

The forgotten Karla Bonoff

February 22, 2025 • 12:45 pm

If you’re a pop music fan, you’ve probably heard Karla Bonoff‘s songs—but may not know that she wrote them, for the most famous ones were popularized by others. Her two best, in my view, were covered by Linda Ronstadt (“Someone to Lay Down Beside Me“) and Lynn Anderson (“Isn’t it Always Love“). Yet Bonoff recorded both of these songs herself, and her versions—save for Ronstadt’s, which is a classic—are at least as good as the covers.

Bonoff does tour, but it’s hard to find good live videos of her performances.  I’ll show a couple. She’s now 73 but apparently is still drawing appreciative fans to her concert.

Here’s her best song performed live, and clearly done some time ago. The quality of the recording is poor, but gives an idea of her talent.

“Isn’t it Always Love”, played not that long ago:

“The Water is Wide” wasn’t written by Bonoff, but rather is derived from British folk songs that go back to the seventeenth century, and its beauty makes it one of my very favorite folk songs. Bonoff sings it frequently, and her versions, I think, are the best ones. Here’s a recent live performance with Nina Gerber playing accompaniment on the electric guitar (see Gerber’s great solo at 2:01, which sounds in places like a violin).

“I’ll never love this way again”

February 13, 2025 • 12:45 pm

Perhaps I’m into sappy music today, but let’s end the day, as we started it, with romantic music, and one of my favorite pop songs. This one is “I’ll never love this way again,“, and no, even though it’s sung by Dionne Warwick, it wasn’t written by Burt Bachrach but by Richard Kerr and Will Jennings. And it was produced by Barry Manilow, whom you can see below.

This live version below has both Warwick on vocals and Manilow on the keyboard (and some vocal harmony).  It counts as one of my “lost love” songs (I have a list) because she realizes that her great romance is doomed to disappear (“before the good is gone”, “I won’t turn my head in sorrow if you should go away”).

Warwick was a great vocalist, and had a lot of good songs, but now she’s forgotten. Would anybody now in college have even heard her name?

Here’s what the Guardian considers her best song, though I don’t agree, though it’s very good. It was written by Burt Bachrach and Hal David, and performed here by Warwick the year after it was written (1964, when Warwick was 24).

Thursday Music

February 13, 2025 • 6:18 am

I see in the NYT that there’s a new “authorized biography” of the Bangles, recounting their rise and fall. An excerpt:

The first time Susanna Hoffs and the Peterson sisters sang together and their voices blended, the frisson was unmistakable. “We knew we had something,” Hoffs said. “We created a band in that moment.”

Hoffs, 66, beamed at the memory, sitting in her kitchen on a late January afternoon. Dressed in a sweater and slacks, the diminutive [she’s 5″2′] singer and guitarist sipped coffee, an old Margaret Keane painting hanging above her. Her airy home in Brentwood is just a few blocks from where the Bangles were born, on a cool evening in early 1981 in her parents’ garage.

“It’s an overused word, but we were organic,” the guitarist Vicki Peterson, 67, said. “We formed ourselves, played the music we loved, we really were a garage band.” But a garage band “that somehow became pop stars,” the drummer Debbi Peterson, 63, noted. Both sisters were interviewed in video conversations.

The Bangles broke big, scoring five Top 5 hits and storming MTV with inescapable songs like “Manic Monday” and “Eternal Flame.” They were one of the era’s rare all-girl groups — and became one of the most successful female bands of all time — a crew of puckish 20-somethings showcasing their collective songwriting and vocal chops.

But one of the defining bands of the 1980s also ended in spectacular fashion. Less than a decade after its birth, the group imploded in its manager’s Hollywood mansion, the sisterhood of its members lost amid a farrago of fame and mental fatigue.

That story plays out vividly in “Eternal Flame: The Authorized Biography of the Bangles” by Jennifer Otter Bickerdike, out on Feb. 18. Bickerdike — the author of books about Nico and Britney Spears — fashioned a history of a bygone era in the music business, one in which the outsize influence of major labels, domineering producers and Machiavellian managers could routinely make or break a band.

. . . The notion of the Bangles as a band of equals quickly went out the window. “Susanna [Hoffs] was pushed forward as the sex symbol,” Bickerdike said. “But Sue is really smart and goofy, she’s actually kind of a dork, you know? So I think that was an uncomfortable role for her.”

And this is a crime:

While the Go-Go’s were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2021, the Bangles have yet to be nominated.

Here’s Susannah singing my favorite Bangles song, “Eternal Flame,” for which she wrote the lyrics, in 2021—when she was sixty (she turned 66 on January 17). She remains beautiful and alluring, and her voice is still lovely. She’s also Jewish, and I’d marry her in a second—if she wasn’t already married.

Here’s a good live version (1996) with just Hoffs and a guitarist. A live version with all the Bangles is here and you can hear the original recording here.  The song topped the charts in both the U.S. and U.K.

“Bad Sneakers”: another great solo by Steely Dan

January 24, 2025 • 12:15 pm

When I wrote last week about the great guitar solo in Steely Dan’s son “Kid Charlemagne, a solo played by studio magician Larry Carlton, I forgot that Walter Becker, a regular member of the Dan, played a great solo on the enigmatic song “Bad Sneakers“. The song is from the Dan’s 1975 “Katy Lied” album. (There’s a rare live version here.)  I suppose I’ve read interpretations of the song’s lyrics (below), but it still doesn’t make any sense to me. I’m sure it made sense to Fagen when he wrote it, though. (You can hear one dubious interpretation here.)

The solo goes from 1:55 to 2:26; a 30-second work of genius. I love it when the keyboard and wailing guitar seem to go off on their own tempo with everything coming back together at the end.

And I’ll still argue against those who criticize Fagen’s voice; I think it’s perfect for the songs, even though he’s lost it in his dotage.

The opaque lyrics (I’d be delighted if anybody wanted to offer an interpretation!):

[Verse 1]
Five names that I can hardly stand to hear
Including yours and mine
And one more chimp who isn’t here
I can see the ladies talking
How the times are getting hard
And that fearsome excavation
On Magnolia Boulevard[Pre-Chorus]
Yes I’m going insane
And I’m laughing in the frozen rain
Well I’m so alone
Honey, when they gonna send me home?[Chorus]
Bad sneakers and a piña colada, my friend
Stompin’ on the avenue by Radio City with a
Transistor and a large sum of money to spend

[Verse 2]
You fellah, you tearin’ up the street
You wear that white tuxedo
How you gonna beat the heat?
Do you take me for a fool?
Do you think that I don’t see
That ditch out in the valley
That they’re digging just for me?

See rock shows near Chicago
Get tickets as low as $50
[Pre-Chorus]
Yes I’m going insane
You know I’m laughing at the frozen rain
Well I feel like I’m so alone
Honey, when they gonna send me home?[Chorus]
Bad sneakers and piña colada, my friend
Stompin’ on the avenue by Radio City with a
Transistor and a large sum of money to spend[Instrumental Break]

[Pre-Chorus]
You know, going insane
Yes I’m laughing at the frozen rain
And I’m so alone
Honey, when they gonna send me home?

[Outro]
Bad sneakers and a piña colada, my friend
Stompin’ on the avenue by Radio City with a
Transistor and a large sum of money to spend

Guten Morgen mit Musik

January 23, 2025 • 8:15 am

My friend Natalie, with whom I visited Auschwitz some years ago, works as a harpsichordist at the University of the Arts in Berlin, Europe’s largest art school and one of the largest in the world.  She speaks fluent German, English, and French, though, out of horror and shame, she refused to speak German for a week after our visit to the Lager.

Occasionally she will send me a video of her playing a song on the keyboard, sometimes an original song and sometimes an older one. Today we have two specimens of the latter. The first was sent yesterday, and she describes it as Allemande in F major by Louis Couperin, a French Baroque composer who died at only 35.

Natalie often explains to me what inspired the sending of a song, and here’s the background of this one:

Here is a dance movement I like a lot, it is an Allemande Dance by Louis Couperin in F Major. I recorded it for you as I arrived at school, and was going to send it to you quickly in the morning, and then, well you know what happened…

The music is a bit like a moment in life where one is mildly amused, in general in a good mood. But somewhat without a set plan – should I go for a walk? Or do some painting? Or maybe call a friend and say I miss them? In any case, this day is sunny and pleasant.

That kind of mood..

Be sure to listen until the end, where there’s a surprise:

And a second one, recorded some years ago but never posted here:

This is a Gigue by J. S. Bach from the 1st Partita in B flat major. It sounds to me like two kittens jumping up and down on the keyboard with glee, and I am the mother trying to hold them but failing to do so. 😂

Here is Natalie’s cat, Stupsi, with a comment:

Here she shows some paw! As my teacher Mitzi used to say, we have to play the harpsichord as though we had no hands but cat paws, subtle and ready for anything…