Category: Art

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Is Albert King The Source of Clapton’s Crossroads Riff?

  By Music

Who knows Albert King’s music really well and can help me answer this question? Cream’s 1968 version of Crossroads uses the identical riff that Albert King uses in the tune For The Love of a Woman (except for the last bars) which he first recored in 1971 for the album Lovejoy. I can’t find an earlier version of that tune. But considering how often Clapton borrowed riffs and solos from King I would be surprised if King took a riff from Clapton rather the other way around. It’s not unusual for bluesmen to reuse a riff in different tunes. So does anyone know an earlier Albert King recording that uses this riff. (There is just a hint of the riff in both of Johnson’s recording of Crossroads. But his accompaniment is far more complicated, varied and subtle than the King / Riff. ) Continue reading

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RIP Steve Cropper

  By Music

RIP Steve Cropper. He made more beautiful music with fewer notes than any guitarist I ever heard. The the first Booker T and the MGs tune I ever heard was Groovin’. IIRC their cover came out not that long after the Rascals original in 67. But I liked it better. Cropper overdubbed the piano. I didn’t hear Green Onions until later. (I was 7 when it was first released.) Continue reading

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Tom Stoppard’s memory will be a blessing.

  By Art, Drama, Film, Uncategorized

I did not recall or remember or know that Tom Stoppard wrote the screenplay for Brazil with Terry Gilliam and Charles McKeown. That wonderful movie was sadly prescient about where are and where we are going. I’m making a list of things I plan to do once I leave my position in, it appears now, early January. Slowly getting deep into Stoppard’s work is high on that list. Another idea I had yesterday is to do a photo essay on the stone and rock walls that keep Manyunk from tumbling into the Schuylkill. I take a different route home from PT each week to see more of them. And learning how to spell Schuylkill confidently, that is, without checking to make sure I’m right. Not to mention writing a few books. Continue reading

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This was not my first reaction to a trumpet!

  By Music, Trumpet playing

Trumpet player tend to believe that the horn is wonderful torture. This was posted by Peter Bond is a wonderful trumpeter who was in the Metropolitan Orchestra for many years. His videos and book have really improved my playing. I was a drummer and one day I cam for my lesson and some other kids had returned the rented trumpets and cornets at the end of 5th grade.I was curious about it and the music instructor asked me if I wanted to take it home. I did. I enjoyed it. And then took lessons over the summer and was hooked. Continue reading

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It’s Best Done with Scissors: Improvisation and Editing in the work of Miles (and Groucho)

  By Miles Davis, Music

What problem were Miles and his produce Teo Macero trying to solve by their methods of constructing music in the studio in the late 60s and 70s?[1] What was the point of Teo turning the tape machines on while Miles and his colleagues played in the studio and then constructing long pieces of music from different parts of these tapes? One answer, I think, is this: Miles and Teo was trying to develop a new solution to the problem of combining three elements in jazz: collective improvisation, the density of a large band, and what I will call a long form of music. [1] This is the first of two papers on Miles electric music. It originated in an email to the fabled Miles list  in 1998. Eric Siegel, Patrick Brown, Steve Asseta, and the late Walter Oller, made very helpful comments on it at the time which has influenced… Continue reading

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Miles Davis on the Post-Modern Corner

  By Art, Music, Trumpet playing

This is the second of my short papers on Miles Davis’s electric works. The first, “It’s Best Done With Scissors” seeks to explain Miles’ new direction in music in the context of his own interests and history. It was very much improved by the comments of Eric Siegel, Patrick Brown, and Steve Asseta. This paper is based on another email I sent to the list in which I compared On The Corner to a work by John Adams that I heard the composer conduct with the Philadelphia Orchestra. The email listed five ways in which these two pieces of music by Miles and Adams were not only similar but in which they both exemplified a post-modern aesthetic. I haven’t been able to find that email but I do remember Eric Siegel appreciating it–including my little joke of saying, twice, that one point of similarity between the two works was repetition.… Continue reading

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Meeting another Wild Thing Trumpet Player

  By Trumpet playing

A few weeks ago I was in New Orleans hanging out listening to Marty Peters and the Party meters at the Spotted Cat. It was busy and it wasn’t easy at first to see all of the band. Then I heard the trumpet player, who I learned was Jeff Kreis, take a solo which was really wonderful…inventive and swinging. And the sounds  was great–lovely broad, resonant sound with a lot of color. Then I thought, it sounds really familiar. So I started craning around others to see the player and the horn. Even at a distance and angle, looking at the bell flair and shape I was pretty sure it was Wild Thing. And so it was. I chatted for a bit with Jeff Kreis during a break and we talked about the trumpet which of course he loves. You might think that a Wild Thing is the optimal horn… Continue reading