CD Odyssey Disc 1644: Various Artists

This next record holds a LOT of music and to get through it in a reasonable time frame. I had to get creative to get a full listen in and a review before my work week resumes, but the combination of the long weekend and getting out of bed early today has provided me the space and time required.

Disc 1644 is…We’ll Meet Again: 50 Wartime Favourites

Artist: Various Artists

Year of Release: 1939 to 1945 (OK – one song from 1931, but otherwise the war years)

What’s up with the Cover?  With the white cliffs of Dover in the background, we must assume this gaggle of partiers are storming the beaches of France. Despite the air support in the background, they do not look well equipped for the mission.

Or maybe this is post-war and these revelers are driving around some old equipment for shits and giggles.

How I Came To Know It: I was shopping for other music and this was sitting innocuously in a display, coyly calling out to middle aged history buffs with a penchant for war history and old timey tunes.

How It Stacks Up: This is a collection of music, not a true album, so can’t stack up.

Rating: As a compilation record, there is no rating assigned. If you want to know what I thought about it in more general terms, you’ll have to take a deep breath and read the review.

“We’ll Meet Again” is a large (fifty-song) compilation of music recorded and played during World War Two. With any compilation this big you’re going to have some winners and some losers.

It has been almost eighty years since the Second World War ended, and as time goes along, we remember the events, but it is easy to lose contact with the feel of those same events for the people who lived the experience. For much of the war, heartache and uncertainty were the order of the day, and the grief real and imminent.

In dark times I often turn to music to help sustain me, and the people living through the war were no different. You might expect music of the era to capture that uncertainty and turn dark and foreboding, but you’d be wrong. The Greatest Generation were also the “Rub dirt on it” generation. Don’t expect a lot of doleful music here – the people living through war opted for stoicism over sadness, and a stiff upper lip over a trembling one.

The word that kept circling around in my head as I listened to this collection was “escapism”. These are songs about pure love and joy, and even when the war is mentioned (as it often is) it is in a light-hearted way. Troubles with logistics and troops going without at the front line? Here’s “In the Quartermaster’s Stores” a humorous exploration that maybe the quartermaster just has bad eyesight. Young men feeling frightened at being so far from home? We have “Kiss Me Goodnight Sgt Major” asking the (presumably gruff) NCO fill in.

The marching tunes are filled with patriotic optimism. “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition” and “There’ll Always Be an England” are prime examples, and these songs could double as marching tunes as well as a handy drunken sing-a-long for soldiers on leave needing to let off some steam.

There are times when this “what, me worry?” feel comes off as schmaltzy, with some singers laying on silly affectations a bit thick. Duo Flanagan and Allen are a couple of the worst offenders, but even their goofiness works once in a while (notably, “(We’re Gonna Hang Out) The Washing on the Siegfried Line)” even if this 1939 optimism was to be tragically disproved in the early years of the war.

What jumped out at me musically was how some of the specific artists were head and shoulders above their peers. Multiple Glenn Miller songs appear, and all of them were instantly recognizable. Miller was a force in this era, and his big band stylings are still as timeless and brilliant as they were when he recorded them eight decades ago.

The Andrews Sisters have many of the best songs on the record with “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” the best of all. If that song doesn’t put joy in your heart, you should double check that you have one. Other standout Andrews Sisters tunes include “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree” and a duet with Bing Crosby titled “Don’t Fence Me In.”

Bing Crosby is no slouch solo either. He is one of the great vocalists of his or any time, and “San Antonio Rose” is a vocal masterpiece. Crosby practically converts mono to stereo through the richness of his tone alone.

And finally, if you want to feel all the feels, the record features a number of Vera Lynn tunes. “Yours” and “We’ll Meet Again” are the tear-jerkers of the record, laden with yearning and the heartbreak of lovers parted. “We’ll Meet Again” also doubles as another barroom sing-a-long, and features a bunch of folks singing along in unison for the latter half of the tune, underscoring this as an option for you, the listener.

I’m a military history buff, and I’ve read a LOT about the Second World War, but listening to this collection of songs from the era provided a new and more emotional way to interface with the era through its art. I didn’t love all the songs, but I did love the overall experience.  

Best tracks: Chatanooga Choo Choo – Glenn Miller; Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy – Andrews Sisters; Yours – Vera Lynn; In the Mood – Glenn Miller; (We’re Gonna Hang Out) The Washing on the Siegfried Line – Flanagan and Allen; Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition – Kay Kyser and his Orchestra; San Antonio Rose – Bing Crosby; When the Light Comes on Again (All Over the World) – Vaughn Monroe; The White Cliffs of Dover – Vera Lynn; Don’t Fence Me In – Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters; Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree – Andrews Sisters; We’ll Meet Again – Vera Lynn

CD Odyssey Disc 1557: Billie Holiday

Today we get one of the CD Odyssey’s most uncommon sightings…a jazz review. Do not be alarmed, however. There is enough swing and easy listening mixed in to keep it enjoyable.

Disc 1557 is…. The Quintessential Billie Holiday, Vol. 4

Artist: Billie Holiday

Year of Release: 1988 but featuring music from 1937

What’s up with the Cover? Lady Day herself, clearly soaking in whatever tune she’s about to add her voice to. I’m often disappointed in what modern artists wear on stage – t-shirts, sweatshirts and old jeans you could just as well wash the car in. I wish more of them would be like Billie here, all decked out in a fancy hat, pearls and dress. Classy!

How I Came To Know It: A woman I used to date was a big fan, and Holiday made frequent appearances on her record player whenever we hung out at her place. Yes, record player. She was into records before it became a thing for the second time.

How It Stacks Up: I now have three of these “Quintessential” albums (there were a total of nine). However, none of them are true albums, so stacking up isn’t a thing. I will say of the three volumes I have (4, 5, and 9) I like this one the best. Wait – did I just inadvertently stack them up? Avert your eyes, and let’s get on with the review.

Ratings: compilation albums aren’t rated since they are not “true” albums.

It was the late eighties and Soulless Record Execs across the land huddled excitedly in wood-paneled board rooms to discuss how best to make money from the burgeoning compact disc market. They knew they could charge a lot for them, and they knew they were going to market the clean, sharp sound that they delivered. Decades of music was available to choose from, but what would rich, snobby audiophiles most want to listen to? The answer was obvious: jazz. And so enter the “Columbia Jazz Masterpieces.” And if they caught a few horny twenty-somethings like me in their dragnet as well, all the better.

The problem with “digitally remastering directly from the original analog tapes” is that your source material is still a scratchy mono record from the thirties, and nothing is going to change that. Also, in the late eighties Soulless Record Execs didn’t yet know how to make CD technology sound its best, and they were often too busy copying, pasting and hawking records to give much of a crap.

Which is all a very long and winding way to say that the production on this collection of Billie Holiday songs does not agree with me. Neither do mono recordings more generally (attention mono devotees – you are wrong. Stereo is better). Which is a damn shame because wow, was Holiday ever great.

Her voice is still famous after more than seventy years for a reason. It is an imitable combination of sweet and strong and yet full of pain. Holiday lived a short, troubled life, and it comes across in her music. Most modern renditions of classics like “How Could You?” are treated as vocal performances only; an opportunity to showcase the artist’s chops and celebrate some clever wordplay. With Billie Holiday, that playful artistry is still present, but she adds an element of storytelling that hints at the dark and troubled relationships that spawn such songs, making the experience far more engaging.

Holiday is also rightly famous for her ability slide on and off the beat, setting up unexpected phrasing that is fresh and innovative, while never feeling rushed.

A lot of these tunes make you wait a bit for that voice, with a few bars of the band playing to put you in the mood. The musicians on the record are mostly “Teddy Wilson and his orchestra” or Holiday’s own house band. Both lineups are amazing, playing a mix of jazz and swing with just the right amount of “out there, but I can still dance to it.” I’m not a jazz guy, but it is easy to love playing this skillful and it made for an enjoyable wait until Holiday grabs the mic and peels out some heartache.

This particular volume of tunes has a whole lot of very famous jazz standards (you’ll see some listed in the ‘best tracks’ below) and it is likely why I picked it over many of the other volumes that would’ve been available. However, even the tracks I was less familiar with were great, and despite the tinny, flat production the whole collection made for a fine couple of days of listening.

Best tracks: Carelessly, How Could You?, Moanin’ Low, Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off, They Can’t Take That Away From Me, Mean To Me, Foolin’ Myself 

CD Odyssey Disc 1362: Robert Johnson

The weekend has ended and with it another NFL draft. My beloved Miami Dolphins got scooped on more than a few picks I coveted, but we still made off with 12 draft picks, including the much-vaunted Tua Tagovailoa at #5 overall. I hope he ends up being as good as advertised, because if he isn’t, I’ll be singing the blues.

Kind of like this next guy…

Disc 1362 is…. Robert Johnson: Reborn and Remastered

Artist: Robert Johnson and a bunch of other early blues legends

Year of Release: 2020

What’s up with the Cover? Does this man look like he just made a deal with the devil? Well…yeah. He kinda does.

How I Came To Know It: If you listen to rock and roll long enough, you’ll encounter the blues. If you listen to the blues long enough, you’ll encounter Robert Johnson. He’s like a devil at a crossroads at midnight; just waitin’ for you to show up in your own good time.

How It Stacks Up:  This is my only Robert Johnson album, but it isn’t really an album at all, it’s just a compilation of his singles. Either way, it can’t stack up.

Ratings: I don’t rate compilations and even though Robert Johnson never released a full-length album, I’m sticking to that approach.

When it comes to the blues, I’m more dabbler than fan. My collection holds some of the big names – Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and Howlin’ Wolf – and I groove to each of them when the mood strikes me. I felt like something was missing, and so not knowing where to go next, I went with a classic original – Robert Johnson.

It isn’t hard to be a completionist when it comes to Robert Johnson, and this compilation comes close on a single compact disc. He only recorded 29 different songs, and this album has 20 of them. I don’t know which nine are missing, but I feel confident I can live without them.

This album may be “remastered” but all things are relative. When you’re talking about applying all the modern technical wizardry of the modern studio to something knocked out on a 78 in a hotel room via a single microphone, there’s only so much you can do. This stuff sounds tinny and raw throughout.

The raw is great; when it comes to the blues raw is what you want, and Johnson has a great voice for this style of music, as he yowls out about bad fortune and questionable choices. His guitar matches this perfectly, except for the fact the choices are anything but questionable. On first blush, it sounds like Johnson is missing half the notes in the song, but as you keep listening you realize it is deliberate. Sometimes the guitar lumbers drunkenly along, absent-mindedly hitting a note here and there. Sometimes it trips over itself in a flurry of notes. It feels very alive and organic, but underneath it all there is a structure, a natural flow. That flow is the blues.

The ‘tinny’ is not as enjoybable. I’m spoiled by the fifties and sixties recordings of those artists I mentioned earlier, who benefited from studio sound. Robert Johnson is the original garage punk sound. He clanks and clunks along, brilliant in its own right but maddening knowing that you’ll ever hear it better than what they managed on those few takes that still survive today.

As for lyrics, these songs are more about a vibe and a feeling than about a complex narrative, but Johnson still manages more than a few memorable lines.

One of my favourites is on “32-20 Blues” Johnson’s narrator has a dysfunctional relationship with a woman packing a .38 special (Johnson matching it with the titular .32 caliber firearm of his own):

I'm gonna shoot my pistol, gonna shoot my gatling gun
I'm gonna shoot my pistol, gotta shoot my gatling gun
You made me love you, now your man have come

Ah-oh, baby, where you stayed last night?
Ah-ah, baby, where you stayed last night?
You got your hair all tangled and you ain't talking right”

Like I said earlier, bad choices abound in a good blues song. Whatever the case, these songs are about characters that would be rough by today’s standards, never mind the 1930s.

My collection of Robert Johnson songs came with a bonus CD featuring Johnson’s contemporaries doing a few hits of their own. I was treated to Willie Brown, Son House, Sonny Boy Williamson and even an early Howlin’ Wolf track. This stuff was every bit as good as the Robert Johnson stuff, and is a great reminder of the amazing community of blues artists at that time.

Robert Johnson has one of music’s great legacies. He only has 29 songs, but my music collection is peppered with covers of those song. This includes three different covers of “Stop Breaking Down” (Lucinda Williams, the Rolling Stones, and the White Stripes). Every version is totally different, and each is great in their own way. That’s always the sign of a song with great bones.

Because of my production snobbery, I don’t put these originals on very often, but when I do I’m always reminded I should be listening to this more often. So thanks for all those great songs, Mr. Johnson, and thanks for everything that you helped to inspire that came after. I wish you could’ve lived to see it happen.

Best tracks: I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom, I’m a Steady Rollin’ Man, Come On In My Kitchen, Walking Blues, Rambling On My Mind, Preachin’ Blues (Up Jumped the Devil), They’re Red Hot, Stop Breakin’ Down Blues, Little Queen of Spades, From Four ‘Till Late, 32-20 Blues

CD Odyssey Disc 786: Django Reinhardt

After a fairly rotten weekend it was back to…Monday. I guess that puts things in perspective.

“Anyway, here’s an album from waaaayyy back!” – I would say if I were an annoying oldies DJ.

Disc 786 is….Jazz Masters 38

Artist: Django Reinhardt

Year of Release: 1994, but featuring music from 1938 to 1947 (and one lonely outlier from 1953).

What’s up with the Cover? Django is looking like quite the smooth dandy, smokin’ a cigarette in his suit while playing one of those chords that always makes my knuckles hurt.

How I Came To Know It: One night I went to visit my friend Casey and we sat around and played music. I remember I was trying to get him hooked on Steve Earle, but was using “Train A-Comin’” to do it. Not because that is Earle’s best album, but because I had just bought it earlier that week and was still excited about it. He tried to get me hooked on Django Reinhardt, and succeeded enough for me to buy this record later that week.

How It Stacks Up: This is a compilation album of Django’s career, not a true album, so it doesn’t stack up. Even if it did, it would be the only Django album in my collection.

Ratings: you don’t rate compilations, folks. It’s not done. Someone tell Rolling Stone this obvious truth, as they have festooned their “greatest albums list” with greatest hits records. How idiotic.

When I rolled this album for review my first thought was, “Ah, Jazz, my old nemesis. Come to torment me again, have you?” Much to my pleasant surprise the torment never exceeded anything more than the musical equivalent of a light tickling.

This is jazz I can understand and – more importantly – enjoy. There’s a discernible melody throughout every song and Django’s chord changes are sometimes surprising, but the surprise is pleasant.

Sometimes he’ll start a song off with a violin traipsing about, as  he does on the sunny and cheerful “Daphne.” Regardless, it isn’t long before Django’s signature guitar sound makes an appearance, trilling and weaving their way in and out of the tune.

Django is known as one of the great guitar players of the twentieth century, and while my ear is generally better tuned to rock and roll, even I can see why. He is a master of spacing and rhythm and the tone he brings out is bright and precise. There is a joy in every note and more than a bit of sass when sass is called for.

True to the times, tracks are rarely much over three minutes in length, and yet Django manages to develop some pretty intricate themes in those three minutes. They get to the point fast, giving them lots of time to get to a second or even a third point before they’re done.

The fact that all the songs are so short means that despite the album being 16 songs long, it is still a tasteful 48 minutes of total playing time. It left me satisfied with the experience, but not overstuffed.

These songs are all instrumental so I have no idea what they’re about beyond the clues in their titles, but this is music to feel good to. It was regrettable that I was feeling so miserable listening to them for most of my walk today, but they managed to break through the grey clouds of my mood near the end despite my best efforts to continue to wallow.

I cheated a little bit when I got home and listened to the final two songs while doing some basic household stuff. I can see the allure of jazz for this sort of thing, at least Django Reinhardt. Django’s guitar made the most ordinary movements – taking off a shirt, putting on a pair of jeans, petting a passing cat (yes, Vizzini, I will feed you) – all feel like I was part of some kind of Broadway musical or a Chaplin silent movie.

This music is seventy-plus years old now, and there are times when it feels its age, particularly on the dreamy “Nuages” which is just not edgy enough to be as sexy as it wants to be. But even on the tracks I didn’t love, I still admired the ground they broke and the influence they had on everything that came after. It is like the frontal lobe equivalent of listening to Robert Johnson hit you in the hippocampus.

This album isn’t one I’ll put on very often, but it also isn’t one I can part with now that it lightened my heart on a day when I desperately needed that.

Best tracks:  Daphne, Honeysuckle Rose, HCQ Strut, Liza (All the Clouds Roll Away), Swing 48

CD Odyssey Disc 658: Various Artists

I’m just a couple of hours away from my annual football pool draft. This also means that I’m only a few days away from the regular season starting again. Yeehaw – go Dolphins!

Disc 658 is…. A Portrait of Big Band Swing

Artist: Various artists

Year of Release: 1998 but featuring music from the thirties and forties

What’s up with the Cover?  Some fellas getting their brass on. These guys look square as hell, but they were the rock stars of their day.

How I Came To Know It:  This is one of Sheila’s albums. I think she bought it because she liked big band and it was a hell of a good price.

How It Stacks Up:  This is a compilation album, so it can’t really stack up. Even if it could, this and the “Glenn Miller Story” (reviewed not that long ago, at Disc 617). are the only big band albums I can think of in my collection, so there isn’t much to compare it to.

Rating:  compilations and ‘best of’ albums don’t get a rating. That’s how the CD Odyssey rolls.

Swing was the dance music of its day, and listening to this two disc set full of the finest examples of the form, it is easy to see why. This is fun-lovin’ stuff that feels good to the ear and gets you shakin’ those parts that it feels good to shake.

There were 48 songs and over two hours of music on this album (hence my lengthy absence) and it took three full days walking to and from work to get through it all. Far from being a labour, the music generally put me in a happy mood. Listening to it everyone I passed seemed happier, the colours of the trees, houses and cars around me all seemed brighter; even the passing cars and bicycles traffic seemed to be cruising along in time with the music. I felt like I was starring in my own personal musical. I may even have danced down the sidewalk from time to time.

One of the things that kept coming back to me was how the music had a predictable quality to it, but yet never felt boring. Growing up on western popular music, I’m so used to certain chord progressions that songs always feel like they are going to go in a certain direction. Swing follows all the rules, with melodies that feel so natural it is like they were decoded directly from the Music of the Spheres.

This experience only works if you’ve grown up with western music though. A listener from a different culture might find the melodic progressions unexpected and novel, in the same way that eastern or African music surprises my ears.

In addition to a lack of melodic surprises the music is characterized by the jumping and dragging of the notes through the rhythm (I think that’s what puts the swing in Swing). Whatever it is, it makes you want to dance and even as I type this I find myself swaying in time to the music (currently “Jumpin’ at the Woodside” by Count Basie and his Orchestra).

I was talking about how damned happy this music made me over the weekend with my friend Andrew, and he made a good point. This stuff comes out of the thirties and forties which for the most part featured either economic depression or world war. Maybe Swing was exactly the tonic that the nation needed to forget its troubles. If it feels a bit vacuous or frivolous in places (and it does), then I think we can forgive it on that basis alone.

The songs were almost all three minutes long – to the point of being uncanny. I remember I used to have a “Best of James Brown” cassette tape and all those songs were also three minutes long. It didn’t take much delving into James Brown’s collection to determine that very few of his songs are that short, and they’d all been edited for length.

I don’t know much about this music – maybe radio demanded a short song – but it left me wondering if they’d been edited for length or not. I hope not, because that is always a damned shame. If there is editing, it is artfully done and the songs never feel truncated. Besides, the “extended dance mix” of any dance music is only fun if you are actually at a dance.

The sheer enormity of this package makes singling out artists and songs difficult. I recognized a lot of the Glenn Miller songs, and some other ones that are so iconic that we all know their tune (like Benny Goodman’s “It’s Only a Paper Moon” or Artie Shaw doing “What Is This Thing Called Love?”). The album is full of greats like Miller, Shaw, Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, the aforementioned Count Basie and tons of others.

These guys were all living legends in their day, and listening to them now it is easy to see why. Writing a catchy pop lick and making it feel effortless is one of the toughest things in music, and these guys have them rolling out of the horn section as easy champagne cascading down a wine-glass fountain.

After three days, I’m ready to move on to something more familiar to me, but I’ve had a hell of a good time getting to know another important branch of my musical tree.

Best tracks:  Hell if I know – after three days and 48 songs my head hurts trying to figure them all out. Lots!

CD Odyssey Disc 617: Glenn Miller (sort of)

After a great weekend of hanging with friends, including a win by my beloved Boston Bruins and the start of another season of Ultimate it was back to work today.

I was a little nervous about how this next disc would fare against the Monday blues, but it put me in a positively sunny mood on the walk both to work and then home. 

Disc 617 is…. The Glenn Miller Story

Artist: Glenn Miller’s songs, but technically arranged and played here by Joseph Gershenson and the Universal-International Orchestra and Louis Armstrong.

Year of Release: 1954, but the music originally dates from the thirties and forties

What’s up with the Cover? I think this is a variation on the movie poster. Glenn Miller is played by Jimmy Stewart, and I think that’s him on the cover pretending to play the trombone.

How I Came To Know It:  This is Sheila’s album. Sheila learned about him when she watched a 1979 made-for-TV miniseries called “The Last Convertible.” The movie is so obscure not even IMDB has a plot, but Sheila advises it was based on a book by Anton Myrer. I looked it up and it is about five young Harvard men, their women and (you guessed it) the car that came to symbolize their youth.

Anyway, the song “Moonlight Serenade” features prominently in the miniseries so that was Sheila’s introduction to big band music. When her paternal grandfather died she got a record from his collection called “The Golden Age of Dance Bands” which had “Moonlight Serenade” and other Glenn Miller remakes, all done by less famous folks.

Although “The Golden Age of Dance Bands” is not the subject of this review, it has an excerpt on the back describing the music that I can’t resist sharing:

“For we ‘squares’ over thirty, these wonderful songs are a welcome relief from the monotonous din of rock and roll. And after all – we knew how to dance in the Golden Age of Dance Bands.

Bold words, but for all I know every dance in the forties ended like “It’s A Wonderful Life” with everyone falling in the pool.

How It Stacks Up:  This is the only Glenn Miller album we have, so it doesn’t really stack up. Technically it is a soundtrack as well, although I keep it under “Glenn Miller” and never thought to add it to that list. If I had, it would have done pretty well – top third anyway, maybe around 8^th.

Rating:  4 stars

I usually prefer the aforementioned monotonous din of rock and roll to big band, but I can’t deny this album put a smile on my face and (yes) a swing in my step.

This is music for having a good time and not thinking too hard about why. No lyrics to distract you as with popular music or folk songs, and nothing too mathematically complex to muddle your frontal lobes like you get with classical. This is just melody-driven whimsy, where the horn section drives the bus and the other instruments are along for the ride.

As with pop music, the ability to consistently write a good hook should not be casually dismissed. It is hard work, yet every song on “The Glenn Miller Story” has a hook so memorable that these same songs are still routinely used in movies to establish a mood. These songs have been like old friends to generation after generation for going on 75 years now. While they aren’t as popular now as they once were, when you hear “Moonlight Serenade” or “In The Mood” you instantly know it, even if you can’t name the song off the top of your head.

Also, while not the original band, the artists brought together for “The Glenn Miller” story do a great job with the material. Conductor Joseph Gershenson was a Hollywood legend at the time this came out, not to mention the appearance of the great Louis Armstrong on two songs (“Basin Street Blues” and “Otchi-Tchor-Ni-Ya”).

Sheila also has some other albums from her grandparents by “101 Strings” which are an abomination to music, so trust me when I say that even these classics could have been ruined in the wrong hands. Instead they get the care attention and talent they deserve.

My favourites are the upbeat numbers like “Little Brown Jug” and “In the Mood.” When the band tries to interpret the blues (“Basin Street Blues”) or go off on a jazz noodle (“Otchi-Tchor-Ni-Ya”) they lose me a bit. Sorry, Louis Armstrong.

I also really dig “Pennsylvania 6-5000” a song immortalizing how you used to give someone your phone number. Some government numbers start with a 356 prefix, and I hope one day to be lucky enough to get the phone with this number so I can tell people to call me at “Pennsylvania 6-5000.”

“Pennsylvania 6-5000” also has an early use of sound effects in music – where a phone rings before the band sings out the song title in joyful unison. It reminded me of the phone ringing in “Joan Crawford” by Blue Oyster Cult, although obviously without all the overtones of undead film stars returning from the grave to torment their children.

Then again, maybe Blue Oyster Cult cut the next line of dialogue that would come after we hear the hoarse whisper of “Chrissstiinaah…mother’s home…” I imagine it would be Christina responding with “Pardon me, but I think you have the wrong number” and then Joan Crawford’s zombie replying with an indignant, “What! Is this Pennsylvania 6-5000? Operator?” And cue the horn section.

But I digress…

Back to the album, which was a lot of fun, despite Glenn Miller’s music sounding a little staid to the modern era at times (someone suggested to me today that the music needs more ‘pelvic thrusts’ which I think was an apt, if graphic, description). That said, when jazz gets too out there it loses me. I like the energy and composition of Miller’s music. He's more interested in giving you a pretty song than impressing you with how complicated he can make it, and that swing rhythm can give you plenty of kicks below the waistline, sunshine.

Best tracks:   Tuxedo Junction, Little Brown Jug, In the Mood, Pennsylvania 6-5000

CD Odyssey Disc 571: Orff

I’m right in the middle of a four day weekend which has had a little bit of everything (music, friends, Arkham Horror, football).  I’m just home from a lovely lunch out with Sheila and ready to add ‘music review’ to the list.

Disc 571 is…. Carmina Burana

Artist: Composed by Carl Orff and performed by Andre Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra

Year of Release: recorded in 1975, but composed in 1935 (music) and the 13^th Century (words).

What’s up with the Cover?  It looks like a bunch of very old playing cards – I think depicting the Jacks of each suit three times.  I expect they were trying to get across the “whimsical nature of fortune” theme of a lot of the music.  I appreciate the effort, but the result is a bit busy and unfocused.  I might’ve gone with just a King and a Joker, or maybe a picture of the monastery where the words to the songs were first found.

How I Came To Know It:  From the 1981 classic movie “Excalibur,” which used portions of “Carmina Burana” as its soundtrack. I love this movie, and the music was great so I set about finding what it was.  Once I discovered it was “Carmina Burana” I went to A&B Sound and asked the guy in the classical section to hook me up with a really good recording of it – this is what I got. 

How It Stacks Up:  I only have this one composition by Carl Orff.  Similarly, this is my only collection of 13^th century Bavarian manuscripts.  So on both counts, it can’t really stack up.

Rating:  4 stars

Carmina Burana is composed of some thirteenth century lyrics (in Latin), discovered in the nineteenth century and set to music (by Carl Orff) in the twentieth.  You’d expect a piece eight hundred years in the making to be pretty good, and “Carmina Burana” doesn’t disappoint.

From the opening boom of the kettle drums, you know this composition is going to be big, bombastic and full of pounding energy.  “Carmina Burana” is all of these things, particularly the opening and closing track, which sing about the rise and fall of a person’s luck in a way that makes chance seem like an approaching apocalypse.

No surprise that these sections were used in the movie “Excalibur” to make all the horse-riding, and questing and nation-building take on added weight.  If you haven’t listened to these sections of “Carmina Burana” while you watched King Arthur and his knights ride into battle one final time – trees spontaneously bursting into bloom at their mere passage – then you’re missing out. In fact, this stuff is such great movie soundtrack material it is used in action movie trailers even where the song doesn’t appear in the actual movie.

These sections were also used as a kick sample for industrial dance song by a band called Apotheosis back in the early nineties complete with an “Apocalypse Choir” mix, which is a pretty good description of all the crazy Latin chanting in the original as well.

The “fortune’s a bitch” sections are not the entirety of “Carmina Burana” however, just one part of it.  The original words uncovered in the monastery ranged into a lot of different subject, chief of them love and sex.  These sections dominate the central part of the record, and range from beautiful and melodic opera solos, to lively choral numbers, all of which I found very uplifting on my walks to and from work.

When translated, the lyrics are pretty sexy considering their origins.  From section XVII:

“A girl stood

In a red shift

If anyone touched it

The shift trembled

Eia.

“A girl stood

Like a rosebud

Her face was radiant,

Her mouth in flower.

Eia.”

Eh…yeah indeed.

The range between the softness of certain sections and the pounding symphony of others is so large that it is a piece of music best enjoyed on headphones.  Even so, it is hard to get the volume at the right level – it will always either be too quiet in places or too loud.

In fact, if you really want to fully appreciate it, see it live.  In 2003 I was fortunate to see “Carmina Burana” performed at UVic’s University Centre Auditorium (my thanks to our friend Chris D. for suggesting it).  It was absolutely amazing, with a full orchestra and a choir of around one hundred people.  Seeing it live you truly appreciate the power of the composition; it is like heavy metal for the classical set.

Since you can’t do that every day, however, you have other options ranging from sitting and listening to the whole composition on CD or even just one short song used to buoy the grand climax of an Arthurian legend.

Best tracks:   In the absence of repurposing sections for a movie, you can’t really single out individual songs on a classical recording so just listen to the whole thing.  Or if you just want to get blown away with some bombast, check out the Apotheosis dance hit.

CD Odyssey Disc 253: Billie Holiday

On we go, in the search for musical Ithaca. We return again to the very foreign land of jazz.

Disc 253 is...The Quintessential Billie Holiday Vol 4
Artist: Billie Holliday

Year of Release: 1937

What’s Up With The Cover?: It is Billie, belting out a tune. I love her hat - but is it wrong to point out that dress makes her look a little thick around the middle? The pearls are a nice touch though...but since this is A Creative Maelstrom and not a fashion blog, I'll just note she's one foxy lady, and move on.

How I Came To Know It: As I noted in my last Billie Holliday review (back at Disc 165), I was introduced to this music by a woman I used to date. A woman who left a favourable impression on me - and not just with the Billie Holliday. I wish her well, wherever she is these days, and this album had me thinking good thoughts of her, as it often does.

How It Stacks Up: These 'quintessential' albums don't really stack up, since they are all best ofs. I will say, I enjoy this one the most of all three.

Rating: 'best of's don't get ratings. That's how it works, jerkie!

Another of my ill-fated efforts to 'get' jazz. I certainly 'get' Billie Holliday better than most jazz, so this album is a qualified success.

This particular selection of songs has a lot of standards I'm pretty familiar with, including "Let's Call The Whole Thing Off" and "They Can't Take That Away From Me", and having a few familiar landmarks, makes sailing the treacherous waters of jazz a little bit easier to navigate.

I very much enjoyed "How Could You?" on this listen, which is a woman scorned track. Other than that, a lot of the songs seemed very similar to one another to my untrained ear. That said, they all sounded good.

I had a friend I used to work with who was much older than me named Rean. He died a few years ago of cancer of the esophagus - which by the way should be high on anyone's list of 'things you don't want to die of'. This music had me thinking of him, not because he was a Billie Holliday fan in particular (in fact, he preferred regimental marches).

However, his widow, Shirley loved music of the Billie Holliday era. She only lived a little over a year after Rean died, but I used to visit her during these times. Sometimes she'd spontaneously sing one of these songs during the visit. She had a surprisingly beautiful voice, and I used to subtly encourage this so I'd get to hear her sing.

I think that she'd often pick songs from sixty years ago shows just how enduring these tunes are. In fact, they are still being reimagined by modern jazz artists. A good song simply never gets old.

Take a song like that and give it to a woman as brilliantly talented as Billie Holliday, and I should have really enjoyed this album more than I did. I did like it, and I'll be keeping it as an important part of my collection. However, before I rolled this, I didn't put Billie Holliday into rotation a lot and after tonight I will be similarly disinterested.

But for now - for tonight - Billie has me remembering absent friends, and old lovers. It is music to remember by, and so I'll skip any faults it may have, and just say - thanks for the memories, Billie.

Best tracks: Carelessly, How Could You?, Let's Call the Whole Thing Off, They Can't Take That Away From Me, I'll Get By

CD Odyssey Disc 241: Rachmaninoff

For those of you wondering where I've been, I rolled a rather long album last Sunday, and I've only just now completed it. It is actually three 'albums' in one, but my general rule is if it comes in the same jewel case, it counts as one review.

In the past I've done the rating as a whole, but from here on, I'll break it out by record for the rating. If this creates a strange accounting error at the end of the Odyssey, so be it. I'm a writer, not a book-keeper.

So without further ado, here it (they) is (are).

Disc 241 is...Symphony 1, 2 and 3
Artist: Sergei Rachmaninoff

Year of Release: 1896 (Symphony 1), 1908 (Symphony 2) and 1936 (Symphony 3)

What’s Up With The Cover?: Not much. If this is a famous piece of art, the name of it escapes me. I sincerely hope it is not a famous piece of art or that if it is, some pretentious jerk paid too much for it at some long forgotten auction.

How I Came To Know It: Therein lies a tale. It is the tale of a girl - a girl long in my past, but a girl nonetheless.

In my early twenties I briefly dated a classically trained musician. We often talked music, and one night she decided she would introduce me to Rachmaninoff. She came over to my apartment and turned out all the lights. Then she had me solemnly swear to not say a single thing for the entire time we listened to "Symphony No. 2" in the dark, because (as she told me) that was how classical music should be appreciated.

I readily obliged, and we sat there for the rougly 48 minutes it took to hear the whole song, me dutifully making no sound. To this day I am convinced that the reason many people don't enjoy classical music is they won't take the time to just sit and listen to it in the dark, and not let themselves be distracted. It is meant to be heard that way, but sadly is often put on as background noise.

I didn't date that girl long, and don't know where she ended up. However, I still owe her for introducing me to Rachmaninoff in particular, and helping to open my ears to classical music in such an inspiring way.

How It Stacks Up: I only have this one album, but since it has all three of his major symphonies on it, I'll rank them in the following order: No. 2, No. 3 then No 1.

Rating: 3 stars (Symphony No. 1), 4 stars (Symphonies 2 and 3)

Rachmaninoff is another great Russian composer, in the same style as Tchaikovsky, who I have reviewed on A Creative Maelstrom twice prior. Rachmaninoff lived from 1873 to 1943 and as a young man actually knew Tchaikovsky, which is very cool.

I don't properly know how to review classical music (hence the anecdotal fill throughout) - I'm simply not trained well enough to know what is going on for sure, or why. However, I do know what I enjoy, and I enjoyed these symphonies very much over the last four days.

"Symphony No. 1" is the weakest, and seems a little obvious and clunky in places, but considering Rachmaninoff wrote it when he was 23, I think we can give him a break.

By far the best Symphony (and most famous) is "No. 2" (written in 1908). Funnily enough, the CD I have is two discs, and I got it cheap because "Symphony No. 2" is split up between them. The guy at A&B sound where I bought it said that it was a great recording, with a strong orchestra (Philadelphia) but because of this little hiccup was much cheaper, since it was the song most people were buying it for. Back then the cheapness factor was a strong consideration, and now I can just burn it whole onto a new disc, so it doesn't really matter anyway.

"Symphony No 3" (1936) is almost as good as No. 2 but doesn't pack the same wow factor. It is still amazing, but I strongly suspect Rachmaninoff of doing the classical music version of noodling in places. I do like the title of the second movement in "Symphony No. 3", "Adagio ma non troppo" which I think translates roughly as "in a slow tempo, but not too slow". That is my kind of preciseness!

All three have that bombastic 'heavy metal' feel I get from Tchaikovsky, but it is mixed in with a quiet whimsy that makes me think of lounging under a big beach umbrella on the French Riviera in the twenties, particularly "Symphony No. 3". I don't know why that comes to mind, but it does.

Tacked on the end of the album is a short composition called "Vocalise" which I could've done without, but I guess they figured they had room.

Overall, Rachmaninoff has become one of my favourite composers, and I was glad to spend a few days with him. Therefore I hope it won't seem to impolite when I say I hope my next roll is some good old fashioned rock and roll.

Best tracks: Symphony No. 2

CD Odyssey Disc 165: Billie Holiday

Well, it was a hard day today, without a lot of good news, but at least it ended with beers with friends and a music review, so I'll focus on the positive.

The beers were good (Back Hand of God Stout), and the company excellent. Now, the review:

Disc 165 is...The Quintessential Billie Holliday, Vol. 5
Artist: Billie Holliday

Year of Release: 1938

What’s Up With The Cover?: It's a head shot of Billie Holliday. She's a fine looking woman, and I give this cover a thumbs up.

How I Came To Know It: I actually learned about Billie Holliday through a woman I used to date many years ago. She was a huge fan, and had Billie on vinyl. I didn't buy any until many years later, but that was the kernel of the idea.

How It Stacks Up: I have three Billie Holliday albums - all from this nine disc set called "The Quintessential Billie Holiday". I have Volumes 4, 5, and 9. I'm not even sure on what basis I chose them. I think I planned to buy them all at some point, but never got that far. Anyway, since they're all 'best ofs' they don't stack up, so that's that.

Rating: Can't really rate a best of - that's the way of things, even with thirties music where getting an original album is pretty hard. I can't go around changing the rules at this point, over 150 discs in.

Another jazz album that I can't get an emotional reaction to - this time the late, great Billie Holliday.

Her talent is undeniable, and I think of all the jazz crooners, she's my favourite. I like the way she phrases a line, playing with her timing ever so slightly but always perfectly in tune.

The music didn't really grab me though, and so my favourite tracks tend to be more based on topic than tune. I enjoyed "He's Funny That Way" a song about a man in a bad relationship, and "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" a song about a woman in a bad relationship. And to break the theme, a song called "Now They Call it Swing", a song about how people think they've invented new music called 'swing' (in the thirties) but it is just ragtime re-imagined. I liked the frozen-in-time bit of musical history, when Swing was considered the upstart new kid on the block.

Holliday is a great vocalist, and it did give me a relaxed laid back vibe in the car the last two days, but I wasn't truly feeling it. It is almost like she is a bit detached from her own performance. It could be the very antiquated production, or it could be one of those infamous CDs made in the late eighties, where they were still perfecting the technology, and a lot of old music was tranferred poorly to the new format.

Or - I shudder to think - it could just be the nature of jazz - emotionally detached, and so overly clever, it can even suck the fun out of the brilliant Billie Holliday. Ah, Thelonious Monk, that you should prove to be the exception to the rule, rather than the rule itself.

So Billie Holliday - competent jazz that has stood the test of time...but still jazz.

Best tracks: He's Funny That Way, Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man, Now They Call It Swing