Category Archives: music

Ennio Morricone @ 80 II

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7Nw_yEh6G0&]

“Se telefonando” (1966) by Mina (for previously unreleased footage of Mr. Stein, scrub to 0:39.)

“The extraordinary thing about “Se telefonando” is that it has everything which is expected from a song: verse, structure and melody. Yet it also, very subtly, negates these qualities. The musical elements are reduced to handful of spiraling notes.” —Sholem Stein

Tim Lucas also had the birthday of Ennio Morricone on his mind today and wrote:

“I recently posted here about Morricone’s soul-stirring pop song “Se telefonando,” which comes as close to his own standards of perfection as anything else I’ve heard — but it’s not film music. It was only within the past year or so that I finally heard something else from Morricone’s catalogue that I believe — in its romanticism, melancholy, majesty and drama — stands as a true equal to the likes of such outstanding OUATITW tracks as “Jill’s America“[1] or “Man with a Harmonica.”[2] That cue is “Amore come dolore” (“A Love Like Sorrow”), a haunting 6:10 piece from Luciano Ercoli‘s 1970 giallo thriller “Le foto proibite di una signora per bene[3].[4]

This is a quote from the “previous post” Lucas referred to:

“No less a musical authority than FILM SCORE MONTHLY‘s John Bender considers this song, written by Ennio Morricone and performed by Mina Mazzini, to be the most sublime few minutes in the history of pop music.”[5]

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKSuG1LOaYI&]

“Se telefonando” (1966) by Mina

I agree with both Tim and John, “Telefonando” is on the list of my most cherished YouTube discoveries of the last few years.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cWzxJvgWc8]

“Sunday Morning” (1966) by The Velvet Underground

What both Tim and John have not mentioned is the extraordinary similarity in the opening piano line of “Telefonando” with the opening “bell” line of The Velvet Underground‘s “Sunday Morning“, which was recorded and released a few months after “Telefonando” in that same year 1966.

Ennio Morricone @ 80

Boilly girl with kitten

Girl with kitten says: happy birthday Ennio. (2008)

Mondo Morricone is a series of three CDs featuring  original music by Ennio Morricone taken from cult Italian movies (1968-72). Cult Italian films include Spaghetti Westerns and giallo films such as What Have You Done to Solange?.

Mondo Morricone (1996) – Ennio Morricone [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

More Mondo Morricone (1996) – Ennio Morricone [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Molto Mondo Morricone – Ennio Morricone [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Ennio Morricone (born November 10, 1928; sometimes also credited as Dan Savio or Leo Nichols) is an Italian composer especially noted for his film scores. He has composed and arranged scores for more than 400 film and television productions, more than any other composer living or deceased. He is best known for the characteristic sparse and memorable soundtracks of Sergio Leone‘s spaghetti westerns A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), immediately recognizable due to Alessandro Alessandroni‘s whistling.

Byron Lee (1935 – 2008)

Byron Lee Wine Miss Tiny

Soca Bacchanal

Byron Lee (27 June 1935,  – 4 November 2008) was a Jamaican musician, record producer, and entrepreneur, best known for his work as leader of Byron Lee and the Dragonaires, who recorded “Jump Up” for the first James Bond film Dr. No, and as the owner of the Dynamic Sounds recording studios.

Along with Randy’s Studio 17, Dynamic Sounds was the recording studio used by Lee Perry for such recordings as Soul Rebels. An interesting selection can be heard on Early Shots At Randy’s & Dynamic Sounds (1968-1972).

On the nature of guilty pleasures

Related: Mondo Cane (1962) – Mondo Bizarro – Italian cinema – Gualtiero Jacopetti

Mondo Cane (1962) – Paolo Cavara, Gualtiero Jacopetti, Franco E. Prosperi

Having recently received comments by Lichanos and o. h. about the validity of guilty pleasure as a separate cultural category I show the film above, Mondo Cane (1962), by Gualtiero Jacopetti and his colleague whose name escapes me at this time.

I always feel tempted instead of arguing to cite a collection of words and concepts which will tautologically exlain the concept. I will not resist the temptation now. Here they come:

bad taste – camp – kitsch – “low culture” – trash – taboo

I continue:

See also: “body” genres” – bread and circuses – “low” art – lowbrow (American art movement) – working class culture – culture – folk culture – popular culture

Related by connotation: artificial – bad taste – basic instinct – camp – cheap – commercial – conventional – common – derivative – entertaining – ephemera – exploitation – formulaic – low budget – lurid – mass – ordinary – pop – popular – proletariat – prurient – sensationalism – scatology – shocking – stereotype – trash – under-the-counter – underground – vulgar

Contrast: “high” culture

See also: low modernism

In film: B-movies – exploitation films – grindhouse films – paracinema – television – video nasties – violent films

In print: comics – escapist fiction – dime novels – genre fiction – men’s magazines – paraliterature – popular fiction – pulp fiction – yellow journalism

In music: disco – house – music hall – popular music – pop music –

In the visual realm: advertising – applied arts – caricature – decorative arts – design – graffiti – kitsch

In performing arts: burlesque – circus – peepshow – striptease – vaudeville –

By genre: adventure – “body” genres – carnival – comedy – horror – melodrama – pornography – romance

Perhaps one day I will put all of the above words in the right order, divide them into chapters, add adjectives, conjunctions, phrases and clauses and page numbers.

Furthermore, guilty pleasures are marketing categories (see the Foute CD products in the Dutch-speaking region), and marketing categories are the strongest indication of genre identity.

Notice that all links go to Jahsonic.com pages, a project which was from the outset a “guilty pleasure” in nature and purpose.

Yma Súmac RIP (1922 – 2008)

Yma Súmac RIP

Voice of the Xtabay

Voice of the Xtabay (1950)[1]

An xtabay is a femme fatale in Mesoamerican mythology.

Sumac was first brought to my attention via Incredibly Strange Music (on outsider music, lounge music and space age pop), but is also listed in David Toop‘s book Exotica: Fabricated Soundscapes in a Real World. Both volumes are recommended.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeFy9S0MKp4]

Secret of the Incas[2] (1954)

I mentioned her previously here[3].

Is she a World Music Classic or a guilty pleasure?

In defense of Michael Jackson

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvWMLAWrEjU]

“They Don’t Care About Us“

“In recent years a workprint of Spike Lee‘s music video to Michael Jackson‘s “They Don’t Care About Us” has appeared, which is a rough cut of the Prison version. This version contains even more violent footage (the Rodney King beating, Los Angeles riots, the Chinese Tank Man, the Vietnam war) than the released video, which also includes scenes of the Holocaust, dead bodies, gunshot and African famine scenes and a kid throwing around a foot detached from its body.” —Sholem Stein

See art and politics

Elliott Smith @39

It’s been five years since singer-songwriterElliott Smith (August 6, 1969 – October 21, 2003) died from two stab wounds to the chest. The autopsy evidence was inconclusive as to whether the wounds were self-inflicted. Smith had battled with depression, alcoholism and drug addiction for years, and these topics often appeared in his lyrics.

I’d heard of him before, but this is the first time I am listening to his work. His story and music remind me of Nick Drake and that other tragic 20th century American musician, Tim Buckley.

Some complimentary depression imagery:

L'Absinthe (1876) - Edgar Degas

L’Absinthe (1876) – Edgar Degas

Morphine (1894) - Santiago Rusiñol

Morphine (1894) – Santiago Rusiñol

Had he not succumbed to the complications of AIDS in 1997

Unidentified photograph of Fela Kuti

The Nigerian musician Fela Kuti would have celebrated his 70th birthday today, had he not succumbed to the complications of AIDS in 1997.

Like much of my music which I now consider canonical, I discovered him through my house music love story.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgpQNENsmo4]

Digression #1, namesake of “Shakara” track by Fela Kuti, [1] has embedding disabled

He first popped up as the author of “Shakara“[1] on playlists of David Mancuso‘s legendary The Loft. Playlists I discovered of course via the internet.

Africa

Cover of a Japanese Fela Kuti compilation album

The pre-internet world was literally a terra incognita. If one found a record by Fela Kuti, one had to find good sources to discover the rest of his releases. Today we’ve moved to a terra cognita. One glance at Discogs is enough to discover the oeuvre of Fela.

What we still need though, in spite of the terra cognita situation, are tastemakers. Biased tastemakers.

Simon Reynolds has blamed the terra cognita thing for the supposed death of the underground, he will be hosting a conference on this soon[2].

He stated on this before:

“The web has extinguished the idea of a true underground. It’s too easy for anybody to find out anything now, especially as scene custodians tend to be curatorial, archivist types. And with all the mp3 and whole album blogs, it’s totally easy to hear anything you want to hear, in this risk-less, desultory way that has no cost, either financially or emotionally.” Simon Reynolds via woebot.

One more word on Fela. Woebot once said – I paraphrase – “I’ll take King Sunny Adé over Fela Kuti any day. Too much redundancy in Fela.”I disagree. I like long pieces and love Fela’s trance. Which reminds me, I miss Woebot.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMUWn_jRk0E&]

Unidentified clip of Sunny Ade

Here is a quote from that Woebot post:

“Sunny Ade gets my vote over Fela Kuti anyday. There’s too much redundancy in Fela’s music, saxophones and organs meandering all over the place. Shaggy ain’t my thing. While the political ire and philosophical stance of something like “Kalakuta Republic” are rousing, in preference I’ll take the sheer sonic thrill of Tony Allen‘s edge-of-climax drum pans on the more “superficial” dance craze record “Open and Close“. That record retains the JB‘s hyper-tense instrumental dynamics and one-mind co-operation, without degenerating into marijuana miasma.”[3]

Alton Ellis (1940 – 2008)

Alton Ellis (September 1, 1940 – October 10, 2008), was a Jamaican musician best known for such singles as “I’m Still In Love,” “Rock Steady” (which gave the rocksteady genre its name), “Can I Change My Mind “[1]; as well as the originator of the Mad Mad riddim.  Ellis is survived by his wife and more than 20 children.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3JqGtjuLJk]

“I’m Still In Love”by Alton Ellis

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kthwkH7k-0]

“Rock Steady” which gave its name to the genre.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xdqbuGieyg]

Mad Mad riddim medley