Bruce Springsteen new albúm !

[Kush]

Hi Diane,

I wrote a fairly long post in response which disappeared into the great void of cyberworld because I got logged out in the meantime here at work. I am gonna have to come back later to this. ...just to let you know that I really enjoyed Soul Science (on the other thread which I had forgotten all about) and have added it to my 'to download' list along with Kadri Gopalnath.
But I leave you with something someone sent me.....very cool.


http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2539741

[Joe Way]

Hi Kush & Diane and all,

Sorry for jumping in during the middle of this thread-I should go back and read it all from the beginning-but I was really taken with The Highwaymen's version of "Against The Wind." I, too, only knew the Bob Seger version. The visual graphic of the Native American brought to mind one of my favorite novels, Jim Harrison's Dalva. There is a passage in which the voice of an ancestor, Northridge, is quoted (from what I believe to be fairly accurate journals taken from Nebraska & South Dakota historical societies). In the passage, the narrator, Northridge, has met Crazy Horse and his daughter, They Are Afraid of Her (her name). He has given her apples whose polished reflection of herself makes her laugh. She now has the white man's disease, Whooping Cough, that the Sioux seldom recovered from. Here is the passage from Northridge's journal:

March 8, 1874

I have made camp unsure of how to proceed. I am a few hours from Tongue River where I was told to go. I am so disturbed I cannot help but weep. A few hours ago I was surveying the country with my ship captain's telescope and saw movement on a far hill. Imagining I had found game I tethered my horse, and took my rifle to stalk the hilltop slowly. I crawled along a low rock abutment then sighted with my telescope again. The movement had been on a small burial platform and Crazy Horse sat beside the small, red-wrapped bundle that must be his daughter, They Are Afraid of Her. I was too late. He touched her playthings that hung on one of the posts, an antelope-hoof rattle, and a painted willow hoop. He lay down beside her and took her still body in his arms.

Back to my horse, I made camp though lit no fire. I prayed for her soul so that my heart twisted painfully in my chest. I wrapped myself in my buffalo robe with no will to watch the sky, grow dark and the cold wind blow the colder stars around the sky, as my thoughts were those of a crazed man. I heard wolves and the beauty of their chorus I imagined welcomed the little girl into a better heaven than my own. I saw her again hold the shiny apple to her lips & heard her laughter when she first bit the crisp fruit. She gave the core to her pup, and her mother, Black Shawl held her before the fire until she slept. My heart could not imagine her dead, and in the night I prayed that this greatest of all Sioux men would bring his daughter back to life with his embrace, as Jesus did to Lazarus.

I quote this in hopes that like the cuts from Youtube encourage you to delve deeper into the music, this will encourage you to read the book.

As far as Springsteen goes, my friend, Professor Richard Davis, bass player from Born to Run, had a very successful Youth Bass Conference again this year (I was out in Las Vegas with my family as it was Holy Week). I hope to see Bruce again soon in the near future.

All the best,

Joe

[Diane]

No probs Kush: in an alternative universe, I have already read and responded to your lost post. That's a wonderful rendition of Stand by Me!!

my friend, Professor Richard Davis, bass player from Born to Run...

Dear Joe, how nice of you to call in here. What an impressive bit of name-dropping that is;-)!

You've caused me to go back and listen to the other version of Against the Wind again. I vote for the Willie Nelson part.

Thanks very much for copying that literature snippet. I'm unlikely to get the book as I don't read too many novels, but it reminded me of your own sad loss, that I had not been aware of until you told it on here recently, and aspects of which I imagine are described in those paragraphs. Very moving indeed.

Kush and Steven (and Joe) did you see this cover of I'm on Fire, by Sara Bareilles. She has a fine voice. S'nice. I wouldn't mind an album of Springsteen covers by her, with this kind of minimal accompaniment. Edit: She reminds me a little of Sheryl Crow:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhysu3pe ... out%2Ehtml

[Steven]

Hi Diane,

I've fallen behind, a wee bit. So wait for me. Not for lack of interest but necessity. Haven't
heard the cover of "I'm on Fire," yet, but am looking forward to it.

[Kush]

Hi Diane,

to go back a little bit, I was referring to the longer 30+ minute interview with Rudresh Mahanthappa....there are two of them on that page. But it looks like you have heard both now. Once in a while an interview comes along my way in which I learn new things and concepts. I kind of agree with his music being "deeper than a watered down version of East meets West" because I instinctively feel that more so than Ravi Shankar'c collaborations with Yehudi Menuhin and Philip Glass or the efforts by John McLaughlin and Miles Davis there is much greater thought put into the overall structure of the Kinsmen album as a whole as well as in the construction of the individual pieces. Seems to me he has a very deep umderstanding of jazz and Indian music and their theoretical bases and put the music together in a sense from the inside out rather than a superficial stitching of East and West. Not that I am an expert so I could be wrong, but I think over time the Kinsmen album will be come a seminal piece of work at the same level as Coltrane's A Love Supreme.

Re' Amir ElSaffar...you mention the track Menba - he writes in the liner notes of his album

Menba' (meaning Source in Arabic) is based on the melodies of Maqam Bayat. I use the term menba', because Maqam Bayat, which traditionally begins a maqam concert contains the ruhiyya to several other important maqams. The term also refers to the ensemble's approach to this composition: each musician draws from the same source material performing the melodies simultaneously with individualized ornamentation and variation. This kind of polyphonous sound, known as heterophony is characteristic to maqam performance. I also discovered in working with Cecil Taylor that it is inherent to his music as well. Heterophony manifests throughout the Two Rivers suite, creating tension between structure and freedom.

* Ruhiyya (which translates directly to spiritual essence) is at the heart of the Iraqi maqam [music]. Each individual ruhiyya, or theme, can be understood as a melody - malleable, free, open to interpretation and variation but also distinct and recognizable. Singers and composers create endless possibilities with their improvisations and compositions but the original feeling of the ruhiyya is always maintained.

It was interesting to me that many of the concepts Rudresh mentioned in the interview was similar to what Amir writes in his liner notes but using different terms. When I saw him at the jazz club he (Amir ElSaffar) also had short spoken word pieces in Arabic which he then repeated in English presumably. At one point he cried out "O Baghdad, there is none but you" as if speaking to a lover.

Re' the perception experiment Rudresh has a CD Codebook (which I have not heard) whose composition/tonal arrangement is based on some kind of a number theory and then someone else had his band play to two musicians, two mathematicians and two mathematicians with musical training to see if they could detect the "code" from the music being played. I think the data was inconclusive .

Hi Joe,

the passage you quoted recalled to me similar passages from the novel Centennial by James Michener that I read a long time ago. I dont read very much fiction now except short stories that I can finish in 10 minutes but I will keep this in mind.
Enjoy the concert in Chicago - I have kind of lost touch with concert proceedings a little and looks like I am gonna pass on it. Last time I was there I got back home at 3.30 am and I prefer not to do that mid week. Have a great time.

p.s. I had to chuckle when I saw Las Vegas and Holy Week in the same sentence. Sorry!

p.p.s. Diane - nice cover of I'm on Fire. Intriguing voice. I dont know if I could take an album full of her with the minimalistic arrangement (she might put me to sleep) but this clip is very nice. And she is cute too.

[Steven]

Hi Diane,

Got to see the cover of "I'm On Fire." Thought it decent enough, but not too taken
by it. What did you think of it? Not sure what the intention was behind the piano
being covered and found the covers a little contrived/distracting; maybe the piano
was scratched. The "minimalist" element was interesting and respectful, i.m.o.,
but didn't set me on fire.

Since you drew me to Youtube with this link, took the opportunity to view some Emmylou Harris videos (first time to do that). She's just great to my ears and eyes. Saw maybe
4 or 5 videos of her. Whenever I listen to her, it feels like a fresh breeze.
Not a metaphor. She's that refreshing. Saw some with duets with Mark Knopfler
and others with Elvis Costello. Never saw her in concert, but sure would like to.

[linda_lakeside]

Ahem. I hear Dylan has a new disc out.... .... never did sort out this Springsteen stuff. Like: sure. Know enough to love: no. Oh! Hey! That's my life story!

[Steven]

Hi Linda,

If that new disc is the 2 CD official bootleg release, I've heard it. Springsteen, to me,
is easier to sort out than Dylan because Springsteen is less abstract.

[Diane]

Kush yes I realised after I wrote my initial post that you meant a different interview, which I then heard. I have now sent for Kinsmen (I did not think the track that was sampled in the interview, Longing (somethin' 'bout that word), was on it, but I am pleased to see that it is), and Two Rivers, and a cd of Kadri Gopalnath. The latter will prob. get played first, the jazz when I am in the mood for something a bit more challenging. Thanks everso all the info, and your thoughts about it. I have never paid attention to any jazz in the past and I feel you have led me directly to the best jazz for my tastes. You say you're no expert, but you sure do a good impersonation of one.

Menba' (meaning Source in Arabic) is based on the melodies of Maqam Bayat...The individual Ruhiyya (which translates directly to spiritual essence) is at the heart of the Iraqi maqam [music]... Each musician draws from the same source material performing the melodies simultaneously, with individualized ornamentation and variation....but the original feeling of the ruhiyya is always maintained.

Nice. Just re-listened to Menba. It's like putting your ears on a rack and torturing them gently and just when you think you need it to stop, some subtle change makes you feel compelled to continue listening. Well that's exactly how it feels to me! But it hurts so good. And, it reminds me that sometimes I believe I'd be perfectly happy never to listen to any music with lyrics (that I can understand) again, and restrict myself to 'world' and classical music. But I don't suppose that idea would outlast the end of the first track on NYC live.

I think Sarah Bareilles' I'm on Fire is a very nice interpretation of an unremarkable song, meself. I'd neglected to mention a point of interest: In another clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK51-4ppx0g&NR=1), she says her aim with this song was 'to make the dark urgency of it something delicate'. I think she succeeds. Descapito mi amor. You might enjoy being put to sleep by her.

Steven, I don't know much about Emmylou Harris except for her wonderful cover of The Absent Mare. I am a big fan of Mark Knopfler but I didn't play their joint album more than a couple of times. I thought it was flat and boring (Knopfler wrote and produced it; not Emmylou's fault), although it may have been different live.

But you have given me an excellent excuse to post one of my favourite youtube clips, of The Maker by Daniel Lanois, with Emmylou doing a nice bit of backing to Willie Nelson (why does she look so sad?). From Willie's first line, "Oooooooh deeep water..." I am away. Lanois' guitar is magnifico too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aur5KEaNtKc

ps Steven, I misread you yesterday as saying about the song, " I found the cover a little contrived/distracting; maybe the piano was scratched.":-) I think the cover was ok provided it matched the curtains.

[Steven]

Hi Diane,

Wondering, do you think that Bruce's interpretations of "Fire" are really unremarkable?
I like the song, though it's far from a Top Ten consideration. Will get to the last couple of
clips soon. (New computer is still in the box.) So, we've covered someone's covers
in a cover. Hope you are having an enjoyable weekend. You too, Kush. And
everyone else.

[Diane]

Steven, I'm just hiding 'neath my covers and studying my pain, making crosses from my lover and throwing roses in the rain .

Do I really think Fire is unremarkable? Or I'm On Fire you mean don't you - the one covered by Sarah B? Yes, I think I'm On Fire is fairly unremarkable, although few Springsteen songs are unremarkable performed live.

I'm afraid I've gone off on another tangent, because I'm quite fascinated from having googled for info about the effect of music on the brain. I started off looking for stuff about maths and music after Kush got me interested from talking about that experiment, and there's lots of info, but that led to links about what is really interesting, I think: MRI scans show that our brains are sensitive to musical changes - changes in key or unexpected chords for example; and that these unexpected changes cause us to pay attention to the music, whereas our mind may wander throughout the more standard parts of the music. Well that's common sense I suppose, but most interesting of all is that a study showed that brain reactions to these changes are much more pronounced when a piece of music is played by a professional musician rather than computer-generated. This seems to confirm that we are highly attuned to the "emotional language" of music. Because what is different about a piece of music played by a musician as opposed to a computer, other than the emotion that goes into it? (The study used classical music so this is not about lyrics.) I imagine this effect has something to do with why live albums are better than studio albums, too.

In another study, some physicists discovered that a person's brain activity mirrors their musical preferences. And another showed that musicians playing together synchronised their brain waves. "She gets you on her wavelength..."

Catch up whenever it be your will:-)

[Kush]

Diane and Steven,

I do believe the Fire song was the first song that really caught my attention on the radio, although I knew of him of course and all my friends used to rave about Born in the USA. I have this memory of playing chess in the dorm room with someone and every few minutes he would start dancing around and screaming "I was borrrnn in the USA , I was borrrnnn in the USA" while I was concentrating very hard. He won.
Emmylou Harris - I have her album Stumble into Grace and was quite surprised at the quality of her songwriting in that album - as good as any I've known. But her singing style is a little too mellow for me. I gravitate more towards Dolly Parton both for her songwriting/singing and her colorful and fun personality too.
Speaking of Willie Nelson (and I have more Willie albums than of anyone else, 24 at last count) here is a really nice song, If I were a Painting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fooBZwduiYA

Diane - glad you are taking a chance on Rudresh-Amir-Kadri. While Kinsmen is my most listened to album in recent times, the interview directed my attention to a few things - the blues rhythm in the track Ganesha, the Coltrane ballad like feel of Longing (atleast initially before it sounds like a Coltrane ballad if he were Indian) and the individualized ornamentation that Rudresh and Amir talk about very obviously 10 mnutes into Convergence. At this point it seems Rudresh and Kadri are following each other around on alto sax drawing from the same source material , but upon closer listening they are not really doing the same thing. Each is improvising slightly differently, each is providing different ornamentation to the same source while at the same time repeating the notes of the other. Similar but different. Convergence and Longing are my two favorite tracks in the CD, but like Coltrane's A Love Supreme, the entire CD has the feel of a definite beginning, a middle and an end.
That is some interesting stuff about music and brain - I know there is substantial literature out there about music cognition but I am not very familiar with it. Will try to track some down when I get a chance.

p.s. I dont have Willie Nelson's Teatro (from which the Maker is from) because I have yet to forgive Daniel Lanois for what he did to Dylan's Time out of Mind (never mind the popular press reviews). As Dylan showed in Tell Tale Signs, he can produce very well himself. As far as I am concerned Lanois belongs in the same category as Brendon O Brien and they both should be sent to Antarctica or something. Preferably locked up in an igloo.

[Steven]

Hi Diane,

"Steven, I'm just hiding 'neath my covers and studying my pain, making crosses from my lover and throwing roses in the rain ."
-- That's a good reply.

About the tangent: there's a book by Oliver Sacks, "Musicophilia Tales of
Music and the Brain," that you might find to be of interest. I've not read
it, but did hear an interview with Dr. Sacks about it on a public radio
station. I'm not well informed about what he was speaking about, but find the topic
and what you wrote about it to be of interest.

The Leonard lyrics: "she gets you on her wavelength," were probably never
previously applied to something like synchronization. They work well, though,
in this regard.

[Steven]

Hi Kush,

"Born In The U.S.A.," was never one of my favorite songs. I don't have a chess related
memory associated with it, but do have one of a very hokey barroom performer
regularly singing it. Went into that same place many years later. It had
changed: no more entertainment, no more food, apparently. The crowds were gone.
I walked in and right back out with only memories of what had been there, including the guy
who did the Bruce song.

I like Dolly Parton, though more as an entertainer than an artist. Artistry is what
more distinguishes the likes of Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris, i.m.o. "Jolene"
comes to mind right away as a song of Dolly's that is enjoyable to me. Wow, you
do have a large collection of Willie Nelson recordings. Once, in an interview, I
heard him say something about a junction point he had where he chose to focus
on songs that were life-affirming, or hopeful, or something along those lines.
I liked the way he said it and the way the light of that choice comes across in
his music and personality.

[Kush]

Hi Steven,

I have to respectfully disagree with you re' these classifications of art and entertainment and Dolly Parton but it doesnt matter. The only ones that matter are what I like and what I don't (or more often what I like and what I am indifferent to). There isnt too many songs out there that are better than Coat of Many Colors I think. The lady can really write. But I like her colorful personality too...really fun interview below...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzNDFflbHsw

and Coat of Many Colors

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr4GT4ltvBk

Born in the USA is a strange one. As we all know it was heavily used in a campaign and all the while I kept thinking there couldnt be a more inappropriate song for that purpose. All one had to do was just listen to the line before "I was Born in the USA"
I wasnt a great fan of the song but over the years have grown into it. I really liked the live NYC version and I now enjoy the studio version too.

p.s. another of my Dolly Parton favorites Eagle when She Flies

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBgpCiTE8IA

having a Parton trip this late evening...we have travelled quite a bit of musical distance the last few posts so next time I'll bring it back to the Boss.