Likely, you’ve heard of Grizzly Bear. You may even have very interesting opinions about which album or set of unreleased revisions or remixes you prefer. Maybe you know exactly how much to swoon when you hear the key change in the middle of Central and Remote. You may even despise their music, denying their attempts to move you by not trying too hard. Regardless of where your opinions lie, recently, Grizzly Bear in combination with some very talented visual artists and directors, have created some incredible music videos.

If Two Weeks is too catchy for you, give the video a shot. It’s confusion and pleasure wrapped around a glossy piano riff and not-too-complex-but-not-too-simple vocal harmonies. The second video, “Shift,” is an acoustic revamp performed in the bathroom of a Parisian hotel. The song originally appears on their 2004 release, Horn of Plenty, recorded and produced by La Blogotheque. The last video of three, “Ready, Able,” is off of Veckatimest, alongside Two Weeks. The claymation work is, as I interpret it, a homage to Frank Zappa’s use of Bruce Bickford in his own movie, Baby Snakes.

I am not sure if anyone knows if music videos are still relevant, but I don’t think that matters. While Shift is certainly artistically filmed, it’s a real-capture of their performance, unity and sensitivity as a group. The other two, certainly music videos, fall equally into the categories of music and visual art. They produce a sensation in me as a viewer which is distinct and different, and not to be measured against the sensation evoked in me while acting as a listener.

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Roger Miller has such a way of singing. If you’re quick, you’ll notice it was he who played the Rooster, wrote and recorded the soundtrack for Disney’s Robin Hood. A movie I remember for the music – I still well up during Not in Nottingham. Little Green Apples has quickly become one of my favorite songs. A member of individual songs that have their own separate meaning, regardless of genre, mood, or style – it’s Written by Bobby Russell, and rearranged by Roger Miller, featured on his record A Tender Look At Love

And I wake up in the morning with my hair down in my eyes and she says hi
And I stumble to the breakfast table while the kids are going off to school, goodbye.
And she reaches out and takes my hand and squeezes it and says how you feeling hon?
And I look across at smiling lips that warm my heart, and see my morning sun.

And if that’s not loving me, then all I’ve got to say,
God didn’t make the little green apples, and it don’t rain in Indianapolis in the summer time.
And there’s no such thing as Dr. Seuss or Disneyland and mother goose, no nursery rhymes.
God didn’t make the little green apples, and it don’t rain in Indianapolis in the summer time.
And when myself is feeling low, I think about her face and go and ease my mind.

Sometimes I call her up, at home, knowing she’s busy.
And ask her if she can get away, meet me and maybe we can grab a bite to eat.
And she drops what she’s doing and she hurries down to meet me, and i’m always late.
But she sits waiting patiently, and smiles when she first sees me, because she’s made that way.

And if that ain’t loving me, then all I’ve got to say,
God didn’t make the little green apples, and it don’t snow in Minneapolis when the winter comes.
And there’s no such thing as make-believe, puppy dogs or autumn leaves, no bb guns.
God didn’t make the little green apples, and it don’t snow in Minneapolis when the winter com

Roger Miller – Little Green Apples

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Arnold Schoenberg was the Leader of the Second Viennese School , prominent composer, developer of the Twelve-Tone Atonal Technique, and outstanding musical pedagog. His pupils include among others Alban Berg, Anton Webern, Hanns Eisler, and John Cage. This excerpt comes almost completely unabridged from his Theory of Harmony, beautifully translated from the original German to English by Roy E. Carter. In it, the subject is broadly determined as Tonality, though if your medium is not music, replace that word with whatever you choose, any genre of Art. The chapter is Diatonic Chords, and he is speaking of how to instruct a pupil. As a reward for reading that much text, at the end is featured a performance by Glenn Gould of his Opus 11, for piano.

It is nevertheless necessary, as I said before, that the pupil learns to manipulate the devices that produce tonality. For music has not yet evolved so far that we can now speak of discarding tonality; moreover, the necessity for explaining its requirements arises also from the need to recognize its functions in the works of the past. Even if the present allows us to envision a future freed from the restrictive demands of this principle, it is still, even today, but much more in the past of our art, one of the most important musical techniques. It is one of the techniques that contribute most to the assurance of order in musical works of that order, consistent with the material, which so greatly facilitates the untroubled enjoyment of the essential beauties in the music. One of the foremost tasks of instruction is to awaken in the pupil a sense of the past and at the same time to open up to him prospects for the future.

Applied to our present concern, that means: Let the pupil learn the laws and effects of tonality just as if they still prevailed, but let him know of the tendencies that are leading toward their annulment. Let him know that the conditions leading to the dissolution of the system are inherent in the conditions upon which it is established. Let him know that every living thing has within it that which changes, develops, and destroys it. Life and death are both equally present in the embryo. What lies between is time. Nothing intrinsic, that is; merely a dimension, which is, however, necessarily consummated. Let the pupil learn by this example to recognize what is eternal: change, and what is temporal: being. Thus he will come to the conclusion that much of what has been considered aesthetically fundamental, that is, necessary to beauty, is by no means always rooted in the nature of things, that the imperfection of our senses drives us to those compromises through which we achieve order. For order is not demanded by the object, but by the subject. The pupil will conclude, moreover, that the many laws that purport to be natural laws actually spring from the struggle of the craftsman to shape the material correctly; and that the adaptation of what the artist really wants to present, its reduction to fit within the boundaries of form, of artistic form, is necessary only because of our inability to grasp the undefined and unordered. The order we call artist form is not an end in itself, but an expedient. As such by all means justified, but to be rejected absolutely wherever it claims to be more, to be aesthetics.

This is not to say that some future work of art may do without order, clarity, and comprehensibility, but that not merely what we conceive as such deserves these names. For nature is also beautiful where we do not understand her and where she seems to us unordered. Once we are cured of the delusion that the artist’s aim is to create beauty, and once we have recognized that only the necessity to produce compels him to bring forth what will perhaps afterwards be designated as beauty, then we will also understand that comprehensibility and clarity are not conditions that the artist is obliged to impose on his work, but conditions that the observer wishes to find fulfilled. Even the untrained observer finds these conditions in the works he has known for some time, for example, in all the older masterworks; here has has had time to adapt. With newer works, at first strange, he must be allowed more time.

But, whereas the distance between the onrushing brilliant insight of the genius and the ordinary insight of his contemporaries is relatively vast, in an absolute sense, that is, viewed within the whole evolution of the human spirit, the advance of his insight is quite small. Consequently the connection that gives access to what was once incomprehensible is always finally made. Whenever one has understood, one looks for reasons, finds order, and what we claim to perceive as laws defining order and clarity may perhaps only be laws governing our perception, without therefore being the laws a work of art must obey. And that we think we see laws, order, in the work of art can be analogous to our thinking we see ourselves in the mirror, although we are of course not there. The work of art is capable of mirroring what we project into it. The conditions of our conceptual power imposes, a mirror image of our own nature, may be observed in the work. This mirror image does not, however, reveal the plan upon which the work itself is oriented, but rather the way we orient ourselves to the work.

The positive gain of a work of art depends upon the conditions other than those expressed by the laws and is not to be reached by the way of the laws. But even what is negative is gain, since through avoiding such particulars as presumably hinder the realization of artistic values the pupil can lay a foundation. Not one that promotes creativity, but one that can regulate it, if it will allow itself to be regulated! Instruction that proceeds this way accomplishes something else, as well.

It leads the pupil through all those errors that the historical struggle for knowledge has brought with it; it leads through, it leads past errors, perhaps past truths as well. Nevertheless, it teaches him to know how the search was carried on the methods of thinking, the kinds of errors, the way little truths of locally limited probability became, by being stretched out into a system, absolutely untrue. In a word, he is taught all that which makes up the way we think. Such instruction can thus bring the pupil to love even the errors, if only they have stimulated thought, turnover and renewal of intellectual stock. And he learns to love the work of his forebears, even if he cannot apply it directly to his own life, even if he has to translate it in order to put it to very different use. He learns to love it, be it truth or error, because he finds in it necessity. And he sees beauty in that everlasting struggle for truth; he recognizes that fulfillment is always the goal one yearns for, but that it could easily be the end of beauty. He understands that harmony – balance – does not mean fixity of inactive factors, but equilibrium of the most intense energies. Into life itself, where there are such energies, such struggles – that is the direction instruction should take. To represent life in art, life, with its flexibility, its possibilities for change, its necessities; to acknowledge as the sole eternal law evolution and change – this way has to be more fruitful than the other, where one assumes an end of evolution because one can thus round off the system.

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In recognition of two wonderful posts by Mangan and Sarsfield concerning Miles Davis’ Porgy and Bess, and Nina Simone, here the two are together. A live performance in 1960 of I Loves You, Porgy, starting with a little of “Dey’s so fresh an’ fine”.

Some important facts to remember: Miles’ tunes were the result of Gil Evans and Himself reworking George Gershwin’s songs from his Opera. Porgy and Bess the Opera was first performed in 1935, Miles Davis’ recording came out in 1958, Kind of Blue came out in 1959, and Nina Simone is performing this in 1960. She is 27 years old.

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Composer and Jazz guitarist Bill Frisell was asked to create music to accompany the pieces, and he did so faithfully, molding a score for still images that captures the kinetic energy, the strained pull of pigments against each other, and the metallic dis-likability that fuses gently into a pleasing picture. The quartet musicians are Bill Frisell on guitar, Eyvind Kang (a personal favorite) on viola, Jenny Scheinman on violin, and Hank Roberts on cello.

Listen, view, and enjoy.

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On Christmas morning, 2006, the hardest working man in showbusiness died. Every year, when returning to mistletoe-mistle-legs and eggnog forays into stockings of chocolate and midnight mischief, I always dig out some Mr. Dynamite, the father of soul, to commemorate his passing and celebrate family ties in a funky, funky way.

This year, as maybe it ought to be every year, my memorializing is centered around “Live at the Apollo, Vol. II” (1968). His transition from Sam Cooke-like R&B heart-squeezing wheezing into hard funk, rollicking perfected sexual music, is a gut-telling you to get down and enjoy yourself, god damn it.

Of all the stand up tracks, the one that gets me time over time is, “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World.” If you ignore the superannuated chauvinistic quality of the piece, then the raw, the bitter, and the brass — it all sums to a purple explosion of passion and compassion for your trodden wife or woman or girl. He coaxes the essential bit of it: Baby, if I called you, tell me, would you answer?

Below is some youvideo from the show, though the recording quality is shameful compared. For the full record, take this slow road: http

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Ian Bostridge attended the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, where he received an Masters of Philosophy in the history and philosophy of science. Then he went on to attain his Ph.d of Philosphy from Oxford in 1990 focusing on the significance of witchcraft in English public life from 1650 to 1750. He went on to publish in 1997 an Oxford Historical Monograph, “Witchcraft and its Transformations 1650 to 1750″ as a post-doctoral fellow at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Then he decided to become a singer.

As a singer, Dr. Bostridge has impeccable accuracy, an overwhelming facility for dynamic control, and a piercing straight tone that flutters into an almost mathematically equal vibrato.

Dichterliebe is a song cycle composed by Robert Schumann, set to the poetry of Heinrich Heine. This song cycle is known for its setting the piano as the voices’ equal: their relationship is cooperative instead of accompanimental. Many songs of the cycle begin with the voice but end with a postlude in the piano where the thoughts presented by the voice are summed up, expanded upon, and grieved over. I’ve provided the first four songs of Dichteliebe, just click on the title of the piece. I chose the first four because the poetry was intended by Robert Schumann to serve as a narrative for the voice and the first character climax of the cycle happens at the end of song four – read the poetry carefully as it ends much differently than it begins. English poetic translations come from Paul Hindemith at at www.recmusic.org/lieder, you can purchase the entire cycle on iTunes or Amazon, performed by Ian Bostridge and pianist Julius Drake.

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I was lucky enough to attend a small masterclass a few years ago, taught by Mr. Erik Friedlander and his Topaz Quartet. I sat in the front row, alone, and watched as he did intentional, semi-sexual things to that cello, pulling out full-grown brilliance. He harmed me with his genius; I am now some warped jazzer, and find myself slipping between the two stools of improvisation and composition — a stretch too wide for most, except of course, Erik Friedlander.

Though he hangs by the intersect of traditions, his arrangements are harangues on the void and on genre creation, rather than identification. He is offering a number of tracks for free download on his website, as well as an unreleased record based on Isabella from The Decameron. Moody and complex, desert-like and dripping, Friedlander’s art sets you solidly on adventure.

Aap Ki

Consternation

IZA (reprise)

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I’d never heard Kerouac’s voice until recently. A friend of mind, in response to my post of Radiohead’s Idioteque, brought me a DVD of things he deemed brilliant. In addition to a bunch of other Kerouac recordings (where I found out, quite shockingly, that Kerouac has a falsetto laugh), I found Steve Allen’s recordings of Jack reading with a jazz group. Its quickly become one of my favourite things to listen to. Admittedly, the concept is pretty dated – to have poets or authors read over music – but if anyone can pull it off, its Jack Kerouac. I hope this inspires someone to revisit the beats; they’ve become a pop culture cliche, but there really is so much richness there.

Sample: Readings From On The Road And Visions Of Cody

Album: Jack Kerouac & Steve Allen

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As the weather slowly winds itself up for winter (and your ears are hurting with raw dawn bike rides), that summer chaos recently gone by(e) is now irritating, those adventures in unknown cities are difficult; holistic simplicity is here to introvert you.

“It is enough to play a single note beautifully.”

Arvo Pärt is a post-modern minimalist composer, but nevermind that — his art is beautiful. Like church bells and numinous silence, this intimate work sends a steady finger through the human voice, uplifting and sedating you with all the purity of refracted lights. The church recording is a quiet one, so turn up the volume and listen for the scratch and hiss, the pigment overdraping.

Enjoy.

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