I want to share some songs I don’t put on posts. I’ve written down some notes on them, and I hope you discover something new.
John Cale was an incredibly important part of the Velvet Underground. Coming from a classical background like myself, I found that I enjoyed many of his songs after his departure from Velvet. Paris 1919 immediately struck me with the percussive strings, creating a refined but present sense of umami. The melody is terrific as well, the cellos and brass playing the bold tune contrasts well with the strings.
I have recently gone through a big-band craze, listening to Ellington’s early works along with Glenn Miller, who did Romance Runs In The Family. This song may not be Miller’s best or brightest work, but I must talk about this one section. If you listen to this duet at 2:22, listen to the musicians’ virtuosity and agility while playing in complete unison. To the usual listener, I guess it may not be as striking, but much skill and talent is required for passages like this one. Lots of rehearsing and coordination went to prepare this, as no tools were available to sync musicians. Really, every time I play this, I get goosebumps listening to that section.
My favorite Free song is actually All Right Now, but I want to write about Wishing Well because it’s not exactly my favorite: it’s just missing something. I’m frustrated because the riff is just so good. It’s so good, the rest of the song doesn’t hold up. The riff has such a crunchy and hard sound, it has umami written all over it, but the rest of the song is ok, just ok.
Wow, Ellington. Although I recognize and understand Such Sweet Thunder (album) and The Far East Suite as superior works of genius, the Queen’s Suite is still my favorite. I have not listened to enough Ellington to completely come out with an arguable claim, but I am comfortable enough to say that Ellington doesn’t have many classical-sounding (as in classical music) works. I believe that the Queen’s Suite is quite like orchestral music. If not, I personally listen to it as a symphony. Out of all the movements, Le Sucrier Velours is definitely the most beautiful in my opinion. Ellington writes a beautiful, milky melody, a unison of tender instruments like a thick but smooth cloud of cigar smoke. I can’t stop gushing over the melody, it’s truly beautiful. Although my days of listening to complex and abstract jazz and bop have ended with the end of my childhood (for early-life development of perfect pitch) and will come again in the future as I am currently incapable to fully appreciate or understand, nevertheless I am still eager to try to understand and expose myself to the complex music of greats like Parker, DeFranco, Coltrane, and others.
I’ll keep this one short. Northern Lights is the fourth movement in the Queen’s Suite. The one thing that caught my attention were the growls in every crescendo. I found that the growls add this other level that makes the crescendos that much greater and impactful.
Another work by Glenn Miller, Moonlight Serenade is quite an iconic piece. Although it doesn’t have much variety in the entirety of 3 minutes and 20 seconds, the chord progressions of the main theme and the timbre of the instruments melt my heart. The oboe solo at 2:14 mixed with the warm “phonograph-sound” eases the mind and you instinctively exhale a sigh of relief. I dug around on different archives and discovered that there are different versions of this song but were either played at an incorrect speed or just different, as the version you can find attached above starts at C#, while other versions started at C. I wonder why…
I’m actually not very familiar with Foreigner, but when I heard this song of theirs, my curiosity was piqued. Cold As Ice sounds well produced and has very clear and sharp audio. A compositional detail I enjoyed were tasteful tempo changes occuring at 0:30 and 1:17, essentially halving the tempo (halftime). Also, the lead singer’s voice and audio quality reminds me of Michael Bublé, listen to Haven’t Met You Yet on YouTube. Also, the guitar at 1:32 suddenly reminded me of Seven Seas of Rhye by Queen, listen on YouTube.
